Next men 2 B

Let us take the current tendency of some working class young men to masturbate culturally with guns and violence and egomania in their social and production relations …Does this sector of the emerging generation of men need some intervention from us as men…? A men’s movement O.A.

In the social eruptions of 1968 and thereabouts, sections of young people across the globe ejected themselves from mainstream morals. They wanted a society yet out of sight, with justice and peace and joy freely available to all. They wrote and read books, they rallied and railed and joined liberation movements and leaders to change the world, and the world did shift for the better under their weight. Today, it is the same and it is different among the eruptive sections of our youth. Do we feel comfortable to have the world shift under the weight of this kind of youth force?{{more}}

REJECTED, AND EJECTED YOUTH

We have made it easy for some of these youth to ‘buss out’ from the unhealthy moral principles that run things in society. We watch and do not see the suffering that many undergo, while ease and plenty flash before their eyes and sink into their dreams. We pass by on the other side of the class struggle, so as not to notice the ditch, the traffic and the jailhouse waiting for them. We pretend that opportunity is within the reach of all, and, most of all, we kill the vision of the other city yet out of sight that we are supposed to dream of and build for them. Indifferent and cynical, we open doors for the young to eject themselves from rotting normal, moral society into their own abnormality. It is as true as ever that when dreams die, demons flourish. The men that we are should want to gather ourselves together in a movement, and teach ourselves to father the eruption of next men to be. These next men 2 b will shape our nation’s future, whether we like it or not, and that prospect should stir us to consider our part in the designing of tomorrow.

MEN WHO DREAM OF JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY

In one poem about a blissful time of opportunity to come, the poet Joel wrote these lines: ‘Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions.’(Joel 2.28). To dream is of course to ‘see’ or project things that are far different from what exists at present. Men, or males as a collective, have not been dreaming dreams with any intensity for generations. True, we have had social and political aspirations to take over from colonial rulers, to end the colonial estates domination of lands, and to promote to power the oppressed black majorities. Dreams go deeper than that however, and pull us into the eye of a storm that is hard to resist, because it calls us to utopian landscapes, to new territory. Men needed no utopia. The world we inherited was ours, a male empire. Even the downtrodden man has his place of authority, so we have little experience in or apparatus for dreaming. For us to place our hands as men on the steering wheel, heading for a future of comprehensive and sustainable justice, we have to go to “Dream School”. In order for us to share with the eruptive generation next a vision that consumes and empowers them to shift our societies decisively towards justice, peace, joy and fullness, we need to undergo our transformation also.

Just look at us today. A gruesome killing today, a dozen unreported rapes yesterday, a young girl as a decoy in a violent robbery tomorrow, and we look forward to the next newspaper cover story of blood and gore, side by side with the announcement of the educational success of a group of students. Will next year bring bigger and better such stories to titillate us, or will we start the men’s movement before this year ends?