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Projection - Whats Your Problem
8 months ago
Showing posts with label Zambia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zambia. Show all posts
Philosophical musings on masculinity in modern Zambia
Being a Man....In The Lousy Modern Zambia
It's the nagging feeling that your life is too soft, not manly enough and offers no real tests. we live in a unisex society, one that emphasises the similarities - rather than the differences - between the sexes. Men are expected to be caring and sharing, and to carry their infant progeny around.
Without manly work, with women doing men's jobs and men becoming househusbands and childminders, we have to try that much harder to be 'male' or 'female', and turn in desperation to outward displays of gender.
There's more violence because beating someone up is one of the few ways left to prove you're a man.
And prove it we must, it seems. We're simply not genetically programmed to be happy as 'new men'. Men have ten times more testosterone than women, and it needs to do what it was put there for: to face danger, to endure pain, to fight.
I should be seeking out danger and difficulty, and exposing myself to unnecessary hardship and risk. The cause of this urge to keep risking life and limb, is down to, for me, what modern Zambian man lacks: the Rite Of Passage - the special testing that males in most primitive Zambia passed through. The opportunity to prove, once and for all, that you're a man.
Always, it involves at least the possibility of death, or great endurance, or killing (usually some dangerous beast), or mastering some skill (usually making something to kill some dangerous beast with).
The civilised Zambian male has no such rite. We no longer see life as a journey in which one is transformed by experience. For us, happiness comes from having more: more money, more cars, more clothes, more relationships, more freedom.
It's the nagging feeling that your life is too soft, not manly enough and offers no real tests. we live in a unisex society, one that emphasises the similarities - rather than the differences - between the sexes. Men are expected to be caring and sharing, and to carry their infant progeny around.
Without manly work, with women doing men's jobs and men becoming househusbands and childminders, we have to try that much harder to be 'male' or 'female', and turn in desperation to outward displays of gender.
There's more violence because beating someone up is one of the few ways left to prove you're a man.
And prove it we must, it seems. We're simply not genetically programmed to be happy as 'new men'. Men have ten times more testosterone than women, and it needs to do what it was put there for: to face danger, to endure pain, to fight.
I should be seeking out danger and difficulty, and exposing myself to unnecessary hardship and risk. The cause of this urge to keep risking life and limb, is down to, for me, what modern Zambian man lacks: the Rite Of Passage - the special testing that males in most primitive Zambia passed through. The opportunity to prove, once and for all, that you're a man.
Always, it involves at least the possibility of death, or great endurance, or killing (usually some dangerous beast), or mastering some skill (usually making something to kill some dangerous beast with).
The civilised Zambian male has no such rite. We no longer see life as a journey in which one is transformed by experience. For us, happiness comes from having more: more money, more cars, more clothes, more relationships, more freedom.
Zambia
Naturally, my starting and main point of interest. I will endeavour to stay upto-date with the help ofGoogle Search: Zambia and I promise not to be drawn into issues political, though a few peeks at YOUR INDEPENDENT POST - ZAMBIA'S LEADING NEWSPAPER will not do any discernible harm, I guess.
The start of the never ending poke at the truth or any resemblance of the truth. Aha, therein lies the problem or Where the Truth Lies. I remember a friend jokingly stating, "Zambians do not always mean what they say and do not always say what they mean."
My knee-jerk response was, "So they lie most of the time." My friend, I call him friend because he was paying for the meal, promptly corrected me.
Friend: "Zambians do not lie, they just don't tell the truth."
Me: "Ok, elaborate"
Friend: "See, if I start telling you stories that are, for lack of a better word, false I'm not necessarily lying. But, if you ask me a question and a provide a misleading answer deliberately, then it is a lie."
Me: "In short, Zambians tell tall stories."
Friend: "Only in Zambia."
Me: I guess we all, at one point or another, have beenEconomical with the truth. Some people are just more compelled than others"
The start of the never ending poke at the truth or any resemblance of the truth. Aha, therein lies the problem or Where the Truth Lies. I remember a friend jokingly stating, "Zambians do not always mean what they say and do not always say what they mean."
My knee-jerk response was, "So they lie most of the time." My friend, I call him friend because he was paying for the meal, promptly corrected me.
Friend: "Zambians do not lie, they just don't tell the truth."
Me: "Ok, elaborate"
Friend: "See, if I start telling you stories that are, for lack of a better word, false I'm not necessarily lying. But, if you ask me a question and a provide a misleading answer deliberately, then it is a lie."
Me: "In short, Zambians tell tall stories."
Friend: "Only in Zambia."
Me: I guess we all, at one point or another, have beenEconomical with the truth. Some people are just more compelled than others"
