Robert Heinlein lists 21 essential manly abilities you should have. Which do you lack and what are you going to do about it? Bill Whittle and Alfonzo Rachel explore if specialization has killed the manly generalist.
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43 replies on “How Many of These 21 Essential Manly Abilities Do You Lack?”
My father always said he was a jack of all trades but a master of none. My dad worked in education administration, but was also a farmer. We built and made almost everything. We hung drywall, did wiring, replaced windows…
I am grateful that my hubby isn’t a handy man dragging me around on the weekend to do those things. But I do wish he was more handyman-ish somedays.
And my father taught my mother how to shoot. She became a better shot than him.
The additional firearms training is huge. I teach basic classes, just what the state of Michigan requires for a CPL. I would bet less than 5% pursue more training. There’s so much to learn. People assume that having a gun at home or on the hip is all it takes, it’ll make them safe
And I should say, a lot of first time panic buyers lately
Great discussion. Reminded me of Paul Harvey’s So God Made a Farmer.
https://rumble.com/embed/v9vd4d/?pub=4
And now it’s on Rumble, so I didn’t have to search on YT.
I’d like to see the womanly abilities next.
Resourceful- how to get yourself out of the stupid stuff you get yourself into.
Like the time I almost flipped a bobcat grading a hill. I had the bucket driven into the ground to keep it from going over but couldn’t back my way out. So you go down the street to guys using another bobcat on a construction site and get them to push you back up. Back in business!
“Build a wall” – heh.
Jack of all trades, master of none. I say that describes me — although I’m not giving myself enough credit there. I’m probably a master, relatively speaking, of a few things.
One thing that recently came up that I was a bit embarrassed about and this is a warning to all of the guys (and gals) out there reading. I do know how to change a tire and I’ve done it several times in very uncomfortable conditions (in a tux once, no less).
McGyver – I am proud that “PhilGyver” is a nickname a few of my friends have bestowed upon me. And “The Fabulous Mr. Fix It”.
I’ve butchered hogs, chickens and even rabbits and squirrels.
But here’s something some friends of mine and I do that I think more people should do. We call it “walkabout”.
It started out with my friend and his grandpa when he was a kid – his grandpa would take him out in the woods probably not 200 yards from the house but far enough not to see anything man-made, and they’d sit and make a fire and tie knots and cook some hotdogs and talk about man things (appropriate for a kid) and then walk back.
With us, it’s more serious. We started with that, but we also brought a flask, guns (guns before flask!) and we did things like … we HAD to make a fire with methods that did not involve matches or lighters (we’ve used several methods … but have not yet succeeded at bow and drill). This evolved into overnights, and the worse the weather, the better. Then we decided to do solstice walkabouts. A few of the winter ones have been sub-zero campouts. It’s a challenge, a learning experience, a test. How do you deal with these conditions (and we have it way better than people did 200 years ago, we know that) but still. We test ourselves. This is what men do.
As an aside, I’ve long said that womens’ role in society is to make men better men. I’ve been listening to a lot of Jordan Peterson lectures lately (and hey, if you two want ideas – you may not always agree 100% on his takes but I guarantee you listening to any of them, I’ll suggest his Biblical series – you will get ideas for this show and you will grow. He will get you THINKING. Listen to one a week.) Anyway, I liked the way he put it. Men test nature. Women test men.
So we build shelters and figure out how to stay warm and how to make fire and cook in sub-ideal conditions and talk about how dumb we are for camping out in such weather and laugh and bond and maybe smoke a pipe or cigar and have a flask of whiskey. It’s challenging. It’s uncomfortable. It’s fun. And it’s good for you. I never got to be in scouts as a kid. This has been great for me.
My observation when we started with this was … “the time to learn how to make a fire without matches is NOT when you NEED to make a fire without matches.”
Prepared. Boy Scout Motto: Always Be Prepared. That’s what a man needs to be (and it doesn’t exclude women, it’s just that a man is EXPECTED to be and should live up to that expectation).
And you know, that Boy Scout Law isn’t bad, either:
Boy Scout Law
A Scout is:
Trustworthy
Loyal
Helpful
Friendly
Courteous
Kind
Obedient (to proper authority, I’ll add)
Cheerful
Thrifty
Brave
Clean
and Reverent
The phrase I like to employ is “Jack of all trades, master of one” applied to that list it would be “have proficiency in everything on that list but make one your life’s work” or something to that effect.
Not a bad aim.
Here is my list, in no particular order, of Virtues: Charity, kindness, love, politeness, fidelity, prudence, temperance, courage, justice, generosity, compassion, mercy, gratitude, humility, simplicity, tolerance, purity, gentleness, faith, humor, success, freedom, goodness, humanity, piety, excellence, merit, fairness, service, wisdom, discipline, restraint, happiness, fortitude, hope. They come from chapter 10, “Good and Evil,” in my book “48 Hours to Chaos.” Hope this list inspires you to add to your series of Virtue Signal episodes.
Later, John.
Every Man should own a rifle and be proficient in it’s use. The vast majority of women should also.
I love that last point!
Great episode.
Owning and carrying a gun has made me more cautious, more aware, and more courteous than I ever was before. I know what I have on my hip, I know what it can do, and I know how quickly an encounter can permanently change my life and the other guy’s.
That’s an excellent bit of wisdom that I wish more people who carry possessed.
I’ve always heard “An armed society is a polite society.” Good gun owners tend to be polite. Especially since guns can raise the ante for rudeness. Yes I have at least one gun. Always try to be polite, even when no-one is carrying and rudeness abounds.
Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain has often been credited with that expression. I’m a subscriber to that philosophy myself.
Unfortunately I’ve known of a few instances where someone legally carrying a weapon didn’t quite meet that bar. Both Law Enforcement and civilians … I could tell a couple stories about that but I’ll spare you. This time.
🙂
Part of that is that we are no longer a culture of gun owners, even if we’re a nation of them. That is, we no longer pass down how to be courteous, responsible gun owners as social norms.
Good to hear this kind of discussion. There are times, too many of them frankly, where my husband and sons feel dimished by this culture… I know firsthand that they are far more competent and capable than most around them who receive greater regard, and I’m cheering whenever these sorts of topics come around. Good on both of you, gentlemen!
Oh, speaking of a topic–proper child rearing and old fashion discipline, holding your children accountable.
I worked on a Farm and was amazed at the ingenuity of Farmers to improvise and accomplish so much with resources lying around. This form of self-reliance is the truest form of freedom. Like not fearing water because of your ability to swim or ability to live off the land. People don’t provide you freedom, that’s something you have to provide yourself.
Manly? Abilities. hmmm I would think it would be the Abilities everyone should have. I was a Girl Scout for years, and a Leader of Boy Scouts for 8 years, I can tell you that I drilled survival into every boy in my pack. And so did the other leaders. Basically, BE PREPARED is the motto that both Girl and Boy Scouts are taught. Tends to cover most all circumstances. Too bad they have had such a bad rap what with the pedo idiots and such. If we had those Scouts learning survival lessons now and being a Boy Girl Scout is reason enough to have rocks thrown at you, I think there would be a better bunch of kids everywhere.
For everyone….THINK of what you are going to do or where you are going, think of every single bad thing that can happen while doing it, and make sure you have several remedies or alternatives to get yourself out of whatever calamity that befalls you. All eventualities should be covered.
BE PREPARED!!!
We all know that we could stage a successful invasion. If Biden was the opposition.
We had a bee swarm in one of our trees in our backyard last Spring. Fascinating to watch, but I sure didn’t want my own beehive there. So I called the local beekeeper organization and a nice couple came out, removed the beehive to the location of some of their beehives. To make it even better, the wife of the beekeeper couple came by last fall and delivered a nice jar of honey from the hive of the bees that swarmed our yard. I learned a lot about bees from that event. As an aside, I used to be president of a gun club and one of our members was the president of the local beekeeper association (not the local one here), so I had learned what beekeeper associations do. That worked for the bee swarm looking to relocate in our backyard.
Having grown up on a farm and having been a hunter of big and small game my whole life … I can not only butcher hogs but also cows, chickens, pheasants, grouse, partridges, quail, doves, ducks, geese, sheep, deer, antelope, elk, bear and a grand total of two buffalo (American bison, different story).
Planning an invasion isn’t such a big deal, the real trick is in planning a successful invasion.
If I remember right, that list comes from the novel “Time Enough for Love” by Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein’s list is in context of the character Lazarus Long, a for-all-practical-purposes immortal human in a star-faring society. The specific things that might apply to Lazarus Long may not apply to you in the environment you inhabit.
The principle applies no matter who you are, or where and when you live.
I am often appalled at what some people lack in that principle. It never ceases to astound me how different some people are from me and me from them. Even more astonishing is that there are so many people today that think they “know everything” and that qualifies them to tell me and everyone else what to do.
Recently in a discussion on YouTube I and a few others were in a thread talking about extreme weather. I stated that I’m not evacuating in a hurricane evacuation order just because the government issues the order. I’ll make up my own mind and make my own choices based on what my best judgement dictates and nuts to what the authorities say.
When I stated that — I also added that I do work (on a voluntary basis) for the NWS and NOAA and have a pretty fair grasp of what meteorological data means. I have 5 generators, two 8700 watt, one 7200 watt, one 3000 watt and one 1000 watt. The last two being backups incase a generator fails on something crucial like my well pump, freezer, etc. I live in a brick house. I have a smaller outbuilding where I spend most of my time and it is extremely well hardened against bad weather like hurricanes.
I said I’m not going to evacuate unless I deem it necessary because if I leave the authorities will block all the roads after the storm passes and won’t let me back in to get to my own property until their political motivations deem it “safe” to enter the area again. There’s not only the storm damage but the possibility of looters, which I’m also prepared to deal with. So it can be an extended period of time that any storm damage continues to cause further damage to my property, or looters get free reign because I’m not there to do anything about it.
I said my family will leave on an evacuation order so that I know they’re safe and I don’t have to worry about them as I’ll be pretty busy.
I said that being as I’m a licenced “ham” radio operator I will never be without some form of communications. This is true even if I have to improvise an antenna to replace those destroyed by the storm.
I said that being as I grew up in a northern tier state where blizzards are a real issue I keep 6 months of canned goods (or more) on hand at all times.
Etc. I’m well prepared, I’m able to gauge the threat and determine if I’m ready to successfully meet it. If a storm looks bad enough that I don’t think I can deal with the threat I’ll evacuate anyway because in that case there’s nothing to protect as it will all be destroyed anyway. I’m not just staying because I’m stubborn or foolish, I’m staying because I’m confident I can deal with the situation.
So some Nimrod chimes in and says “Two weeks without power or food in 95 degree heat and you’ll wish you’d left when you were told to.”
I was astounded that someone would even think 95 degrees for two weeks was an intolerable hardship. The idea is totally foreign to me. He just said every summer of my childhood and the young adult phase of my life was an intolerable hardship because we didn’t have air conditioning when I was a kid. Besides later experiences I worked many a day in more heat than that, all day, throwing hay bales around, on horseback working cattle and other such activity.
It blew my mind that there are people like that who set the bar that low.
What was even more astonishing is not only did that guy have a view of “intolerable hardship” that was well below my personal experience — Apparently he doesn’t even possess the “manly skill” of reading comprehension either. I said I have food and I said I have generators, I can eat and if I want to I can run AC too …
When the authorities issue an evacuation order they have to take into account people like that guy. I’m not saying other people shouldn’t evacuate, I’m saying I’m not going to unless I have to in light of my ability to meet the threat. I’m not even saying that facing the same threat you shouldn’t evacuate, you have to make a decision like that for your own self.
That guy thought that because he would do something a certain way then everyone else has to do things his way too. He thought his way was “obvious” and that his views made him “smarter” than someone like me.
It wasn’t even that the guy I’m talking about thought he couldn’t live in 95 degree heat, it’s that he assumed everyone else was like him. He assumed that lack of access to a grocery store had to mean I and anyone else in that situation would starve. The problem is that he thought everyone is like him and the only wise course of action is to do what he would do. Which would be correct, if everyone was like him. We’re not and the inability to realize that is a full on denial of reality.
I’m telling this story for one simple reason. To illustrate that this is where the lack of “manly skills” and the predominance of unmanly men has put our society today.
Great list. Never butchered a hog, but other critters should count. I don’t think I ever wrote a sonnet nor have I died gallantly, but I hope that I do when the time comes.
The hardest part of doing manly things is to just get past the fear of failure, only to find the satisfaction of doing manly things.
This has been my desktop wallpaper for at least five years.
Definitely don’t have the butchering hog skill, but that sort of thing does not bother me. Does planning invasions in board games and simulations count? Never had one totally fail. A bunch of close calls, and learned my plan never (except once) survived contact with my foe without alteration of plan A. My closest call would have required planning to level of Q. A lot of luck was involved. Other than those, I’ve got most of those skills, although some haven’t been used in a while. (And yes, planing an invasion and succeeding is a blast!)
Great discussion, I really need to pick up a martial art or re pick up fencing. I think we could all use a combat sport in our lives.
Torn here. I recently listened to (I think that it may have been Andrew Klavan) a diatribe regarding elites and how they think that just because they are “smart” they think that they know everything and we should live like they decide we should live. I also come from a perspective, from Malcolm Gladwell, about the “10,000 hour rule” and how mastery of a field requires a good bit of prolonged effort.
My hero growing up was my uncle, a West Point graduate who captained the chess and wresting team. Whenever he chose to invest time in a project, he would not stop until he mastered that discipline. (The Federal government pulled him out of retirement to help them with Y2K conversion.) Later in life he was an unbelievable stained glass artist.
I, on the other hand, become “just good enough” to get a measure of satisfaction and don’t see myself as having the desire or the discipline to be like my uncle (or his eldest daughter, who got his skills) and contend for “best in the world” status. The skill sets where I’m way above average are varied – modesty being my best skill – yet I would rather be advised by people like by uncle.
Jack of all trades, master of none has become a disparagement over time. That without mastery of a subject matter or skill, that the lack of excellence lessens ones value.
I think the opposite. I am quite capable of doing many things and doing them very well. People who can do many things at a high level of competence are as valuable as those who are masters of 1. I have made a decent career out of being the guy who can be above average at any task within an engineering and manufacturing company. Am I the best at any of them. No. But I have ended up working directly for the company head at each stop because they know I have a broad range of skills and can apply them “resourcefully” to a new topic, with little or no oversight.
There are a couple of things that I do exceptionally, but that is because I have worked at those things in a near Gladwell-esque fashion. Neither has anything to do with how I earn money.
I suspect your uncle was one of the rarities who was very good at a lot of things and then put time into getting excellent at several because skill and desire overlapped.
De-skilling infuriates me. I want to keep and have as many skills as I can muster. I like to add numbers on paper or in my head. I keep a dictionary nearby when I am writing. Seems simple but these are skills, too. Let’s all keep “skilling” ourselves and living a meaningful life as long as we are able to.
A certain level of independence increases confidence and morale! One more thing, always keep open to learning. Norman Vincent Peale: “Ask God who made you to keep on remaking you.”
One of my ways I keep my mind sharp is to do math in my head. Example: When I hand cash in buying something, I try to beat the machine in figuring out change. I normally beat it. I often even add in odd cents , nickles, etc, so that I get back quarters or something even. Drives my wife nuts. I Sometimes challenge people to give me a four digit number and a two digit percentage and figure it out in my head. Multiples of 5 or two I find easy. Also ones ending in 9 or 1. Want me to be slower, give me one ending in 3 or 7. I use math tricks.
I recently read (forget where) that the original axiom was — “Jack of all trades, master of one.”
The version handed down to us is a sarcastic play on the earlier guidance for how to live a happy life.
Well, I like the original version much better and it is a better truism for life. Thank you for sharing.
How many people have we encountered who can claim the Master of One tag but seem to not be whole people as that one thing is all they can really do? Also, plays well with the specialization is for insects line.
A fine list, and I find that some of those skills are lacking in me. I liked how you veered into Resourcefulness. In itself, a Virtue.
Maybe this list is one of which a Man need not steer clear of. Even looking up a How To video before tackling a new task is showing humility that maybe I need some guidance before just jumping in.
I don’t know this Ralph fellow but he seems a fine chap.
I also do not know Ralph but I love the fact that they did a show on his suggestion.
*Raising one eyebrow …* Uh, huh.
Hey c’mon now. Seems like the kind of chap I’d have a good scotch with, would you not agree?
Of course.
BTW – new you’d catch that
I figured. I knew you’d get my meaning too. There may be those who would not but you’re not among them.
🙂