Manclan Episode 5: Iron John & the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement feat Matt Christman (Sample)
Have you stolen the key from beneath your mother’s pillow? We explore the mythopoetic men’s movement of the 1990s including a deep dive into Robert Bly’s ‘Iron John: A Book About Men’ which became a bestseller and was part of a movement whose thinking can still be found in today’s online masculinity influencers. Our guest is Matt Christman of Chapo Trap House and the upcoming history podcast Hell On Earth.
Full episode: http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous
When you subscribe for $5 a month you'll get access to the full Manclan mini-series as it comes out (+ all episodes of Trickle Down with Travis View + an extra episode of QAA every week + access to our entire archive of premium QAA episodes)
Guest is Matt Christman: https://twitter.com/cushbomb / http://patreon.com/chapotraphouse
Cover art by Jess Johnson (http://instagram.com/flesh_dozer)
Theme & music by Nick Sena (http://nicksenamusic.com) & Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Clotz.
Man, the breadwinner, playboy, carnivore, retainer of semen, and lifter of weights.
He is wild, hairy, dominant, breathing into his balls and bonding with his bros.
And more than anything, he charges you monthly for his content.
Welcome to Man Clan!
We are your alpha hosts and paragons of masculinity, Danny Kelly and Julian Field.
This week's Sigma guest is Matt Chrisman of Chapo Trap House and the upcoming history podcast, Hell on Earth.
How are your orgone levels, Matt?
Very, very high.
I just, I just defeated COVID and I'm ready to slay other infectious, insidious diseases.
Oh, nice.
Post-COVID crew.
You guys have both been doing shadow work.
I'm very jealous.
I've been leading a surface-based life.
So yeah, Annie, you're back from your honeymoon, but it seems like your trad relationship led you down the path of disease.
Are we learning something about love?
I mean, is this a cautionary tale or how are you?
Yeah, no, well, yeah, I went on my honeymoon.
I was in Mexico.
It was beautiful.
I had a lovely time.
And, yeah, on the flight back home, which was just, like, miserable by itself.
When I came back to England, it was, like, minus two degrees Celsius.
It was horrible.
And then just, like, instantly got sick.
Oh, that's wonderful.
So, yeah, no, I think this, dear listeners, like, listen to this tale of woe.
Like, I think MGTOW are right.
Don't get married.
It just leads to disease.
You want men to go their own way but only if they're like coughing near you in public transportation?
Yeah, if it can take down an alpha male like me.
It could take down anybody.
Today we're going to be looking back into history to discuss the mythopoetic men's movement of the 1980s and 90s, but specifically the movement's most prominent advocate, Robert Bly, and his book Iron John, a book about men.
When Julian and I were in the very early planning stages of this podcast, I told him that Iron John was essential reading to understand the influences that have shaped our current crop of masculinity gurus.
At the At the time, I considered making him wade through Bly's turgid prose to be just a spiteful little prank.
But as we've delved deeper into the Manosphere, it's becoming increasingly apparent that there is a significant connection between mythopoetic masculinity and the deranged visions of primal ritual that contemporary influencers hawk to their audiences today.
So, let's try and unpack where it all began.
This whole movement should just be renamed Sex With My Students.
Don't spoil it!
The mythopoetic men's movement was actually less of a political movement and more of a network of poets, scholars and therapists who viewed themselves as responding to a particular masculine malaise of the spirit.
Here was their theory, boiled down into a few sentences.
Industrialization, the women's movement, and weak, abusive, or distant fathers had left the modern man stripped of positive masculine role models and no collective initiation into manhood.
As a result, they were left to stumble blindly in the dark as to how to relate to themselves, their sons, and other men as men.
Bly and his compatriots sought to alter the societal epidemic of stunted growth through reconnecting men to ancient myths containing what they saw as the lost, Yet deep inner truths of the masculine soul.
They launched a series of all-male conferences and workshops where, using myths, poetry,
chants and ritual, they would try to begin this collective healing process.
We are leaving our time now.
We are leaving our time now.
There are places where time moves more slowly than here.
We honor all four directions.
East, West, North, South.
And we also honor the fifth direction, the vertical one, which is in us today.
here.
Once upon a time, there was a king and a queen and they lived in a castle.
And near the castle, there was a forest.
You know, there's always a forest near the castle.
And this forest was like other forests, with one exception.
When anyone went into it, he didn't come back.
Five hunters went out, and they didn't come back.
Ten hunters were sent after them, and they didn't come back.
Then twenty hunters went out, and they did not come back.
Then thirty hunters were sent after them, and they did not come back.
And pretty soon, no one went to that part of the forest anymore.
Only occasionally, a hawk or an eagle flew over it.
That identifies this as a male story.
Hawk and the Eagle are male birds.
What happened?
Oh my God.
What happened?
What was going on in the forest?
I mean, I think this is actually just the beginning of Iron John as well.
With all the troops kind of being sent endlessly to capture something in the forest and they don't come back.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's like an abridged version of Iron John.
This is a version of hell for me if I were like forced to attend hours of this.
Really?
Yeah.
I think I would quite enjoy this.
I just, I'm sorry, but like, I must have a terrible relationship with my dad, but being lectured by a guy, like, you know, I'm just, I'm so, I'm so anti-men that I just, I'm extremely annoyed by Bly.
Yeah, well, proof of proof when needed that I am the alpha of this podcast.
At least when my dad lectured me, he had the honor to not, like, play an ancient lute and fucking tap a drum, you know?
He was just condescending in the old-fashioned way.
Now, I think to the contemporary, sophisticated listener, any talk of reasserting principles of ancient masculinity rings alarm bells, even when it's not coming from a guy selling raw liver supplements.
It's the classic internet reactionary lament of returning to a utopian era before women, gay people and people of colour started getting ideas above their station and ruining the general patriarchal vibe.
But interestingly, the mythopoetic men's movement didn't actually see itself as standing in opposition to feminism.
Many of its advocates certainly had a complicated relationship with women's liberation, as we'll explore a little later, but still viewed themselves as fundamentally progressive sorts.
You've been listening to a sample of Man Clan, a 10-part series that is being published on QAA's premium podcast feed, which you can get access to for just five bucks a month by going to patreon.com slash QAnon Anonymous.
You'll also get access to all of Travis View's first season of Trickle Down, as well as an extra episode of QAA for every regular one, and access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
