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033 - #EvolveTheDefinition

July 26, 2018 36m 53s Full transcript available
033 - #EvolveTheDefinition
0:00 / 36m 53s
In this episode, I dissect the recent Bonobos commercial that attempts to redefine masculinity. We need to confront the absurdity of this narrative and understand that true masculinity is not about evolving definitions but about cultivating strength and resilience.
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1:00 This is I'm going to life a man's podcast.
1:13 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:14 Let's get into it.
1:15 All right, guys.
1:16 I got a random message from one of our followers on Facebook here recently.
1:20 This is just about a week ago.
1:22 So this was not the plan for this week's podcast, but I guess I'm going to have to talk about
1:26 it.
1:27 This guy was like, hey, you know, he asked me a bunch of different questions.
1:29 And he was like, Hey, what did you think of that new, uh, bonobos video?
1:33 And to be honest, I had never heard bonobos.
1:35 I don't even know if that's how you say it, bonobos, bonobos, bonobos, whatever.
1:39 But anyway, it was, it was a commercial out there.
1:41 And so whenever he sent me the message, he didn't say it was one thing or another.
1:45 So I really had no idea what he was talking about.
1:46 But again, we live in this crazy time.
1:49 We live in 2018.
1:50 I can pull a super computer out of my pocket and figure out what he's talking about.
1:53 So I pull out my phone and I type in, but no boss commercial.
1:57 And I don't even read any of the articles on Google.
1:59 I literally just go right to the YouTube video and watch it.
2:02 And so basically this is a national commercial for the brand.
2:05 Like I already said, bonobos.
2:07 And if you don't know what that is, cause again, I didn't, that is apparently a better
2:10 fitting, better looking men's clothing and accessories.
2:12 So basically it's a clothing and accessories thing for men.
2:16 And, but you wouldn't really get that idea from watching this ad.
2:19 So essentially what this video did was it spent 90 seconds and it was looking at the
2:25 definition of the word masculine.
2:28 Okay.
2:29 And so what I want to do right now is I want to suggest that everybody stop this podcast
2:34 and click on the link in the podcast notes here or just search in Google for the bonobos
2:39 masculine video.
2:41 So it'll pop up.
2:42 It's just a bunch of guys reading and then they're kind of talking to the screen a little
2:45 bit of a great background because I want to talk about this, this video today and I want
2:49 to kind of break it down, you know, basically frame by frame, word by word and give my opinion
2:54 on it because I've had several people ask me about it already.
2:57 But none of this commentary is really going to make sense unless you go watch the video.
3:01 It takes 90 seconds.
3:02 If you're in your car, make sure you're safe, maybe pull over, wait till you're out of red
3:05 light before you click on the link again, please, please make sure that you're safe.
3:09 But go ahead and click on the link in the show notes or find it online, the bonobos
3:12 masculine video, click on it, watch it and then come back here.
3:16 All right, guys, if you're back, you've obviously watched this commercial.
3:20 So I don't know what you're thinking about it, but I'll go ahead and give you my thoughts
3:22 here.
3:23 So obviously this video is looking at the given definition of masculine.
3:26 And so apparently this is the definition that you get if you type in the word masculine
3:31 into Google.
3:32 This isn't the Miriam Webster definition, but it's pretty close.
3:35 So this is what they're describing as the definition of masculine in this video.
3:39 So it's an adjective and it's having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with
3:44 men, especially strength and aggressiveness.
3:46 And then it lists these synonyms macho, manly, muscular, well-built, red-blooded, strapping,
3:52 strong, brawny and powerful.
3:54 So that's essentially what it gets from the video.
3:56 That's what it's giving us.
3:57 And if you look at the description in the YouTube video, like if you look down a little
4:01 bit and look at the description, this is what the description says.
4:04 If you search for quote masculine, unquote, it is defined by having qualities traditionally
4:09 associated with men, especially strength and aggressiveness.
4:12 The synonyms paint a picture of men as macho, powerful, red-blooded, and vigorous.
4:17 That limited definition doesn't cover every man out there.
4:20 Instead of asking men to fit into a preconceived notion of quote being a man, unquote, let's
4:25 hashtag evolve the definition of masculine and create a world where every man fits.
4:31 Okay.
4:32 So let's go ahead and get into the breakdown of this video.
4:35 So before I get into the breakdown of really the messaging here, I just want to talk about
4:39 the video from a strictly marketing perspective.
4:42 So this is going to be full on marketing nerd coming out in this video, but this is marketing
4:46 101.
4:47 So the win here for this brand, bonobos, is it got us talking about their company, right?
4:52 I mean, this video has been talked about quite a bit, people have written blogs in, you know,
4:58 that references and they're saying they like it or they don't like it, but at least they're
5:01 getting us talking about it.
5:02 This isn't just another video online that just went along with all the other noise actually
5:07 got us to talk about it.
5:08 So, so there's your win, but there's a couple pretty significant losses for this company
5:12 here.
5:13 The first is that if you watch this ad and you've never heard of bonobos before, you will
5:18 have no idea what this ad is for, like what the company does, what does the company sell?
5:25 Is there a service?
5:26 You would have no clue whatsoever and another big loss is, you know, this isn't like a common
5:32 word like the name of this brand.
5:34 It's not a common word.
5:35 It's not like foot or cup or something like that.
5:38 So you, the other loss for them is we don't know how to pronounce the name of the company.
5:42 Here you are doing your first national advertising ad campaign and you, you never mentioned the
5:47 name of your company that no one ever says it out loud.
5:51 So no one knows exactly how to pronounce it and no one knows what your company does.
5:55 Like at all.
5:56 So that's just the marketing 101.
5:59 They think they've won here, but the people that did the ad campaign, yeah, they've gotten
6:02 people to watch it, but has anyone really gone to bonobos and started to shop there because
6:06 of this?
6:07 Gosh, I can't, I cannot imagine so.
6:08 So let's get into a little bit more of a description of what's going on in this video.
6:12 So the first thing I think the video really struggles with or the people that made the
6:15 video are struggling with.
6:17 This is a video that's all about definitions, but it can't keep to seem the, keep to seem
6:23 to keep rather the subject matter straight.
6:26 So we're talking about definitions here and how important they are, but they can't even
6:30 define for us what we're defining or what the video is supposed to be defining.
6:34 So I feel like this video conflates the word masculine with the phrase being a man and
6:41 even with the word male.
6:43 So it's, it's using these, these terms interchangeably, but these, these definitions of these terms
6:48 are not interchangeable.
6:50 Yes, there are connections between the word masculine, the phrase being a man and the
6:54 word male, but they're all different definitions because again, male is basically you have
6:58 a Y chromosome and male sex organs being a man or manhood.
7:02 You know, everyone's got their own definition for us.
7:05 We always say the same definition.
7:06 It's a guy that cultivates spiritual, mental and physical resilience daily.
7:10 I don't think the people that made this video would agree with that, but it is what it is.
7:13 And then the term masculine, you know, I'll just read it again.
7:15 As we got it from the beginning, it's an adjective that means having qualities or appearance
7:19 traditionally associated with men, especially strength and aggressiveness.
7:23 So but the thing that I think is important here, again, I think this video struggles
7:26 with is being a man as a phrase, male is a noun, masculine is an adjective.
7:30 So so what is an adjective?
7:31 I'm going to take you all back to elementary school here.
7:34 Adjective is a word or a phrase that that's naming an attribute.
7:37 So it's added to or grammatically related to a noun or to modify it or describe it in
7:43 some way.
7:44 It's a descriptor.
7:45 That's what an adjective is.
7:47 So this video is kind of going out there and getting mad at a descriptive word, which
7:52 seems odd.
7:53 Like, like, why would we be mad about something that's describing something else?
7:57 And we'll get more into it a little bit later in terms of definitions and what that looks
8:02 like.
8:03 But yeah, that's kind of like the very first thought I had was it's like, what exactly
8:06 is this, this supposed to be doing?
8:09 Because people are throwing around all these terms and everyone's got a different definition
8:12 for the terminology.
8:13 And that's part of the problem.
8:15 When we, when we can't solidify the definition of something, it becomes an issue.
8:18 But now let's get into some of the quotes that specifically came out of this video.
8:23 And so you'll see the different guys, you know, they're reading off of the same screen
8:26 and they're reading the definition here.
8:28 Some are laughing and giggling and they just, you know, it's probably a couple of dozen
8:31 guys that are reading through this, but I want to break down a couple of quotes in particular
8:34 and talk about them.
8:35 So one of the first quotes you see here is, I think that definition is a little scary,
8:39 right?
8:40 So it's a guy that just got finished reading the definition that we've read twice already
8:43 and says, I think that definition is a little scary.
8:46 It freaking should be like, oh, I don't really understand the issue here.
8:50 It shouldn't be easy or convenient to be masculine, right?
8:54 The definition is what it is.
8:56 Like there's been no need to change that, but it really shouldn't be easy for us or
9:01 convenient to be masculine because some of the things that are listed there are maybe
9:05 not things that come natural with the guys, maybe something that they have to cultivate,
9:10 something that we talk about all the time.
9:11 So here's the deal, but for some guys, you know, being masculine does come natural.
9:16 For a lot of you guys listening to this right now, you're the exact audience that I'm talking
9:19 to.
9:20 Masculinity just comes easy to you.
9:21 It's just part of who you are, right?
9:23 As a man, but what comes natural or what comes naturally to us is sometimes scary.
9:29 You know, sometimes guys are naturally very, very angry and aggressive.
9:33 That can be scary.
9:34 And on the other side, some guys are very like almost too calm and too docile.
9:40 That's kind of scary, but in a different way, right?
9:42 So so this guy like reads words on a page and he's like, oh, oh, oh, and he gets all scared.
9:47 Like it's just like, oh, that's scary.
9:49 Like, how?
9:50 Why is that scary?
9:51 Like, what about a definition should be scary?
9:53 It's a definition.
9:54 It's words on a page.
9:56 Now if it was defined incorrectly and it was done by some sort of like, you know, nefarious
10:02 group, some sort of like Illuminati type of thing, then yeah, that's scary.
10:06 Like if things like that start changing the definitions of things that we all commonly
10:09 agree upon, that's scary, but just reading a definition off the internet.
10:13 Come on, dude.
10:14 So there was another quote here that I found really interesting and it was you define your
10:18 own masculinity.
10:19 There was a guy early in the video, you defined your own masculinity.
10:23 So I'm going to do an entire podcast episode later about this exact subject, but we kind
10:27 of live in the generation of quote, unquote, my truth.
10:30 Well, this is my truth.
10:33 This is what I believe that this is what I believe to be true and it's, it's normally
10:37 a motive.
10:38 It's normally feelings based, but here's the reality is a definition either means something
10:43 or it doesn't, right?
10:45 I mean, I mean, the definition of a table and the definition of a microphone, those are
10:49 not the same thing.
10:50 Those are two separate things.
10:52 So they require separate definitions.
10:54 Even if your microphone is on a table, maybe they're related to one another.
10:58 They can be used as a descriptor for one, one another or you can use them in the same
11:01 sentence, but they're totally separate things.
11:04 So when people are like, you define your own masculinity, what in the world do you mean?
11:10 Masculinity either is something or it's not something.
11:14 The definition is what it is.
11:15 And again, I keep saying this, but a little bit later, we'll talk a little bit about kind
11:19 of the dangers of trying to redefine things and how it kind of becomes a little bit ridiculous.
11:23 But, but again, you define your own masculinity.
11:25 You hear that a lot now and again, it's always in the context of my truth.
11:29 You define your truth.
11:31 You define what's right for you.
11:33 You define ethics.
11:34 You define morality.
11:35 It's just this pluralistic society and this pluralistic idea that basically everything's
11:40 relative.
11:41 I mean, it's social relativism is what it is.
11:43 So let's get into another quote here.
11:44 It was this, for me being masculine means being brave enough to be who I am.
11:50 So interestingly enough, as you're going through this video, if you watch it just once,
11:55 you might miss this, but I'm pretty positive there are two trans dudes or the that would
12:00 mean these are women that think that they're men.
12:02 So two trans people that say quotes throughout this video, right?
12:07 But I'm almost positive, almost 100% sure I bet 100 bucks on it that the person that
12:13 said the quote for me being masculine means being brave enough to be who I am is a woman
12:17 that thinks he that thinks she's a man.
12:19 Okay.
12:20 So, so that's the first thing.
12:21 So I feel like that's very, it's very interesting how I feel.
12:25 I feel like this group snuck them into this video because again, there's probably two
12:29 dozen guys in a video that's only 90 seconds long, but the two people that are in there,
12:34 you can kind of pick up a little bit of the facial features and some of the qualities
12:37 of the voice.
12:38 That's why, oh, I'm pretty sure that's that's a woman that thinks they're a man, right?
12:43 And the thing that I find really appalling and somewhat, you know, embarrassing for them
12:47 is this whole redefinition of bravery.
12:50 I feel like this, this modern generation has has tried to take our lay claim to the definition
12:56 of bravery, right?
12:58 Think of the things that you've heard recently that were brave.
13:00 I mean, just recently, there was a guy, Peter struck who was basically testifying in front
13:05 of Congress who he may have been doing some nefarious things for the FBI against President
13:09 Donald Trump.
13:11 He was there was a guy, a Democrat that basically said he deserves a purple heart for what's
13:15 he's doing for what he's doing for being so brave to basically come in front of Congress
13:20 and lie about what he was doing during his job.
13:22 This dude, this Yahoo, this Democrat, I got to get his name and I'll give it to you later.
13:26 But he's like, you deserve a purple heart.
13:28 So he deserves a medal that you give to somebody that was wounded in war.
13:33 Come on, like that's ridiculous, like, it's like the theater and the absurd.
13:38 It's absolutely ridiculous because because here's the thing that kind of getting back
13:41 to the content of the video, we hear that a lot now about people that are coming out
13:45 as trans, right? So they are a biologic biological male.
13:50 They think they're a female. They're a biological female. They think they're a male and we're
13:55 we're there. We're touting these people as how brave they are. I mean, look, remember
13:59 back at the SB Awards whenever Bruce Jenner came out and, you know, changed his name to
14:04 Caitlyn, but then they gave him a courage award and talked about his his bravery for
14:09 coming out as a woman. Let's just be honest though, right? Being delusional about your
14:13 sex is not brave. It's fantasy land. Like cutting off your dick and wearing a dress is
14:18 not brave. Like that that that's really kind of a ridiculous thing for us to be thinking
14:23 about. And I think it was interesting. There were so many little tidbits that they just
14:28 tried to slide into this video. And that was one of them. And certainly if you had any
14:31 kind of a brain, you would have caught it. But they're just trying to lecture us about
14:36 what being masculine means in terms of what is brave and what is not like as if someone
14:41 being delusional and having a mental issue is brave somehow. And guys, I've had a lot
14:47 of you ask this for Q and A and stuff and I promise, I promise later on this year, I'm
14:51 going to do a full episode on gender dysphoria because I think it's incredibly important
14:56 without being so pertinent in modern culture and everyone talking about it and having
14:59 opinion on it. It's one thing that unfortunately, not a whole lot of guys are talking about
15:03 from the pulpit. There's not a whole lot of guys that are that are talking about the
15:06 definitions of manhood and womanhood and what God thinks about that. So we have a lot of
15:12 people basically spewing misinformation. And when you get videos like this, it just kind
15:16 of exacerbates that. And then at the end of the video, kind of the last quote here that
15:20 I'll talk about, it says this, what does it mean to be masculine? It's more a question
15:25 of what does it mean to be human? Oh my gosh, like I'm literally, I don't even know what
15:32 to say like it in that literally ends with that. What does it mean to be masculine? It's
15:36 more a question of what does it mean to be human? Like it's so hilarious. Like the thing
15:40 about this is the video is trying so hard to be grandiose and like otherworldly and super
15:47 relevant, but it just ends up being like self serving virtue signaling. It's just like it's
15:53 it's tired. It's boring. Not like this again, this entire video is about definitions. But
15:58 at the end, it then tries to conflate the definitions of two separate things, masculine and human
16:05 that's a that's what this video tried to do. It tried to try to make two things that are
16:10 not the same that could be used to describe one another, it tried to make them the same
16:14 thing. Like it's more a question of what does it mean to be human? No, the question of the
16:20 death definition of masculine is what is masculinity? What does it mean to be masculine? So again,
16:27 there's such a and again, I think the video is fairly it was well done visually and the
16:31 audio sounded good and all that. But I think the narrative of the video is just it was so
16:36 lost regardless of even if you agree with the point of view, it was just like, what were
16:40 you trying to get across? It was just like down the line, check, check, check, bad, bad,
16:46 bad, miss the mark, miss the mark, miss the mark. And then at the end, you try to make
16:49 some grand statement. Good grief. Like this, I've seen better stuff out of freshman marketing
16:56 students at local community colleges. Like it just, you have to have some sort of a narrative
17:02 shooting with an HD camera and making sure the audio is mixed well is part of the process.
17:07 But you have to tell a narrative that makes sense doing this whole dog and pony show and
17:12 then 125 seconds into the video basically saying that, you know, was it mean to be masculine
17:16 the same thing as being human? It's just ridiculous. But I want to kind of come out
17:20 more 30,000 foot view here and talk about what this video actually is. Okay. And in the
17:25 reality of this, this is regardless of your political persuasion. Obviously, most of you
17:30 know by now I'm right of center. I'm more conservative in my viewpoints. I have some
17:34 libertarian viewpoints and leanings as well, but almost no part of me leans liberal. So
17:39 so there's your fair warning. But what this video is guys, this is left wing social justice
17:44 warrior propaganda. That's what this is. And if even if you're on the left side of the
17:50 aisle, or if you're left of center, if you're a little bit more liberal, or you're crazy
17:54 out there liberal, you should be able to admit that that's exactly what this video is. This
17:58 is not an advertisement. I have no idea how their shirts fit. And I have no idea if I
18:02 want to wear their glasses, right? Like I got no, the no idea as to what this company
18:08 can do for me. I don't even know if the guys in this video are wearing bonobos clothing.
18:12 Again, I don't even know if that's how you pronounce it. But the thing about this video
18:16 is there are already some sites and blogs. This video has a this recording is only about
18:19 a week old. They're already claiming that this video has changed the definition of masculinity.
18:26 They're like claiming victory. It just it's just ridiculous. I don't quite understand
18:30 it. But to be honest with you, I feel like this ad could have backfired on this company.
18:35 I really do. Because if you go to YouTube as of the recording of this podcast, there
18:39 are just over 7 million views on YouTube. There's 16,000 thumbs ups. But but get this,
18:46 there are 34,000 thumbs down. 16,000 thumbs up 34,000 thumbs down is it is very rare
18:55 to find a YouTube video like that, whether it's a, you know, a YouTube video of a local
18:59 professor giving a giving some sort of a speech or something like that, or even music videos,
19:03 you don't see that kind of disparity. Because I think most people get what this video was
19:09 trying to do. They realize that it was sloppy and they disagree with the messaging. Like
19:13 like, here's the thing is if you go on on on Twitter or if you if you go on some of these,
19:18 these like chat sites or discussion boards and you look and see people are think this
19:22 video is a joke. They think it's ridiculous. Like some, there's a few people that are like,
19:26 oh, it's so brave. And this is like the greatest thing ever. But but at the end of the day,
19:29 most people think this is a joke. There's not this big wave of approval. Now we have
19:33 the normal tribal people. You know what I mean? The people that run to the to the left
19:37 side of the aisle or the right side of the aisle, like those people just run other everywhere
19:41 else. But there's a lot of people in the middle that think this ad is kind of stupid.
19:45 Right. Again, I already told you I'm right of center, but even if you just look at this
19:49 video as just a neutral observer, you see it and you're just kind of like that. That
19:54 didn't really do it all what you thought it was going to do. So here's the thing is for
19:59 people that maybe think that this video is good that that they're like, Oh my gosh, this
20:03 is such an inspiring message for the people that that that think that I have some reality
20:08 checks for you. So we're going to go, you know, we're going to go route reality check
20:12 on you. So I got a few things I want to kind of talk to you about. The first reality check
20:15 is that this video is essentially just beta males lecturing society on masculinity, which
20:20 is high larius. Like it'd be like me lecturing a woman on what she should be doing during
20:26 the second trimester. What in the world? I'm not a medical doctor and I'm also not a woman
20:31 that's been pregnant before, right? I mean, but the thing that's so funny about this is
20:37 and again, I promise I always say that I'll talk about on a later podcast. I'm going to
20:41 do an entire podcast on this idea of beta males. But the thing about these guys is all these
20:45 guys in this video kind of fit the mold of a beta male, right? Everyone, one of us knows
20:50 what an alpha is. And so we kind of have an idea what a beta male is. But the thing that's
20:54 really funny and interesting about this to me is that these beta males and guys like it
20:58 in this video, they have benefited, benefited greatly from alpha males. You know, all those
21:04 alpha males that like decided that we were going to separate from from England that we
21:09 were going to become our own country and invite a war to do that. All those alpha males, you
21:13 know, those alpha males that stormed the beaches of Normandy to push back, you know, socialism
21:17 and communism and fascism, you know, those guys, like the people the alpha males that
21:22 have gone out there and created industry and created all these things that we can do now
21:26 that created the YouTube platform. I'm sure there are a lot of beta males that run the
21:31 marketing company and advertising company that created this video. So all these things
21:36 that these people do, it were created by these alpha males that had these ideas and hear these
21:41 betas are trying to lecture us on what masculinity is rich, super, super rich. There's another
21:47 reality check, not every man will fit into the given definition of masculinity. And that's
21:54 fine. But not every man that you know, and maybe not even you, you don't fit that given
22:00 definition of masculinity. Look, there are women with masculine qualities. There are
22:05 men with feminine qualities. But here's the deal is you can't change the definition of
22:09 something just because you don't like it. But but that's exactly what people in the
22:14 modern political left are doing. They do this all the time. It has has a lot to do guys
22:20 with this modern wussy, nanny state, you know, millennial Gen Z culture, where it's like,
22:26 okay, if you lose, we'll change the rules of the game. You know, if you don't measure
22:31 up, we'll lower the bar. You know, if the definition of the term doesn't fit you exactly, we'll
22:37 expand the definition so it's more inclusive. Right? I mean, that's the thing is, is we're
22:42 expanding things so far that makes it so hard to be descriptive. I mean, you used to be
22:46 able to say that somebody was fat and unhealthy, but now they're big and beautiful. Let's embrace
22:50 the fat that we're morbidly obese because we're beautiful anyway. And I'm not talking
22:54 about in the side of God. I'm just talking about it in general. You need to be telling
22:57 those people, no, you need to lose some weight. Like you're not taking care of yourself. This
23:01 is not healthy. This is not beautiful. I mean, you used to be able to say to someone that
23:05 they were rude and obnoxious, but now they're loud and proud. You know what I mean? And
23:09 I'm talking about people on both sides of the aisle here, like you're obnoxious and you're
23:12 not treating people with dignity or with respect, but you're not rude and obnoxious. You're loud
23:16 and proud. Like I don't understand that doesn't make any sense. And I guess the last reality
23:20 check that I have is this evolved the definition video, right? It does nothing to evolve the
23:26 definition of the word masculine. It does nothing. This video, in fact, is a rejection
23:32 of the definition of masculine. Absolutely. Because here's the thing, guys, definitions
23:38 don't change unless there is some kind of new discovery, right? I mean, I hope that makes
23:44 sense. Well, let me give you kind of an example. So the definition a couple thousand years
23:49 ago, the definition of the word earth, when everyone thought that the earth was flat,
23:55 they would have been like, you know, it's this, it's this flat piece of land that we all
23:58 live on, right? That was probably something along the lines of the definition. But when
24:02 we realized that the earth was not flat, that you couldn't fall off the edge. Sorry, Eddie
24:06 Bravo. You can't do that. That the earth is actually round. The definition of earth would
24:11 have invariably changed. Because now it's this round thing that we all live on, right?
24:17 So there are parts of the definition, you know, integral, specific parts of the definition
24:22 that do by definition change the definition. That's just kind of how it goes. But who in
24:28 the right mind is looking at this video and seeing what's going on in this video and
24:32 thinking to themselves, yeah, well, I thought one thing about masculinity, you know, I think
24:37 another thing like really, like this video just misses the mark entirely. It's not evolving
24:42 the definition. Okay. But I want to kind of transition here as we close out talking about
24:47 this video. I want to talk about why this commercial is important to Christian men in
24:52 a war, why it should be. And kind of the first reason I think of that it's important for
24:56 Christian men is because we need to be where the word evolve. We really need to be aware
25:02 of the word evolve, because the thing about the word evolve guys, it's usually code for
25:08 something else. Don't we know that to be true? You know, evolve is normally something that
25:15 someone will use it. At the same time, they'll use the word progressive or progress, right?
25:21 Which is is more something that people in the radical left side of the political sphere.
25:25 That's their agenda. It's these people that are claiming progressive things. But that
25:29 always kind of begs the question. When you hear the word evolve or progress or progressive,
25:34 progressing towards what? Progressing towards what exactly? I mean, is it progress now in
25:42 2018 to say that there are more than two genders? That that gender is a social construct that
25:49 gender is on some sort of a spectrum? Is that progress? Is it progress that biological males
25:55 are now allowed to compete in some women's sports and they're smoking these women? Is
26:01 that progress? You know, is it progress? You know, you have people now that are raising
26:06 a toddler as both genders? Like, I don't know if you guys saw this, maybe I should do an
26:11 entire episode on this, but I think it was last week NBC News did a story about the babies.
26:17 So it's T H E Y B I E S, they be so not babies, babies. So this was a story about these parents
26:23 of twins in Massachusetts. And they were raising these twin boys, twin boys, raising them as
26:31 neutrally gendered. So they basically are going to allow these children to decide their own
26:38 genders. Children, people that cannot even wipe their own butts, they're going to be like,
26:44 Yeah, we're just going to raise them as both sexes and let them decide with no regard to why
26:51 chromosomes are genitalia. Is that progress? I have any of the things that I've just mentioned
26:57 with that make you think progress in any way, shape or form? Because it shouldn't.
27:03 That is such a regressive mindset. We're going antithetical, anti intellectual at this point.
27:08 And you get these people on the political left that all they want to talk about is intellect and
27:12 being on the smart side of things and on the right side of history. But how in the world
27:16 is this progress? I mean, I've seen some opinions this week about the babies couple that what they're
27:22 doing is child abuse. And I tend to agree with that. Yeah, it is child abuse. Like, you're not
27:28 helping these people develop into adults. Like these people, like these are not individuals
27:34 that have struggled with an idea about their their sexual identity about about their gender
27:40 identity. They haven't struggled with that yet. They're literally red blooded two year old boys.
27:45 It's just sick, sickening. It's not it's not progress. It's just not progress. Now,
27:50 the second thing that I think is important for Christian men to understand here is that manhood
27:54 is under attack. And guys, I'm clearly not the first person to say that. And it's certainly not
27:58 the first time I've said this on this podcast or on some of our other content. But we shouldn't
28:02 pretend that it's not manhood is under attack. And it's under attack all the time. You know,
28:08 you've probably heard people talk about this. But think about all the dads that you that you see
28:12 depicted on television. Are they all dopes? Like think of any show, how many dads are like alpha
28:18 dads that got it going on? They got things figured out. It's normally the mom that's got
28:22 everything figured out where the kids are smarter than the parents. It's attacking manhood. And
28:28 even last week, King of the beta males, Barack Obama, former president, Barack Obama, with all
28:32 due respect, he said he had this comment that he gave in a speech that he was giving in Johannesburg,
28:37 South Africa. He said, men have been getting on my nerves lately. Men have been getting on my
28:42 nerves lately. He was he was basically calling for more women in politics. Right, which, you know,
28:48 I guess that's okay. But the the interesting thing there, he was saying women in general,
28:53 not any particular women or any particular type of woman. So so it's as if by writ of genitalia,
29:01 the women would be better in politics than some of these men that Barack Obama happens to not agree
29:05 with. Right. I just don't understand why so much so many of us guys were sitting back and allowing
29:12 manhood to be attacked. Because to a certain degree, we're seeing this happen in all kinds of areas
29:17 and people talk about toxic masculinity all the time, which again, for a while, I think the third
29:21 time this episode, I will do a future episode just on toxic masculinity. But that's basically code
29:27 for I don't really like you. And I don't really like what you stand for. And because you're a male
29:31 and you're cisgendered or you're wide or you're rich or you're whatever, I can somehow put you down
29:36 now as if that somehow evens the score. It just doesn't really make a lot of sense. But we can't
29:44 just sit here and pretend like manhood's not under attack guys. And look, we don't have you
29:48 want to get you and all your mainly buddies together and go fight anybody. Like, that's not
29:52 going to change anything. But we do need to kind of stand up when people are saying stupid things,
29:56 like pretty much everything that was said in this video. Like repudiate this, [inaudible] to hell
30:02 because it's it's hogwash. It's bull crap. Right. And the last thing that I think I want to talk
30:07 about for for us guys here is that secular society sees Christianity as the ultimate patriarchy.
30:13 Right. So we always hear about the the evil patriarchy and what it's done to to suppress
30:18 women and what it's done to suppress all these things. And here's the thing is the reason why
30:23 Christianity is kind of the ultimate patriarchy is because it's a religion that was founded by a man
30:27 that was surrounded by other men that were kind of undergirded by a law that was propagated by men.
30:34 Right. So I think I nailed everybody in the Old and the New Testament there. But secular society
30:39 is trying to destroy Christianity. It's not trying to live with it. It's not trying to just
30:44 deal with it. It's trying to destroy it. And one of the easiest things that you can do to destroy
30:49 something is you start taking its legs out. Right. If you got a chair with four legs on it,
30:54 you take one out. It's a whole lot less chair at that point. Right. You get what I'm saying. So
30:59 don't want to oversimplify it too much. But but at the end of the day, guys, we have to be on guard
31:04 here because some people are going to say, I'm not going to listen to the message of Jesus because
31:10 Jesus was a man. Right. And all the people that wrote down what he did, they were also men.
31:17 And I'm not down with that because men are the patriarchy and men have suppressed this and men
31:22 are suppressed that to those individuals, I would say, to the Christian societies that were actually
31:26 living by the by the things that we got from the law and from from the gospels from from the messages
31:33 of Jesus. Are those women not flourishing in those environments and societies? Because I tend to believe
31:42 that with the equality that Jesus saw people, men and women, that in the societies where women
31:48 are held up and revered and respected, that that's a very Christian ideal. I don't think you can say
31:53 the same for Islam, can you? Where women are just now in 2018, getting the ability to drive in Saudi
32:01 Arabia? There's women that that still can't, can't testify in court cases. If a woman is raped,
32:08 there has to be multiple other male witnesses to the rape. I think it's like four or five male
32:13 witnesses. Those are those are very Islamic things that people are done, things that are coming from
32:18 Sharia law or things that we see in the Hadith or the Quran. You don't see that in the New Testament.
32:22 But again, if you don't know these things, how are you going to defend yourself? How are you
32:27 going to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ? If you can't even understand that that Christianity is
32:33 not the patriarchy, it's not withholding things from people and holding people down. It's the only
32:39 thing that can save them and bring them up, the only thing. So again, guys, it may seem like I'm
32:44 pretty fired up at this video. I mean, I got to be honest, the first time I watched it, I just laughed,
32:48 I just laughed and shook my head. But then the more I watched it, and as I was preparing for this
32:54 podcast since again, this video only came about a week ago. So it's it's relevant still. I was just
32:59 like, man, I had all kinds of emotions, angry, sad, you know, disappointed, confused. It just didn't
33:05 make a whole lot of sense. But how many people watch this and we're like, Oh, it's probably about
33:09 right. These dopes going out there just basically like, Oh, yeah, that that's kind of I guess how
33:14 it is. No, man, like that's not how it is at all. So again, I just I do videos like this because I
33:19 want you guys to be aware of things that are out there. This is not innocent. This is not just,
33:24 you know, oh, it's just a, you know, left wing, uh, company kind of doing a video and putting it
33:31 out there. No, this is an attack. And this isn't, you know, tin foil hat stuff, guys. And there's
33:36 nothing that you need to do other than be aware and be ready to push back darkness where you can.
33:39 So hopefully this video or this podcast rather has helped you do that today. So guys, before I
33:44 let you go, let's do a quick resilience boost. As you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and
33:48 our mission is cultivating manly resilience. And specifically we help you do that by providing
33:53 content that forges spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today we're going to do a little
33:57 bit of a mental resilience boost. So I've already given you the link and talked about the link to
34:01 this video. So if you haven't watched it now, you're probably like, what is he even talking
34:04 about? So go watch the video to make everything make sense. But also I give gave you the,
34:09 the, uh, story, the NBC news story about it's called boy or girl parents raising babies,
34:15 let kids decide. Okay. So I already talked about the issues there, but I want you to be able to
34:20 read the article for yourself because I gave you a very, very brief overview of what was going on
34:24 that article. So I want you to read for yourself. But since basically if you read those two things,
34:28 it'll partially fry your brain. I want to help you come up on the other side with something awesome.
34:32 So I want to suggest a podcast episode to you. So if you're not listening to the great man podcast
34:38 yet, so that's another one of Stephen Mansfield's podcast. He's a good friend of the show. We love
34:42 Stephen Mansfield, the great man podcast. And that's great man camel K. So capital G R E A T
34:48 capital M A N. The last episode of that I thought was fantastic. So it was the episode that was
34:53 released this week. It's called a word to churches. So if you're listening to this later, just go back
34:57 and find the episode, a word to churches. And so I've got the link here because this is on Stitcher,
35:02 Apple iTunes, Apple podcast again, and Google play. So that's a great thing. It basically talks about
35:07 men's ministry. And it talks really a lot about the things that that we talk about here on this
35:11 podcast. But it's basically more so within the capital C church. So guys, thank you, as always,
35:17 for listening out to this point, we really, really do appreciate it. Please subscribe on
35:20 iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen and share this on social media.
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35:29 If we deserve a five star review, guys, please, please hit that fifth star. But don't just hit
35:33 the fifth star, make sure you leave two or three sentences, letting us know why you like the
35:37 podcast so we can keep putting out the content that you want. I'm currently booking speaking
35:40 engagements for the remainder of 2018 and the beginning of 2019. So if you want me to come
35:45 speak to your company or to your retreat or to your church or Sunday school or whatever,
35:49 hit me up at info at undaunted dot life info at undaunted dot life. Our website is www dot
35:56 undaunted dot life. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life or Facebook.com
36:01 backslash undaunted life. Check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app. Just search the term
36:06 or the phrase rather undaunted life under plans. We also want to thank the band August Burns Red
36:10 for allowing us to use their music library for our content. The intro outro track on this podcast
36:15 is their song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem.
36:19 The links to all of this is in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember,
36:24 keep cultivating manly resilience. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness. Keep seeking the Lion of Judo.
Key quotes
3
Kyle Thompson
This video is left wing social justice warrior propaganda. It's not just a video; it's an attack.
Kyle Thompson
You define your own masculinity? No, masculinity either is something or it's not something.
Kyle Thompson
Manhood is under attack, and we can't just sit here and pretend like it's not.
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