Men should be men

IU teems with students who have not fully come to terms with their personal identities. Different students compensate for this in different ways -- some join clubs, others sink into drugs, and several decide to protest anything that might harm something with a shadow. I admit that I have been granted neither the wisdom nor the insight to solve everyone\'s identity crisis, but I have managed to ascertain a fool-proof method for helping the men of IU. Men, by God, we must be men.\nSnicker and laugh if you will, but consider society, especially that of IU, and look at what is accepted practice. Men are on the verge of being considered second class citizens since we cannot be that which lurks within all of us -- a creature who is the collection of a \"... a scholar, a high-minded gentleman, a cold blooded hero, a hot blooded savage,\" as G.S. Patton, Jr. once said. We, as men, are asked to be everything at the right place and the right time. To take full advantage of our faculties we must be able to debate philosophy, twirl a debutante, leap into a raging river to save a beloved pet and defend the honor of our family. To take any of these aspects away bastardizes all of them.\n We must, therefore, devise a way to celebrate all aspects of self -- a rite of passage. Unfortunately, these have been socially unacceptable for men throughout much of the 20th and all of the 21st centuries. My answer is to brush off the liberal no-nos and reassert the right to enjoy being men. If women can have feminism, they cannot take jingoism away from us!\nJingoism refers, literally, to a very Machiavellian and fierce foreign policy. It is also inferred to reflect men being men as the word\'s origin dates back to an era when men ruled the world.\nIt necessary to regain our roots and to enjoy the rites of passage that have been denied us by the pampering, oppressive, let\'s-not-make-waves, don\'t-play-in-the-rain authorities of the world.\nLet us have tackle football without pads, ritualistic secret societies, formal duels, cigar smoking, devil-may-care attitudes, and the right to argue good-naturedly with each other. Conflict is not always a bad thing; necessity, the mother of invention, is bred from conflict.\nMen -- go about being men. Women -- do not hinder us from being who we are, as women being women is inviolate as well. If we go about fully realizing who we are, our self esteem will rise which will be better for society. Men, take up the sword, football, cigar, pen or whatever instrument you might need to fight through whatever challenge has been given to you. If anyone asks what change has swept through you, tell them that you learned how to jingo.