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| Photo by John Forson on Unsplash |
First, a little background on the Royal Rangers. It was
started in 1962 in Texas as a way to keep young men in church. Modelled off the
Boy Scouts, it uses wilderness skills education as a bridge to spiritual and
emotional growth in the young men that participate. The idea being that the
boys get to tromp around in the woods, make fires, and shoot guns while their
commanders (the adult leaders of the church groups) teach them about Jesus and
manliness.
There’s a strong pioneer era or frontiersmen vibe about
Ranger Camp. There was a big teepee. The tents in the main gathering area were
canvas with wood poles. There’s even a sub-group of Royal Rangers called the
Frontiersman Camping Fellowship (FCF) that’s all-in on the vibe down to the attire.
When I was at the camp, I kept thinking, “Why pioneers?” I
get the idea behind Royal Rangers and think it’s laudable. But why that era?
Why canvas and wood and leather? I have ideas, but to explain them I need to
make an abrupt subject change.
[Abrupt subject change into a crisis.]
If you read anything on the internet, you’ll have heard that
masculinity is in crisis.1 Which sounds bad. As a man, I do not want
to be in crisis. I think the list of people who enjoy being in crisis would be
short. And certainly, I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting half the
population to be in crisis.
So what is the crisis? Graduation rates for men are
declining relative to women. Men commit suicide at roughly four times the rate
as women. Male collegiate graduation rates are declining relative to female
rates. Men account for the vast majority of the federal prison population. And
violent crime is largely perpetrated by men. As a twisted bonus, the majority of
the victims of violent crime are men.
All of that sounds bad. But I’m not sure it counts as a
crisis. The collegiate graduation rates of men and women are both rising. Men
are simply rising at a slightly lower rate than women. The suicide thing is
appalling, and the general upward trend is bad, but the disparity between women
and men in this category is roughly consistent for the last seventy years. And
while the incarceration rates and violent crime rates are bad, they’ve both
generally trended down in the last twenty or thirty years.2
A crisis is a turning point or a difficult time when we’re
on the verge of a major change. I have a hard time using that word for this problem.
It sensationalizes an issue that has been around for decades. But I also don’t
want to undersell the problem either. In the last twenty years, suicide ranked
as one of the top five causes of death for men from the age of 10 to 54. It
peaked as the number two cause for men from ages 25 to 34.
We can view suicide as a symptom of a (at least) decades
long societal problem, but it does not define the problem for us. In other
words, it tells us something is wrong but not what is wrong. There are a lot of
theories. One theory is that men feel displaced in modern society. Their
greater physical strength and natural competitive/aggressive behaviors are not
as useful in a boardroom as social skills that lead to cooperative results.
Another theory is that men in America lack a rite of passage to shepherd them from
boyhood to manhood. Lacking the clear signal that now is the time to put away
selfishness and to take up selfless serving of his community, the boy maintains
his childish, selfish ways to the detriment of everyone around him. This is the
source of the term “toxic masculinity.” Not that masculinity is bad in and of
itself, but that masculinity can go bad, become toxic, if not properly directed
by a society of men.
And this feels like the perfect time to loop back to Royal
Rangers and look at what they offer in context of the problems that men are
facing. They offer a defined version of what manhood looks like. They offer
rites and rituals to move men from boyhood to manhood. They offer skills that
boys can use to feel independent and valuable.
The myth of the pioneer man, the man who heads into the unknown
and survives by his strength and wit, is powerful. And the Royal Rangers lean
into that. The mythical pioneer man mattered. He had purpose. He was strong. He
was in charge of his own destiny. Those traits resonate in the heart of man.
Myths endure for a reason, after all.
But I think there are two potential problems with using the
pioneer man ethos as an archetype of manliness. The first is that the pioneer
era of American history has a lot not to like. Lawlessness, racism, and
genocide were part of that era too and shouldn’t be overlooked.3 The
second is that I don’t think the pioneer era is the subject of young men’s fantasies
anymore. The current generation didn’t grow up hearing stories about Davey
Crocket or watching westerns . The reasons myths
work is that they link known stories with enduring truths. They use the story
as a means to teach us about ourselves, and that only works if we know the
stories.
At this point, you may be thinking that I don’t like the
Royal Rangers. That’s wrong. I don’t understand the choice of the pioneer era,
but I really, really love one thing they do. They provide purposeful community
for older men to mentor young men on how to be men. There’s this lie out there
that men won’t talk about anything meaningful or personal. It’s told by people who
don't understand men. If you want to talk to
men about important issues, do things with them. Work with them. Hike with
them. Build a community with them based on making things or making things
better.
I don’t have an easy solution to the “crisis of masculinity.”
I think that people who offer simple solutions to complicated problems are
either naïve or selling you something. But I believe that the community offered
by Royal Rangers is valuable, and it is my earnest hope that they continue to
offer young men a chance to learn from their elders while having fun in the
woods. I’m just not planning on buying any fringed leather shirts.
-Tom
1Most of the articles refer to American
masculinity either because (a) I’m American and that’s what the internet
algorithms think I should be reading about or (b) because Americans really love
talking about themselves. I’ll let you decide.
2Violent crime has ticked up in the last year or
so, but it’s still lower than it was in the seventies.
3For clarity, I’m not saying we should avoid
teaching kids about the pioneer era. What I’m saying is that we should teach
the whole story. All nations have skeletons in their closets. Telling the history of any nation requires looking at both the
good and the bad. If you’re only being taught good things about your country, then
you’re not hearing the whole story.
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