Why Andrew Tate does not embody healthy masculinity
A few weeks ago, I posted a blog with the title “The Virtue of Andrew Tate and the Decline of Masculinity." With Tate's recent arrest, some people wrote to tell me that I should delete the first blog because, according to them, the fact that I “supported" Andrew Tate could bring me a loss of credibility with many people. The funny thing is that all those people who believed that I endorsed Tate's ideas had not read the blog. They have formed that opinion simply because of the word “virtue" in the title of the post, or because I didn't say anything explicitly against him in my Instagram post. In any case, I'd like to make clear what I was trying to convey with the first blog.
First, I wanted to show how Andrew Tate's moral vocabulary is very similar to the moral vocabulary of warrior societies of the past. In this sense, Andrew Tate's “virtue" would be the virtue of a warrior in a Homeric society. Homer, and many other Greek poets, used the word areté or “virtue" to speak of the excellence someone has with respect to a skill. “Virtue" in this meaning has no relation to moral virtue as we understand it today. That is, to speak of virtue in this sense has little to do with being a “good person."
Secondly, I wanted to explain why, in my view, many young men are attracted to the model of masculinity represented by Andrew Tate. This could be summarized as a model that teaches that to be a man you have to do hard things, you have to suffer, you have to develop your aggression, and work hard. Moreover, not only is this what is necessary to become a man of great stature, but being a man is a good thing, so that strong masculinity is desirable. To conclude the first blog, I concluded that Tate speaks a lot of nonsense and that the model of masculinity worth imitation should be a paradoxical masculinity, like that of Jesus depicted in the Bible with the image of the lamb and the lion. For the sake of brevity, I will not elaborate further on this matter, since, if the reader wants to go deeper into these ideas, they can read my first writing in which I discuss these topics in relative depth.
In this second post, I would like to separate the wheat from the chaff, that is, separate the bad from the good. There are several areas where Andrew Tate is sincerely wrong. No matter how honest and courageous one is in speaking one's mind, that does not make the message true. However, I think Tate is right in criticizing the model of the deconstructed man who is harmless and lacks any aggressiveness (I discussed this issue in the first blog). In sum, in this writing we will focus on pointing out Tate's errors in his model of masculinity. In this analysis we will avoid two very common excesses when discussing Andrew Tate: (1) naive mythologization, namely, elevating a person to an almost divine status where no fault can be found against him and he is uncritically defended at all costs; (2) malicious dehumanization, that is, presenting an individual as if he were the personification of evil, when, in fact, in every human being there is both goodness and evil. The latter extreme cannot contemplate anything positive in the person with whom he is in total disagreement. Well, I flatly reject these two extremes because they seem to me to be two forms of dogmatic ideology that only lead to fantasy. Reality is always more complex than fantasy. So, both Tate fans and haters can stop reading if all they want is confirmation of their ideas. Philosophical thinking is a thinking that requires humility and courage. Humility to know you are wrong, and courage to accept the error.
The first unhealthy feature in the model of masculinity that Andrew Tate represents and promotes lies in his historical reading of the traditional roles between men and women. Tate's archetypal man is the emperor, the sultan, the king, with a mixture of vague notions of evolutionary biology. In short, the warrior king would come to personify ideal masculinity: the man with fighting prowess, the man with great aggressiveness and determination. According to this logic, if a man feels depressed and defeated in his life, it is because he deserves it. That is, a person who does not struggle and persevere to get ahead and accumulate wealth and power does not deserve to feel happy. One creates strength in survival, in the struggle, in the agony to survive. That is why most men are peasants and slaves, partly because they have given up and partly because they lack blood, impetus, a conquering soul. They lack the soul energy of warriors. In light of this, Tate condemns promiscuity in women, but justifies it in the case of men of great stature. All conquerors of the past had several women and, therefore, it is foolish to ask men who are “top G" to embrace monogamy. Furthermore, he uses the differences in testosterone between men and women to defend the idea that it is therefore acceptable for a man of this stature to be with multiple women. Tate's problem with this version of masculinity is that it falls into the naturalistic fallacy. The naturalistic fallacy consists of extracting a norm from a historical practice. It is true that many emperors and sultans had several women (factual fact), but it does not necessarily follow from that observation that it must be that way. That “must be" has to be justified beyond a simple “...because it has always been done that way". Appealing to traditionalism to legitimize ethical norms can be very dangerous because it can lead to justifying atrocious behavior based on the tradition of certain civilizations or ethnic groups. Many defenders of slavery used such arguments.
The second problematic aspect of Tate's masculinity is his emphasis with irrelevant externalities from a spiritual and moral point of view. Simply put, Tate expresses success in his life by living in mansions or castles, with expensive cars, and with a large number of women. In other words, the symbols of success, the results of having become a “top G", are quite limited. That these things constitute the pinnacle of success shows the great spiritual poverty of the collective consciousness of many. However, his message has force because many men, as I discussed in the first blog, lack a strong male figure. On the other hand, when Tate sets out to talk about ideas with greater substance such as the relationship between hierarchy and power, he does so in a way that alienates those who do not reach that level. For example, in some livestreams he has done on his online platform, certain men were vulnerable with their insecurities asking him for help and his response consisted of mocking them. In his mind, any man who doesn't aspire to that version of masculinity that consists of expensive cars, money and lots of women, it is because they lack testosterone, or they are wimps. At other times, he offers advice to people who want to change their lives, but insists on the same ideals. Tate's understanding of hierarchy and power revolves around ego. Tate fails to recognize that hierarchy and power should be used to serve the low and powerless, not to mock them. Among other reasons, because while it is true that it takes courage to practice an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, it takes even more courage to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. In short, Tate's philosophical and spiritual depth with respect to the masculine ideal falls short of the mark.
There is another trait that is closely related to his views but should not be confused with them. Ben Shapiro, in one of his videos, gives his opinion as to why many men are attracted to Andrew Tate's message. Shapiro explains that when living in a society that has denied universal truths, speaking one's mind unabashedly becomes the most important thing. In other words, Tate is willing to challenge accepted ideas and say what no one would say out loud. Some of what he says is accurate, but some of it is flat-out wrong and baseless. But in a society that lacks values, courage in speaking one's mind becomes the highest virtue, regardless of what is said. Shapiro is right in this analysis. Courage or boldness in speaking one's mind has an instrumental value, that is to say, it is a necessary characteristic for speaking the truth, but it should not be confused with truth. It is a necessary characteristic because a cowardly person, even if he knows the truth, needs to have courage to speak it out loud. But the mere fact that someone has the courage to speak a controversial opinion does not imply that what he says is true. It is one thing for someone to dare to speak his mind; it is quite another for what has been said to be true. But it is very difficult to separate the two when the person saying it is charismatic and conveys his message with great conviction. Tate's courage in speaking frankly about issues of extreme complexity is commendable, but his “masculine" rhetoric is toxic because it does not seek reconciliation but controversy and polarization.
For all these reasons, Andrew Tate does not embody healthy masculinity. He is wrong in his prescriptions. Many of his criticisms of today's society are correct, such as condemning promiscuity in women. But he errs in not condemning it in men as well. He is right when he says that women who are mothers should take care of their children and serve their husbands, but he errs in not applying the same in the treatment of husbands towards their wives and children. He also errs when he exalts his father who was an absent father figure most of the time. These are the contrarieties of the man, Andrew Tate. In light of this, both the model of masculinity of the deconstructed man and the model of masculinity of the warrior king have failed to show us the whole picture. Tate's rise, on one hand, shows how society has failed to speak positively about the potential of men, and, on the other hand, his rise also highlights the spiritual and moral poverty in the lives of many men who have failed to set an example for young men.
