The virtue of Andrew Tate and the decline of masculinity
Perhaps one of the most hated people on the internet and, at the same time, one of the most influential in the collective consciousness of male youth. Within the community that follows him he is known as “Cobra Tate" or “Top G". His background as a world kickboxing champion is far from enough to erase the “sexist" label he has earned for his controversial views on women and traditional roles in the family. His accompanying aesthetic is full of status symbols and power replete with expensive cars, women, and yachts, yet paradoxically, he has recently embraced the Islamic faith, and many are expectant to see the change in his views and past comments on the internet. Canceled from almost every platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...), his ideas may be the first to have had as great an impact in today’s digital world. This man is Andrew Tate.
That said, the frequent mistake many make is to reduce all that Tate stands for to a lapidary phrase: “Andrew Tate is a misogynist and sexist". Not so fast, though. There are plenty of misogynists that most have never heard of. And of the famous ones there are, misogyny has little to do with the rise of Andrew Tate. If his followers (young men, teens, and preteens) are obsessed with this personality of his, it's not necessarily because we live in a heteropatriarchy that aims only to dominate women. That answer, perhaps partially true, is simply too easy, cheap, and ideological. The diagnosis of the problem is not unidimensional. It is multidimensional. There is something else, there is something magnetic about this former kickboxing champion: Tate embodies a warrior ethic.
Andrew Tate's virtue lies in his message against the pusillanimity, mediocrity, and complacency of weak people. Tate is the Nietzschean superman. But before we talk about this, it is essential to clarify what we mean by “virtue". Many of us when we hear the word virtue, immediately think of moral-ethical ideals of behavior, such as patience, justice, mercy, etc. When one digs deeper, they will find that there exists the cardinal virtues (temperance, prudence, fortitude, and justice) and the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity). However, in warrior societies, such as those recounted by Homer in the 8th century BC in The Iliad and The Odyssey, virtue, or areté in Greek, refers to being fit for something in an established social order with clear roles. A rough translation would be excellence. This being understood, the virtue or excellence of a warrior was to fight and win in battle. Similarly, the virtue of a blacksmith was to make good swords. An agile athlete manifests or expresses the areté (virtue or excellence) of his feet when running (Iliad 20, 411). This clarification is of nuclear importance since the concept of identity (what or who am I?) is closely linked to the role one occupied in these societies. To the question of “who am I?”, one responded with one's social function: I am a warrior. On this depended acceptance in the community or else, disrepute and exile outside of it.
Andrew Tate embodies that excellence or warrior virtue of the Homeric societies. Or, in other words, Tate manifests that determination, daring, and eros towards life that does not leave most men feeling indifferent. This is not unique to Tate alone: just look at the admiration with which we see William Wallace in Brave Heart shouting “freedom"—it makes a person feel like they could run through a wall!—or the fascination people have with superhero films. Tate embodies the warrior archetype; Tate is the hero of his own story. Speaking honestly, some might feel a sense of respect for Tate accompanied by a small sense of guilt. It’s no surprise. This controversial character refuses to shut up, is undeterred by social pressure, assumes no political correctness, speaks his mind, works hard, knows how to fight, and is critical of the postmodern “deconstructed man" model of masculinity. Tate embodies a warrior ethic that cries out to the streets: “one doesn't need more safe spaces; one needs to become stronger". Tate is the ideal of a kid from the hood who does martial arts. From my own experience as a kid from the hood who did boxing for 10 years, the fighter's ethic is simple: when you enter the ring, you either fight, or you lose. Surrender is not an option. And that's how one sees life—it is a boxing ring, a combat zone that ends in death. And...Attention! Don't even think of letting your guard down, lest the enemy catches you off guard.
In my opinion, this reaction or return to an authoritarian model of masculinity has been the result of two preceding phenomena: (1) on the one hand, in our culture there has been a forceful criticism towards the canon of masculinity that was interested in cars, women, work, while, at the same time, when home, behaved as a quiet, reserved, absent and mysterious individual. (2) On the other hand, radicalized hegemonic feminism sends a message to young men telling them that the very nature of who they are is, potential rapists, harassers, capricious, violent, and immature. No one seems to know what men should be. Everyone talks about toxic masculinity, but no one talks clearly about healthy masculinity. With this we have a social environment in which boys grow up without a traditional Don Draper-like reference of masculinity (thank God by the way), but they don't find anything better to replace it with either. They hear only negative messages about what they shouldn't be, and nothing about what they should be. That is until Andrew Tate came along.
The problem with Tate is that for every one right thing he says, he tells us several wrong things; in this respect he resembles Nietzsche. The German thinker was particularly critical of Christianity because it seemed to him that Christians disguised their weakness as virtue. He argued that Christian values originated in resentment toward the powerful. Among other reasons because as someone is a weak individual in the face of a stronger person, the weak person presents his weakness and deficiency as something more desirable and puts on a medal of moral superiority for it. Nietzsche, however, was right in identifying the hypocrisy of the weak: virtuous is not he who, lacking any kind of vital force to fight back, congratulates himself for having turned the other cheek. Nevertheless, Nietzsche erred in thinking that the only appropriate response of the powerful and sovereign was to fight back. For there is a third alternative: virtuous is he who, being able to fight back, decides not to do so out of the overabundance of his love. Nietzsche unmasked false piety, but failed to identify that it is still possible to have a moral victory that does not entail counterattack. This is the same error of Tate.
Tate, in the face of the decline of masculinity, tells us to “be supermen, be strong, be tough, don't spend time with the weak." Having told the truth about one thing, he lied about the rest. He confused the part with the whole. Warrior fortitude is necessary in this life as is well reflected in the saying “it is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war". To confront evil people, one has to be just as aggressive or more so, but in order to protect others. Carl Jung spoke of this reality with the term “shadow". Everyone has a “shadow" that one must really come to know. A potentially dark and monstrous side that one must integrate with the benevolent part. When this is achieved, one is able to have one's power under control. Therefore, the opposite of violent men are not pacifists in colorful clothes. The opposite of the evil man is the man who has integrated that aggressiveness for the service of the common good. In contrast, weak men are unable to channel that aggression for the common good. On the other hand, the error of the deconstructed masculinity model is to present an emasculated man who does not have the capacity to face the difficulties of life and to confront injustices.
What reference of masculinity is left for us? Paradoxical masculinity: the masculinity of the lamb and the lion. The decadent society mistakenly asks for passive men, without teeth, without fangs, without claws. On the other side, the warrior resistance demands bloodthirsty and relentless lions. What we need is a fusion, a convergence of the lamb and the lion. An embodiment of true strength: someone with fangs who chooses not to use them. One who was moved by the oppressed and outraged by overturning the tables in the temple; one who could have called legions of angels to avenge his crucifixion, but instead chose not to, out of love for the sinner; the lamb of God and the lion of Judah: Jesus of Nazareth.
