Rejecting Both Progressive 'Pathologizing' and Manosphere 'Predation' for a Biblical Shepherd Model of Masculinity
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "Saving Masculinity From the Left and the Manosphere | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." August 30, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author argues that boys and men are in real trouble today, caught between two bad influences: progressive culture that treats masculinity itself as toxic, and online 'manosphere' influencers like Andrew Tate who glorify wealth, dominance, and selfishness. Instead of following either path, the author says society needs to teach young men to be like a 'Shepherd'—a protector who serves his family and community with sacrifice and duty, following a traditional Christian model of manhood.
Conclusion
Society must reject both the progressive left's demonization of traditional masculinity and the manosphere's hedonistic, transactional distortion of it, and instead rebuild institutions that cultivate a classical, Biblical model of masculinity rooted in duty, sacrifice, protection, and covenantal responsibility (the 'Shepherd').
Premises
- Boys and men are empirically in crisis, as shown by declining labor force participation, educational achievement, and elevated rates of suicide, homicide, and isolation.
- The progressive left ('Pathologists') treats traditional masculine norms as arbitrary, harmful social constructs to be eliminated, leaving men purposeless and culturally disoriented.
- This purposelessness created a vacuum that the 'manosphere' (led by figures like Andrew Tate) has exploited, offering a hyper-individualistic, materialistic, and transactional caricature of masculinity that rejects marriage, family, and civic duty.
- Both the Pathologists and the Predators share the false premise that masculinity is inherently self-serving, domineering, and transactional; they differ only in whether to suppress or celebrate this trait.
- A healthy society ('the hive') depends on men being socialized as protectors bound by mutual obligation and transcendent moral truth; neither ideology cares about this communal survival function.
- Conservatives have erred by uncritically celebrating manosphere figures simply because they antagonized progressives, inadvertently reinforcing the very dysfunction they meant to fight.
- The Biblical 'Shepherd' model—defined by self-sacrificial love, respect for legitimate authority, and protection of family and community—offers a constructive alternative to both toxic paradigms.
Assumptions
- Masculinity is a fixed, biologically or divinely ordered set of traits that can be rightly 'channeled' rather than an entirely socially constructed or infinitely malleable phenomenon.
- The Biblical/covenantal framework represents an objectively correct and universally applicable model of masculinity, not merely one cultural or religious tradition among many.
- Institutional decay (family, church, community structures) is the primary causal driver of the current crisis in masculinity, rather than economic, technological, or other structural factors.
- The 'left' and the 'manosphere' can be treated as two coherent, monolithic ideological camps that share a common flawed premise about masculinity.
- Faith-based institutions have the capacity and legitimacy to effectively re-socialize men if they choose to act with more clarity and confidence.