A report has crossed my desk that would have sent Victorian moralists into paroxysms of despair. A Hollywood actor, a purveyor of celluloid dreams, has publicly converted to the so-called ‘manosphere’. British cultural attachés, in a state of flustered alarm, have dispatched dispatches warning of this ideological contagion. One can almost hear the rustle of tweed as they clutch their pearls.
Let us not mince words. This is not merely a celebrity tantrum. This is a symptom of a deeper intellectual decadence, a rot that has set into the very marrow of our cultural institutions. The manosphere, that delightful online ecosystem of pickup artists, men’s rights activists, and grifters peddling primitive hyper-masculinity, is a direct descendant of the late Roman Empire’s cult of Mithras. Both offer simplistic answers to complex declines. But whereas Mithraism offered a mystic brotherhood, the manosphere offers a franchise of resentment.
Our cultural attachés, trained to appreciate the nuanced works of Austen and Forster, are now forced to grapple with algorithms that promote ‘alpha male’ gurus. They worry, rightly, that this ‘made in America’ product will infect British sensibilities. Yet, they fail to see that we are already infected. The rot is homegrown. The decline of the nuclear family, the emasculation of public discourse, the fetishisation of victimhood: these are British contributions to the modern malaise.
Consider the parallels with the decadent fin de siècle. Then, as now, a crisis of masculinity precipitated a search for salvific dogma. Oscar Wilde’s dandyism was a response to the same anxieties that now produce Joe Rogan and his ilk. But Wilde’s rebellion was aesthetic, intellectual. The manosphere’s rebellion is a retreat into primitive tribalism. It is the death rattle of a civilisation that has lost faith in its own narratives.
What is to be done? Not censorship, which only feeds the martyr complex. Instead, we must rediscover a robust, non-neurotic masculinity. We need a cultural counterweight that offers purpose beyond consumption and status. The Victorian ideal of the ‘gentleman’ was flawed, but it offered a template: duty, self-improvement, and stoic resilience. We laugh at such notions now, but we do so from the precipice of a cultural cliff.
So let the actor have his conversion. It will pass, as all fads do, but the underlying crisis will remain. The attachés would do better to look inwards. The problem is not Hollywood. It is us.
