"Missing from modern culture: 'the quietly competent man'"
"There’s a handful of movies that ... I [will] stop and watch, no matter how many times I've seen them ...
"It also includes 'The Hunt For Red October,' a damn-near perfect movie that has a particular element woefully missing from modern fare. And modern culture, more broadly.
"That element is the quietly competent man. Individuals that are good at what they do, and go about doing it without chest-thumping machismo or dude-bro bluster.
"Consider the contrast between Will Smith's bluster in 'Independence Day' versus the exchange between Scott Glenn and Courtney B. Vance in Red October:
"[The difference on display here is] showboating vs doing-my-job-well matter-of-factness....
"Apparently, I'm not the only one to feel this dearth in modern fare. YouTube movie reviewer The Critical Drinker put it well:
'I really miss movies with male actors that look and talk and act like actual adult men who radiate authority and confidence instead of whiny hyperactive children inhabiting male bodies.'
"Entertainment reflects culture, and we have for decades seen our culture deride and undermine the concept of the quietly competent man....
"[T]o repeat, everyone in 'Red October' was supremely competent in a workaday fashion, rather than smashing us in the face with boasts and swagger.
"That quiet competence should serve as the ideal. It should be a role model for kids, and an aspiration for men. It is also the essence of individualism, and it's why a libertarian blogger finds it suitable subject matter. It seems a natural draw for male behaviour, so it's a crying shame that our culture has stopped even depicting it, let alone celebrating it. ...
"Fonzie once pointed out someone to Richie, observing that 'he's got the quiet cool' or something to that effect .... 'Quiet cool' seems like a pretty good idea."
~ Peter Venetoklis from his post 'Quiet Competence'
4 comments:
Your top picture of roughnecks making up a drillstring in a kelly is a throwback to the past. Most rigs do it by machine nowadays. A lot less fingers are lost. But yes, there are very few in the workforce who could do that type of job.
I’d never put my finger on why I liked that movie so much and have watched it over and over again for more than 3 decades. Now I can.
I’d add though that it’s not the quietness per se that’s the important attribute (in some contexts you can and should be loud), it’s going about your business with enough confidence and focus that the reactions of others is barely a concern, and you’re not seeking applause or validation.
The corollary of the decline of the quietly competent man is the rise of shrill, incompetent woman - we all know the type, the upper ranks of the public service are full of them. Allied to that is that is the rise in what Jordan Peterson calls "toxic femininity" - the women who are so demonstrably, even aggressively, empathetic that they are willing to see the whole world burn just to show that they really care (about climate change, racial discrimination, the Palestinians, [insert cause here]). Yes, we've all seen them up close. Jacinda Ardern is the best known example - she was prepared to lock up the entire country and send the police into violently disperse protestors just to show how much she cared.
@Kiwiwit - I largely agree, except that Jacinda enacting a lock down is a poor example of what you're talking about. Whatever you think of the lockdown, it was put in place by virtually every head of state around the world to varying degrees, and they are mostly males. So it's hardly a product of "shrill, incompetent women".
I'd also suggest we shouldn't blame women primarily for their rise, but men for dropping the ball and deferring to them. To quote another author who's grossly generalising but has a point, "women will act as shitty as you [men] let them".
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