Last week I got together with 12 lovely people of all genders to talk about what, if anything, it means to “be a man”. It was the last session in the series I run called Unlearn Bullshit! a monthly series funded by the Raymond Williams Foundation for tackling ideology and finding better ways to think and live. The sessions are a combination of mini-talks, sharing circles, and playful experiments.

I really enjoyed the discussion, and it just made me want to carry it further. There's so much more to talk about when it comes to men, flourishing, and gender liberation, and I’m excited to continue this conversation. Those who came along know how scary this topic is for me, but last Tuesday’s session really helped me figure out what I’m trying to say, and why I think it’s so important. Right now, I just want to say a little about why it hasn’t been easy to raise the topic of how to be a man, and why I think we need to do it anyway.

What’s the cost of being cool? Ironic detachment and cynicism is the signature tone of my generation—you can find it everywhere from The Simpsons to imageboard culture to the dismissive tone of voice we use for nearly everything we say, dropping our pitch at the end of every phrase as though we don’t really care about it.

I used to celebrate this attitude of irreverence, and it’s true that it was liberating; that it allowed us to take aim at hypocrisies and righteousness that deserved to be taken down a peg, and freed us from having to take things too seriously, but it also got in the way of lifting up our voices to support what we needed to, and saving our mockery for what truly deserves it.

From a personal investigation into how my voice changed and lost its characteristic ironic detachment after I left Canada, this article launches into a broader study of the social and political tides that shaped that tone of voice in the first place, and the attitude that underlies it.