As things get worse and the State seems powerless to help, the State will seem less and less legitimate. People will lose their moral connection to it. Laws will seem more like revenue traps and shakedowns. The state will start to seem more like another extortion racket, and, as in Mexico, people will have a harder time telling the good guys from the bad guys.
Jack DonovanRelieved of moral pretense and stripped of folk costumes, the raw masculinity that all men know in their gut has to do with being good at being a man within a small, embattled gang of men struggling to survive.
Jack DonovanMen of ideas and men of action have much to learn from each other, and the truly great are men of both action and abstraction.
Jack DonovanWithout action, words are just words. Without violence, laws are just words. Violence isnโt the only answer, but it is the final answer.
Jack DonovanWhen someone tells a man to be a man, they mean that there is a way to be a man. A man is not just a thing to be-it is also a way to be, a path to follow and a way to walk. Some try to make manhood mean everything. Others believe that it means nothing at all. Being good at being a man can't mean everything, and it has always meant something.
Jack Donovan