Violence isn't the only answer, but it is the final answer.

When 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.

Gay is a subculture, a slur, a set of gestures, a slang, a look, a posture, a parade, a rainbow flag, a film genre, a taste in music, a hairstyle, a marketing demographic, a bumper sticker, a political agenda and philosophical viewpoint. Gay is a pre-packaged, superficial persona-a lifestyle. It's a sexual identity that has almost nothing to do with sexuality.

Sometimes men pick fights just for something to do-just to feel something like the threat of harm and the possibility of triumph.

Men of ideas and men of action have much to learn from each other, and the truly great are men of both action and abstraction.

Without action, words are just words. Without violence, laws are just words. Violence isn’t the only answer, but it is the final answer.

Civilization comes at a cost of manliness. It comes at a cost of wildness, of risk, of strife. It comes at a cost of strength, of courage, of mastery. It comes at a cost of honor. Increased civilization exacts a toll of virility, forcing manliness into further redoubts of vicariousness and abstraction.