Culture Watch - A Few Good Men - fatherhood - Brief Article

If we feel a certain unease as Father's Day comes, look at our pols. Although the two leading presidential candidates are both men in their 50s with children of their own, they are fixed in the popular mind as sons (Gore is a Jr., W. avoids it only by virtue of his middle name). As for the man they seek to replace, what paternal qualities can be attributed to him?

Our puzzlement shows in areas beyond politics. Nostalgia surrounds the dying World War II generation because baby boomers believe that some quality of paternal strength is being lost. Yet, if the World War II generation had done its job right, would the boomers feel so bereft by mere death, which is inevitable?

Fatherhood is hard because whatever biological programming men have is wispy. Birth is a nine-month process, conception is instantaneous. Without DNA tests, men can't be entirely sure who their true children are. The traditional solution to these anxieties is patriarchy: the unquestioning assertion of masculine power. Patriarchy in many cultures comes accompanied by harems, and slaves. Wherever it appears, it exacts the obedience of children, sons and daughters alike, so long as the patriarch lives. Yet to many people of faith, to say nothing of republicans, that model can seem blasphemous.

To us, the father must also know when to step aside, so that his sons can become fathers in their own right. The problem of republican leadership is one of the most delicate in public life. When George Washington, Father of his Country, addressed his soldiers, the salutation he used was, "My brave fellows." This is not the only way to motivate men: Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk) insulted his soldiers at the battle of Gallipoli, to make them charge. Frederick the Great asked, "Do you dogs want to live forever?" By saying, "My brave fellows," Washington was asking his troops to follow him, because they were like him. Often, at the moment he asked, they weren't like him; they were raw teenagers on the point of panic. But he asked them to show what they could do.

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