Karl Meyer: Time for men to stand up for a just society

Glenn Carstens-Peters/StockSnap
Published: 01-15-2025 9:50 PM |
Pat Hynes’ column ”Women to the fore with moral vision” [Recorder, Jan. 7] was right on target about our political and societal failures to stop the bloodletting — in our warring on impoverished innocent women and children, and on planet Earth itself. Her piece was spot on in pointing out that it is women at the fore in fighting for justice and civility in an fast de-democratizing society.
If we want a “government of laws, and not men,” if we want a just, civil society, men need to find the courage to step up and fight. Thoreau was right, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” We men have long lingered in the background when it comes moral leadership, with few exceptions.
Like the Tories at the Revolution, we crowd in behind the loudest strongman leaders with the most guns when our comfortable, top-down lives feel any breeze of change. We stay back, avoid difficult discourse, allowing jealousy, hate and unexpressed male rage to infect the landscape. That’s how the Second Amendment’s horrific twisting toward civilian ownership of automatic weapons overshadows the sacred right ensuring our republic and a shared civil society: the First Amendment.
Forever asking women to carry the water for a civil society will only lead to failure here, one resting squarely on the backs of silent men. That’s how you get leaders flirting with a wholesale endorsement of fascist hatred. It’s time we men find the moral courage to stand up for a just society for all.
Karl Meyer
Greenfield