Norse mythology and American masculinity

Today I want to talk about something I've been noticing for years but never knew quite how to explain, when it comes to the masculine side of American culture and how they seem to interpret history, and here is what I've seen:

Many of the white American males, you will notice if you look closely, tend  to completely lose interest in the tale of European history the second you head south with it (i.e. American men don't much fancy Ancient Roman or Greek history) and they also seem to lose interest, as well, pretty much the second you step out of the Dark Ages. This means to say that, when you look at the specific pockets of history that American men most adore, you'll generally see it goes like this: They love Norse mythology and the age of the Vikings (790 ad-1200) and then they tend to have a brief candle lit for the Dark Ages, where the tales of the wizards , the Knights and Robin Hood are stored. There also exists a little adoration for the Scottish and Irish style history ala Braveheart .Then it comes to Roman history, where they only like the war stories of conquest  that come out of there, or of course the tales of Spartacus and the gladiators - the entire bit about actually building Rome and inventing things is of no interest to them- and as for latter day European history, like the Italian Renaissance or the French enlightenment, they lose complete interest, more or less. Americans have next to no understanding of just how different South Europe was in the past, versus North Europe, largely because of this lack of interest: No films are ever made, no popular stories ever published, that reach men, of what was going on down there. There is simply no interest...

Many films and stories that do exist in English of those latter day French or Italian periods, I've noticed, tend to often take a woman's point of view. The American men can't comprehend it, so it would seem. Or they just do not want to. Marie Antoinette takes over and Leonardo DaVincis wrists do  not seem quite rigid enough.

Now one thing I find so intriguing about this is the way that much of this seems to apply to who the average American male tends to be, and also what he tends to think, right now in the modern day. Some people might want to toss out the claim that one could not possibly read politics through all of tis. I would argue to the contrary: the American males politics- the most lacking in government generosity or kindness in the entire developed world-- are all completely linked up to his love of both of these historical periods he fancies. For the typical American male does not , like a scholar of Ancient Roman history living in Milan, think to merely study the history of the Norse Vikings. He also thinks something else quite seriously: He believes he is their modern, living and breathing embodiment on earth. He sees himself and his steroid created muscles, his fight against blacks in the inner city, his love for war against Arabian infidels, and especially his love of weaponry and tattoos , as being all sorts of linked up with this period in specific. In addition to all of this, he also sees those pesky politics as being linked to it: He feels he is wholeheartedly living in a new Nordic adventure of sorts, in an untamed vast wild land (Nebraska and Missisipp etci) that he must keep free of government overreach and influence. And what's extra fascinating about all of this is what you'll find he might tend to think when it comes to the lands in which the actual Norse time period and story itself unfolded : He does not like what they have foolishly become in modernity. At all, really. For in modernity all of the old Norse countries -- Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, etc-- are all decidedly liberal welfare states , the biggest in all of Europe. The people have a minimum wage of $20.00 (yes, it's equivalent to our own money) at even the lowest job and they have government healthcare..the government even pays them to go to university. They are educated, and they no longer think themselves to be sword wielding Vikings. More likely than not, steroid usage is not nearly as high as it is here. These people in the Scandinavian countries do recall the Norse myths of yesteryear, but they do it differently than American men: they recall it in novels, they act in TV shows that the American men watch, and they make the heavy metal music that American men buy. They do all of that in perfect English - often without even an accent - that they all speak as a second language, since they learned it in public schools that are actually good there. And of course, do not forget: In spite of all this play acting on their part, to profit off of the American men, they do not actually believe themselves to be Vikings, and in the mornings they wake up as liberal Europeans and enjoy their day speaking Danish, Finnish, Swedish, etc.... .

The American male does not have such a morning. He is locked in the Viking thing all day, every day. He is the Viking. He is the warrior. And though he loves the history of Finland in 900 AD, he hates modern Finland more than anything in the entire world. Oh god, he hates it so badly! For it is a dirty liberal infested welfare state! Where people help one another like wimps and pussies and so on. How dare they!

At first, it might sound strange to think that the American male who loves Norse mythology could have such a disconnect-- how could you love solely the deep history of a country but not its modern self ?-- but of course when one looks into it further, one sees that this exact trait, of obsessing over a country's long back history but then steadfastly rejecting and even hating its modern self, is actually all the Americans have ever really been about, from the get go. In fact, it seems to sort of be the great big American calling: The second a country is modernized and can actually function, they hate it. This extends even , oddly enough, to their own country, which you might have noticed they're beginning to hate, especially the cities.

Why? Because countries that can actually function, have cities, universities, hospitals, and sensible laws regarding weapons, guess what? Such places , to the American male, are not free. They are also not tough. After all, in such a cozy country as Finland now is, where everyone is apparently taken care of and the quality of life is one of the highest in the world, men sometimes wind up as...well, limp wristed queers. Thry do not take steroids and lift weights and join prison gangs to get tattoos of Odin, the Norse god, on their back. They do not shoot shotguns in the Deep South. They do not have the UFC, aka the ultimate fighting championship. They do other things like read books and try to study to become doctors at the university publicly provided for them on tax dollars or start artsy bands to wear makeup and pretend to be Odin on stage but not in realty . How dare these faggots!

You see, the real thing that the Norse mythology loving American male sees when he looks back to a country like Finland or Sweden , is that he sees a place that has become - if we are to put it simply -- "wussified". He sees a place that has allowed itself to get too comfortable and lost its original - the aspiring boxer would tell you-- "bad ass spine". And one of the main reason the tough American male believes this sad liberal thing happened in those old countries is really quite ironic and hilarious: he believes it's because his own ancestors fled those countries, like the tough steeled skin Vikings they were, to come to this one, and start over again, as free tough men. Real men.  For, certainly, he thinks, if he had stayed, and his ancestors and his tough family line had stayed, Finland probably wouldn't be such a pitiable, womanly  welfare state where everyone is happy and literate. It would still be a place of Vikings and weapons obsessed "red blooded men" who know how to do important things like create bonfires, shoot shotguns, lift heavy objects, and fist fight. It would not be this sad thing it has become. It would remember who it was, etc. Instead, it has lost its manliness. It has become womanly. It has become, in the eyes of the tough American male, "a prison".

I think I myself first began to really notice this strange thing when I started, in Italy, to try and find some public male figure  - anyone at all-- who could possibly resemble this specific version of the American male, that is bearded, severely muscular  on steroids, obsessed with tattoos,  fighting ,et cetera. In America this guy is not only famous but he's around every corner...you can throw a rock and hit a bearded American macho man  from a mile away who is filled with tattoos ....he might be in prison or he might be the movie star, or of course he might be in the UFC. He's a very integral part of our male culture here...one does not ignore this figure here, and yet, when you look at Europe, something strange happens, especially in Italy : he's almosr no where to be found. He is a decidedly fringe figure there--especially in terms of television. A bearded Italian male on steroids wjth hugr tattoos of, say, Roman gladiators and old Latin phrases (the equivalent of the Viking schtick) would be - and is - a fringe figure there, not understood and not much liked. In America he would maybe be a star. Note Arnold Schwarzenegger, an earlier version of him without tattoos....

But how can this be , one asks? How is it possible that the Italians watched a colossal  film like Gladiator, which all American men are often obsessed with (just like Vikings) , and they did not take any cues from it? I mean how is it possible? They're in Rome! The original city! Don't these fools even remember their own history, the American male wonders? Don't they remember how tough they were?

Well, yes, they do remember their own history, but it turns out that they remember the good parts of it, rather than the bad ones. For example, most Italians -- if they were intrigued by history ---probably  tend to be more interested in discussing the biography of someone like Raffaello, the artist, or again, DaVinci, rather than someone like a gladiator. In fact, Rome itself , in the modern day, is seen by many Italians as a sort of backwards city of the country. They realize it's the most famous one, but they also seem to be much prouder of their Renaissance history , which largely took place in northern cities  like Florence and Pisa et cetera, than the ancient history. Modern day Rome is pretty much a place that has for some time now been trying to get itself into the same category as Milan, which is far more internationally relevant, because of a fashion industry based there (which queer New York liberals are obsessed with).

The modern Italian mind tends to jump start with Dante Alighieri , who easentially created Italian from Latin, and then it flies from there. The ancient history is something else entirely to them: I met some Italians who were not even aware that Latin was ever a spoken language. They thought it had been "dead" since the beginning. They do not care much, one thinks,  about the Ancient Roman period because they find it frightfully uncivilized looking. They do not , it seems, reminisce about being a part of Julius Caesars conquering army wandering the world with sword and shield. To them, that looks like it would have been a miserably limiting, maybe even imprisoning, life. To the American male of course, you already know: It all looks the exact opposite . It all looks and tastes like pure freedom. Freedom to be strong and muscular, freedom to fight and be dirty, freedom to spit and guzzle alcohol as it pours down your chest until you're black out drunk, freedom to take women and do what you want with them, freedom to slaughter whoever your enemy is, freedom to take slaves ..... On and on it goes.

--August