Men Are Made, Not Born...And We've Stopped Making Them
Richard Reeves is right: Men are not simply born. They are made. This simple insight has become strangely controversial because it collides with a culture that celebrates autonomy but resists obligation — and stepped back from formation itself. For decades, the conversation about men oscillated between critique and confusion. Masculinity is either treated as inherently suspect or as something that should simply “work itself out” over time. Both views miss the point. Men are not self-forming. Students arrive in colleges and universities all over this great land fluent in the language of identity and expression, but far less comfortable with responsibility — what it means to be needed, to be accountable, to carry something larger. They are formed by institutions, expectations, and obligations that shape raw potential into something socially constructive. When those structures weaken, masculinity does not disappear. It fragm...