A look at chivalry

[dude1394]

Please excuse the "tad" of politico's in this but it was an interesting read...Michele Malkin is quite a lady.

CADS, YOBS AND GENTS
By MICHELLE MALKIN

May 9, 2004 -- THE COMPLEAT GENTLEMAN: THE MODERN MAN'S GUIDE TO CHIVALRY
By Brad Miner
Spence Publishing, 256 pages, $27.95

LET us contemplate two woeful archetypes of the 21st century man: British soccer player/ playboy David Beckham and American comedian/couch potato Jimmy Kimmel.

Specimen A is the metrosexual poodle - polished, prettified, rippling, flaxen and glued to the bathroom mirror. Specimen B is the hirsute brute - foul-mouthed, flatulent, drooling, flaccid and glued to the living room TV.

Such is the rotten fruit that feminism has produced. And what a bummer crop. Goaded by women's libbers to put themselves in our shoes, the Beckhams (and Tom Cruises and P. Diddies) are vainglorious cads with better pedicures and bigger walk-in closets than their wives and girlfriends. Rebelling against the pansies of political correctness, the Kimmels (and Kid Rocks and Colin Farrells) are beer-guzzling Yobs with all the panache of a three-day-old Domino's pizza.

Who will inspire the next generation of young men to reach for loftier ideals than foil highlights or girls on trampolines? Is there hope for chivalry in a democratic age? Enter literary editor and swash-buckling student of suave Brad Miner.

In a graceful and learned volume, Miner walks the reader through a short history "of chivalry and the civility that grew out of it."

From the knights of the Arthurian legend to the Southern confederation of decent fellows in 19th century America, Miner pays homage to gentlemen of the past who embraced and embodied the ennobling qualities of warrior, monk and lover. Miner's models do not comprise a saints-only club. "No man behaves as a compleat gentleman all the time," he acknowledges, "but the best men never cease yearning to."

Nor is being a compleat gentleman simply a matter of being genteel. Unlike other recent books on gentlemanliness, Miner's is less a how-to manual on manners and more a grand manifesto for the brotherhood of virtue." The ability to write handsome thank-you notes, select the right wines or sit upright at the dinner table is less important than the ability to demonstrate upright character - keeping one's word, standing by one's principles, championing justice, practicing restraint, shunning publicity and greeting death with stoicism.

Cynics may snigger like the boys in the movie theater whom Miner observed while watching "Titanic." When the actor portraying real-life philanthropist Benjamin Guggenheim refused a life jacket and instead declared that he and his manservant were "dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen," the young oafs in the audience burst out laughing in disbelief.

But in a post-9/11 world, Guggenheim's unruffled act of self-sacrifice is no longer a quaint anachronism. And Miner's vision of a modern brotherhood of virtue is not an impossible dream. Men of steel - men with backbones, men with conviction - are far hotter commodities these days than the Beckhamite wimps and Kimmelesque barbarians whom Claremont Review of Books essayist Terrence O. Moore astutely dubbed the "sons of Murphy Brown."

Witness New York City's firefighters and cops. The heroes of Flight 93. Our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And most recently, the public outpouring for the chivalric life and death of former NFL player-turned-Armyranger Pat Tillman.

"In the end chivalry is nothing more than putting the self second," Miner sums up, "it is the ultimate self-respect because in the moments that matter the compleat gentleman makes himself the servant of his God, his nation, his friends, his family and he does so -- because he is governed by justice. Chivalry is justice manifest."

Here is a welcome reminder that men can be gentlemen without turning into ladies - or louts.