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“be a man.” Part of the rise of “ornamental culture,” then, is not only about the decline in
commitment to public life, but also a decline in the commitment to the supports of private
life that were prerequisite for public life. Family is not the public realm, but support for
family is different than simply being self-regarding. This distinction did not have its
same force in the eighteenth century as it does now.
Kann (1998) argues that disconnected men, bachelors and so forth, were
perceived as posing a threat to public order in eighteenth century America. The question
posed by Faludi’s triumph of the ornamental is similar: do men who have no stake in
others have no stake in public life? To what extent does family life “tame” men, to what
extent does it provide a kind of education in concern for others that translates into a
proper concern for public life? That is, is the effect of family life on men primarily
understood in its negative (keep them out of trouble) or its positive (a model for
engagement) aspect?
As women have become more like men (or so it is argued), however, the effect
has not been to make men embrace again their more public roles. On the contrary, the
minimal commitments to anyone other than themselves displayed by “ornamental” men
is now at a low, if we add to the loss of civic disengagement above the lack of familial
engagement now seen by many men. The result is a society in which the charge of
ornamental masculinity fails to resonate on its own to produce reform.
What then, can possibly motivate any new concern with citizenship? Rather than
deploying the rhetoric of masculinity as a whip, we shall in the next and final section
provide some alternative accounts that might make more clear what is at stake in
discussing public life and roles.
Convention