The word “chivalry” brings to mind
heroic images of a knight in shining armor riding to the defense of a damsel in
distress. We don’t usually consider the possibility that things may go badly
for the would-be rescuer.
Earlier this month, a 39-year-old Texan
visiting Philadelphia was out in the wee hours of the morning when he saw
several men inside a car pull up next to a group of women, whom they began
taunting and catcalling. A police captain later reported
that the visitor “took offense to something that the guys were saying to the
girls and said ‘Hey, watch what you’re saying.’”
At that point, one of the men
inside the vehicle got out and punched the Good Samaritan, who fell and struck
his head on the concrete, knocking him unconscious. The suspects then fled and
the victim ended up in the hospital. “This is a tragic, tragic story,” the
police captain said. “Here’s a guy trying to stick up for these girls and he
gets victimized.”
Even more tragic is the instance
one night last July when a 49-year-old man came to the rescue of a woman being sexually
assaulted by two men at a Fresno gas station. This allowed the woman to escape,
but he was badly beaten by the pair and left in the street, where he was struck
and killed by a passing vehicle.
These are just a couple of newsworthy
examples of heroic intentions gone terribly wrong. What both victims did was
the very definition of chivalry, which in its purest original sense is rooted
in service to others and protection of the defenseless. They were gentlemen coming
to the defense of women; the other men were cads at best, violent sex offenders
at worst. Unfortunately, the gentlemen got the worst of both confrontations.
I’m a fierce proponent of the social
value of chivalry, the medieval code of honor which unfortunately has nearly been
snuffed out over the course of the 20th century by the rise of feminism.
Today it is in a coma on life support, and we are worse off for that. Our
culture – any culture – sorely needs
its young men to embrace chivalry’s core principles.
But many men will see the above examples
as definitive evidence that chivalry is, well, stupid. Why leap to the defense
of a woman you don’t even know if you might end up in the hospital – or the
cemetery? Even if you get the better of the bad guy in a physical confrontation,
you might still come away injured and/or facing a financially devastating
lawsuit. And what if the woman doesn’t even appreciate a man coming to her
defense? These days many young women resent even having doors opened for them. Just
what is the upside of playing the white knight anymore?
These are very valid questions, and
they are part of the reason that chivalry is dead to so many today. What are
men to do?
The simple answer is that men must
do their duty, as men have always been expected to do. Part of that duty means,
as I wrote above, embracing the chivalric virtues of service to others and
protection of the defenseless. I know that the reality is more complicated than
that sounds, but there is no getting around the fact that morality and manhood
require courage. The world needs – and has always needed – men willing to put
themselves on the line to be gentlemen and heroes, willing to stand up to men
of baser character and evil intent, even at personal risk. Without that, in a
society in which able-bodied men do not selflessly step up to do the right
thing, bad men will run rampant and the law of the jungle will prevail.
Without knowing more details about
the incidents in the opening examples, it’s difficult to know if the situations
could have been handled more safely or wisely. But the point is that the
gentlemen who came to the aid of those women acted rightly on noble instincts.
The alternative would have been to stand by or turn a blind eye to misogynistic
hostility, and in the second instance, possibly murder. That cowardly inaction would
have come at the cost of the women’s safety and the gentlemen’s manhood.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 8/25/14)
