Accountability means that we show up to be counted – we give a reckoning, we explain, justify. It is related to latin computare, which is to add things up to see what the total is.

At Maniphesto we commit to accountability. This means we agree to compare our words to our actions over time and allow the judgment of others on our (mis)alignment or (in)coherence.

In short we strive to be men of our word.

Accountability as Judgement

Why do we do this?

In a society where judgment is seen as bad and tolerance of all things is seen as a good, we notice that men are yearning for accountability.

Judgment has an important function – at the highest level, it brings about a state of justice to the present. As human beings, we have an instinctive and natural yearning towards justice and thus also to judgment. Most wisdom traditions would posit that judgment is a mechanism of the natural order of things. In Eastern religions this is called “karma”. In ancient Greek philosophy, justice is one of the four cardinal virtues. In Christianity, Christ is seen as the judge.

Judgment is often delayed. If you are a bad person, then you may prefer justice to be pushed as far away as possible, so you can enjoy the fruits of your misdoings. But if you are a person aiming towards to the good, then you look forward to judgment. Not your own, but what we would call “objective” or “divine” judgment and justice.

That is why we look for the judgments of other good men we look up to. Especially we yearn for the judgment of father figures.

Accountability in practice

We need others to hold us accountable. We are far too good at rationalizing and forgetting our commitments. And in practice, we struggle to submit ourselves to an actual accountability group, often experiencing that disagreements arise, drama ensues, and the process collapses.

Part of the reason for this is that we do not have the perfect “father figure” on hand who makes perfectly just judgements which we willingly submit to. In fact most of the time we have “brotherly figures”, who we at least unconsciously are competing with, judging negatively ourselves or simply disagree with their perspective.

That is why accountability in practice involves building relationships of trust. In the following we will present some of the most important aspects of building trustfor accountability.

Patient listening. Most of the time, we project our own issues, motivations and shortcomings onto others. This means that our judgments and ability to hold other men accountable are severely limited by our own progress. Thus, the ability to listen attentively, without judgment and with an utmost respect and appreciation of the value of another person, even putting them above one’s self, will go very far in determining our ability to support him with accountability.

Similar worldviews. Every person has a foundational set of beliefs about life, existence, what humans are and why we are here. To the extent that these overlap, we are more likely to interpret statements, events and actions similarly. When these foundational beliefs differ greatly, then accountability processes will be less effective and will need to be more focused on simple witnessing and mirroring as opposed to judgment.

Balance between challenge and respect. An accountability group needs to be willing to ask tough questions in order to ensure depth. But challenge should always be built on respect of things said in confidence and never misusing vulnerable information. The key here is the underlying motivation – accountability processes must be held in a true spirit of mutual support, appreciation of strengths and gentle treatment of weaknesses.

Strong, principle based leadership. If you do it long enough, confusion and even drama are likely to pop up once in a while in an accountability group. At these times, it is important that the group has a clear leader who upholds and enforces clear shared principles in a consistent way.

Personal connection. Large group accountability needs to be supplemented with personal accountability in smaller groups or even 1-on-1 interactions which help cultivate personal connections of trust and understanding.

How we do Accountability

Stating one’s goals in front of a group of men and being held accountable for one’s actions is perhaps the most central focus of the work we do on Maniphesto Core.

When men join Core, then they are supported in creating a personal vision for their life, setting concrete goals and then implementing daily habits. Weekly meetings in groups are focused on supporting men in ensuring movement towards the set goals. Groups also organize daily buddy calls where individual men connect and support each other in getting through the small hurdles and challenges of everyday life.

The importance and transformative power of these daily buddy calls cannot be underestimated. Through the simple point of connection of having to report back on your progress towards a specific outcome every single day, and being held accountable to your commitment, men are able to build awareness and integrity in a pwoerful way.

Our work in Maniphesto is guided by our 10 Principles. In this way, we have a shared foundation for our work. In this work, we consider it naive to make inclusion and tolerance the most central values. Instead we aim to set a high standard with pragmatic principles which lead to men living thriving lives of purpose and direction.

If you want to experience working on accountability in a group of men, then sign up for Maniphesto Core here.

The foundation of leadership is often wrongly assumed to be related to authority and power. This is a misconception – leadership is founded on a person deciding to take on responsibility for ensuring a specific shared goal or outcome. Authority and power which can be used for good are the natural result of manly leadership.

Leadership is therefore not a role which is assigned to a person, but rather a burden which one takes upon one’s shoulders through an explicit decision to take on a responsibility for a positive outcome.

In order to lead, men need to be able to formulate a compelling vision. That is why we work explicitly with supporting every member on Maniphesto Core to develop a high level vision for his life. That vision then needs to be grounded in the practical work of his everyday life of developing the habits that will mold him into the kind of man who can realize it. This is what we do in our Core groups with our accountability work.

A key necessity to formulate vision is to have an explicit existential foundation which defines your cosmology and anthropology. Only through having a clear and positive understanding what life and existence is about and what humans are, can you develop a clear and true vision of the future. This is defined through the spiritual, religious level. Thus men need to ensure a stable, strong and embodied spiritual practice rooted in real community to lead well.

For most men, family life is the ideal training ground for leadership. It is through learning to take responsibility for, to love, and to guide their own family well, that they can learn to lead others. Especially the relationship with his wife in a fully committed marriage, which he is driving towards deeper intimacy, is the key ingredient which will make a man a leader who is a flame which is fully alight and burning brightly in the world.

Additional resources on Men Lead:

Men Lead series:

• The Power of Vision in Leadership | Men Lead Series 1
• Unveiling the Foundation of Leadership: Religion & Spirituality
• Family Life is a Leadership Training Ground
• The Path to Deeper Connection: Eros and Intimacy as the Vital Ingredient
• Leading with Purpose

Core Community meeting: Why Vision is Masculine

Vision for Orthodox Christians

The only thing in the world that you can control is yourself. If you see anything anywhere which you think should be better, then you should automatically think – can you fix it first in yourself? As you manage to establish peace and harmony within yourself as a fully functioning human being, then you will naturally find that the opportunities for taking responsibility for things outside of yourself will grow together with your capacity to manage them. Taking hold of and struggling with these opportunities is your journey of growth.

A man who takes responsibility is a rock who cannot be moved and who can be depended on through storms and chaos. He is a model of integrity in that he can always be depended upon to only say that which he knows he will do. And once he has said he will do something, he does it.

It is easy to find things that are somehow wrong in the world. It takes a little more effort to figure out how they got that way. Coming up with ideas as to how to fix them requires critical thinking. And doing something about them requires real action in the world. But all of these are nothing in comparison to the work of focusing your critical attention on yourself and making yourself into a better man. And until you do that, then your efforts in all other areas will fall short.

Taking responsibility entails being able to give a guarantee for ensuring without doubt that something in the future will happen in a specific way. Given how chaotic reality appears to us and how unpredictable the future is, it is difficult, even dangerous, to attempt to take responsibility for yourself, let alone people and things outside of yourself.

And yet, as a man, taking responsibility is the key to growing from being a boy in a man’s body, towards maturity and adulthood, and eventually into eldership. Taking responsibility for ensuring the stability and robustness of your own health, finances, and relationships are some of the first indispensable steps into manhood. This means that a man still living off the state or his parents, has yet to join the ranks of manhood. But even this is not enough – men are characterized by taking responsibility for things and people other than themself, which is why selfishness is so frowned upon in men.

The ability to take responsibility is ideally taught from father to son during childhood, and is ultimately dependent on a man being willing to put his own body on the line and to “sacrifice” his own desires, wants, and ultimately his own body, in order to realise a specific outcome. This starts with actions such as a boy sacrificing his playtime to mow the lawn, and finds one of its fullest expressions in a man who is willing to put his own body and life in the way of a mortal threat to his loved ones.

All men have areas where they fall short, blindspots and failings in the way that they take responsibility. Taking on an appropriate level of responsibility for something outside of yourself that takes you just a little out of your comfort zone is thus a growth accelerator for men.

Maniphesto Core provides opportunities for its members to take on appropriate levels of responsibility which parallel and mirror their battles to take on responsibility in their own life. Through the Core Team accountability process, men are able to experiment with taking responsibility, be held to integrity and receive honest reflection and input as they struggle with the consequences, and thereby continue to grow in insight into their own strengths and weaknesses.

Hierarchy and Fatherhood are indispensably woven into all of life. Virtuous patriarchy is essential to human thriving.

Welcome to the Patriarchy!

Patriarchy comes from two Greek words, “pater” for “father” and “arche” meaning “first/founding principle, source or authority”. The word thus refers to “the rule of the father” and a hierarchal system of organisation springing from a “father figure”.

Human society lays itself out in a patriarchal pattern. This is not an ideological position but simply a technically correct description of reality. None of us have ever existed outside of patriarchy and destroying patriarchy entails destroying human society. The purpose of this text is thus to help better understand the specific attributes of patriarchy in our society.

The Necessity of Value Hierarchy

Human existence and meaning depends on hierarchy. We humans act based on a hierarchy of values. The moment that there is nothing that is better than anything else, we are unable to prioritise, create meaning or even act. Having a clear hierarchy of values means that we are able to easily make decisions, move and act with a sense of purpose.

Importantly, we should note that science is intentionally free from values – the scientific method is deliberately kept neutral regarding values. It is a method to describe the world rather than normatively interpret it. Good scientists are very aware of the negative effects of value bias and normativity on their work, and systematically attempt to eliminate it. This results in good science being able to give increasingly accurate descriptions of material reality. And also, it means that science is voluntarily silent on questions of human value – that is the field of religion.

Any reasonable person will recognise the need for a hierarchy of values. Ideologies which have had their express aim of removing all forms of hierarchy have often proven to be the most oppressive and tyrannical in practice. The purpose of this text is to present the case that patriarchy is the naturally emergent hierarchy of society.

Why not Matriarchy?

The first question which can come to mind in a conversation on patriarchy is, “why male and not female headship?” or “Why should men and not women be in positions of power and authority?” One of the most obvious answers to this is found in the way that human life, society and families function and reproduce themselves.

The most important function of any society of humans is to give children the best possible start to life. Humans are unique in that they require an incredible amount of care and attention in the early years of their life, even all the way up to puberty and beyond. It is in the early years of our life that the basic patterns of life are set. A child which receives as much love and human connection as possible, will have a far better start to life than one who does not receive the same. It is at this time, when the mother has a vital role, which she and only she is also uniquely gifted in performing.

When a child is born, she comes out of the body of the mother. For the first period of time, she usually receives all of her nourishment directly from the mother’s breasts. It is not difficult to see that mothers have a unique and powerful personal connection to their child which fathers do not have. That connection is a strong part of the reason why more mothers naturally chose to prioritise their family life over career and positions of societal authority.

All studies of the subject show that children thrive the most when they have as much time and attention from both of their biological parents as possible. Men and women should always have equal opportunity to reach any job which they would like to, and also to spend as much time with their children they would like to. Of course we would recommend prioritising spending time with the family as high as possible contra working. And we also see that, it is natural for most families, and for the best of at least a majority of both men and women, that it is primarily the mother who has a primary role as caregiver in a family, while the father takes on a primary role as the protector and provider.

Any insistence that women should be equally represented in high powered, high income jobs is ignoring the needs of children to have a parent who can provide the most love and human connection possible. To think that state employees can successfully take over the role of motherhood is ridiculous. And it is also a de-valuing of motherhood its self, which is the most important task in our society, and also perhaps the most beautiful and joyful one at that.

We see therefore, that a society which prioritises the needs of children as higher than the careers and “self realisation” of men and women, one will naturally see more mothers choosing to use more time focused on their family, providing a loving and thriving environment for their children. Men on the other hand, will naturally use more time in the important but secondary task of protecting and providing for their families – which involves engaging in the responsible administration of societal authority.

Patriarchy and Tyranny

The modern discussion on patriarchy has been twisted out of recognition. Patriarchy is generally misconstrued as tyranny. But this could not be further from the truth. Irrespective of whether one is a Christian or a biologist, then everyone knows that the natural response of a father is to love and to cherish his child. Families and societies where fathers provide their children with the strongest and most appropriate paternal love will be the ones that thrive the most. Far from being a tyrannical system of oppression and misuse of power, patriarchy is fundamentally opposed to tyranny.

This is important. We are not discussing androcracy – which is simply the rule of men. Patriarchy is the rule of the father, and to be a father is to have natural interest in the well-being of those you have fathered.

Everything and everyone comes from a father. This is true for every living human and animal in a biological sense. And it is also true in a metaphorical sense for anything from the inanimate level, to the level of communities, societies and nations – all of these have a father figure at their birth. Very occasionally, a female will take the role of a “founding father”, such as Marie Curie did in the area of radioactivity. But as a general rule, founding fathers are men. Thus, patriarchy is really a technical description of the pattern of society, which we can align with and optimize when we accept it and learn its nuances.

The pattern of patriarchy

What is this pattern that we are describing? Given that human hierarchy is oriented around value, these are not scientific categories but rather symbolic concepts. They can be seen repeatedly throughout reality, but one needs to take a phenomenological approach to seeing them, rather than a materialist approach. An example from biology is nevertheless helpful to understanding.

In human reproduction, a new human being is created through sexual intercourse in which a man penetrates a woman. This leads to the meeting of an egg from a mother’s body and a sperm cell from a father. The human egg is about 2 cm in diameter, while the sperm cell is 0.05mm in length. In volume, the egg is about 2 million times larger than the sperm cell. In the moment of contact, the sperm cell delivers a DNA code, a “pattern” or a “blueprint” for the child’s biological makeup. The sperm cell then dies, having done its job as the transmitter of information. All of the body of the child then comes from the body of the mother. Nothing of the body of the child will at any time be provided from the body of the father.

Similar examples can be found at the societal level, or at the sub-human levels. Looking at the nation state for example, the creation of the American constitution by the Founding Fathers was the foundation of the United States of America. At the sub-human level a useful analogy is the comparison of men and women to the left and right hemispheres of the brain.  The left, “masculine” side of the brain is the rational, deductive, compartmentalizing side responsible for logical processing and creating order. The right, “feminine”  side is more connected to the subconscious, creative, intuitive, chaotic side that we experience in our dreams or in a hallucinatory experience.

These analogies provides some insight into complementary relationship between men and women. Obviously the Founding Fathers would not be remembered by anyone if the nation had not accepted their work and found it to work. Human reasoning is fully dependant on the interaction between brain hemispheres as the left brain is greatly handicapped if it doesn’t have input from the right and vice versa.

The general characteristic of this fatherhood/motherhood pattern is that the father provides the blueprint / structure / head / “Logos”. The Mother provides the body / life / earth / substance. Both are essential and equal in value, but it is relevant to note that the masculine role is often the more visible one, and also the one which our society attaches more honour and glory to – that of leadership and the exercise of authority.

This presents us with the inherent challenge with patriarchy and the issue which feminists and post-modernists get right – that a patriarchal system is susceptible to capture by a tyrant and thereby subversion. The way that societies have dealt with this challenge is through religion – and in the West it has particularly been through the Christian faith that we have attempted to protect patriarchy against subversion.

Patriarchy, government  and Christianity

In order to ensure that patriarchy is kept in check, a standard of correct behaviour is required. The entire system of statecraft is focused on creating structure with exactly this end in mind. Modern states have constitutions, democratic elections, checks and balances of power such as the three divisions of state powers between legislative, executive and judicial branches of government and the media role as “government watchdog”.

All of these are vital and necessary tools for ensuring a patriarchal system which can thrive and protect its self against tyranny. And for our purposes here, it is vital to understand that there is also a higher level which governs the way that all of these work – it is religion which defines and is the source of how we understand what it means to exist as a person, as a society and as “fatherhood”. Particularly, for the last 1500 years in Europe, the understanding of fatherhood was inextricably tied together with “Our Father”, God of the Christian Faith.

At the centre of the Christian faith, is the idea of God as the “Holy Trinity”, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. Jesus Christ is the Incarnation of God. He is Son, but is also in and of the Father. As God, He is the inpersonment of all of the highest conceivable merits and virtues of any hierarchy, or more correctly, apophatically defined as above and beyond humanly comprehensible hierarchy. And yet, He is born in the most humble and lowly of conditions in a cave. After a life of service and ministry of love, shortly before His crucifixion, Christ washes the feet of his disciples, to their great astonishment and confusion, to teach them about hierarchy. Finally, as his ultimate act, Christ willingly submits Himself to be wrongly accused by his own people, betrayed, abandoned and denied by his closest friends and then crucified by the Romans, and after three days to be resurrected after “defeating death by death”. In this manner he wins the Roman Empire to himself and becomes without comparison the most influential person ever to exist.

Irrespective of one’s perspective on this story, it is helpful to realize that it is the most powerful, foundationally formative and well known story ever told – and more importantly, it has been the constituting story of our society. It establishes and constitutes a very clear patriarchal hierarchy, in that God is a loving, caring Father. It is the foundational story of our understanding of patriarchy, which places self sacrificing love as the ultimate arbiter of authority.

You don’t have to believe in God to realize that the hierarchy of our society is built upon this, and also to see that it has considerable inherent benefits, not least the raising up of self sacrifice and compassion to the ultimate source of authority. It also explains perfectly our society’s slide into dysfunctional postmodernism as secularism has eaten away at belief in God. If you remove God as the highest point and the organizing principle of the hierarchy, then you need to replace Him with something else. Postmodernists generally focus on the arbitrary use of power in order to oppress and manipulate others.

This of course goes a long way in explaining why postmodern identity politics typically degrade into a flattening and disintegration of any recognisable order. This of course is not a stable state of affairs and shortly followed by the arbitrary exercise of power by the postmodernists themselves against anyone attempting to uphold a traditional form of hierarchy, such as meritocracy.

What we thus see, is that the fundamental presence of patriarchy remains, but is vulnerable to capture, subversion and being twisted and distorted into a caricature of itself. Masculine virtue such as strength in character is pumped up into aggressive gangster masculinity, big muscles and the ability to physically dominate opponents. These traits are then even glorified in women, while masculine men and feminine women are looked down upon. Men compete to appear more vulnerable and fragile and particularly men who decide to “become women” as transgender people are raised up as particularly worthy of emulation.

Top-down vs. bottom-up

The description of Christianity we have given here is focused on the “top-down” aspects of religion – how an understanding of God as “Father” at the highest level has informed the way that we structure fatherhood at every level of our lives. In order to create a thriving system, it is vital that top-down and bottom-up complement each other, instead of opposing each other. This means that a top-down framework cannot simply be enforced on a society through the exercise of authority or coercion. Instead, for a society to be peaceful and function well, the internal hierarchies of every member of a society have to voluntarily come to the same realisation and insights of the nature of a good hierarchy. The dynamic of top-down provision of structure and leadership from the “head” needs to be met by an equivalent bottom-up voluntary and peaceful, appreciation and submission from the “body”.

Of course, in any society, there are always going to be people who reject authority and centralised power inherent in patriarchy. This is why it is vital for a good patriarch to accept that there will always be “outsiders”, a “rebellious margin” or opposition. Irrespective of the merit and reasons for this opposition and rebellion, it is vital that the margin is given as much benefit of the doubt as possible, respected as equal in value and given space to oppose. At the same time it is important to not allow the margins to “destroy the center”. Putting rebellion at the center of any group will of course destroy any possibility of unity and peace – and explains of course much of the difficulties we are facing in Western society today.

It is navigating exactly this balancing act, of finding the way between the priority of protecting and caring for the whole, while respecting and remaining in loving, constructive dialogue with the “edges” that is the art of the good patriarch. When done well, it is what allows those who are sceptical of the top to test it, to approach with caution, and eventually, to be able to be joined with the rest of society in a “more loving union”.

Conclusions and perspective

Patriarchy is a technically correct description of the pattern of human society. Attempts to destroy patriarchy lead generally to a more twisted and dysfunctional patriarchy, most recently often with women taking the “patriarchal power roles”, by adopting masculine values and disregarding the value of femininity and especially motherhood.

In order to protect Patriarchy from capture and subversion into tyranny, objective standards of right and wrong are required. These standards will typically be found at the religious level, and thus we need to address the religious level of society – with great care and respect for each other’s differences. Understanding the need to prioritise the well being of children is also a vital key in ensuring a strong protection of patriarchy against tyranny. The more that our standards of patriarchy are based on a relationship of loving understanding, instead of coercion, the more they will be successful in creating unity and peace.

In men’s work, we have found that for the individual man, understanding the nature of patriarchy often starts with reconciling and bringing peace and forgiveness to one’s own relationship with his biological father. It is through this lens that one can heal the relationship with father figures and authority figures in general, and also begin to take a productive and contributive role in the patriarchal system.

Additional Resources:

JONATHAN PAGEAU – Patriarchy. Not what you think it is.

Reality is Patriarchal – /w Fr Hans Jacobse

Do this and Life will fall into place – Purpose /w Fr Josiah Trenham

To say that men are masculine is to not just state the obvious, but it is to underline the essence of what manhood is about. We love, admire and value masculinity in men. And the core of our work is aimed at constantly strengthening our masculine attributes.

The discussion as to whether masculinity is determined socially or biologically is of marginal interest to us. Neither are we interested in engaging in discussions to try to convince people who think that masculinity is toxic or harmful.

Some of the aspects of masculinity we appreciate the most include strength, courage, assertiveness and the ability to lead. While some aspects of masculinity change in time, there is a central and stable core, which is perhaps best captured by the Greek ἀνδρεῖος (andreîos) which refers to that which is pertaining to a man, that which is strong, brave and courageous.

Masculine men are trustworthy, stable and solid. Confident in themselves, they have no need to prove anything to anyone else, but continuously focus on working to contribute value, as they know that their strength is best employed and developed in sacrificial service to those around them. They are a force to be reckoned with, creating safety and security for those under their care, but are fully able to stand firm in the face of adversity and to defend themselves and others if the need arises.

The secret of the masculine man is that he is able to fully submit himself and receive from that which is far greater than himself – for a religious man, he will call this God. Through putting aside his own selfish desires and aligning himself, his actions and his life with the deepest mystery and patterns of reality which are revealed to him, he is able to fully find himself and his own manhood, and thus embody that mystery to others around him.

Besides this, a practical method to developing masculinity is to spend time with other masculine men, to learn from them, to develop brotherly relations with them, and to explicitly remind each other about ad hold up masculine values as worthy of striving after. This is what we do on Maniphesto Core.

Additional Material:

This is the Maniphesto Logo.

Students of history will recognise the design as the same as the Spartan Shield.

When we created it, we were aware of the association with Sparta, but we mainly chose the symbols because we intuitively thought they were the right ones.

Since then over the years, as we have delved deeper into men’s work, I have come to appreciate the intuition. From these very simple lines, we can derive a lot more about Men’s Work.

So breaking things down, in the below, I will describe how the symbolism of this logo informs our work, starting with the very basics: a circle, a boundary,  white space, a hierarchy, a left and a right side, two feet and a summit.

I also made a video discussing this topic, which you can see here:

A circle

The circle is fundamental to the Maniphesto way of working. It entails a flat and open communication field, where all are on an equal footing. It works best in situations where it is important to create depth and breadth, to harness the full wisdom of a group and to gain the deepest insight and truth possible. It also generally requires that there is ample time available. It is not suitable for situations where dynamic, agile and courageous decision making is required or where there is time pressure.

Much (but not all) of our groundwork with men is in circles. This is hence the fundamental organisational unit from the very top level of our European Men’s Leadership Summit to the individual weekly men’s network meetings.

Principle 5, “Conciliarity” in the 10 Principles of Maniphesto states that “Working as a council of peers brings Hierarchy and Do-ocracy together. We are co-creative by design, providing the platform for men to engage and contribute actively.”

The idea here is that we sit in a circle when we come together. “Conciliarity” is based on the format of the council – which is a meeting of peers, where no one member has an inherent higher authority than the others. Each individual man brings his own unique experiences, insights and perspective. Our value and the part each man has to play and contribute is dependent on the situation.

Of course it is important to note that, while we often sit in a circle, we are not relativists, and at any given point, each man can take the leadership of the circle – either to greater depth, or to less. Our society, and especially in Scandinavia where Maniphesto is born, then circles are far more popular than hierarchies. Tolerance and equality are held as the highest cardinal virtues, and hierarchy is regarded with scepticism if not seen as inherently oppressive in essence.

We take the positive aspects of flat, agile and trusting Scandinavian culture into our work, but we leave behind the “hierarchy phobia” which pervades many communities.

A boundary

The circle is also a boundary, which serves the function of delimiting an “inside” and an “outside”. At Maniphesto we have found that it is necessary to set up boundaries for our work and be completely explicit as to what needs to happen for you to be either inside or outside the organisation.

This process which entails excluding some and including others can be perceived as negative. Surely the men’s movement should be for “all men”? Who are we to decide which men should be included and who should be excluded? What about tolerance to those who are different from us?

Clear criteria, including certain people and excluding others, based on objective criteria is essential to create a sustainable organisation. With 8 billion people in the world, 4 of them men, providing the most specific, detailed  and exclusionary criteria is the best way to create a strong foundation for men’s work. Note how this goes against the current societal trend that everything should be as inclusive as possible.

The boundaries for Maniphesto’s work, ranked roughly by their level of exclusiveness are as follows:

1. You should be a man. You should also be certain of this and it should not require qualification. There are other groups and communities for transgender men as well as many other flavours. We support the creation of these. We are however an organisation for men’s work with men who are just “men”. If you need to seek approval of your specific definition of a man then you should not join.

In the beginning of our work, we engage some people in endless conversations on the exact definition of manhood. We have found that these conversations are not conducive to the type of work which moves us towards our vision of a new story about manhood, and have decided to keep them out.

1. You should be ready to take responsibility for yourself. Every member of a community is a contributor to creating a culture of either responsibility or victimhood. Taking responsibility for yourself entails knowing who you are,  what it is you want and where you want to go, and being proactive about moving your actual situation forward.

Taking responsibility entails accepting and even seeking input as to how we can improve. This is the most powerful way to learn and grow.

1. You should be able to take care of your own needs – The men’s movement aspires to provide role models and set an example for manhood and society in general. Thus we welcome well functioning, integrated and embodied men who are able to take care of their own needs and are looking to be of service to others.  It provides a catalyst for taking men from good to great. It is not a support group to rescue broken or lonely men. This is important work which we have a lot of respect for, but are not engaged with ourselves.

Men with serious mental illness, diagnoses or addiction issues should be sent to other relevant support groups.

1. You should be “in transition” – Being in transition entails being aware that you are currently moving from one state of being or identity into another. There can be many states and reasons for this, including getting married, getting divorced, becoming a father or moving up to a leadership role at work. It can also be for all kinds of personal reasons that there is a need for a re-orientation and reevaluation of fundamental assumptions about yourself, about men and even reality.

In general, any major change of role requires a transition to adapt to being in that new role. We have found that the best time for men to engage in men’s work is once they have experienced relative success in life, reached their goals, and are now looking for “what’s next?” These men are typically looking for more meaningful projects to engage in where they can work with the issues that are closest to their own heart and often also contribute to others’ well-being and success.

1. You should be looking for collaborators – We live in an individualistic society, where everything is about “me”. The work of the men’s movement needs to occur in a natural balance between the individual and the collective. For most of us, that entails engaging in joint action towards shared goals, committing to each other’s broader success in life and thus developing a life of meaning, purpose and bonds of friendship.

These are the boundaries of the men’s movement. The more that they are enforced, the stronger the community will become, the more inspiring we will grow, thus enabling ourselves to expand our impact and reach, inspiring an ever broader range of men with our vision.

The mechanism whereby these boundaries are upheld is threefold:

1. First, through the onboarding and initiation rituals which we use to bring people into our community which repel people who are not in alignment with our values.
2. Secondly, through the behaviour of the members of the leaders, which sets the tone and example for all other members to follow
3. Lastly, through the standards that we set to create a culture of every single interaction whereby every one of the members are aware of how they are contributing towards striving together towards a common vision.

White space

Most of the logo is simply the white space – the space between the lines and shapes. Often we ignore white space and focus on the actual forms and lines. It is not easy to speak about – it is the invisible stuff between then things that are done and said – actually by talking about it, we sometimes ruin it.

It is relevant however to note that the white space is incredibly important to the shape and symbol. The white space is the space whereby the symbol appears. Without it, the symbol would be illegible and impossible. This is an abstract point, but a vital one to keep in mind in mens work.

In many wisdom and mystery traditions, then the feminine principle is often equated to this white space. If the masculine is equated to making a mark, to doing and action, then the feminine is the space or frame wherein that action occurs.

As men, we are often focused on form, function, strategy and tactics. Bringing our awareness to the frame or the white space can help us to reflect on the hidden assumptions and prerequisites for our coming together, the creation of the space of possibility in which our action occurs.

A hierarchy

The central figure of the logo is a lambda symbol, which is also a universal symbol of a hierarchy as an upside down “V”. We recognise that hierarchies are inevitable and natural. The more that we are able to be intentional and explicit about how our hierarchy is organised in our organisation, the more that we can ensure that it is organised after deliberate principles which contribute to the well-being of all levels of the hierarchy.

There is an increasingly powerful narrative in the mainstream of our society which claims that hierarchy is bad. This has its roots in a postmodernism. The feminist version associates hierarchy with patriarchy, which is seen as inherently oppressive. These narratives have largely taken over the sensemaking function of large portions of society, particularly areas such as media, politics and academia. This results in functional, merit-based hierarchies being left defenseless against erodation and replacement by dysfunctional ones.

On the surface, these new hierarchies will often be based on simplistic assumptions from identity politics. Under closer investigation, they are generally based on victim narratives of the strong oppressing the weak. They also contain reverse sexist, racist and other discriminatory ideas, even though they ironically posit themselves as being “anti-discriminatory” and place “tolerance” as their central value.

Part of the reason why these new narratives have had relative success in establishing new hierarchies are because they offer an alternative to the previous dominant narrative, whereby hierarchies were based on access to resources, such as money, power and status.

Many men find themselves increasingly alienated from their work and life from following a career which puts career development and earnings above all else. The Maniphesto approach is to intentionally and deliberately consider and work with which values our hierarchies are built by. Our existence is orientated towards our mission, to “Create a new story about men” by issuing a call to adventure to men who are in transition, and creating a supportive fellowship to find clearer meaning and purpose. The key principles in reaching that mission are detailed in our 10 Principles. These lay out the core values which determine progression in the hierarchy inside Maniphesto.

Being absolutely clear on the inherent values of our hierarchy and how men can progress upwards is vital for creating a healthy and sustainable organisation. Personal intrigues, power games and dramas  occur everywhere that people come together. By being explicit about our values and also “practicing what we preach” through constantly listening to feedback, we are enabled to ensure that the surest and easiest way to progress up the hierarchy is as we intend it to be.

A left and a right and side

Dialectics is one of the fundamental principles of Maniphesto. There are always two sides to any situation and the dynamics of human interaction and meaning creation is dialectical. In our work, we find that the most interesting insights are found through the bringing together of differing perspectives – for example, those of the masculine and the feminine, politically conservative and progressive viewpoints, or eastern and western wisdom traditions.

All of us have natural biases in one direction or the other. An organisation which puts dialectics into its core principles ensures that hidden assumptions are challenged and that there is space for growth and development. An organisation which ignores the dialectical aspect of reality will generally be taken captive by an ideology, becoming an echo-chamber for people who agree with each other, and lose sight of the broader perspective.

This explains much as to why the political process in Western democracies is becoming increasingly meaningless for the broader population. Political parties are engaged in a power game, trying to solve problems using a simplistic and one-sided ideology which they apply to every situation. Thus we end up with two or more sides, half right and half wrong, and refusing to listen to each other – with dysfunctional government as the result.

Given the fact that men’s work is done exclusively with men, there is a greater need to nurture and strengthen feminine aspects, to avoid becoming overly structured, stiff and eventually tyrannical.

A dialectical approach is what can allow unity and multiplicity to exist at the same time in one organisation and thus enable members to move towards true individuality instead of just copying a leader. We have found it is important to respect the man and challenge the idea,  to admire each other’s gifts and to approach disagreement with curiosity and mutual respect. By engaging in dialectical discussion, we grow in discernment and insight.

Two feet

Change is happening faster than ever these days – philosophers and thinkers have speculated over how the information explosion and the dissolution of space through ubiquitous connectedness of modern society is causing time itself to be speeding up. Certainly this is the perception of most people, that the new media paradigm is causing a flood to wash over us, and the need for a firm foundation is greater than ever.

The principles of Maniphesto underline that the paradigm shift to an increasingly digital society requires visionary, strong and responsible men, grounded on a strong foundation, to step up in formulating new paradigmatic principles which foster lives of freedom, integration, meaning and well-being.

But what do we mean by a “strong foundation”, and how can we agree on a which traditions, ideas or processes are good enough? Science seems to be the most credible source for many people today, and yet science is explicit in that it is value free, and does not differentiate between the virtue of the atomic bomb or the solar panel. We need a foundation which can encompass questions of values, ethics and even morals.

There are no shortcuts to “standing on your own two feet – it entails building a strong foundation. In order to know where we are going, we need to know where we come from. In the field of men’s work, we find it appropriate to frame this as “knowing your father”. This entails having spent time getting to know, understand and appreciate the background of your biological father. And it also means getting to know the people, who are the originators or “fathers” of all of your communities, organisations, interests, ideologies, philosophies and religion if you have one. In short it is about being well versed in your own past and where you and all around you actually comes from – in an intimate and personal way – as opposed to an intellectual, academic way. See our blog post on “Finding your Ur-father” for more on this.

Maniphesto is a fairly unique organisation in that we have direct and honest conversations about philosophical perspectives and religions, their various strengths and weaknesses, and are certainly not relativists.  On the contrary, we believe that fostering a discussion around concepts such as truth, beauty love and joy, referring to religious and philosophical perspectives is a vital element of men’s work, in order to create a stronger foundation, so we can stand on both feet to face the oncoming flood.

A Summit

While Maniphesto is not relativist regarding religious and philosophical perspectives, then we refrain from defining a specific and personalised shared summit as the pinnacle of wisdom or truth which is applicable for all of us. While different teachers and facilitators in Maniphesto generally have their own personal “summit”, they will differ from being different figures, such as Christ, the Buddha, Zoarasater or Freud.

Obviously this diversity could result in a cacophony of differing and often conflicting perspectives. The way that we deal with this is to define the summit of our work as “silence”. In practical terms, this means that at the end of the day, the simple pleasure of being together with men that we respect, trust and appreciate, without words, is far stronger than all the philosophical discussions. We as men can be together,

From a more philosophical perspective, the “silence of the summit” can be referred to as the “apophatic approach” or the path of negation – defining the divine by saying what it is not. This understanding lies at the roots of all deep, contemplative wisdom traditions and is often described as “the divine darkness”. It reflects a respect of the indefinability of the transcendent and the failure of words to describe the mysteries of existence which are beyond our comprehension.

The fact that over 95% of the world’s philosophers are men is an indication that men have a greater tendency to dedicate themselves without compromise to reaching transcendent truths. When we experience a breakthrough, an insight or a revelati+on, then the summit of silence is generally the approach whereby we can most appreciate the love shared in a fellowship of men as brothers.