The New Iron Johns Seek Catharsis

Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2018-12-09 23:59

Article here. Excerpt:

'On a Monday night in a sparsely decorated room in midtown Manhattan, a group of approximately 20 men including an endocrinologist, a sportscaster, a policeman and an employee of the United Nations were baring their souls.

“I’ve been digging deep with my girlfriend and we are having those talks about moving forward in our relationship, and I’m having nights where I can’t sleep,” said Andrew Cummings, 44, an opera singer in New York who has performed at Carnegie Hall.

“I’m angry that my health is deteriorating. I’m not ready to be an old man,” said Jeff Nichols, 70, a former consultant.

“I’m checking in with some anger. I didn’t get accepted to the Ashtanga Institute, and I smashed two candles, which I know isn’t very yogic,” said another man, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of professional repercussions.
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The goal, according to many affiliated with MKP, is to break down patriarchal and hierarchical ideas of masculinity. And the place to start is where another man, Socrates, did centuries ago: with the mandate of “know thyself.”

MKP translates this as a process of cultivating awareness around one’s emotions, so they aren’t projected onto others in harmful and destructive ways. This is accomplished through a series of facilitated exercises, some of which involve props, aimed at bringing feelings to the surface and to hold a mirror to oneself.

Men, who are less likely than women to seek out individual therapy, are increasingly looking for outlets in this fraught cultural moment of political acrimony, widespread economic instability and major societal reckoning over their behavior.'

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Back in the 1990s, I was in MKP. I went through the NWTA in 1991, I think it was. The NWTA was really powerful and very beneficial, at least to me. The I-Group work was also really good, at least the initial sessions. I-Groups then met as men desired to form them more or less as permanent weekly (or whatever) meetings.

It was fine until some weird stuff started happening. In the late 1990s some small group of for lack of a better way to put it nutty dudes got "woke" and decided the Duluth Model was all that when it came to race relations. Suddenly non-white men (well, some, those involved) seemed fine with making racial slurs against whites and venting their at times nutty anger at white guys randomly. This was called "Multi-Kulti" and it was heinous. These nut-jobs started posting stuff over the listservs that you'd expect to see coming from women's studies dept. members about how you were a racist if you didn't agree with them, etc. The usual SJW stuff. Yes, SJWism pre-dated 2010, definintely. It actually got its start OUTSIDE the college campus but then infected it.

Anyway, the leadership of MKP was cowed into going along with the whole thing like university presidents and trustees are cowed into siding with the SJW types. The leadership also assumed a "cloud people, dirt people" attitude, very classist in nature, making decisions about this and that while ignoring reality or the wishes of the membership at large. That's when I checked out -- permanently. I didn't need this nuttiness in my life.

Maybe they changed, dunno. But it sounds to me like they are down with the notion of "toxic masculinity", etc. So while I would recommend the NWTA/MKP as it was back in the early 1990s, I can't say I think it's a good idea to go with now. You *may* get a lot out of the NWTA, _provided_ they are doing it as they used to. But I highly doubt that. I am sure it's "evolved" into something else.

I can't say I recommend. There are alternative men's personal growth/fellowship groups a guy can get into that may not have the kind of nutty SJW stuff in them that MKP allowed itself to be infected by.

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Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2018-12-10 00:09