The Big Man

Postscript: I’ve edited this post to substitute “enlightened” and “unenlightened” for “evolved” and “unevolved” following some confusion about the terms…

1. Most men in the world are not Big Men.

2. Being a Big Man is something that is highly valued in many cultures, particularly in the United States. This is how you can end up with a bodybuilder turned Big Man actor as governor of California.

3. The Evolved Big Man is the Buddha. The Unevolved Big Man is Dick Cheney. Unevolved Big Men outnumber the Evolved ones by a factor of 1,000,000 to 1.

4. The prime motivating force of the Unevolved Big Man is power. Power over women, power over the future, and particularly power over other men who are not big whom they hold in cold contempt.

5. The Unevolved Big Man need not necessarily be a) large in physical stature, though this helps; b) male, though this helps even more. Margaret Thatcher is an example of an Unevolved, un-male, Big Man.

6. Many small men who are wannabe Big Men end up running countries or empires tyrannically. They include Franco, Hitler and Mussolini in the last century, Napoleon Bonaparte in the previous. A more vapid counterpart today is George W. Bush. But they all share an ability to get Unevolved Big Men to work for them and keep them in power, and since power is the prime motivator of the Unevolved Big Man, the Big Men get to rule just below the top. Goebbels comes to mind. (Examples of Unevolved Big Men who also ruled tyrannically include Slobodan Milosevic and Augusto Pinochet; Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is an untyrranical Unevolved Big Man.)

7. Unevolved Big Men hold a particular scorn for small men who are Big Men wannabes. This enfuriates the smBMws who then become the most dangerous of all men, violent, cruel, and sadistic. The Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church and the secret services of many cultures are filled with men like this. They often masquerade as innocuous small men. They are easy meat for the CIA and its counterparts and are prime fodder for terrorist organizations. They issued the orders at Abu Ghraib. They are the people who apply lit cigarettes to body parts belonging to persons that end up on Amnesty International lists. The less grandiose can become high school teachers, policemen, postmasters, and perpetrators of Road Rage. Or they beat their wives and children. Or all of the above.

8. It is a characteristic of the Unevolved Big Man to dismiss any criticism out of hand without offering explanations. Explanations are for everyone else to provide.

9. Big Men who are on their way to becoming Evolved are often mistaken by others, especially by women, as Unevolved Big Men, and are feared and shunned. This is especially perplexing for them because they’re trying hard to become unthreatening without becoming small. It’s the work of a lifetime, fraught with peril and disappointment; it’s also Really Important.

10. I have a particularly acute fear of Unevolved Big Men. I’m not sure why. I’m working on this.

11. I have recently discovered this fear is such that I will avoid any Big Men, evolved or not, just in case.

12. I realize this puts me at risk of never meeting some truly wonderful human beings.

Today is the second blogiversary of Feathers of Hope.