Lethal Masculinity?

    At some point during this past week I read a particularly engaging artical called "Men - It's In There Nature" written by a philosopher named Christina Hoff Sommers. In this artical Chistina talks about an incident involving her son and several other boys during a "sensitivity exercise." For those who have not read it I'll just give a breif summery. The story goes something like this; Chistina's son and his class mates went for a camping trip in Israel, while there they where asked to participate in a sort of personal refection activity. The students where tolled to venture out into the desert until they where certain that they were in seclusion from each other. Once alone, the students were to write down what ever feelings that occured to them in the issolation of the desert. Christina tells us that this exercise yelled one of two responces depending on the student's gender. In the case of the girl students everyone returned with nice essays on the "Haunting loneliness" of the desert. In the case of the male students, well.. maybe I should just quote the passage, "The boys scattered into the desert, Quickly became bored, and sought out each other's company. Then they threw the pencils and paper into a pile, and used the candles and matches to start a little bonfire. The boys loved it; the sensitivity trainers were horrified. They viewed the boy's behavior as an expression of primitive violence and lethal masculinity straight from The Lord Of The Flies."
   I know that was a mouth full of a quote, but I wanted the readers of this blog to actually see it so that comment on it directly with having to explain my context each time. That being said, I have a lot to say about this, for one thing I'm a little more than bothered by the choice of words here. I mean look at this, "primative violence", maybe i just have'nt read this carfully enough but I did not read about any acts of violence being commited on anyone. I'm sure the sensitivity trainers would counter this by saying that setting fire to the paper was a symbol of violence that must be expunged, but how does grouping together and setting up a fire represent violence? Think about it, this guys were lonely; so they went to talk to there freinds, they probibly got cold waiting out in the desert night; so they built a fire to keep warm. Is that violent or destructive? I look at this and see constructive co-operation, everyone pooling in their resorces to help each other out. Before anyone points it out to me, I realize the boys were supposed to be alone to reflect on there feelings and I'll admite it's a little sad that they seem to all have the emotional depth of a milk carton, but the said fact is that some guys are much more restrictive when it comes to emotional expression, that's not to say that the emotions aren't there, but they probably didn't like the idea of opening up in some group circle. I know that I am never the first to volunteer for these things because, most of the time self reflection ends up being a stroll down negative nostalgia lane and some image of my blood mother throwing a plate on my head will revisit me. However even if no one in that crowd had anything that extreme haunting them it doesn't mean that they have no right find a better use of their time then trying to milk-out fake feelings for the sensitivity trainers that simply aren't occuring on the spot, and It certainly does not warrant them labeling the boys behavior as "Lethal Masculinity"