The world our elites are trying to create and impose by fiat is one that most normal people, not yet indoctrinated, do not recognize as reality. The world Rogan and Peterson live in — this they understand. For the normies, as for almost every other human on the planet through history and pre-history, the deeply different natures of men and women is simply fact. They don’t support misogyny or the old patriarchy or sexual misconduct. But they believe that men have a distinct and vital role to play in defending their families, their countries, and civilization from its enemies. They do not find gender a “prison.” They believe, as Norm Macdonald did, that full-on gender ideology “is a way of marginalizing a normal person.” Recognize this and engage it — and the market responds the way it has.

To me, to be honest, this all comes as a form of relief. It suggests that the lies of the woke cannot fully penetrate the minds of most non-college-educated folks. It genuinely gives me hope. And it’s something we need to build on, not tear down. This is not toxic masculinity, premised on violence, nor patriarchy, bent on the subjugation of women. It’s an egalitarian but distinct masculinity, needing direction, and seeking, however clumsily at times, a form of manly virtue.

Great civilizations do not despise this natural male urge to ennoble their distinct sex; they value, celebrate, and direct it. We once did. Our new elites insist that such a distinctly manly virtue cannot and should not exist. But if they do not respect and cultivate it, a dumb and dangerous masculinity will fill the void instead. In fact, to a dangerous extent, it already has.