How to Avoid Giving a Backhanded Compliment

by | Feb 10, 2015 | Blog, Podcast, Podcasts

backhanded copy

A friend of mine told me about a compliment she received the other day from a co-worker. “Bridget,” he said to her, “you look like you’ve lost a lot of weight! You’ve still got a ways to go, but keep it up!”

The colleague clearly intended for the comment to come off as praise, but it instead had the very opposite effect. Rather than hearing “Congrats on the weight loss!” all my friend heard was, “You’re still fat.”

Bridget had been the recipient of what’s called a “backhanded compliment.” It’s a bit of praise laced with an insult — a rose with a thorn. In order to give you a better grasp of the form backhanded compliments take, I solicited examples from AoM readers on Twitter. The list they generated was both hilarious and cringe-worthy:

  • You’re the heaviest guy I would date.
  • That’s a really good college, for a state school.
  • You’re pretty athletic for a short chubby guy.
  • Lol, a lot of people don’t like your humor but I think you are really funny.
  • Great picture! You must have a really nice camera!
  • You’re so articulate! [said to a black man]
  • Usually cardigans look terrible on fat guys.
  • You’ve got a nice head. When did you start losing your hair?
  • I love listening to you talk, it’s rare to hear that really camp gay voice anymore.
  • Your skating is amazing, just imagine if you lose all that weight.
  • You’re not as awkward as you used to be.
  • Your paintings are actually good. [Add “actually” to pretty much any compliment, and you’re in backhanded territory]

Those who offer backhanded compliments usually don’t realize they’ve done so; they have good intentions and think they’re giving nice, honest praise. But because of our brain’s propensity to focus on the negative, the compliment given at the outset invariably gets overridden by the backhanded slap at the rear. A backhanded compliment feels little like praise, and mostly like insult.

Giving compliments is a great way to build other people’s confidence, as well as your rapport with them. But if you do it wrong, you’d be better off not opening your mouth at all. So below you’ll find an explanation for why we’re tempted to offer backhanded compliments, as well as an easy rule for checking whether or not you’re about to let one fly.

Why Do People Offer Backhanded Compliments?

What’s the psychology behind backhanded compliments? I am the recipient of plenty myself, so I’ve pondered this question from time to time, and I think the answer has to do with our endless quest for wanting to feel cool, our insecurity about our own status, and the chance to insult someone in an indirect way.

The Desire to Be Cool

We receive letters from AoM readers all around the world, and it’s been really interesting to observe differences in the tenor of expression from men in different countries.

One thing I’ve noticed has to do with how readers from varying cultures offer compliments. Letters from Americans often start like this:

“I have been reading your site for a long time now, and just wanted to tell you that I really enjoy most of it. I don’t agree with all the articles, but I like a lot of them.”

Letters from other parts of the world, especially Latin America where guys tend to be more unabashedly effusive, are often the very nicest letters we receive. They open with something like this:

“I have been reading your site for a long time now, and I just wanted to tell you how amazing I think it is. It’s truly changed my life and I cannot thank you enough for all your work.”

The first type of letter really makes me laugh and shake my head. Not because I expect everyone to like all of our articles, but because I can’t believe anyone would expect that I would! I of course already assume that not everything we publish is everyone’s cup of tea, and I would never assume that someone saying they liked AoM meant they liked every jot and tittle about it. I think the fact that people feel the need to spell out such a caveat is rooted in the desire to be cool, and nobody’s more obsessed with coolness than Americans. We don’t like to express unabashed allegiance to anything — to imply that we’re all-in. That means we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid and aren’t our own man. Standing a little aloof flatters our conception of ourselves as critical free-thinkers.

Yet complimenting one thing about someone doesn’t mean you appreciate everything about them, and they likely won’t take your praise as wholesale affirmation either. Plus, sometimes it’s okay just to admit to an unfettered admiration for someone. I’m crazy about Theodore Roosevelt; that doesn’t mean I like everything about him, but overall, dang, I really love that man.

Fear of Loss of Status

Many of us have a deeply rooted, subconscious fear of people being better than us. In elevating another, even for a moment, we feel it somehow diminishes ourselves. So we want to tuck a little barb into our praise; if one part of our compliment raises someone up a little, the other part will bring them right back down to where they were.

But, you ask, is that always a bad thing? Isn’t offering some criticism healthy and needed in our award-happy society? It surely is, but a compliment is not a critique! More accurately, while a critique can and should start and end with a compliment, praise that’s meant to be praise should be devoid of criticism.

When you’re giving a compliment, your only goal is to inform someone else of a commendable attribute they possess. It should be 100% positive.

True criticism, on the other hand, looks a little different. When you give someone feedback about something they could improve, they’ll be more receptive to it if you also offer some compliments about what you did like about their work. But the critique itself needs to be specific.

Thus, “I really enjoy your . You still have a ways to go to get better, but keep it up” fails as both compliment and criticism. The praise gets submerged by the jab, and there’s no specific feedback as to what needs to be improved. It ends up just feeling like an insult.

Backhanded compliments are often given by people who want to praise someone’s work, but don’t want to feel diminished in their own expertise or superiority on the subject. Yet, contrary to what we may believe, complimenting someone doesn’t change your own status whatsoever. You’re just giving expression to an already latent reality.

And if you’re worried someone’s going to get a big head from your compliment, and not realize they still have areas that need to be improved, then offer a real critique — praising what you do like, and giving detailed feedback about what you don’t.

Also, worry less; if they’re doing at least something worthwhile you enjoy, they’re probably already their own worst critic and are plenty aware of where they fall short (I’m always working on improving my podcast, dude!).

The Passive Insult

Finally, sometimes backhanded complimenters don’t have any good intentions at all; they’re simply too scared to offer a real insult, and so do it passively instead. Saying “I’m really impressed you’ve held a job for 6 months” is likely just an attempt to reaffirm that you think someone is a real flake.

Don’t cloak your contempt in compliments; if you have something to say, say it. Or don’t say anything at all.

How to Avoid Giving a Backhanded Compliment: The Dinner Table Rule

As easy guideline for checking whether or not your compliment is backhanded is using what I’ve come to call the “dinner table rule.” It’s simple: you take your compliment and simply transform it into something you would say about someone’s cooking if you were a guest at a dinner party. If it’s something that would be appropriate to say at the table, you’re good. If not, keep your mouth closed. Here are examples:

  • You’ve lost a lot of weight! You still have a ways to go, but keep at it! → The food was pretty good. You haven’t succeeded in making it truly delicious yet, but keep at it!
  • I really like your site. Not all of the articles, but most of them. → I really enjoyed dinner. I didn’t care for the green beans and mashed potatoes, but the other stuff was good.
  • That’s a really good college, for a state school. → This is a really good cake, for something made from a box.
  • You’re pretty athletic, for a short chubby guy. → Your food was pretty good, for someone so new to cooking.
  • Lol, a lot of people don’t like your humor, but I think you are really funny. → People had told me bad things about your cooking, but I really liked it.
  • Great picture! You must have a really nice camera! → Great food! You must have a really fancy oven!
  • Your paintings are actually good → Dinner was actually good.

Everyone could use more sincere encouragement in their lives, so be free with your compliments and make sure they’re worded to build people up rather than making them feel like crap.

[ad_2]

Source link
[ad_1]

Leftists: So What ISIS Burned Man Alive, White People Did The Same To Blacks

by | Feb 9, 2015 | Blog, Podcast, Podcasts

Chauncey DeVega, black writer, podcaster, and self-proclaimed “ghetto nerd,” shared an essay on Daily Kos in which he reminds those that are horrified by the brutality of ISIS burning Lt. Muath al-Kasasbeh alive to remember that white Americans did the same thing to blacks in the past.

“American Exceptionalism blinds those who share its gaze to uncomfortable facts and truths about their own country,” wrote DeVega. Adding that just like their Islamic cohorts, “white lynchers” practiced their own “unique cultural ritual” that was just as “gruesome” and “medieval” as ISIS “for almost a century.” And instead of making a video of the crime and posting the propaganda on the Internet as is done today, whites of old shared “the spectacular lynchings of the black body” through postcards and “other media.”

DeVega continued:

In fact, the burned to death images of the black body were one of the most popular types of mass culture in 19th and 20th century America.

The rendering of spectacular violence against non-whites paid a psychological wage to white people that helped to create a type of social cement for White America, one that covered up its own intra-group tensions of class, religion, and gender. This racial logic continues in the present with a racially discriminatory criminal justice system, the murder by police of black and brown people, and how white Americans support such unfair treatment.

This all leads DeVega to pose several rhetorical questions: 

To those American politicians who have denounced ISIS’s torture tactics: “Would they apply the same standards to white Americans who committed mass violence against African-Americans through lynchings, racial pogroms, and other like deeds?”

“Would they support reparation as a material gesture of apology for such crimes?” he asked. “Would white folks…condemn their ancestors who participate in such types of violence?”

And finally DeVega asked, “Will White America ever be willing to fully own its historic ISIS-like behavior against African-Americans and other people of color, and how such violence created the present, where neighborhoods are hyper-segregated, there exists a huge wage and income gap along the color line, and by almost every measure, black and brown Americans have significantly diminished life chances relative to white people?”

Many on the left share DeVega’s outlook against America, which he claims “has conducted master classes in violence and barbarism both before, during, and since its founding…and yes, much of this violence was against people of color whose labor, lives, land, and freedom were stolen to create American empire.”

Like-minded leftists posted those thoughts to Twitter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But even with all of that support from his fellow lefties, DeVega felt it necessary to post a separate defensive essay to Daily Kos two days later after reactions poured in. He titled this one, “Liberal Racism: 25 Things I Learned After I Wrote About ISIS and White Racism at the Daily Kos.” This time he aimed his focus beyond his typical “de facto White identity party” target — namely, the Tea Party — and calls out those liberals who commented on his first story who apparently have “their own possessive investment in whiteness” and “reproduce white supremacy as a lived ideology.”

From those “liberal racists,” DeVega said he has learned much and wanted to share those observations. Some of them include, “white people are very sensitive,” “Whiteness is ahistorical,” “right-wing racists are much more honest, and thus easier to deal with, than liberal racists,” and “white supremacy’s reflection is very ugly to most white folks—especially those who have not disowned Whiteness.”

[ad_2]

Source link
[ad_1]

Carolla: Nobody Wants to Judge Islam Because They’re Afraid of Being Called Racist

by | Jan 19, 2015 | Blog, Podcast, Podcasts

Superstar podcaster Adam Carolla spoke out about the world-wide reactions to the Paris terror attacks at the offices of Charlie Hebdo this week and he called out political and media figures for refusing to voice criticism of radical Islam. 

Ian Schwartz at Real Clear points out that Carolla’s main beef is that due to political correctness our society is no longer allowed to judge any religion as being inferior for fear of being called “racist.” As proof of the stifling climate surrounding such conversations, Carolla pointed out the backlash against Bill Maher, who has been excoriated by the left for his open discussion of what he describes as the ideological threads connected radical Islam and mainstream Islam.

Carolla is known for his outspoken opinions expressed in an uncensored and passionate delivery. During the dialog with guest Comedian Nick DiPaolo, Carolla was the opposite of politically correct, so consider yourself warned: 

ADAM CAROLLA, HOST: Again, you can’t judge. What are we going to do? All religions are equal. Nobody’s bad. Everybody’s just misunderstood. What the fuck are we going to do or are we going to fucking do something? 

The first thing every culture need to do is not let other cultures show up into their culture and fucking bibwhack. They need to just join the culture. If you move to the United States, join our culture.

NICK DiPAOLO, COMEDIAN: Assimilation. 

CAROLLA: Assimilation. Fine, you’re Italian, you’re Jewish, Bryan’s bald.

“BALD” BRYAN BISHOP, CO-HOST: Bald.

CAROLLA: Fine, be proud of your heritage, but speak the language, join the culture. Europe is fucked because you cannot judge, come on down and set up your own neighborhood in the middle of our old neighborhood and if you ever — you know, by the way, you used to think of Paris and France, you’ve seen Lady & The Tramp? You try to think of the Aristocats. I can only think of animated Disney movies.

BISHOP: Well that works, that’s how it works.

CAROLLA: But it’s like a guy wearing a beret. You know what I mean? 

DiPAOLO: A loaf of bread.

CAROLLA: A loaf of bread.

GINA GRAD, CO-HOST: The concertina.

CAROLLA: The concertina.

DiPAOLO: A mosque.

CAROLLA: No. It’s not a mosque set up and a bunch of people protesting with the shit over their head. Which is fine, your culture is fine. But here’s the deal, once you move into a new culture, you have abandoned your right to set up your culture in their culture.

Now, if you’re in love with your culture and your heritage and your dress and your garb and your religion and your rules, fine.

DiPAOLO: Stay where the fuck you are.

CAROLLA: Nick DiPaolo, everybody. That’s about what I was going to say. BUT, if where you come from isn’t so fine, which is usually the case.

DiPAOLO: Right.

CAROLLA: And is usually the reason why you’re fucking fleeing, not walking, not sauntering, not sashaying, but fucking fleeing to the culture that does have it right and I say has it right. I don’t mean has it better or has it different — I mean has it right. They’ve set up their culture in a way that welcomes others but the others assimilate and the whole thing works on a level and has been working for decades and beyond. Then go to that new culture. That culture will usually embrace you and you may join them. 

But you starting your own camp in the middle of that, then we’ve fucking become like prisons. We’ve got the Mexican low-riders over there and the white Aryans over there and they eat over there and they eat over there and they can’t fucking co-mingle and when they do someone’s going to get a fucking shiv in them. That ain’t going to work.

And the problem with the culture that doesn’t want to judge is they never go and break up the fucking picnic. 

DiPAOLO: Well, they don’t have the balls to. Look, they’re calling our bluff is what they’re doing. We’re going to take over your shit. Stop us. That’s what it’s come down to. No one wants to say it.

CAROLLA: Right.

DiPAOLO: This is where we are.

CAROLLA: Right. And Bill Maher has got to sit there and argue with five people that are calling him xenophobic when he’s explaining that they’re trying to take over our shit and that ain’t fucking helping anybody, heroes. Alright. Yeah, actually, we have a clip of Bill being on Jimmy [Kimmel]’s show last night:
 

KIMMEL: They continued. The editor said he would rather die than change with his right to free speech.

MAHER: For the crime of being satirists, for the crime of drawing cartoons. This has to stop, and unfortunately, a lot of the liberals, who are my tribe, I am a proud liberal.

KIMMEL: He’s about to turn on you, so.

MAHER: No, I’m not turning on them, I’m asking them to turn toward the truth as I have been for quite a while.

DiPAOLO: It’s about time.

CAROLLA: Yes.

MAHER: I’m the liberal in this debate. I’m for free speech. To be a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. It’s not my fault that the part of the world that is most against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world.

There have been studies. We have facts on this. Treatment of women. They studied 130 different countries. 17 of the bottom 20 were Muslim countries. In 10 Muslim countries, you can get the death penalty just for being gay. They chop heads off in the square in Mecca. Well, Mecca is their Vatican City. If they were chopping the heads off of Catholic gay people, wouldn’t there be a bigger outcry among liberals? I’d ask you…

We have to stop saying when something like this that happened in Paris today, we have to stop saying, well, we should not insult a great religion. First of all, there are no great religions. They’re all stupid and dangerous. And we should insult them and we should be able to insult whatever we want. That is what free speech is like.

There are certain people in the world who want waivers on free speech. Kim Jong-un in North Korea says you cannot make jokes about our country, and there’s a lot of Muslim people in the world. I know most Muslim people would not have carried out an attack like this. But here’s the important point. Hundreds of millions of them support an attack like this. They applaud an attack like this. What they say is, we don’t approve of violence, but you know what, when you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off.

KIMMEL: You really think hundreds of millions of Muslim support this?

MAHER: Absolutely. That is main stream in the Muslim world that when you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off.

CAROLLA: Alright, we got it. The point is: look everybody, the whole reason we’re talking about is because millions of people look the other way. It wouldn’t be a problem if everybody intervened and judged. Tim McVeigh blows up a federal building and we find him and we kill him. But if we just kind of went, ‘Uh, what are you going to do?’ then there would be a lot more of that kind of activity.

They are not policing themselves. That is what Maher is saying and that’s what I’m saying. Of course, they’re complacent. Of course they’re saying, ‘Well, we don’t condone it.’ 

Yeah, but, it continues. We’re not going to be able to police it from over here.

DiPAOLO: But it takes, to this point before he takes a stand on free speech, because the rest of the time he’s making fun of all Republicans, all right-wing people as racist. Pat Buchanan. All that type of crap.

CAROLLA: Sure.

DiPAOLO: So now he takes a stand. I mean he’s a little late to the party. I mean, I am glad he is and he’s going to take a lot of flak from his liberal friends. He already has, I guess. But, you know, I mean it all comes from that same pool of political correctness but this is what it took for you to really step up. I mean, a lot of people on the right were saying stuff like this that it’s Muslims and Islam — where was he? This shit didn’t start yesterday, it’s been going on for a few years.

CAROLLA: Well, he’s been going at it for a little while. But the deal is that nobody wants to be called a racist. I mean, I don’t know what the pecking order is — pedophile, then racist? Just a half notch below or above. You know what I mean? So nobody wants to be called a racist so who is going to fucking mouth off about something where you have an opportunity to crack the door open to be labeled or be called that. That’s the problem. And the problem that’s really happened is that the nerds that took over the internet and a lot of the agencies have now called everyone a racist so it doesn’t really have any gravity anymore.

[ad_2]

Source link
[ad_1]

Imam Choudary: Obama Is ‘Lying’ About The True Nature Of Islam

by | Jan 10, 2015 | Blog, Podcast, Podcasts

On the Ben Shapiro Show Thursday, Imam Anjem Choudary said the President Obama is “inventing” his own version of Islam to forward his foreign policy agenda and that the “radical” form Choudary espouses simply aligns with the principles of the Koran and Sharia Law.

Shapiro led into the segment by quoting from Choudary’s USA Today Jan. 8 opinion piece titled “People Know the Consequences,” which blamed the French government for allowing publications to “provoke Muslims” and argued that Muslims do not in fact believe in the freedom of expression:

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires.

Shapiro then asked Choudary to discuss the Muslim view on the freedom of expression, specifically with regard to the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Choudary explained that Muslim scripture made clear that those who insult the Prophet, like journalists at Charlie Hebdo, must be punished: “Those who would insult the Prophet, kill them.” Sharia Law he said, clearly requires any who would insult those Muslims deem “prophets,” including Moses and Jesus, be tried in court and punished. This a system, he added, that Muslims are willing to “fight for and even die for.”

When Shapiro asked him if he believed that Western governments should ban the blasphemy of Mohammed, Choudary said he wanted Sharia Law in its entirety to be imposed on Western governments because it was a “better” system. However, if that were not possible, laws should be put in place against “provoking Muslims.” As he stressed in his article, Choudary said that killings like those Wednesday are “the consequence of insulting the Prophet.”

Pointing to the incompatibility of the Western and Sharia systems, Shapiro asked Choudary why the West should allow people like him to live in their boundaries. Choudary said he was born in England so he had the right to live there, and that “people always change” and “change is good,” so he believed that it was time for the West to change.

Choudary: The difference between divine law and man-made law—in other words liberal democracy and [inaudible] moralities and liberties—is that divine law can’t be changed. We can’t change the Koran, we can’t change the sayings of the Prophet, which include insulting the Prophet and the consequences. But you can change your laws…

If the West’s laws are not change, he warned, we’ll have a “blood bath.”

Choudary argued that what we’re witnessing is a “clash of two civilizations,” with al-Baghdadi leading on one side and Barack Obama leading on the other, leading Shapiro to ask about Obama’s portrayal of Islam:

Shapiro: President Obama has repeatedly attempted to what he has characterized as “defend” Islam, saying that ISIS is not Islamic. He has said that “the future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam” […] But the way he characterizes Islam is not the way you characterize Islam […] How many people do you represent versus how many people does President Obama represent when it comes to Islam? Are you in fact representative of a “tiny minority” within Islam or are you representative of something larger?

President Obama, Choudary said, is “lying” about Islam, along with other Western leaders. The Koran itself shows that “Barack Obama is a liar” about the religion’s true nature:

Choudary: Islam for them is whatever they think Islam is in terms of their own interests. Islam is in accordance to the Koran, of the sayings and actions of the Prophet. That’s it. […] I say to you, look at the Koran, look at the sayings of the Prophet, and check for yourself. Is Barack Obama a liar or am I lying? I think that you will find that he’s a liar. He’s only inventing Islam according to what his own foreign policy is.

Shapiro asked Choudary if he took offense to being called a “radical” by the Western media, to which he responded that in Scripture “every prophet of Islam was demonized,” adding that he simply teaches Sharia Law as it truly is. 

[ad_2]

Source link
[ad_1]

Gruber In 2009: Obamacare Will Not Be Affordable

by | Jan 2, 2015 | Blog, Podcast, Podcasts

A new investigation by the Daily Caller (DC) unveils that while he was helping the President develop his signature legislation and the President was telling people that Obamacare would bring down costs, Jonathan Gruber was writing a policy brief revealing that Obamacare would be unaffordable and some people would lose coverage for certain medical procedures to cut costs.

The DC obtained a Gruber-authored policy brief created for Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Center for Policy Research. In October 2009, at the same time Obamacare was being written, Gruber wrote in the brief “that Obamacare had no cost controls in it and would not be affordable.”

So what’s different this time? Why are we closer than we’ve ever been before? Because there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good! Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.

Also reported is that Gruber claimed “the only way to control costs is to effectively deny treatment [or what Sarah Palin called “death panels”].”

The real substance of cost control is all about a single thing: telling patients they can’t have something they want. It’s about telling patients, ‘That surgery doesn’t do any good, so if you want it you have to pay the full cost.’

There’s no reason the American health care system can’t be, ‘You can have whatever you want, you just have to pay for it.’ That’s what we do in other walks of life. We don’t say everyone has to have a large screen TV. If you want a large screen TV, you have to pay for it. Basically the notion would be to move to a level where everyone has a solid basic insurance level of coverage. Above that people pay on their own, without tax-subsidized dollars, to buy a higher level of coverage.

In a 2012 San Francisco discussed by the DC three weeks earlier, Gruber explained the reason why Obama lied about his healthcare bill bringing down costs.

I wish that President Obama could have stood up and said, ‘You know, I don’t know if this bill is going to control costs. It might, it might not. We’re doing our best. But let me tell you what it’s going to do…” Gruber said on a San Francisco podcast in 2012.

If he could make that speech? Instead, he says ‘I’m going to pass a bill that will lower your health care costs.’ That sells. Now, I wish the world was different. I wish people cared about the 50 million uninsured in America…But, you know, they don’t. And I think, once again, I’m amazed politically that we got this bill through.

[ad_2]

Source link
[ad_1]

Best of Art of Manliness 2014

by | Dec 24, 2014 | Blog, Podcast, Podcasts

look

Merry Christmas! The crew at the Art of Manliness will be taking the coming week off to spend time with family and reboot before the new year. So we won’t be publishing anything new on the site until January. But for those of you who still need an AoM fix while we’re away, we’ve put together this recap of 2014 on the Art of Manliness.

Let’s take a look at the big AoM happenings of the year.

Most Popular Posts Based on Traffic

January: 20 Aphorisms That I Thought Were Dumb as a Boy But Now Appreciate as a Grown Man

February: How to Survive Falling Through the Ice: An Illustrated Guide

March: 3 Ways to Escape Zip Ties: An Illustrated Guide

April: How to Tuck in a Shirt

May: The Tactical Order of Dressing: An Illustrated Guide

June: How to Make Small Talk With Strangers: My 21-Day Happiness Experiment

July: The Myth of the Alpha Male

August: How to Undo the Damage of Sitting

September: Love is All You Need

October: How to Gird Up Your Loins: An Illustrated Guide

November: Reviving Blue Collar Work: 4 Myths About the Skilled Trades

December: How to Use Your Baby as a Piece of Exercise Equipment

Editor’s Picks

Of course traffic isn’t the only measure of the worth of an article. Here are some of our personal favorites from this year:

10 Overlooked Truths About Taking Action

Communities Vs. Networks: To Which Do You Belong?

The 3 P’s of Manhood: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Masculinity Series

Why Barbells Are Better Than Machines

Jumpstart Your Journaling: A 31-Day Challenge

Why Every Man Should Be Strong

Semper Virilis: A Roadmap to Manhood in the 21st Century

The Effect of Porn and How to Quit Using It (Series)

John Boyd’s Roll Call: Do You Want to Be Someone or Do Something?

The Tao of Boyd: How to Master The OODA Loop

You Don’t Have to Be Your Dad: How to Become Your Family’s Transitional Character

Exploring Whether College Is the Right Choice for Everyone (Series)

What Good Shall I Do This Day?

We’re Going to Hell in a Handbasket! Hooray! Why Every Man Should Embrace the Jeremiad

Why Growing Up Is Hard to Do (But the World Still Needs Adults)

Why You Should Parent Like a Video Game

4 Lessons in Manliness from Louis Zamperini (Be sure to check out the contents of his life raft as well)

Be a Time Wizard: How to Slow Down and Speed Up Time

How to Poop Like a Samurai

A Crash Course on Jazz Appreciation

Series on Reviving Blue Collar Trade Work (to be continued in 2015!)

The AoM Archives

If the above articles aren’t enough to satiate your AoM appetite, I highly recommend browsing through our archives. We have over 2,300 articles in there waiting to be discovered.

Videos

In addition to all the written content that you can find here on the site, we also produce a video each week. You’ll find how-tos and more philosophical videos geared to helping you become a better man. You can find all our videos on YouTube. While you’re there, make sure to subscribe to our channel so you get updated as soon as we publish a new video.

Here are a few of my favorite videos we put out this year:

How to Shave with a Straight Razor

How to Become an Early Riser

How to Make Small Talk With Strangers

The Benefits of Cold Showers

How to Feel Like a Man

Bringing Back Common Sense

Put the Big Rocks in First

Ask a Woman on a Date

How to Talk to Your Barber

Building a Minimal Wardrobe

How to Pick a Lock

I had a lot of great guests on the podcast this year. One of my goals in 2015 is to improve the sound quality and bring on even more useful and interesting guests.

If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend subscribing to the AoM Podcast. It’s a great way to get your AoM fix while commuting or working out.

Here are a few of my favorite episodes from this past year:

The Art of Roughhousing With Anthony T. DeBenedet

The Manliness of Jack London With Earle Labor

The Charisma Myth with Olivia Fox Cabane 

Valor with Mark Greenblatt

Roman Honor With Carlin Barton

Barbell Training with Mark Rippetoe Part 1 and Part 2

The Myth of Following Your Passion with Cal Newport

Target Focus Training with Tim Larkin

Left of Bang with Patrick Van Horne

A Higher Call With Adam Makos

Other Art of Manliness Projects in 2014

Besides our regularly scheduled content, we also launched a few large projects:

New Site Redesign. Back in June we did a complete overhaul of the site. It’s now mobile and tablet friendly. Due to popular demand, we’re also working on an app that will be out in several months.

Heading Out on Your Own: 31 Life Skills in 31 Days. We took a series of blog posts on basic life skills that we did back in 2012 and turned it into a book. It’s available in paperback on Amazon and in our store. You can find e-book versions for Kindle, iBooks, and Nook. We also have an .ePub version.

New Art of Manliness Products. We launched several new products in the AoM store including:

A Thank You to Art of Manliness Readers

We’re coming up on our seventh birthday this January! We work as hard as we can every year to create useful, interesting content that both entertains and inspires. Thank you to every single reader who has supported our efforts by subscribing to the site and sharing our content with others. We wouldn’t be here without you dedicated “evangelists of manliness.” Thank you most of all to everyone who took a few minutes out of their day this year to share a kind word of appreciation with us. Such encouragement really means the world.

We’ll be back in January for another year with y’all. Til then, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Semper Virilis!

What are your favorite Art of Manliness articles from the past year? (Or of all time?)

[ad_2]

Source link
[ad_1]