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This Op-Ed piece in the New York Times prompted this week’s topic, which is something like:

Has the recent evolution of our political and cultural views changed our views on the role of “manliness” in American society? Assuming we think so, how so? What’s good about this evolution? What’s not so good?

The above NYT piece starts with a reference to an address by Senator Josh Hawley on “The Left’s Attack on Men in America” [video and transcript].

Here are links to three other articles on the Hawley speech (or related subject matter):

• Politico: “Why Republicans Can’t Stop Talking About Masculinity” [link, PDF]
• The Independent (UK): “Madison Cawthorn calls for mothers to raise ‘monster’ men in terrifying speech against ‘demasculation'” [link, PDF]
• Axios: “Sen. Josh Hawley defends speech on porn and video games” [link, PDF]

…that the United States is the most dangerous country in the world.

When this subject was first suggested, lots of other countries that are (I think) more dangerous to live in came to mind. But many of them don’t have the global power and influence that the U.S. does. So there are a few dimensions of “dangerous” to discuss.

We’ll see where it goes!

On Monday, we’ll discuss the recent developments in Eastern Europe and what they mean for the EU and the US:

• The migrant situation at the Belarus/Poland border.
  
• The strengthening of right-wing governments in several former Warsaw Pact countries that have joined the EU (Poland, Hungary, others?)
  
• Russia and Ukraine
  
• Russia and Western Europe–the NordStream 2 pipeline.
  
• And other topics?

See you tomorrow!

If you want to join via Zoom instead of in person, register on the Library’s website (bhpl.net) to get the Zoom link.