Book Review by Terence Gillespie

“A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.”
— Chinese proverb

If conversations with the wise were captured in all the categories a man needs, supplemented with the views of the wisest authors of history, and woven together for the modern man the result would be “Modules for Manhood”.

The goal of Kenneth W. Royce’s series is to impart “What Every Man Must Know” to “Transform yourself into a strong, patient, competent, and courageous Gentleman of Honor”. Judging by the first volume—with the remaining two to be published this year—Royce may have accomplished these rather lofty goals.

“What do women want? What does America need? Men. You are merely a male by birth. Only by choice and effort can you become a Man. While 50% of people are male, a male is not necessarily a Man.”

Near the end of psychologist and writer M. Scott Peck’s career he accepted an editing assignment:  Sort through thousands of quotes and assemble the best pearls of wisdom into an anthology of virtues entitled, “Abounding Grace”.  Peck had already written and published everything he would become famous for and was in an excellent position to sift through the wisdom of the ages.

Modules is Royce’s “Abounding Grace” though a much larger accomplishment in terms of size and focus. Whereas Peck was sifting through quotes Royce has written with a specific purpose while drawing on a wide range of perspectives to better awaken the reader. Peck’s anthology is 384 pages which is about the length of Volume one of Modules with all three books in the series at nearly 1200 pages.

Royce is on a similar arc of a writing career as Peck at the time of the anthology. Long established in blazing modern paths of liberty Royce has done the hard work of scouring through past work, extensive reading and expansive life notes and brought it all to bear on passing the wisdom of the ages onto the next generation of young men. Jeff Cooper, whose spirit echoes through the pages of these Modules, would be delighted.

Moving On to Pass it On

Royce retired his Boston T. Party pseudonym in 2009 with the release of “One Nation Under Surveillance” and in the substantial 2012 update to Hologram of Liberty announced it to be his last political book. Ironically, Modules may be the furthest reaching javelin Royce has ever thrown for freedom and liberty. More fundamental than his previous subjects of law, privacy, guns or theoretical bastions of liberty is the man in relation to those things. Modules is about transforming the man from within and catching him at the right age for maximum benefit. Make the man worthy and the world comes to him. Transform his character and ensure integrity, and the circumstances of his time in history are mere footnotes to the man.

Divide & Conquer

“What are those abilities, skills, or accomplishments, those extra-curricular proficiencies that every man should have in order to be rounded and self-sufficient, and when can he acquire them, and how?”
—Robert Littell, “What the Young Man Should Know”,  Harpers, www.artofmanliness.com

Royce divides & conquers in two ways to ensure the fulfillment of the series’ stated purposes. The first is in dividing all possible aspects of life into those that a man must truly understand and master. The chapter list is revealing for both what it does and does not contain.  There is no chaff to separate from a positive, comprehensive and assertive range of subjects, skills, habits, roles & responsibilities. The chapter list, alone, sets an excellent trajectory and provides a list of hints for men who will take them.

Unfortunately, men are not born knowing that these are, indeed, the crucial aspects of life, nor has any school curriculum been so kind as to point them out:

Volume 1 (published March 2014)

• 1 Understanding
• 2 Thinking, Truth, Wisdom
• 3 Integrity & Character
• 4 Conquering (Fear, Depression, Laziness, Anger, Pride)
• 5 Individuality, Courage, Manhood
• 6 Getting Along (Better With People)
• 7 Communicating
• 8 Persuading
• 9 Selling
• 10 Learning & Training
• 11 Doing

Volume 2 (due Summer 2014)

• 12 Teaching
• 13 Deciding
• 14 Prioritizing
• 15 Solving
• 16 Power
• 17 Leading
• 18 Working & Success
• 19 Savings & Debt
• 20 Money and Inflation
• 21 Taxes
• 22 Government
• 23 Fighting

Volume 3 (due Autumn 2014)

• 24 Eating
• 25 Health
• 26 Moving
• 27 Surviving
• 28 Pursuing a Woman
• 29 Loving a Woman
• 30 Husbanding
• 31 Fathering
• 32 Believing
• 33 How To Know God
• 34 Suffering
• 35 Living

The second divide & conquer has the author exceeding himself, literally. To better focus on the topic at hand, reinforcements have been brought in—perhaps the best that have ever lived. Rather than restating a point that has already been made perfectly Royce quotes the masters where appropriate. For example, in the chapter on Doing the author frames the issue, gives his take and tells stories from his own life to provide insight . . . then brings in Patton, Socrates, a Chinese proverb, Horace, Theodore Roosevelt, Jesus, and the FAA Glider Flying Handbook!

“Be patient, but I’ve included hundreds of quotations in the hope that a myriad of voices and perspectives will better awaken you (as they did me in my 20s). The right quote can change a life!”

“I quote others only the better to express myself.”
—Michel de Montaigne

The alternative in a series this ambitious would be to assign the reader a 20-Volume set rather than three. Even at 1200 pages for the series Royce is keeping it short and sweet in delivering on the promise of “What Every Man Must Know”. With rapidly decreasing attention spans one hopes this is not the last chance for a modern young man to review all the topics covered.

The result of Royce’s Divide & Conquer is a kind of “Man Scripture” and the passing of an intense and comprehensive intellectual baton to the men lucky enough and able to receive the jolt.

Jump-starting a Young Man

“About 100 billion people have previously lived and died on this planet before you ever came along. They’ve not only made all the mistakes for you, they described them in thousands of books, letters, interviews, poems, and essays. If you really want to “reinvent the square wheel” yourself, go ahead, but Life is too short to repeat proven mistakes. Meaning, 80 trips around the sun is not enough time to learn and recover from your own nonoriginal mistakes. As they say, “Experience is priceless; it is paid for by youth.”

“Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backwards.”
—Kierkegaard

“We go through Life backwards, seeing only where we’ve been. Learn from those who have “been there – done that.” You must constantly learn from other people’s mistakes. Use their 20/20 vision hindsight as your 20/20 vision foresight. Read biographies, in particular. Quotations. Self-help books. How-to-succeed books. Basically, you’re looking for shortcuts in the form of models.”

Such is the tough assignment for any man hoping to glean a jump-start from the rubble of other men’s experiences. Royce has done his part by capturing his experiences and conclusions—along with those of many others—in Modules. In fact, one of the major contributions of the series is in decreasing the number of mandatory books required to jump-start a young man into competent manhood.

For Women, Too

My wife peeked over to see what I was reading and when told it was “For Men Only” she said, “But I want to read it, too!”. In fact, “for Manhood” could have been “for Humanity” for the subjects covered in the first volume.

With the universal foundation laid the series heads rapidly into man territory with chapters devoted to “Fighting”, “Leading”, “Power”, and “Husbanding”, etc. Of course, women could be included in these categories though few would say that assigning them to women would make for the ideal division of labor of humanity.

With regard to gender, I think Royce accomplishes three things by designating this series for Men: Authenticity by claiming only to fully understand and write for one’s own gender, an attempt to remedy an obvious cultural deficit, and enabling the completion of the series.

A savvy women won’t let any of this get in the way of a perfectly fine life jump-start and would get rare insight into essences of masculinity in the bargain.

Companion Guide for Fathers & Sons

A father with a nagging feeling of responsibility to “Write it all down” for their son might consider that monumental weight as lifted off their shoulders by Modules.  After all, a father reading the truth to their son is a father telling their son the truth.

Royce and the sources he’s gathered from, including the Bible, get right to the point on every subject. By using this series as a companion guide it leaves little wisdom left unsaid or unpassed to your son. A father is then freed up to give himself  and distinguish their unique family legacy for their son to consider in contemplating his own path.

For that matter, add plenty of time together and a life insurance policy, and Father is well on his way to ensuring protection and providing all the right ingredients for his budding eagles.

Home School Curriculum

“What passes for knowledge in this country is astoundingly based on lies. Money, taxes, health, law, politics—most of it a lie sold to a gullible and lazy public. America lives by the urban legend. Before the Internet, you had to chance upon the right book or informed acquaintance to awaken you.

Today, there is no excuse to remain misinformed about anything. True knowledge is out there for the taking. And, by the way, you won’t find knowledge and education in public schools. You’ll have to become educated through your own independent study.”

Speaking of which, Modules would fit well into a home school curriculum starting about the level of high-school or just before. If time is an issue it would be possible to take a dozen or so books off the rack and replace it with this series.

Dense with wisdom, life must be added before, during, and after for it to jump off the page into the body. Where stories can do that they’ve been generously added and yet, “To know anything more deeply than merely 50%, you must express from there, by speaking, demonstrating, doing, and teaching. What went in must come out.”

“Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.”
—John Keats

Fathers and sons can come up with creative ways to turn ideas into experiences. However, perhaps Royce will consider adding a  workbook or two to supplement the series.

Catapult for the Unemployed

A man (or woman) up against one of the worst unemployment rates in 80 years might not even know such is the case from what passes for information and news sources, nowadays. Even grandfathers of age in the 1930’s are no longer alive to make the comparison. However, the unemployed could tap the wisdom and street smarts in this series to catapult past the competition of their peers. Modules could turn a jobless situation around from the inside out by inspiring a different man, altogether, into the market.

Increasing Man’s Inheritance

“There are some things which cannot
be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have,
must be paid heavily for their acquiring.
They are the very simplest things,
and because it takes a man’s life to know them
the little new that each man gets from life
is very costly and the only heritage
he has to leave.”
—Ernest Hemingway

If the heritage men have to leave is to be increased then each generation must have a few authors up for the hard work of consolidating the experiences of those who’ve lived before to be absorbed in as graceful a manner as possible. Modules is a dense book not given for speed reading yet makes light work of its purpose. One does not sprint past an ATM machine and expect to make a withdrawal. Likewise, the reader must settle into Modules to extract the many payoffs from the series.

Every man worth his salt, if pressed, will talk about a sudden realization that set him off into new territory expanding his grasp of the possible in one magic moment of transformation. This series is full of such “moments” organized by purpose. Royce lives up to his reputation of getting straight to the point so the readers’ attention is directed immediately to substance.

The series is not limited or geared to any age group. The author has written neither “down” nor “up” but to a universal audience, especially those interested in becoming better men.

The metaphor of life as “just a game” is popular because it fools the incomplete man into believing he can “win” with things, by cheating, or the cleverness of a marginal strategy of temporary advantage. The complete man knows, perhaps at the cost of precious youth spent in becoming so, that such things merely forestall the development of character, integrity or fulfillment of purpose; that life is a gift only lived fully by giving. And yet, what do we have to give if we do not become the men we are capable of becoming—the men we were meant to be?

Hearkening back to the authors’ previous work, Modules both asks and addresses an implicit question of the value of any victory to a civilization with men unable or unworthy of keeping it. If who we are would not prevail against the tyrannies increasing around us, petty and otherwise, then we must become the quality people, the quality men, that would. All other solutions will be found lacking.

But no man can guarantee what another may become. So, Modules for Manhood has put in front of all “What Every Man Must Know” to “Transform yourself into a strong, patient, competent, and courageous Gentleman of Honor”.

Reference

Kenneth Royce (BOSTON T. PARTY) Interview on the Freedom Feens Radio Show

Art of Manliness Podcast #70: Modules For Manhood With Kenneth W. Royce