Why is it called Institute of Men?
A reflection on the naming of this Substack
Hi everyone, I hope you’re doing well. Here comes another late night, typed on the phone article. Most of the writing I do doesn’t happen at a keyboard. It actually happens in my Jeep, to and from work. I drive in silence frequently, thinking about various things. Often an idea for an article begins to form so I pull out my phone, and begin dictating to an app. From there I edit and post.
But every once in a while, a thought hits me while I’m laying in bed. My wife doesn’t appreciate the preferred speed of dictating while she is trying to sleep or the click clack of a keyboard. So onto the iPhone keyboard my thumbs go. Please forgive me of any typos.
I’ve never explained why I titled this Substack Institute of Men. It wasn’t always named that. There was also a three year hiatus where I didn’t really post anything. I felt it was time to explain the name because a name carries a mission (see my posts on my children’s names to understand more).
Please forgive any typos.
Also, given the nature of this post, I’d appreciate it if you share it with someone and encouraged them to subscribe. Just click that little button right now there to share it. Also, help me with the algorithm by hitting that like button IF you liked this post. If you didn’t, pretend you didn’t read it and definitely don’t hit the like button. That’d be lying and lying is bad.
I started a podcast in 2021. It was called The Man I Want to Be, based on a question my father asked me. I didn’t have a grand plan for the podcast. It felt more like a necessity given what I was seeing in our culture. I was becoming aware of the fatherless epidemic and the sorry state of men in our country. Maybe sorry doesn’t convey the right attitude I have. Heartbroken was more of what I was feeling. So I started a podcast, asked my dad to join which he did. Below is a picture of how we started.
Look at that fancy set up!
For real, look closely at that picture. Those are hampers, a $100 usb microphone, next to the stroller my wife and I purchased the day before.
I kept the podcast going for about a year or so. Occasionally it was me and my dad. Often it was me monologuing for an hour. I would record in the closet in the back because it had awesome sound proofing from all the extra clothes.
No promotion, no social media, just word of mouth. When we moved to Massachusetts, I stopped recording for several months. I was finally finishing my politics degree at 31, having a second child, and adjusting to the very unique world of New England.
When I began recording again, I decided to change the name to Institute of Men. The Man I Want to Be started on the Spotify podcast platform before I moved to Substack. Then I hopped off Substack for the podcast for a different platform. Then came back again. What can I say, I like experimenting and change. But I’m here to stay now. Just don’t hold me to it. I recorded for about 4 months in 2023 and posted articles and then stopped. Life got a little too complicated to be recording a podcast and writing articles.
It was right around that time I told my wife I had to become Catholic. That meant leaving my church job, finding a new one. Anyone who’s gone through that experience knows it’s a whirlwind. I also don’t believe the processing online is a good idea.
So I stopped posting until about February of this year. That was a difficult decision. I had just over 1,000 monthly listeners at the time. That all disappeared. But it was the right call.
But the mission and vision I felt compelled to share never diminished. Not once. If anything it grew.
“Yeah cool backstory, but why is it called the Institute of Men?”
Great question.
I sensed something in 2021 but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew men were struggling, fatherless, lost. My time in ministry put me face to face with men like I just described. And so does my day job in home renovation.
The thing I sensed back then and can put a finger on now is contained in the word Formation. Let’s work backwards.
The United States has some major issues. We are attempting to solve them politically. Some can, most cannot be. Nations are great and become great by the VIRTUE of their leaders AND its citizens. Politics is so very limited when it comes to forming virtue in its citizens. Moral laws are teachers in themselves but that assumes the laws are written to enforce morality. Moral laws can only be implemented by virtuous leaders.
So how do we get virtuous leaders?
Institutions.
Institutions are uniquely designed to FORM people. All education is an institution. The Church and religion are institutions. The family is an institution.
So what happens when institutions cease to form people or form them in an immoral direction?
You get America in 2026. A large proportion of our leaders and citizens lack any sense of virtue.
That’s no good.
But here is the other kicker. College is supposed to be a higher level of formation than high school or elementary school. A good college can’t make up for a poor educational formation in the younger years. It’s not designed to do that. An elementary school cannot make up for a poor family life. And a poor family life is destined to happen if the man negates his duty. Which means if the man fails, it has a trickle down effect through generations.
Hillsdale cannot form unformed men and women. They probably wouldn’t even be admitted.
The only institution in the world that can make up for poor formation in the younger years (when it comes specifically to virtue, not necessarily to education) is the Church. But even the Church will have difficulty replacing a good family life. Especially when the problem is so widespread.
I promise I’ll tell you why I called it the Institute of Men after one more point.
How did we get here?
Current data: In the latest Census figures I found, there were 10.9 million one-parent family groups with a child under 18, and 80% were maintained by a mother, which works out to about 8.7 million single-mother family groups in 2022.
What about other generations? Courtesy of Perplexity
For six decades, millions of children have grown up without fathers.
Which begs the question, how did this happen? No fault divorce laws? The pill? Both played a significant part. But I also recently read a theory that comes before no fault divorce and the pill.
The theory: we killed them or destroyed their minds in WWI and WWII. You can read about it here.
We have generations and generations of leaders and citizens unformed in virtue and almost no one capable of displaying it or imparting it. And we have no way of making up for the highly important young years.
Unless individual men take it upon themselves to play the long game.
So why is it called the Institute of Men?
Because this is my humble attempt to push individual men to take on the hard and vigorous task of forming themselves into men of virtue who can then pass it on to other men, especially their children and grandchildren.
When men do not do what men are called to do, the world falters.
Let’s do some math. Suppose this Substack never passes 1000 subscribers. And suppose each of those 1000 subscribers take it upon themselves to do the hard work of becoming men of virtue who can be imitated. And suppose they pass that off to one other man and two children. Last suppose, this continues for 6 decades to mirror the 6 downward decades.
Or we’ll have AI do it because I’ve been typing on this iPhone keyboard for 1 hour and 23 mins.
60 years, 1 million people impacted. I’m here for the long game. Fortunately, I’m not the only one who is attempting to help solves the problem. Many, many men have stepped up in the local communities or online to help men answer the call of virtue.
Now they just have to respond to the call. No one can make a man do that. He must take it upon himself and with the assistance of others, he has a chance.
I work with almost all men in my day job. All of them have similar father stories. There are 12 men employed at our company. I am the only one not from a broken home. 9 had alcoholic fathers. None them have a spiritual, monetary, of familial inheritance. I’ve had to fire 5 men in the course of my time there. All five came from fatherless homes. And it was easy to tell what was missing in their life. No one taught them how to be a man.
The other 12, for the most part, found their way into a church and met another man, older, wiser, who could help them.
The goal of the Institute of Men is to push readers towards the difficult work of formation so they have something to pass on.
Formation takes a few essential elements:
Faith in God
Knowledge that forms a moral worldview
Action
Great Men to imitate
Friendship
I’m sure there are more. For now, that is enough.
With that, there will be some new things I’ll be adding to the substack. One, The Path will be published. The Path is one way of many that I recommend for becoming a man of virtue. It’s essentially the path I followed. There will be a section on the website called The Path.
Second, I’m going to start posting essays that answer tough questions. They’ll begin with a question that I attempt to answer. I expect these to take me a long time to write. They will rely on the great saints of the past to help us answer.
While I’m at it, I have two Substack recommendations for you. Men of the West and Ad Aternum. Both are fantastic substacks for men.
We’re now at 1 hour and 41 mins on this iPhone keyboard. My hands are not feeling great. If you would, please share this substack with someone you know.
God Bless
Keaton
This is the “getting our hands dirty and getting it done” work that is the only way through. Good humble perspective on reach and impact too