I'm really excited about today's guest because he's someone I've referenced several times.

Throughout my writing at the Art of Malinus, his name is Waller Nuel.

He is a professor of political science at Carlton University in Canada.

And he's written several books about manhood or like the philosophy of manliness throughout Western history.

One book he wrote was called The Code of Man.

And the second was What Is a Man, which is an anthology of poems, essays, speeches, excerpts from literature that speak to sort of this philosophy of virtuous manhood that he argues has existed since the ancient Greeks and goes all the way through up to the 20th century.

But then stopped.

Anyway, in today's podcast, Professor Nuel and I discuss what it means to be a virtuous man, what manliness has meant since the ancient Greeks, through the Renaissance, through the Enlightenment, and what it means today, and why turning our backs on this sort of, he calls it, Rich Heritage of Manhood has been disastrous for our times in the 21st century.

We also get into talking about manliness and how it relates to terrorism. He also does a lot of research about tyranny, honor, terrorism.

So we get into talking about what's going on today in the world with ISIS and whatnot and how masculinity plays a role into that.

It's a very fascinating discussion. If you love the great books, if you love Aristotle, if you love Plato, if you love some other war philosophical stuff around the art of manliness, you're really going to love this discussion today with Professor Nuel. So let's do this.

Professor Waller Nuel, welcome to the show.

So you are a professor of political science, but you've spent a great deal of time writing about Western conceptions of manliness.

That's right.

Why the interest in researching writing about masculinity or manhood and what it's meant throughout history as a political science professor?

Well, I'd always worked on issues like ambition, tyranny, honor seeking in classical thought.

And a journalist friend of mine, some years back, said to me, a lot of people are interested in these issues, what are you writing for a larger audience?

And that combined with some observations I had made about my students, particularly my male graduate students who were, I'd say, in their mid-delay 20s that they seem particularly conflicted about this issue of manliness or manhood.

In other words, should you try to act that way, if you should, what should it be?

And really, that's how the two things went together. So I took a stab at writing an essay, which eventually was published by the weekly standard called The Crisis of Manliness.

And I've been working on it in London, England, where I was on sabbatical.

And one day I walked to my local bookstore to take a break and lo and behold, I came across this novel called Fight Club.

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