Remaking Men

Masculinity is discussed by contemporary authors either in socio-political terms or in popular writing that concentrates on Jungian mythopoetics and spirituality. The outward-looking, sociological standpoint ignores the spiritual view; the inward-looking spiritual traditional disregards historical context and the conditioning of society. In this work, David Tacey makes a new synthesis of these two traditions, examining his own and other men's experience with both spiritual and political insight. He is critical of the way popular, conservative discourse on masculinity has appropriated and distorted Jungian psychology, and believes that political, antisexist and historical considerations should be brought into discussions about the inner world. From this radical standpoint Tacey addresses such topics as father-absence, homoerotic desire and the dilemmas of feminine men.