Clearly I Need To Kill More People in Order To be A Real Man

The Wall Street Journal reviews Peter McAllister's "Manthropology": "For Mr. McAllister one measure of manhood is the willingness to face an enemy and mete out punishment without flinching. Today our conduct in war is governed by a handbook of careful rules. Mr. McAllister, for contrast, points to the 17th-century Native American practice of not only scalping victims alive but also 'heaping hot coals onto their scalped heads.' Which is nothing compared with the attentions lavished by the Romans on a Christian named Apphianus, who was racked for 24 hours and scourged so hard that 'his ribs and spine showed.'"

I haven't read the book, but assuming the review accurately conveys the tone, well, what silly, juvenile crap. People who view the ability to inflict death and torture as a prime measure of manhood aren't macho, they're psychotic.