The Cuck and the King
How men are replacing fear of submissiveness with something healthier
After 800 years of hanging around, the word “cuck” really entered its prime about 10 years ago. It started as a fairly technical term, and now encapsulates 100 different ways of calling a man “submissive” - a dominant fear of dudes. Gamers and conservatives who get enthusiastic around message boards were the canaries in the coal mine, proclaiming cucks abounded before most knew what the word meant. Then related words like “beta” and “simp” - someone who does too much to impress someone they like - caught on as well. Fear of being submissive is a lens that men - especially young men - increasingly judge themselves and the world by. Sometimes this lens takes the form of mildly entertaining TikTok videos. Most of the time I judge it’s simply feeding young men fear that does little to help them become the men they want to be.
On a positive note, men’s groups have popularized a healthier lens for men to judge themselves and the world by. This lens is often called learning how to step into one’s “king.” It’s a reinterpretation of the word “king” to mean someone who has mastery over himself. Men’s groups have created practical tools for how to do this. This post digs into cucks and kings and how they can be used for self-improvement.
Why fearing being a cuck is a thing now
The fear is ancient, but I feel it’s grown in recent years. To summarize my hot take on this, I think feminism has successfully made men sensitive to the fact that the instinct to dominate can create a world of pain. Like most successful movements, this created a backlash, and this backlash looks like men getting anxious about being submissive - not just on a personal level, but society as a whole. This is getting mixed in with other trends like wealth inequality and social media addiction, making it easy for men to feel that we are ceding ourselves and our futures to someone else. Or that we don’t have enough willpower to do anything but react. Or that we don’t have enough money or say to create our own rules. The more we “take it,” the more we feel “cucked.”
The feeling of powerlessness can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, men’s work teaches a useful antidote for this: stepping into one’s “king”. Contrary to most actual kings, this is not about dominating others. This means controlling how I show up in any given circumstance. It’s about being deliberate about what energy I bring to the next room, or the next stressful situation, I step into. For example, when faced with a problem, is my instinct to burst into “get things done” mode? Do I default to trying to intellectually understand the issue? Do I seek connection or help? Men’s work breaks down these different approaches into different archetypes so we can better understand how we’re currently showing up and how we want to show up. It replaces the simplistic lens of “am I too submissive or not” with “which energy can I step into to take care of this issue.”
What are archetypes?
In men’s work, “archetypes” refer to psychiatrist Carl Jung’s idea that similar characters have been recurring in myths, stories, and songs for thousands of years across cultures the world over. He listed out 12 archetypal figures: Ruler, Artist, Sage, Innocent, Explorer, Rebel, Hero, Wizard, Jester, Everyman, Lover, and Caregiver. In 1990, right as the modern day men’s work movement was gaining initial popularity, Douglas Gillette and Robert L. Moore published the book “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” which distilled Jung’s archetypes into four primary modes of being that men can relate to, and use as tools for self awareness. Here’s how I think about them:
King energy: being decisive
Warrior energy: being “get things done” mode
Magician energy: seeking to intellectually understand an issue
Lover energy: seeking connection or help
Having too little or too much of these energies creates issues. For example, too much “magician” can look like someone being manipulative. Too little “lover” can look like someone feeling withdrawn or isolated. We all have elements of these archetypes inside of ourselves and each serves a critical role.
The goal of understanding these archetypes is choosing the right amount of the right archetype for a given situation. This is what I’m referring to as stepping into one’s “king.” It’s a hell of an ambitious goal, and I find it to be a much healthier lens for defining what being a mature dude looks like - especially in contrast to other definitions like whether someone is a cuck or not.
How archetypes help personal development
Often times we react to issues by defaulting to one of the archetypes, as opposed to picking the right archetype for the right circumstance. I default to “magician”, which means I try to solve problems by seeking to understand as much as I can before making a decision. I recently decided to get a new pair of high rise pants, and I’ve currently got 10 different tabs in my web browser open exploring the quantum totality of men’s high rise pants options. I judge that a lot of men in white collar jobs tend to default to magician energy as well, given this kind of intellectualization is rewarded in school and desk jobs.
Another common default archetype for men is “warrior” given so many jobs and so many problems require daily execution and discipline. “Just do it” is warrior energy, and everyone from soldiers to sales people benefit from healthy doses of this attitude. One archetype that is not traditionally rewarded in men is “lover” energy, even though it’s core to our happiness and ability to thrive. In my experience most men know this is where the work is for them therapy wise, although the incentive to do that work is seldom clear.
But every archetype has its limits, and the more we can control which archetype we step into for a given circumstance, the more we can thrive in different circumstances.
Practical tools for stepping into different archetypes
So how does one learn to dip in and out of these archetypes depending on the situation? This is a big focus of men’s work, which has built up simple exercises to help men touch these energies on a regular basis. The idea is that the more we can embody these different archetypes, however lightly, the more familiar these archetypes feel to us and the more control we have over entering and exiting them. Here are four things my men’s group does during its weekly circles that help me embody these archetypes:
Lover archetype: Share how I’m feeling, focusing on the emotional state as opposed to why I’m feeling that way. For example, if I’m feeling shame, I’d focus on what the feeling of shame feels like in my body, and how that’s affecting how I show up. Doing this every week in men’s group has helped me notice what emotions I’m actually feeling any given day, and gotten me more comfortable sharing that with people I’m close to. As a result, I feel closer to those people.
Warrior archetype: Claim where I’ve broken a commitment to someone else, then name what I made more important than honoring that commitment, and then name the impact on myself and others due to that choice. A lot of men’s groups call this the “integrity process” and it helps me feel clean. If I’ve broken a promise to Jack, the thought of that swims in the back of my head if I’m in Jack’s presence, making it difficult to get fully present with him. It also ensures I’m not wishy washy with my word. Doing this helps me be present and view myself as an accountable dude.
Magician archetype: Listen to someone describe an issue they’re having, while only doing 3 things: stay in silence, echo back their own words, and ask clarifying questions. Listening to someone by just doing those three things has helped me understand where someone else is truly at. If I have to focus on helping them explore whatever is tainting their peace, as opposed to giving them advice or telling them “you’ll be fine”, I always end up with a deeper understanding of them than the one I started the conversation with. This method of listening is also the basis of facilitation processes which I describe further in this newsletter post.
King archetype: Bless somebody else. A casual blessing might sound like “blessings to you for being such a great friend.” If you want to really embody king energy, ask if it’s ok to put your hand on their heart to receive a blessing. If they consent, look them in the eye and bless them as deeply as truth will allow. Out of all four exercises I list here, this one is the hardest for me to do. It takes a huge amount of courage and self-worth to bless another human being in a direct, intimate way. It also requires a suppression of my own ego to highlight the actions or character of someone else. That’s what good kings and leaders do I suppose.
For anyone interested in going a scoop or two deeper on men’s work archetypes, I recommend this blog post from The Art of Manliness.
A question for you
One thing I’ve enjoyed over the last year is thinking about how these archetypes show up in my life, then visualizing them as characters: what are their names? What do they sound like? What do they look like? The more I flesh the characters out, the more I feel aware of my own strengths and weaknesses.
And if there’s one question that I’ve found useful on this front, it is “which archetype do I default to when I’m faced with a problem?” Out of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, which one is it for you?