Chivalry is strongly connected to our current understanding of a gentleman, and that term comes from the French word for knight.  Most generally, knighthood has codified a set of principles for men to follow in three major arenas of life: (1) man to man, with the virtues of courage, valor, and fairness; (2) man and his God, with faithfulness in promoting good and battling evil; and (3) man to woman, how he should serve and honor his wife, and then, after her, how he ought to treat other women.  Chivalry had become established before the social invention of a “gentleman,” who tended to be more concerned about self-preservation than with defending truth, justice, and beauty. 

In thinking about a better understanding of masculinity, of what it means to be good guy, let’s go with chivalry, which is more receptive to our thumos than gentlemanliness.  And when doing so, let’s remember Edmund Burke’s observation (paraphrased): Men who lack a sense of responsibility to a power above themselves are easily swayed by vanity or self-pity, and they come to prefer softer virtues.  When men attach their strength to a power above themselves, they are better able to avoid the tendency to be sucked into the schemes of powerful and deceitful men who would employ another man’s thumos for their own gain.

Thumos brings wholeness to a man’s fractured soul in many ways.  Atop this list of healing is that it creates greater staying power, the absence of which is a source of great pain and shame for some men (especially Christian men).  Another term for “staying power” is fortitude, the ability to stick to a task and not give up.  Other words for this soul-repairing, meaning-producing attribute: gumption, moxie, verve, and the crowd-pleaser among young men, balls.  From this seat of animation flow both strength and endurance to fulfill difficult responsibilities.