Not long ago, cowboys were admired as rugged individualists who idealized their masculinity with words like loyalty, integrity, duty and honesty. Cowboys took the road less traveled. They chose the difficult path over the easy one and opted for the painful right over the pleasurable wrong. They acted aggressively and decisively, pursuing the just course over all others, often times at great personal cost.
Our grandfathers raised our fathers with these lessons in mind, knowing that hardship builds character and character means everything. Like their fathers before them, they aimed to groom strong and resolute men who did not shrink from adversity but who turned to face it square on, men who would cowboy up when confronted with an insurmountable obstacle.
Today when people call President George W. Bush a cowboy, they do so in derogation.
As America gallops into the 21st century, we're leaving the cowboy back on the dusty trail. Men who believe in a categorical imperative to do right are an anachronism. This trend is partially symptomatic of a concerted effort not to just redefine gender roles in society but to strip any positive meaning from the masculine mystique.
On one hand, we have the erudite sophisticates who invented metrosexuality, who cultivate softness in men, favoring androgyny and passivity over decisive action and intestinal fortitude.
On the other we have a broad culture of criminality that glamorizes unrefined con men who are concerned only with No. 1, who spin their dope game, playing as many women as they can in a crude attempt to prove what big pimps they are. Certainly thugs of all creeds strut with a manly testosterone-laden swagger, but they have abandoned the tenets of honor and duty, the selfless sacrifice and righteousness that boys once aspired to, in their quests to become men.
The few men of today's generation who still value the cowboy ethic are regarded as either naive boors or chumps who make perfect marks.
Art imitates life, life imitates art, and these societal changes can be traced to the rise of the anti-hero in popular entertainment. Ironically, the modern anti-hero is firmly rooted in the cowboy mythic, as exemplified by Clint Eastwood's portrayal of the "Man with No Name."
Over the last few decades, the distinction between hero and villain have blurred, with now-conventional heroes such as Wolverine, John (yipee kay yay) McClane and Jack Bauer crisscrossing the line between good and evil on a regular basis.
The anti-hero has supplanted the hero, and is now being replaced by protagonists who are simply self-interested criminals. CJ from "Grand Theft Auto," the magicians from the film "The Prestige," Tony Soprano and numerous others illustrate this point. As consumers, we clearly prefer men whose categorical imperative is no greater than "serve thyself," not just in our entertainment but in whom we choose to emulate.
This is not to say that cowboys do not exist anymore today, and they can be found in the most unlikely places. Television's most recent hero who exemplifies the cowboy ethic is "Beauty and the Geek's" Nate Dern.
Nate, the most popular member of the "Beauty and the Geek" house and a fairly timid nice guy, chose to forgo his chance at a quarter of a million dollars in the final episode, when he concluded that his teammate had missed the entire point and not grown as a person. He lobbied for the opposing team, because he valued the integrity of the experiment more than the money.
This socially awkward geek can teach us a lot about manhood. Standing alone, on his own two feet, his shoulders square, in his pearl-snap shirt, he sacrificed personal gain and did what was right and just.
He cowboyed up. We should too.
Puri is a government, psychology, history and Middle Eastern studies senior.
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