12 Rules for Life (Full) ENGLISH

forward. Mac takes serious note of his scarecrow-like build and decides that
he should develop a stronger body. More importantly, he puts his plan into
action. He identifies with the part of himself that could transcend his current
state, and becomes the hero of his own adventure. He goes back to the beach,
and punches the bully in the nose. Mac wins. So does his eventual girlfriend.
So does everybody else.
It is to women’s clear advantage that men do not happily put up with
dependency among themselves. Part of the reason that so many a working-
class woman does not marry, now, as we have alluded to, is because she does
not want to look after a man, struggling for employment, as well as her
children. And fair enough. A woman should look after her children—
although that is not all she should do. And a man should look after a woman
and children—although that is not all he should do. But a woman should not
look after a man, because she must look after children, and a man should not
be a child. This means that he must not be dependent. This is one of the
reasons that men have little patience for dependent men. And let us not
forget: wicked women may produce dependent sons, may support and even
marry dependent men, but awake and conscious women want an awake and
conscious partner.
If is for this reason that Nelson Muntz of The Simpsons is so necessary to
the small social group that surrounds Homer’s antihero son, Bart. Without
Nelson, King of the Bullies, the school would soon be overrun by resentful,
touchy Milhouses, narcissistic, intellectual Martin Princes, soft, chocolate-
gorging German children, and infantile Ralph Wiggums. Muntz is a
corrective, a tough, self-sufficient kid who uses his own capacity for
contempt to decide what line of immature and pathetic behaviour simply
cannot be crossed. Part of the genius of The Simpsons is its writers’ refusal to
simply write Nelson off as an irredeemable bully. Abandoned by his
worthless father, neglected, thankfully, by his thoughtless slut of a mother,
Nelson does pretty well, everything considered. He’s even of romantic
interest to the thoroughly progressive Lisa, much to her dismay and
confusion (for much the same reasons that Fifty Shades of Grey became a
worldwide phenomenon).
When softness and harmlessness become the only consciously acceptable
virtues, then hardness and dominance will start to exert an unconscious
fascination. Partly what this means for the future is that if men are pushed too