Wente and Working Class Values
With regard to Margaret Wente's article on the passing of working-class masculinity:
The article elegizes something which should be buried as deeply as possible, unmourned. It valorized aggression and ignorance and actively rejected any intellectual values (even rejecting literacy). It is the value set of English lager louts and playground jocks.
It wasn't the only working-class, of course; there was also the working class of the Mechanics' Institutes. And the values were not restricted to the working class; they were essentially those of the huntin' shootin' sportin' gentleman: Squire Thwackum or White's Sir Ector.
These are not martial values as such for all that they were widespread in the rank-and-file; they are the values which ensured that a man would not rise above private in the army.
There is a great deal of talk these days regarding boys as having learning style problems related to girls, so that they fall behind (especially in language related skills) as they progress through school. As an ex-boy who had no problems in learning I do not believe that such problems are intrinsic to males: I believe that they are the result of socialization which aims at pushing yong males into exactly the kind of culture Wente speaks about.