Reproduced from The Good Men Project
(Click image to read article on The Good Men Project website.)
The Good Men Project’s 28 June 2025 article ‘Jeremy Griffith’s Revolutionary Explanation Shows Men Are the Heroes, Not the Problem’:
For millennia, men have lived under suspicion—feared for their aggression, blamed for violence, and increasingly treated as inherently dangerous. In recent decades, that simmering distrust has erupted into overt condemnation. Branded as patriarchal oppressors, emotional cowards, and environmental vandals, men are now widely seen not as part of the solution to humanity’s problems, but as their source. Some denunciations have been extreme—radical feminist writer Andrea Dworkin once declared: ‘Only when manhood is dead—and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it—only then will we [women] know what it is to be free.’
In response, many have tried to make sense of the male role. From psychological theories to mythopoetic men’s movements, from calls for emotional openness to critiques of toxic masculinity—and even claims that male aggression is biologically hardwired—there’s been no shortage of attempts to reframe manhood. But these explanations are ultimately superficial. Whether cultural or genetic, they miss the deeper reality of what men have endured. They fail to answer the real question: What is the burden that leaves men in such deep, unresolved pain that they feel compelled to dominate—even destroy—everything they touch? What are the real redeeming characteristics of men, what has been their real function and purpose in the human journey?
What’s been missing is a framework that reaches all the way down—one that explains men’s behavior not as genetic imperative or moral failure, but as the result of a profound evolutionary and psychological struggle. That’s exactly what Jeremy Griffith, an Australian biologist, offers in what many now regard as a breakthrough understanding of the human condition—one that finally tells the truth about men’s struggle, their sacrifice, and their misunderstood heroic place in our species’ evolutionary story.
Not a Moral Failure, but a Heroic Struggle says biologist Jeremy Griffith
According to Jeremy Griffith, the core problem isn’t toxic masculinity or flawed genetics—it’s the human condition itself: the psychological agony that arose when early humans became fully conscious some two million years ago.
The emergence of conscious thought triggered an unavoidable internal conflict between our older, instinctive self—shaped by millions of years of natural selection—and our newly developed intellect, which sought understanding through experimentation.
Our gene-based instincts were rigid and non-understanding. When our intellect began questioning inherited behaviors, our instincts effectively “pushed back”—a resistance the intellect experienced as criticism.
This is the tragic engine of the human condition: the conscious mind, unable to explain its rebellious defiance of our instincts, lived under the unbearable weight of perceived condemnation. All it could do was fight back—retaliate, try to validate its worth, or just block it out. This gave rise to the angry, egocentric, and alienated human condition.
Griffith argues that men have historically borne the brunt of this conflict. Since someone had to lead the search for understanding and endure the inner war it unleashed, that role largely fell to men—not because they were superior, but because of the evolutionary division of labor. While women’s nurturing role centered on preserving the wellbeing of the next generation, it was men, as protectors of the group from outside threats—and this threat of our instincts’ intolerance of our minds’ need to find understanding was a potentially human race destroying threat—who were called upon to shoulder the psychologically upsetting task of defying our rigid, non-understanding, dictatorial instincts.
In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt captured the dignity of this role: ‘We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood…courage, indomitable will, and power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.’ Griffith shows that ultimately this ‘rough work’ wasn’t about conquering nations—it was about enduring the crushing psychological burden of leading humanity’s rebellion against its own instinctive self.
The Deeper Understanding Men Have Been Waiting For
The more we consider the different natures of these two main aspects of our behavior of our instincts and intellect, the more obvious this conflict becomes. Gene-based natural selection gives species orientations to the world, whereas a fully conscious mind, which is what we humans developed, needs understanding of the world to operate. But instincts being non-understanding were always going to in effect be intolerant of our conscious mind’s necessary instinct-defying experiments in understanding our world.
This intolerance by our instincts necessitated our intellect resist and try to prove wrong that criticism—the never surrender ‘iron qualities’ Roosevelt spoke of—and that was the heroic task men had to take on as the traditional protectors against threats to the group. So men turn out to be the heroes, not the villains, of the story of conscious humans’ search for knowledge—and that is the great psychologically relieving understanding that men—and women—have needed of the role of men in the human journey.
This new framework changes everything. It doesn’t excuse brutality—it explains it. It shows that men weren’t aggressors by nature, but by necessity. They carried the weight of our instinctive self’s unconscious condemnation long before we had the tools to understand it. As Jeremy Griffith puts it:
‘Men necessarily and unavoidably had to defeat the ignorance of our instinctive self, for if that battle wasn’t won, humanity would self-destroy from perpetual ignorance and terminal upset.’
But this burden came at a terrible cost. For some two million years, which is the approximate time humans have been fully conscious, men endured psychological suffering—not because they were bad, but because they were trapped in a role they couldn’t explain. This is what Asa Baber, respected author of Playboy’s ‘Men’ column, meant when he wrote: ‘We do not have the vocabulary or the concept to defend ourselves as men. We do not know how to define the virtues of being male—but virtues there are.’
Griffith has now given us that vocabulary. He offers a biologically grounded explanation that redeems men—not by condoning their behavior, but by revealing its deeper cause and evolutionary purpose—and this redeeming understanding is what has always been needed for men to end the need for men to stop having to be so defensively competitive and aggressive.
It is the Understanding That Transforms, Ends Defensiveness
So this is how this explanation brings that transformation about.
Without understanding why we men had to defy our instincts, there was no alternative but to become defensive. The unconscious condemnation we felt—for abandoning instincts in favor of the intellect’s search for knowledge—was unbearable. We fought back. That internal fight expressed itself as anger, egocentricity, and alienation.
But now, with the real defense available—the explanation that shows our rebellion was not a betrayal but a heroic necessity—those defensive behaviors become redundant. They can be laid down, not in shame or defeat, but in understanding and triumph. The so-called “dark side” of human behavior, long misjudged and condemned, is finally explained—and can now be left behind.
This understanding is already changing lives—for men and women alike, because it doesn’t just liberate men from misunderstood guilt—it finally offers women the explanation of men that has been missing for so long.
Because men weren’t the only ones who suffered. If men carried the burden of defying our instincts in the search for understanding, women carried the anguish of enduring its consequences—without any framework to explain them. As Jeremy Griffith points out, to be a victim of a victim is almost insufferable, because the source of pain is hidden. So while men yearned for relief from inner condemnation, women yearned for relief from the behaviors it caused. Now, with the human condition explained—with the battle between our instinctive and intellectual selves resolved—both can be free.
A Woman’s Perspective: A Scientist’s Revelation
One of the most powerful testaments to the life-changing potential of this understanding comes from Dr. Anna Fitzgerald, a biological scientist and science strategist. Like many women, Dr. Fitzgerald had long struggled with the contradictions of human behavior—especially the gulf between the nurturing instincts of women and the defensive behavior of men. Encountering Jeremy Griffith’s explanation gave her a clarity so profound that it altered the course of her life.
‘As a woman, this explanation was both very arresting and confronting, because it’s fearlessly honest about humans’ contradictory nature…But what’s really astonishing is that we can now understand why this egocentricity in men was actually necessary…This is the unlocking point. It heals the divide.’
Her reflection cuts to the heart of why Griffith’s work matters. It doesn’t just rescue men from undeserved guilt—it also gives women a way to understand the behavior that has hurt them.
As Dr. Fitzgerald continues: ‘To be able to understand why men and women have behaved the way they have behaved was nothing short of life-changing for me.’ Her reaction is far from unique. Around the world, a growing number of scientists, scholars, and professionals—men and women alike—are recognizing the significance of Griffith’s insights.
A Theory with Growing Support
Griffith’s explanation has drawn praise from leading minds across disciplines and continents.
Professor Harry Prosen, former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, called it ‘the 11th hour breakthrough biological explanation of the human condition necessary for the psychological rehabilitation and transformation of our species.’ Esteemed ecologist Professor Stuart Hurlbert hailed it as ‘the coming of Darwin II.’
Women have been among its strongest supporters. Professor Karen Riley said: ‘Living without this understanding is like living back in the stone age.’ Philosopher Patricia Glazebrook was ‘blown away by the ground-breaking significance of this work.’ And for Indian biotechnologist and educator Professor Chanchal Malhotra, the impact was profound: ‘It is not just an understanding for me—it is an understanding for the whole human race. Only this can save us from this crisis and from extinction itself.’
These voices are united in recognizing that Griffith hasn’t just added to the discussion—he’s changed it. His work, and the global organization he co-founded to share it—the World Transformation Movement—are part of a rising effort to bring honest, scientifically grounded self-understanding to a world in crisis.
A Different Future for Men—and for Everyone
This isn’t just a breakthrough for men—it’s a breakthrough for humanity. Because once we understand that men’s historically aggressive behavior wasn’t the product of defective genes or rampant testosterone or inherent evil, but the result of a heroic and necessary psychological struggle, the entire narrative changes.
Men no longer need to defend their worth—it has finally been scientifically affirmed. With the burden of unjust condemnation lifted and the real defense now revealed, they can lay down the metaphorical sword—put aside the anger, egocentricity, and alienation they were forced to wield in the absence of understanding. As Jeremy Griffith writes:
‘Far from being the villains they have so often been regarded as, men turn out to be nothing less than the heroes of the story of life on Earth.’
This is the true gift of Griffith’s work—and the mission of the World Transformation Movement: not a return to old roles or a redistribution of blame, but the beginning of something genuinely new—a world neither patriarchal nor matriarchal, but unified. A future no longer defined by guilt, resentment, or defensiveness, but by mutual understanding. By empathy. By peace.
All Jeremy Griffith’s books, videos, audios can be accessed completely free of charge at the World Transformation Movement’s website – www.HumanCondition.com.
