On Friday’s edition of The Editors, National Review senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty voiced agreement with some of Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s views on masculinity, amid controversy over his commencement speech at Benedictine College.

“I do think,” said Dougherty, “a lot of men do receive a kind of formation — whether it’s an unintentional one through television entertainment, through just the ambient culture — that kind of treats them like defective women . . . rather than men. . . . Like everything about masculinity is really a defective thing.”

Dougherty said that often, men are told, “You should be empathetic. You should be nurturing. You should have all these other virtues that are harder to come by and maybe harder to relate to, especially when you’re a young man. And so . . . it was good to hear him affirm this.”

Dougherty said that “compared to the political speech we’re hearing out of Columbia University lately, I mean, this qualifies as . . . almost Abrahamic wisdom.”

The reaction particularly from the Left, Dougherty said, “is based on the fact that these are lower status values. It’s hard to defend them. And he’s a high-status person.

“He’s a handsome, Super-Bowl winning athlete, so he can get attention. And he’s out there promoting Latin Mass and seemingly promoting domesticity as the highest value.”

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.