Why “No Kings!” gets it wrong

JUVENARCHY, PATRIARCHY, AND THE ARCH OF TRUE FATHERS

Many of you have heard me, over the years, playing with the coinage of a word I call juvenarchy.

I’ve been circling this idea for a long time, because from my perspective, we do not live under a patriarchy — no matter how often the word is repeated.

The problem is not merely that “patriarchy” is a faulty label for our current social or governance system — though it is indeed both linguistically sloppy and historically inaccurate. Even worse, this erroneous usage diverts our attention away from a medicine critically needed in these times: strong, morally uncompromising male leadership which is earned, not demanded.

In contemporary pop-culture discourse, the patriarchy has become a moralizing catch-all term. It’s used as a de facto synonym for domination, oppression of women, tyranny, unearned hierarchy, machismo — essentially anything critics wish to condemn without defining. The word has been emptied of its original meaning and filled with moral panic.

But none of this describes what a patriarch actually is.

The word patriarch comes from patri — father. And arch — to lead or to rule. Additionally, the cognate of “arch,” is valuable here for its architectural imagery of solid foundations which bear weight to form a passageway. An arch protects those who pass beneath it. It absorbs pressure so that others do not have to. It creates a threshold — a place of transition and protection.

Similarly, a true father is someone who embraces the difficult, prolonged, and often thankless work of supporting and sheltering his family and community. To equate fatherhood itself with domination or abuse is a linguistic and moral error — one that betrays our duty to call young men into their bright and beautiful roles in the world.

A true patriarch stands firmly in responsibility.
He carries moral weight.
He protects what is vulnerable.
He sets clear boundaries when danger attempts to pass beneath his arch.

This is not tyranny.
This is stewardship.

And it is a role our youth should aspire to — not disparage or deny.

IN DEFENSE OF MEN: KINGS AND PATRIARCHS IN HISTORY

Throughout history, patriarchs were defined not by domination, but by obligation. They honored the power of the word. They were accountable to their people. They were expected to preserve culture, steward land wisely, think generationally rather than impulsively, and safeguard women, children, elders, and other vulnerable members of society.

When they fulfilled these duties, kings and patriarchs were beloved, not despised.

This is where the modern narrative begins to fray.

If we truly lived under a patriarchy, we would be guided by wise, benevolent men governing according to the will of the people — alongside wise and benevolent women — all initiated into responsibility, restraint, and care.

But we do not live in such a world.

What we live under is something else entirely.

We live under a juvenarchy.

WHAT IS A JUVENARCHY?

A juvenarchy is rule by the uninitiated. It is power held by men (and women) who may have adult bodies, but who remain functionally adolescent — never forged, never tempered, never proven capable of bearing the blessed bundles of culture, epochally, through the hills and valleys of the human story.

Where a true patriarch has ripened into the patient lion-wisdom of maturity — knowing when to rest, and when to pounce — a juvenarch grabs instead a quick-fix of might through posturing, spectacle, and reactivity. It is not governance, but thuggery.

Sound familiar?

Anyone who has spent time around teenage boys recognizes the pattern: explosions are exciting; restraint is framed as weakness; power is confused with destruction and control. Instead of strengthening culture, the juvenarch manufactures chaos to feel potent. Instead of bearing weight upward like an arch, he discharges force downward and calls it authority.

A juvenarchy does not protect the vulnerable.
It does not steward culture.
It does not think beyond the next move, the next flex, the next win.

If we keep calling our juvenarchy a “patriarchy,” we risk not only misapprehension, but also misdiagnosis. Because we cannot heal what we don’t understand.

THE “NO KINGS” FALLACY

This brings us directly to the present moment.

Across the streets and social media feeds, people chant: “No Kings.”

I understand the historical anxiety beneath this chant — fear of tyranny, corruption, abuse of power, and harsh repression of women’s bodies and women’s wisdom are obviously valid. Though we do not circumvent these very real dangers simply by placing the blame on kingship itself.

A king is not synonymous with a tyrant.

Just as patriarch has been collapsed into oppressor, king has been flattened into despot. Historically, this is false. Many true kings were chosen, supported, and loved by their people precisely because they demonstrated the capacity to protect, restrain violence, and serve the whole.

At his best, a king is a sacred patriarch scaled to the level of the polity.

Have we forgotten about Cyrus the Great of Persia, who was renowned for his tolerance of a diversity of religions and customs? Hiawatha, as remembered in the Iroquois-Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace? King David, beloved uniter of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, whose very name means peace? Ashoka the Great of India, who prioritized non-violence and social welfare? King Henry V of England, the “mirror of all Christian kings,” immortalized by Shakespeare for his military wisdom and courage? How about Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., always guided by the North Star of “the beloved community”?

The world has known many good kings.

So when I hear “No Kings!,” I don’t hear a call for liberation. I hear a confused, amnesiac people, slumping into despair and defeat, as we become rhetorically desensitized to a self-loathing which discards the potential of half our population. The many strong and benevolent men among us, and our many brilliant boys, could one day become perfectly good kings, if given half a chance.

This conflation of masculinity with oppression should give us all pause.

And dare I say, I would absolutely welcome a King David, a Martin Luther King, a Cyrus The Great right about now!

BEYOND LEFT AND RIGHT: THE POWER OF THE WORD

I hope the astute reader will notice that my words here aim not leftward, not rightward, but dead center.

This essay is deliberately transpartisan — a term I’ll happily coin along with juvenarchy. I am intentionally hiking the ridgeline above the familiar partisan terrain, because I see serious immaturity, misdirection, and linguistic failure littered across the entire political landscape.

There are important issues being ignored everywhere — drowned out by celebrity spectacle, selective outrage, and massive media manipulation. My concern is not with defending any faction, but with restoring precision of language, because language shapes perception, and perception shapes reality.

I believe profoundly in the power of The Word.

Words are not neutral. They organize thought. They train attention. They summon futures. When we misuse them — when we collapse meaning, flatten distinctions, and turn ethics into shallow moralizing — we don’t just argue poorly. We govern poorly.

No matter how many clicks they get, or how high they pump their fists, real power does not ultimately reside with a handful of unripened ideologues, famous talking heads, or sloganeering mobs, salivating over demagogues.

True power resides, as it always has, and always will — with the people.

With us.
With the wise ones who we carefully choose to represent us.
And with our collective willingness to speak carefully, truthfully, and with moral courage.

Our choice of words matters more than we know.

WHAT IF REAL PATRIARCHY IS THE MEDICINE?

The absence of sacred authority does not produce freedom.
It produces a vacuum.

And power vacuums are inherently unstable. Into them rush toxic forces who default to regressive strategies such as brute force, despotism and misogyny.

How many times must we watch as fallen tyrannies get immediately filled by immature boys with dangerous toys before we learn this lesson?

The inability to discern tyranny from patriarchy does not dismantle domination. It invites it.

By repeatedly trumpeting the name of what we oppose, we cast a powerful spell of manifestation that paradoxically brings it into being. This isn’t just a mystical truth — it’s structural. Instead of obsessing over negation, framing our goals as anti-this and anti-that, lets shift our focus to articulating a coherent vision for the future.

The “No Kings!” slogan subtly (and not so subtly) calls for banishment of kingliness and nobility from our world. This call is widely heard as blanket condemnation of manhood itself. We end up shaming good men into passivity, and creating precisely the conditions of apathetic undefendedness which malevolent forces relish. We set ourselves up for a perfect storm of oppressive forces, playing as I write in a theater near you.

The dereliction of our cultural duty to initiate men into their important roles in society, to honor their enormously beautiful potential, feeds into a self-hating backlash, as male power is misappropriated into supremacy.

Again, sound familiar?

The distortions and contortions of “patriarchy” and “kings,” hurl rhetorical barbs at the very solutions which hold enormous promise to deliver us from harm: namely, true patriarchs, who vehemently stand up against despots and dictators. Men who conserve power, so it is at the ready when it is truly needed. Men who speak out firmly against overreach. Men who define clearly the difference between victim and aggressor, especially amidst deliberate attempts to invert the two (DARVO).

What we need is not the abolition of patriarchy or kingship, but their restoration in a healthy, sacred form. We need men willing to bear weight instead of discharging it — men who know when to restrain themselves, and when to act decisively in defense of life. Men who, like Dr. King, will bring a grounded spirituality back into our movements.

Calling our condition patriarchy misdiagnoses the illness.
Chanting “No Kings!” blinds us to the remedy.

We are not suffering from too much fatherhood.
We are suffering from the absence of it.

A CLOSING PRAYER AND CALL

May this essay serve as a prayer for the rise of true patriarchs, good kings, and wise guardians in our time.

And to the beautiful boys and men of this world, our brothers, sons, fathers and husbands: know that there are still people who believe in your goodness — in the radiant strength of your morals and your bodies. Rise into sacred leadership! Stand arm in arm with wise matriarchs. May you carry the weight, and the nobility, that is yours to carry. May you follow the generous examples of the beloved kings of old.

Decidated to my husband and son,
Keeth and Montana Apgar
with love, Nala