According to a Viagra commercial I recently saw, we are in “the age of getting things done.” The advertisement shows a mid-life cowboy hauling a horse trailer behind his pickup truck. Predictably, his truck gets mired in a mud slick so he uses the two horses he’s been hauling to pull the pickup and trailer out of the mud.
It is interesting how the images within the ad reflect the psychology behind erectile dysfunction drugs. Essentially, these drugs force the body to do what the ego wants it to do—basically, to achieve erections on demand. The mired truck is a metaphor for the cowboy’s impotence, and the horses are a common symbol of the instinctual, life-giving core of the personality. Thus, the ad encourages the manipulation of the psyche to accomplish the goals of the ego.
It is the nature of young men look to older men for guidance and instruction on how to live and understand what is most important in life. Unfortunately, in the age of Viagra, many older men seem to be pursuing sexual potency at the expense of moral and spiritual potency. The instincts and soul are coerced into the service of the ego when it is the ego that is meant to serve the instincts and soul. In terms of mentoring the next generation of men to mature adulthood, it is difficult to see how this value system is going to “get things done.”