I just finished that Twitter essay (an oxymoron I'm still getting used to). Thanks for the link. It's very good. My favorite part:
"Is this what Francis Fukuyama called the 'end of history'? Zoomer males spending their lives as perpetual, sexless tenants, receiving government UBI stipends which get funneled instantly into the pockets of a hedge fund megalandlord and online pornography purveyors? Are corn syrup, Nintendo, porn, and weed the ultimate technology in preventing Mao Zedong or Adolf Hitler from rising again? It's very hard to tell, not least because exactly 0 good-faith sociologists are examining what is going on in all-male spaces and male culture. We simply have no idea how close we are to a Bolshevik revolution. It might happen tomorrow. Or, it may never happen again in the West."
What's so interesting about the essay is that he's clearly coming from Marxism but sees all the same things and shares many of my concerns coming from the opposite direction.
The Nolan Chart hypothesizes that as you approach the top or bottom corners, Left and Right get closer together. Maybe they really do, because the Marxist, class-warfare academic training I had 30 years ago is starting to resonate with the world for the first time.
The other section that's very good: "If we look at the groups that those in charge try to pit against each other (whites, blacks, latinos) we can see what this group may look like if they ever came together. You'd have rural whites, urban blacks, and 2nd generation Hispanics setting aside their differences and torching country clubs and breaching the most exclusive gated communities. Little wonder that identity politics is so enthusiastically endorsed by politicians and elites!"
Yep. 100% correct. The new Leftist, woke culture war is utterly nonsensical until you realize it's just an extension of old class war. Why are wealthy, uber-educated quasi-elites so hung up on racial and sexual privilege? It shields them from having to deal with the their own real privilege: class.
I believe this is why Luke Combs' remake of Fast Car was so dangerous to them. A poor black girl from the hood sings a song that resonates with a rural white kid so much that he asks to remake it when he gets a record contract 40 years later? Oh, heck no! We can't risk the urban black underclass and the rural white underclass ever realizing they have the same problems. As he says in that essay too: "Poor blacks and poor whites have more in common than poor whites have with rich whites." And rich whites are obsessed with making sure they don't ever realize it.
I am reminded of Camille Paglia (paraphrase): "Men will do almost anything for a beautiful woman. Male sexual energy is the single most potent creative (or destructive) force in the universe. It built the Taj Mahal. It launched the Trojan War. The challenge is for every culture to direct this toward more of the former and less of the latter."
Our elites are hoping that video games and free porn 24x7 will pacify young, disillusioned men. If they're wrong, we're in trouble. If they're right, we're still in trouble. Because virtual girlfriends don't require Taj Mahals.
"In the long run, women will be adversely impacted as well"
Women derive a disproportionate share of the benefits of civilization. The old ad slogan is correct: "God created men and women; Samuel Colt made them equal." Uber-educated, feminist woke-scolds demanding the end of Western civilization is a tragi-comedy on an epic scale.
I start teaching American Govt again in a few weeks. One of my handouts is a summary of various governmental systems:
Monarchy - you do what the king says
Oligarchy - you do what the nobility / wealthy say
Democracy - you do what the majority says
Anarchy - you do what you want, until someone with a bigger stick comes along, and then you do what he wants
I never explicitly say it in class, but the girls' body language every year show me that many understand exactly what the latter description means for them -- you become some man's plaything.
"I think women’s extreme leftward shift can be explained in part because the Left has so decisively achieved dominance."
The current political gender divide is downright weird, since women are usually more conservative (averse to large social change) than men. I think your comment explains that conundrum. Women's risk-averse nature generally makes them conservative, unless the revolutionaries manage to gain power, and then they join the revolutionaries to preserve their own safety. That's a really fascinating idea, Max.
Re. "Monarchy - you do what the king says": This is one of the many reasons why monarchy is vastly superior to all the other systems: there's a place where the buck stops. You can't easily knock the heads off of "the nobility/wealthy" or "the majority," but regicide takes a single axe and 20 seconds. And kings are a lot more sane in terms of time preference and what they'll leave to their heirs.
Women might be more averse to large social change, but they're not averse to getting benefits any way they can, and they tend to be followers. Those two things go far to explain the female voting patterns we're seeing, IMO. Keeping men out of family life while still getting the benefits that usually come with marriage, quotas and diversity requirements that give you all the scholarships and jobs, policies that allow you to remain unaccountable -- to be able to vote for more of all that while virtue-signalling from the Kewl Kids Klub that all the major media condone explains a lot.
I wouldn't want an atheist monarch. Machiavelli has a lot to say about that. He recommends it. I do not. Liberal democracy (an oxymoron BTW) requires a "moral and religious people" because the people are the rulers. Monarchy can handle an immoral population, but the king himself must still be a "moral and religious person". Monarchy in a time of anarchy would simply be tyranny.
I'm hardcore Catholic, so you don't have to convince me about the goodness of a godly king. But without that, no matter what we have is tyranny, and I'd rather be ruled by one tyrant atheist king than a gaggle of tyrant nobles, or ~150,000,000 tyrant citizens who think like modern Democrats (which is what we have now).
Camille Paglia is going to go down as yet another prophet of our times. I put her up there alongside Spengler (who inspired her), Buchanan, and Francis as the great thinkers of our time.
Interesting that you substitute anarchy for tyranny. The two really are related; democracy precedes tyranny, but anarchy is the bridge connecting the two. We're currently living under anarcho-tyranny, so there's no reason to suspect we're going to become a more free society. Anyone who thinks otherwise has no idea what's going on.
Women are functionally conservative, but not ideologically so. In fact, women are still very much conservative today in the sense that they don't want America to depart from its present far-left progressive trajectory. They think they're rebels, but they're not. They seek to strengthen the faction that is ascending in power.
BTW, I'd love to sit in on your classes one of these days!
Point is, "my country wants to enslave me and send me to my death" is a justifiable motivation to violently overthrow the goverment whereas "I can't get laid" isn't. Therefore a realistic men's rebellion is going to look more like starship troopers than handmaiden's tale.
Either:
• Service guarantees citizenship! And there's a quota system ensuring equal percentages of different groups in each role, so no women hogging all the comparatively safe logistics jobs while the men are cannon fodder.
• Conscription, but for everyone, regardless of gender.
• Conscription for both genders, but there's a deliberate loophole so women are exempt if currently pregnant or raising an infant and that's how the state plans to solve the birthrate crisis.
• Explicit bodily autonomy for both genders codified into law. Women can abort their fetuses and men can't be conscripted.
"Starship Troopers" was quite prophetic in many ways. The veterans who revolt did so because life became unlivable and disorder became rampant. Ironically, the veterans revolt that kicked off all the others started in Aberdeen, Scotland. I think that's how it's going to go down throughout the West. The fight begins because of culture and politics, but it ends because everyone decides they actually don't want to live in a war zone.
I'm against conscription, so I'd favor a "service = citizenship" model. Mass democracy is a false promise, anyway. However, no women in combat roles.
Missing the point, if anyone’s conscripted, women should be as well, not because of efficiency because it isn't efficient, rather, that situations where majorities of women vote to send men to die in a war they're allowed to stay home from shouldn't happen. Or rather, shouldn't happen again, it's already the case in modern Sweden in which military-age men as a demographic are against joining NATO and potentially being dragged into NATO's conflicts and women aren't.
What an excellent article. As always, you deliver clear eyed insight without demagoguery. There is so much to comment on here, and I have very limited time (because working two jobs just to not be homeless, I could add).
One additional (albeit tangential) thought pertaining to this topic-it’s not just us with young men with no future and no hope. Things are reaching critical mass in China thanks to the disastrous one child police. I believe 100 million young men with no hope for marriage or economic security is the number I’ve heard bandied about-could be even more. Given the realities you describe in this article, that is a horrifying statistic with global implications.
Fight club becomes a more unnerving the older I get. Perhaps we should promote a re-release of that prophetic film in hopes of waking up people to the reality we are facing that you see with such clarity.
To call "Fight Club" "prophetic is an understatement. That speech Tyler Durden gives about the spiritual death men are suffering from, along with their threat to that politician, telling him that they're the ones who make civilization work and not to mess with them, it was all so ahead of its time. We're living through that prophecy right now.
As for China, the flood of Chinese men into our country is likely an attempt by the Chinese state to relieve the pressure they're creating. Not sure what the end goal is, however.
Honestly, it's kind of overrated as a film. The most significant parts of the film are those two scenes I mentioned, but you need to watch the entirety of it to really internalize the message. When I re-watched it last year, I think it was, I can't tell you how many times I exclaimed, "Oh my God!" because an almost-quarter-century-old movie was talking about what's happening today.
How brilliantly did the creators of that film portray the coming flood. 100% agree about the Durden speech. Let those with eyes see what is being created. Fight Club and Project Mayhem are the most mild outcomes of the trends we are experiencing.
As for the men in China (who will be absolutely exploited by their government) it’s either tragic or terrifying what will be done to them. If they send them to the west to figure it out on their own, that’s it’s own brand of negligence and cruelty. If the decide to exploit them by using them for violence, well, 100 million is a lot of people, even without a weapon. Let’s not forget how stalin defended the Volgograd.
When you listed all anti-male trends and policies that are overwhelmingly supported by women, and then said women aren't the villain, I had a good laugh.
Women are more impacted by social trends than are men. They're far more conformist because it's necessary for their survival. Yes, there are some truly awful women out there and toxic femininity is a bigger problem than toxic masculinity.
But it's all going to prove unsustainable in the end. Women will have to moderate, once again, out of sheer necessity.
It will take real men achieving real power again. Women ally themselves with the powerful, as Max says, for their own safety. This drive is evolutionary deep. Right now, the powerful are uber-educated, urban metrosexuals. But in a crisis, you don't need a "guy" but a "man". Even the uber-educated, gender studies major will put on 1950 dress and heels and bake brownies if that's what's necessary for her protection. (And no, I'm not suggesting that as the ideal outcome, just as an example of how conformist women generally are.)
Economic calamity, hyperinflation, things that make daily life difficult and the lifestyles enjoyed by modern women unsustainable. Something which reminds them that families are actually really important.
One thing that could change in western countries is that women en masse, rather than competing with us, may get tired of denigrating men, recognizing that it is to their own detriment as well, and instead start rooting for us. It will probably take a while longer yet though. UK is the tip of the spear to see what comes of this. If women decide to side with their men over the regime, things may begin to change.
Not only are young men having to compete with millions of women and foreign men within their own countries for jobs, they are routinely mocked by the establishment and women for their difficulties. In ME countries that have similar issues with men finding wives, they at least have the patriarchy to fall back on for their self pride and image. Nothing like that is here in the West. It’s clear the system does not think the White young man will ever snap in an organized way, but the UK riots are proving that wrong. Moreover, the other commentators have great points about video games sublimating the male drive but you can also see that this outlet has been ruined by terrible Woke AAA games and nagging women in gaming. So they ruined the last remaining pressure valve for men’s aggression. That aggression does not seem to be kept in the box of pixels anymore.
An addendum. One of the striking videos coming out from the UK riots is one of a giant man laughing at and then kicking an apparent small male or female police officer wielding a riot shield. They go sailing several feet back and the other officers try to close ranks. The working man who lives in the world of reality and relies on his physical strength has always been underestimated in fights. Across the board, however, the disaffected young male has in recent years turned to the gym to regain some of his sense of masculinity through lifting weights or martial arts spurned on by RW Twitter and YouTubers. Many of these young lads are built like tanks and ready to fight much more than the well pampered current crop of police officers who thought it would be a cushy career with a fat pension at the end. The police, already stretched thin, will be outnumbered and at a serious strength disparity it seems.
I saw the video and drew a similar conclusion. It's interesting how the Trump assassination attempt, of all things, triggered a reassessment of wisdom regarding gender roles and differences. You see a similar conversation going on in the Olympics.
The half-lie/half-truth we've been forced to submit to is that men and women are equal in strength, but men are more aggressive (therefore, bad). The implication is that women can match men in physical conflict. Society's conviction to that lie is going to be put to the test. It could also have the impact of the state essentially justifying greater violence against men, particularly White men, since their aggression makes them threats to us all and nobody's really stronger or weaker than anyone else.
I think the US is in for some pretty hard times for a long time to come. Male testosterone and strength have diminished significantly over the past two decades. The fight is not in us anymore, even (and especially) among young men. Five reasons: vaccines, poisoned food supply, porn, video games, demoralizing propaganda. Combine this issue with the invasion of 10-15 million young, fit foreign men in the past three years with nothing to lose, and it is a recipe for disaster.
I know it’s an old take, but I think the system is betting on porn and video games neutering any revolution that the surveillance state can’t otherwise contain.
You’re right that we’re animals and these cycles play into primal trends. The issue is with streaming porn and video games present channels for bleeding off male rage through super-stimuli. The male impulse for a mate and to conquer (or at least have meaningful work) can be drained off through these super-stimuli, making the bearable enough, especially when the alternative is open revolt and likely death at the hands of the system’s hired guns. As long as there’s something to eat plus an internet connection, it’ll be enough for many young men who’ve given up on real life anyway.
This channeling or leaching doesn’t have to affect every male, or even render those engaging in such distractions completely useless. It just has to draw off enough energy so that the surveillance state can deal with flare-ups before they get out of control.
Britain may be the proving ground for the system’s strategy. They’ve been provoked for decades, so much so that were this a movie, the audience would have expected a montage of politician and immigrant-decorated lampposts already.
If Britain’s police/military are able to keep the lid on things now, it might only be because young men are using the lone internet outs the system allows them.
Porn and video games don't channel male sexual energy into anything useful, and that's the flaw. Sure, the men don't revolt, but they also don't create.
Men are uniquely capable of obsessive, single-minded focus on a goal to the exclusion of all else. We are the sex of extremes; in personality, intelligence, and physical strength, male statistical distribution has longer tails on both ends. A world in which men spend their time satiated on porn and video games might last a little longer, but only a little.
Question re: young men and their discontents - what was different about the late 60s and early 70s? We had a draft, wars in Korea and Vietnam, and lots and lots of angry young men being shipped off, yet we still had lots of political violence in the US. Was it giving the "get out of draft free" option to college students, who were the most likely to be unsatisfied and revolutionary?
The sexual revolution protests were female led. The civil rights were as well generally. (Men out front, but if you look you'll see the ladies driving things.) The anti-war protests, I'm not sure, but there were plenty of Bernardine Dohrns.
I don't have any data to back it up, but I'll bet the makeup of the drivers of the protests in the 60's and 70's were mostly educated women, the same as today.
There's been a concerted attempt to re-fashion those times as worse than remembered, but most young men were still patriotic, institutional trust was relatively high, along with social trust, and demographics were more balanced.
I just finished that Twitter essay (an oxymoron I'm still getting used to). Thanks for the link. It's very good. My favorite part:
"Is this what Francis Fukuyama called the 'end of history'? Zoomer males spending their lives as perpetual, sexless tenants, receiving government UBI stipends which get funneled instantly into the pockets of a hedge fund megalandlord and online pornography purveyors? Are corn syrup, Nintendo, porn, and weed the ultimate technology in preventing Mao Zedong or Adolf Hitler from rising again? It's very hard to tell, not least because exactly 0 good-faith sociologists are examining what is going on in all-male spaces and male culture. We simply have no idea how close we are to a Bolshevik revolution. It might happen tomorrow. Or, it may never happen again in the West."
What's so interesting about the essay is that he's clearly coming from Marxism but sees all the same things and shares many of my concerns coming from the opposite direction.
The Nolan Chart hypothesizes that as you approach the top or bottom corners, Left and Right get closer together. Maybe they really do, because the Marxist, class-warfare academic training I had 30 years ago is starting to resonate with the world for the first time.
The other section that's very good: "If we look at the groups that those in charge try to pit against each other (whites, blacks, latinos) we can see what this group may look like if they ever came together. You'd have rural whites, urban blacks, and 2nd generation Hispanics setting aside their differences and torching country clubs and breaching the most exclusive gated communities. Little wonder that identity politics is so enthusiastically endorsed by politicians and elites!"
Yep. 100% correct. The new Leftist, woke culture war is utterly nonsensical until you realize it's just an extension of old class war. Why are wealthy, uber-educated quasi-elites so hung up on racial and sexual privilege? It shields them from having to deal with the their own real privilege: class.
I believe this is why Luke Combs' remake of Fast Car was so dangerous to them. A poor black girl from the hood sings a song that resonates with a rural white kid so much that he asks to remake it when he gets a record contract 40 years later? Oh, heck no! We can't risk the urban black underclass and the rural white underclass ever realizing they have the same problems. As he says in that essay too: "Poor blacks and poor whites have more in common than poor whites have with rich whites." And rich whites are obsessed with making sure they don't ever realize it.
I am reminded of Camille Paglia (paraphrase): "Men will do almost anything for a beautiful woman. Male sexual energy is the single most potent creative (or destructive) force in the universe. It built the Taj Mahal. It launched the Trojan War. The challenge is for every culture to direct this toward more of the former and less of the latter."
Our elites are hoping that video games and free porn 24x7 will pacify young, disillusioned men. If they're wrong, we're in trouble. If they're right, we're still in trouble. Because virtual girlfriends don't require Taj Mahals.
"In the long run, women will be adversely impacted as well"
Women derive a disproportionate share of the benefits of civilization. The old ad slogan is correct: "God created men and women; Samuel Colt made them equal." Uber-educated, feminist woke-scolds demanding the end of Western civilization is a tragi-comedy on an epic scale.
I start teaching American Govt again in a few weeks. One of my handouts is a summary of various governmental systems:
Monarchy - you do what the king says
Oligarchy - you do what the nobility / wealthy say
Democracy - you do what the majority says
Anarchy - you do what you want, until someone with a bigger stick comes along, and then you do what he wants
I never explicitly say it in class, but the girls' body language every year show me that many understand exactly what the latter description means for them -- you become some man's plaything.
"I think women’s extreme leftward shift can be explained in part because the Left has so decisively achieved dominance."
The current political gender divide is downright weird, since women are usually more conservative (averse to large social change) than men. I think your comment explains that conundrum. Women's risk-averse nature generally makes them conservative, unless the revolutionaries manage to gain power, and then they join the revolutionaries to preserve their own safety. That's a really fascinating idea, Max.
Re. "Monarchy - you do what the king says": This is one of the many reasons why monarchy is vastly superior to all the other systems: there's a place where the buck stops. You can't easily knock the heads off of "the nobility/wealthy" or "the majority," but regicide takes a single axe and 20 seconds. And kings are a lot more sane in terms of time preference and what they'll leave to their heirs.
Women might be more averse to large social change, but they're not averse to getting benefits any way they can, and they tend to be followers. Those two things go far to explain the female voting patterns we're seeing, IMO. Keeping men out of family life while still getting the benefits that usually come with marriage, quotas and diversity requirements that give you all the scholarships and jobs, policies that allow you to remain unaccountable -- to be able to vote for more of all that while virtue-signalling from the Kewl Kids Klub that all the major media condone explains a lot.
I wouldn't want an atheist monarch. Machiavelli has a lot to say about that. He recommends it. I do not. Liberal democracy (an oxymoron BTW) requires a "moral and religious people" because the people are the rulers. Monarchy can handle an immoral population, but the king himself must still be a "moral and religious person". Monarchy in a time of anarchy would simply be tyranny.
I'm hardcore Catholic, so you don't have to convince me about the goodness of a godly king. But without that, no matter what we have is tyranny, and I'd rather be ruled by one tyrant atheist king than a gaggle of tyrant nobles, or ~150,000,000 tyrant citizens who think like modern Democrats (which is what we have now).
Camille Paglia is going to go down as yet another prophet of our times. I put her up there alongside Spengler (who inspired her), Buchanan, and Francis as the great thinkers of our time.
Interesting that you substitute anarchy for tyranny. The two really are related; democracy precedes tyranny, but anarchy is the bridge connecting the two. We're currently living under anarcho-tyranny, so there's no reason to suspect we're going to become a more free society. Anyone who thinks otherwise has no idea what's going on.
Women are functionally conservative, but not ideologically so. In fact, women are still very much conservative today in the sense that they don't want America to depart from its present far-left progressive trajectory. They think they're rebels, but they're not. They seek to strengthen the faction that is ascending in power.
BTW, I'd love to sit in on your classes one of these days!
Point is, "my country wants to enslave me and send me to my death" is a justifiable motivation to violently overthrow the goverment whereas "I can't get laid" isn't. Therefore a realistic men's rebellion is going to look more like starship troopers than handmaiden's tale.
Either:
• Service guarantees citizenship! And there's a quota system ensuring equal percentages of different groups in each role, so no women hogging all the comparatively safe logistics jobs while the men are cannon fodder.
• Conscription, but for everyone, regardless of gender.
• Conscription for both genders, but there's a deliberate loophole so women are exempt if currently pregnant or raising an infant and that's how the state plans to solve the birthrate crisis.
• Explicit bodily autonomy for both genders codified into law. Women can abort their fetuses and men can't be conscripted.
"Starship Troopers" was quite prophetic in many ways. The veterans who revolt did so because life became unlivable and disorder became rampant. Ironically, the veterans revolt that kicked off all the others started in Aberdeen, Scotland. I think that's how it's going to go down throughout the West. The fight begins because of culture and politics, but it ends because everyone decides they actually don't want to live in a war zone.
I'm against conscription, so I'd favor a "service = citizenship" model. Mass democracy is a false promise, anyway. However, no women in combat roles.
Missing the point, if anyone’s conscripted, women should be as well, not because of efficiency because it isn't efficient, rather, that situations where majorities of women vote to send men to die in a war they're allowed to stay home from shouldn't happen. Or rather, shouldn't happen again, it's already the case in modern Sweden in which military-age men as a demographic are against joining NATO and potentially being dragged into NATO's conflicts and women aren't.
https://gript.ie/swedish-young-military-aged-males-most-reluctant-to-join-nato/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39140100
What an excellent article. As always, you deliver clear eyed insight without demagoguery. There is so much to comment on here, and I have very limited time (because working two jobs just to not be homeless, I could add).
One additional (albeit tangential) thought pertaining to this topic-it’s not just us with young men with no future and no hope. Things are reaching critical mass in China thanks to the disastrous one child police. I believe 100 million young men with no hope for marriage or economic security is the number I’ve heard bandied about-could be even more. Given the realities you describe in this article, that is a horrifying statistic with global implications.
Fight club becomes a more unnerving the older I get. Perhaps we should promote a re-release of that prophetic film in hopes of waking up people to the reality we are facing that you see with such clarity.
To call "Fight Club" "prophetic is an understatement. That speech Tyler Durden gives about the spiritual death men are suffering from, along with their threat to that politician, telling him that they're the ones who make civilization work and not to mess with them, it was all so ahead of its time. We're living through that prophecy right now.
As for China, the flood of Chinese men into our country is likely an attempt by the Chinese state to relieve the pressure they're creating. Not sure what the end goal is, however.
I've never seen the movie. Now I'll have to get it.
Honestly, it's kind of overrated as a film. The most significant parts of the film are those two scenes I mentioned, but you need to watch the entirety of it to really internalize the message. When I re-watched it last year, I think it was, I can't tell you how many times I exclaimed, "Oh my God!" because an almost-quarter-century-old movie was talking about what's happening today.
Also, great performance by the late Meat Loaf.
How brilliantly did the creators of that film portray the coming flood. 100% agree about the Durden speech. Let those with eyes see what is being created. Fight Club and Project Mayhem are the most mild outcomes of the trends we are experiencing.
As for the men in China (who will be absolutely exploited by their government) it’s either tragic or terrifying what will be done to them. If they send them to the west to figure it out on their own, that’s it’s own brand of negligence and cruelty. If the decide to exploit them by using them for violence, well, 100 million is a lot of people, even without a weapon. Let’s not forget how stalin defended the Volgograd.
And forgive me for breaking the first rule of right club
When you listed all anti-male trends and policies that are overwhelmingly supported by women, and then said women aren't the villain, I had a good laugh.
Women are more impacted by social trends than are men. They're far more conformist because it's necessary for their survival. Yes, there are some truly awful women out there and toxic femininity is a bigger problem than toxic masculinity.
But it's all going to prove unsustainable in the end. Women will have to moderate, once again, out of sheer necessity.
I hope so too. I just don't know what it would take for them to change as these policies benefits them tremendously
It will take real men achieving real power again. Women ally themselves with the powerful, as Max says, for their own safety. This drive is evolutionary deep. Right now, the powerful are uber-educated, urban metrosexuals. But in a crisis, you don't need a "guy" but a "man". Even the uber-educated, gender studies major will put on 1950 dress and heels and bake brownies if that's what's necessary for her protection. (And no, I'm not suggesting that as the ideal outcome, just as an example of how conformist women generally are.)
Economic calamity, hyperinflation, things that make daily life difficult and the lifestyles enjoyed by modern women unsustainable. Something which reminds them that families are actually really important.
One thing that could change in western countries is that women en masse, rather than competing with us, may get tired of denigrating men, recognizing that it is to their own detriment as well, and instead start rooting for us. It will probably take a while longer yet though. UK is the tip of the spear to see what comes of this. If women decide to side with their men over the regime, things may begin to change.
Not only are young men having to compete with millions of women and foreign men within their own countries for jobs, they are routinely mocked by the establishment and women for their difficulties. In ME countries that have similar issues with men finding wives, they at least have the patriarchy to fall back on for their self pride and image. Nothing like that is here in the West. It’s clear the system does not think the White young man will ever snap in an organized way, but the UK riots are proving that wrong. Moreover, the other commentators have great points about video games sublimating the male drive but you can also see that this outlet has been ruined by terrible Woke AAA games and nagging women in gaming. So they ruined the last remaining pressure valve for men’s aggression. That aggression does not seem to be kept in the box of pixels anymore.
An addendum. One of the striking videos coming out from the UK riots is one of a giant man laughing at and then kicking an apparent small male or female police officer wielding a riot shield. They go sailing several feet back and the other officers try to close ranks. The working man who lives in the world of reality and relies on his physical strength has always been underestimated in fights. Across the board, however, the disaffected young male has in recent years turned to the gym to regain some of his sense of masculinity through lifting weights or martial arts spurned on by RW Twitter and YouTubers. Many of these young lads are built like tanks and ready to fight much more than the well pampered current crop of police officers who thought it would be a cushy career with a fat pension at the end. The police, already stretched thin, will be outnumbered and at a serious strength disparity it seems.
I saw the video and drew a similar conclusion. It's interesting how the Trump assassination attempt, of all things, triggered a reassessment of wisdom regarding gender roles and differences. You see a similar conversation going on in the Olympics.
The half-lie/half-truth we've been forced to submit to is that men and women are equal in strength, but men are more aggressive (therefore, bad). The implication is that women can match men in physical conflict. Society's conviction to that lie is going to be put to the test. It could also have the impact of the state essentially justifying greater violence against men, particularly White men, since their aggression makes them threats to us all and nobody's really stronger or weaker than anyone else.
I think the US is in for some pretty hard times for a long time to come. Male testosterone and strength have diminished significantly over the past two decades. The fight is not in us anymore, even (and especially) among young men. Five reasons: vaccines, poisoned food supply, porn, video games, demoralizing propaganda. Combine this issue with the invasion of 10-15 million young, fit foreign men in the past three years with nothing to lose, and it is a recipe for disaster.
I know it’s an old take, but I think the system is betting on porn and video games neutering any revolution that the surveillance state can’t otherwise contain.
You’re right that we’re animals and these cycles play into primal trends. The issue is with streaming porn and video games present channels for bleeding off male rage through super-stimuli. The male impulse for a mate and to conquer (or at least have meaningful work) can be drained off through these super-stimuli, making the bearable enough, especially when the alternative is open revolt and likely death at the hands of the system’s hired guns. As long as there’s something to eat plus an internet connection, it’ll be enough for many young men who’ve given up on real life anyway.
This channeling or leaching doesn’t have to affect every male, or even render those engaging in such distractions completely useless. It just has to draw off enough energy so that the surveillance state can deal with flare-ups before they get out of control.
Britain may be the proving ground for the system’s strategy. They’ve been provoked for decades, so much so that were this a movie, the audience would have expected a montage of politician and immigrant-decorated lampposts already.
If Britain’s police/military are able to keep the lid on things now, it might only be because young men are using the lone internet outs the system allows them.
Porn and video games don't channel male sexual energy into anything useful, and that's the flaw. Sure, the men don't revolt, but they also don't create.
Men are uniquely capable of obsessive, single-minded focus on a goal to the exclusion of all else. We are the sex of extremes; in personality, intelligence, and physical strength, male statistical distribution has longer tails on both ends. A world in which men spend their time satiated on porn and video games might last a little longer, but only a little.
Question re: young men and their discontents - what was different about the late 60s and early 70s? We had a draft, wars in Korea and Vietnam, and lots and lots of angry young men being shipped off, yet we still had lots of political violence in the US. Was it giving the "get out of draft free" option to college students, who were the most likely to be unsatisfied and revolutionary?
The sexual revolution protests were female led. The civil rights were as well generally. (Men out front, but if you look you'll see the ladies driving things.) The anti-war protests, I'm not sure, but there were plenty of Bernardine Dohrns.
I don't have any data to back it up, but I'll bet the makeup of the drivers of the protests in the 60's and 70's were mostly educated women, the same as today.
There's been a concerted attempt to re-fashion those times as worse than remembered, but most young men were still patriotic, institutional trust was relatively high, along with social trust, and demographics were more balanced.