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Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

city-journal.org

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Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#121

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

dx87 wrote: post #87
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense. The losers of those wars were risk takers as well - and they lost. In fact, for an EXISTING nation, risk taking males are more of a threat to social order. Risk taking, non-conformist males make terrible infantrymen - that's why they beat out the risk taker and make you follow orders. The military doesn't want a cosplaying rambo cocking everything up.

> In fact, for an EXISTING nation, risk taking males are more of a threat to social order. Risk taking, non-conformist males make terrible infantrymen - that's why they beat out the risk taker and make you follow orders. That's 100% wrong. One of the main advantages of western militaries is that they encourage independent thinking. In the Marines, one of the things leaders are told is that they should tell their troo…

Please - this is nonsense.

No one commands you to raise and aim your weapon every time - that doesn't mean western military forces are a bastion of free thinking. They're reliant on chain of command and soldiers acting on their own is not good for an military.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#122

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

apexalpha wrote: post #120
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is treacherous discussion. Broaching the idea that there's any biological basis for parenting, child development, etc. is pretty much verboten since it runs askew of idealism.

I'm sorry I don't think I fully understand your comment. Are you saying it's bad to point out that it's good to have both parents around?

I get the sense most progressives, at least in the US, would be uncomfortable with/hostile to someone saying:

> the strongest statistical correlation whether someone becomes "successful" later on in life is whether they have a male father figure growing up, or not

since it implies that there's something intrinsic/fundamental about men(and a nuclear family more generally) being needed for healthy child development

honestly even mentioning statistics around a social issue is risky

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#124

Post by dvtrn »

frank2 wrote: post #117
dvtrn wrote: post #4

Impactful article that sums up something I think a (very comparatively young) friend of mine is going through following a divorce just before COVID hit Except does the title perhaps mean “melancholy” because I’m having a hard time finding the intrinsic nihilism as offered by the depictions within the piece. It simply labels unfortunate outcomes of certain elements of our modern experience as such and offers no episte…

Headlines need to be hyperbolic nowadays to maximize clicks, and 'rising [sadness] among young men' doesn't sound nearly as dangerous as 'rising nihilism among young men'. I think the writer of the headline thinks that most of his or her readers are unaware of or uninterested in the philosophical connotations of 'nihilism'; to them it means 'without an enduring source of meaning', 'without enduring emotional connecti…

Hello! Your point is well met. However, I would challenge this:

I think the writer of the headline thinks that most of his or her readers are unaware of or uninterested in the philosophical connotations of 'nihilism'; to them it means 'without an enduring source of meaning', 'without enduring emotional connections' or more frighteningly 'without moral compass'.

While respecting that the English language is, and forever shall be fluid and dynamic given the particular zeitgeist a speaker inhabits--rhetorical evolution as an indicator of societal-change is not rhetorical refabrication as a device to give authority to an individualized degree of authorial intent.

Which IMO contributes to a real misunderstanding to the beautiful nuance that exists within the various schools of nihilistic study; as I don't know of many that would justly simplify nihilism down to "without a[...]source of meaning' or even 'without moral compass'. We have perfectly cromulent and appropriate terminology existing already that encapsulates these things. At least not any that aren't preoccupied with merely the surface of whatever branch of 'nihilism' the author is supposing lies at the root of their thesis here.

I still think 'melancholy' is a far more direct and appropriate description of the machinations that bring about such a sensation of existential malaise, far more than anything that approaches nihilism.

THEN AGAIN...

I am reminded that Sartre had a lot to say about the duality of meaning between what a thing presents itself to be on the surface, and what a thing is ("Being and Nothingness", Ch1. 'The Pursuit of Being') and this 'rhetorical refabrication' has a long history of precedent in such high falutin studies.

The author brings up an interesting point of discussion that can be unpacked in a myriad of ways, I'm just not sure about the one that was chosen.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#125

Post by frenchy »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #74
frenchy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this experience is surprisingly common. Modern society affords us a lot of mobility, but I don't think we realise how much it costs us in terms of stable friendships. I have a young kid, and he's still too young to really have "friends" (when you're young enough, any stranger is a friend), but eventually we'll either have to decide to live in the same place for a long time, or he's going to have get used to c…

How many people actually take advantage of that mobility? Most of the men who fit the article's profile I know have never left hometown.

It probably depends a lot on where you're from. I would be amiss to forget that this hasn't changed for a lot of people, probably the overwhelming majority of people.

However, for people who work in the tertiary sector of the economy (ala the three-sector model of economics) this is fairly common. Most of the people on this forum would fall there, and that sector has been growing.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#126

Post by apexalpha »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #122
apexalpha wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry I don't think I fully understand your comment. Are you saying it's bad to point out that it's good to have both parents around?

I get the sense most progressives, at least in the US, would be uncomfortable with/hostile to someone saying: > the strongest statistical correlation whether someone becomes "successful" later on in life is whether they have a male father figure growing up, or not since it implies that there's something intrinsic/fundamental about men(and a nuclear family more generally) being needed for healthy child development hon…

I intentionally put quotes around successful because successful means different things to different people. But, yeah, the strongest indicator for whether you will grow up successful or not seems to be whether your father is in the picture growing up.

I'm not saying it's causal. And I'm sure many grow up fine with just a mother, but it's very strongly correlated in my country.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#127

Post by dguaraglia »

lopmotr wrote: post #47
dguaraglia wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the 'why' though. Plenty of people across the world grow up in similar situations as kids in the Midwest and they don't go around destroying other people's property. I honestly think there's something really messed up about American culture. I believe you can draw a direct correlation between what I think it is - people being indoctrinated into selfishness from an early age - and behavior like that. For co…

But did their parents consistently love them and have a stable relationship with each other? It's well known that lack of those factors causes lifelong psychological problems in children which manifests as criminal behavior, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and suicide, as well as perpetuating the problem to the next generation.

Actually, that's my point!

As you can imagine, my wife and me have had several conversations about how different our experiences going through school were. I've spotted a couple of things in particular that couldn't be more different:

1) Kids in the US tend to move around a lot 2) Schools classes are designed so that kids are with different groups every year/subject 3) Kids who want to go to college are under a lot of pressure from age 14 or so to perform flawlessly or risk their whole live plans being derailed 4) The obsession with popularity ('Prom King/Queen', etc.)

I think all of those lead to very poor bonding between kids. Sure, here and there you'll have kids that'll become life-long friends, but the vast majority of Americans I've met barely talk to high-school friends (they tend to form long-term bonds in college).

I have a theory that's one of the reasons school bullying is so prevalent in the US. Don't get me wrong, there were bullies in my school in South America too, but they were few and far apart and they usually grew out of it by 6th grade. It's easy for a bully to pick individual victims out of a school full of individuals... it's not the same when the kid they try to pick on has been friends for years with the same 10 to 15 people.

In any case, the conclusion we've come to is we don't want our kids to go through the American school system.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#128

Post by claudiulodro »

Balgair wrote: post #115
motohagiography wrote: post #36

As a man in my late 30s, I began to see older male relatives of my own and of friends dying of the usual things like cancer and some even of opioids, but the thing that struck me was how many of them depended on hiring the funeral home staff as fill-in pallbearers. I made it a priority to be sure that however things go, I'd like to be able to convene a party of six. One of the things I did was get involved with a fra…

https://strenuouslife.co/ Though not perfect, it's a good starting point along the lines you're talking about. I think they have sign ups in a few weeks.

Are you a member? I've heard the advertisements on the Art of Manliness podcast, and I've always been curious about it.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#129

Post by elipsey »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #113
elipsey wrote: post #103

I spent several years of my life raising someone else's son "out of wedlock" with great care and devotion, while his other male family members have so much family values they have been married several times, but couldn't bother to show up. We are on good terms, and in spite of his having a "single mother" he survived to adulthood, and without the criminal record the author warns of as a consequence. This publisher is…

> This publisher is operated by a conservative think tank Ok so I'm glad we're engaging the article on the surface. > This article furnishes no evidence that being married forces poor people to be good parents I'm not sure that was ever said. What they're arguing is about how societal institutions like marriage have largely declined and it's happening along with other large changes in society: lack of trust, friends,…

I agree that it's important to have stable responsible male role models. I object to the state preventing abandoned parents from getting divorced, and treating them with them various other forms of animus -- something that is advocated for by conservative think tanks like the one that payed for this article, and had negative consequences for people I care about.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#130

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

frenchy wrote: post #125
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people actually take advantage of that mobility? Most of the men who fit the article's profile I know have never left hometown.

It probably depends a lot on where you're from. I would be amiss to forget that this hasn't changed for a lot of people, probably the overwhelming majority of people. However, for people who work in the tertiary sector of the economy (ala the three-sector model of economics) this is fairly common. Most of the people on this forum would fall there, and that sector has been growing.

Do you think that sector is referring to the males the article is? I highly doubt it.
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