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No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

robkhenderson.substack.com

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#471

Post by atq2119 »

irrational wrote: post #326
lkey wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Watching and hearing about the family instability in these communities is heartbreaking. Half or more of everyone’s parents are divorced. The kids float around seeking stability and the adults can’t provide it. You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four quintiles of wealth…

> Also, divorce sucks when kids are involved, I don't think anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that. Tons of people dispute this. The thinking is that people staying married when they don’t want to stay married is worse for kids than people getting divorced and creating two separate households the kids float between. I don’t agree with this thinking, mostly because I’m the product of divorce that saw the a…

I appreciate the candor but at the same time wonder about the lack of counterfactual experience. What if your parents had stayed together and you grew up in a household of constant fighting? Would that have been better?

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#472

Post by yywwbbn »

fineIllregister wrote: post #230
InTheArena wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a stigma in pushing stable values. In a very real sense, it’s created by a media environment that eschews non-progressive (it’s not liberal - at least in the USA) family structures. Let’s face it, Homer Simpson is the face of traditional American family structures.

> Homer Simpson is the face of traditional American family structures. The life available to Homer Simpson included a skilled job that he could obtain without a college degree (and also while being an idiot). He was able to purchase a four bedroom home in the community he grew up in and provide for his wife and three children on that one income. That was the norm, now it's practically gone. The lack of accessible eco…

> That was the norm

I don’t think you should blindly trust everything you see on TV. I doubt being able to afford a 4 bedroom while working in a low skilled job was ever the norm (even without being an idiot).

In any case Homer was an engineer in a nuclear power plant, while he was probably quite underpaid, his income should had still been relatively decent.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#473

Post by dragonwriter »

camgunz wrote: post #456
throwaway894345 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t the burn you intend. Henderson is talking about wealth/status privilege while the left uses “privilege” as a shorthand for racial or gender privilege. Henderson is clearly not ceding that point here (implicitly or otherwise).

I don't think the left thinks of privilege solely as racial or gender privilege. Here's an article on "everydayfeminism.com" about the broad view progressives take on it: https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/income-vs-wealth/

> I don't think the left thinks of privilege solely as racial or gender privilege.

The left doesn't thing of privilege as even primarily racial or gender privilege. (The people that do are centrists; the actual left centers class privilege, though there are leftists who see race/gender issues as important secondary/connected issues to class issues.)

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#474

Post by magicalhippo »

d23 wrote: post #44

Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing? I’d find this statement equally compelling (which is to say, not at all): > Since we stopped using horses as a primary means of transportation, men’s sense of self worth has diminished. Riding a horse carried a lot of high status connotations: drive, masculinity, towering above the land, and man’s dominati…

> Do people find this stuff compelling?

I enjoyed reading it. It's a subject area I've been thinking about from time to time.

> Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing?

It's an opinion piece, so I read it as such. That is, like having a discussion with a buddy at the pub.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#475

Post by AviationAtom »

Multicomp wrote: post #354
mensetmanusman wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These young men aren’t getting weekly messages of hope like >80% were 60 years ago. Those that are are more likely flourishing according to all the pew research.

If by weekly messages of hope you mean going to church regularly on Sundays*, that's an interesting point I hadn't considered in this context before. Can you provide a citation for the pew research on the weekly messages of hope, whether my above inference was correct or not? If it's not Sunday services at church, I'd love to know what else I can do inject some hope into my weeks. * or whatever is the holy day in a g…

I think you assumed they meant faith, when it really could just be influences. You are a product of your surroundings, and if your existence is tied to the Internet then those surroundings can include many negative things. The Internet has great power in the right hands, but it can also be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#476

Post by jelly »

jcstk wrote: post #132

I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me, this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified why I was only investing my time in “work”, and validated me for having “come so far”. Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That reflection cent…

Perhaps 10 years of existing within the system led you away from the more revolutionary perspective and towards the status quo. I would be curious to see the blog post you wrote, I can't find it in your submissions.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#477

Post by defterGoose »

m0llusk wrote: post #425
rayiner wrote: post #3

This is an important read, especially this part. > This highly educated and affluent person prioritized stability for her own children. But refused to publicly endorse this value so that less fortunate children could also benefit from family stability. I’m from a rigidly socially conservative immigrant family that professes fashionably liberal values in public—imposing a double standard between “us” and “Americans.”…

This seems like a lot of misplaced and irrelevant moralizing. Even in this article it is reported that men find little opportunity in labor markets that leave them with low pay and low respect. If low end jobs paid enough to support a family and might lead to higher pay over time then the situation would be different. Blaming this situation on expectations doesn't make sense when the labor market is clearly both crit…

Right. If there is, in general, little to no chance for advancement in a profession, then there is little to no reason for a person (male in this case) to work hard to excel at it.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#478

Post by nitrogen »

UncleMeat wrote: post #327
lettergram wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Don't say gay" and other anti LGBQT+ laws are being passed. The law could be described as “baring presentations about sex (straight or otherwise) to a classroom of 5-10 year olds” After the age of 10 discussions in the classroom can occur. And at any age (5-10), children can ask about sex, but the teachers cannot say “don’t tell your parents”. Which was happening... Anyway, it has support from all sides. It’s actu…

> The law could be described as “baring presentations about sex (straight or otherwise) to a classroom of 5-8 year olds” One of the authors of the bill was asked if a math textbook that had a word problem saying "Jimmy and his dads go to the store..." would be in violation of this law. He responded that this was precisely the sort of thing the law was intending to prevent. The law is very much not just about direct s…

Such subversively worded math problems should be avoided, no matter who the named parties are.

"Jimmy, Jack, and John go to the store..." would be just as effective of a setup for a story problem without sneaking in moral displays.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#479

Post by PaulHoule »

karaterobot wrote: post #68
PaulHoule wrote: post #11

A counter is that other countries (Japan, Korea, Italy, ...) that enforce traditional values have had a collapse in the birth rate. Having children out of wedlock is a safety valve for broken institutions that keeps the birth rate higher in the US than comparable countries; that plus relatively open integration helps us maintain our economy, welfare state, pensions, etc. If we turned the screws on women and men to di…

I don't buy that traditional values with regard to marriage are responsible with lower birth rates. People were married with high birthrates for hundreds of years, back when traditional values were just called values. Birth rates go down when people don't need a lot of children to work their farms or support them in old age, and when women get access to birth control and enter the workforce. This last part is tangent…

In traditional culture there was a higher birth rate, traditional culture would like to have a high birth rate today. It fails to do it because when it fights with modern conditions, women go on strike.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#480

Post by influx »

giantg2 wrote: post #401
lolinder wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But people also just give up if they're constantly told that all the opportunities are gone, whether or not it's true. If you combine "there are no opportunities for me" with "there are no expectations for me", you get "I'll do nothing".

Even if you have expectations, many opportunities may be gone. Just look at the lack of non-college work in the US that pays a living wage. Now try to get one of those jobs if you're competing against others who have no criminal history if you have a minor one. I have a job as a dev and even I'm tired of this treadmill. Taxes, COL, healthcare, etc. No time/money to do the things I want. No real career, just a job. Li…

What are you talking about? Just try and find a plumber, carpenter or contractor that isn’t backlogged for months.

There’s a ton of really good blue collar jobs, often where you are your own boss. Unfortunately, society is pushing everyone to college.

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