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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

#581
post #440
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO outrage about incels is just a socially acceptable way to bully. It's a way to find an excuse to express their superiority over others while masquerading it with concern over women's safety. You're never going to see someone mock a successful man who beats his wife.

It's confusing to me that it's socially acceptable these days to bully those who lack a sexual partner.

Not that confusing, really. I've spent decades unable to find a sexual partner. I'd also make a concerted effort not to fall into the conclusions and habits of thought found in those getting bullied as 'incels', and in fact hooked up on Reddit of all places and am in the home of my lady friend now, working with her on various stuff and steadily building lovemaking skills (we're on the older side and there's a lot going on so opportunity isn't always there).

I would lovingly and determinedly bully those who are so weak that they can't face the reality of bad conditions and their own inadequacies, those who show an emotional need to behave like they (just as they are) merit a sexual partner, and this not happening means women are evil scheming monsters who conspire to ruin the world and must be stopped and/or reduced to Gorean slavery for their own good as they're not really people. I'd bully those incels all day long. They are harming themselves by their own stubbornly held rationalizations and need to cut it out.

Properly having a sexual relationship means having a relationship, very likely with an opposite-sex partner if we're talking hetero incels, and it's not easy. I'm with a woman who is observably smarter than me and I'm a techie nerd. There are things we have in common, but there are also ways that we just don't operate the same. There's strengths I have that she doesn't (not physical, either), there's strengths she has (and sometimes expects out of me) that I don't, and won't. The male/female thing is compelling and interesting, but it's impossible to reduce to 'we are actually the same' 'cos we ain't :)

When you get anybody concluding 'therefore the enemy sex, being incomprehensible, is simply evil and must be destroyed rather than reasoned with', you gotta bully those people or they will ruin it for us all. They are being intellectually lazy and wrong, and causing damage and making it harder for everyone, and we can't afford that kind of wrong.

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

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of the elite wealthy class and their media sock puppets on both sides of the traditional left/right political divide are dedicated to pushing the identitarian culture war theme - because what they don't want to deal with is something like this: "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social respect."

As notacoward observes… literally 'men'? To my ear, 'people' would've worked too. I feel it's always worth asking whether there are unstated axioms here being snuck into the discourse. Especially in a big conversation about how 'everything is being ruined because people won't stick to the old good ways'. Though it may be an uncomfortable question to some, to what extent does this rest upon female humans serving as li…

Now I really have to wonder, do you get social recognition from your livestock? Of course you don't. So why even make that argument? Dignity and social respect can be a positive sum game; in fact, this is effectively the key insight behind the notion of social capital. In a well-functioning society, more social respect for women can fully coexist with dignity for men and vice versa.

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

#583

What a strange mix of important observations about social conditions and mores and stuff verging on culture war bullshit regarding "elites" etc. For example: > Those who sit at or near the apex of the social ladder (who decide what behaviors are prestigious) have decided that family stability is unimportant. The author proceeds to quote an anecdote from a UN conference to supposedly back up this point. In reality, wh…

> What a strange mix of important observations about social conditions and mores and stuff verging on culture war bullshit regarding "elites" etc.

I love how cryptocurrency and rust are “tired” topics but this shit isn’t.

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

#584

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…

Yes, alluding to attending community focused thanksgiving. Root word of ‘Eucharist’ means to give thanks, for example.

Here is one example: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2...

It begins:

“A new Pew Research Center study of the ways religion influences the daily lives of Americans finds that people who are highly religious are more engaged with their extended families, more likely to volunteer, more involved in their communities and generally happier with the way things are going in their lives.”

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

#585
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What do you attribute this to? Is it mostly just lifestyle choice? Or would most of them prefer to have a wife/gf but don't have one for whatever reason?

A stable job just doesn't compete anymore. Single heterosexual girls want guys with prospects and/or family money. Some of these guys are afraid of dating, afraid that something might go wrong that could impact their careers. Deployments have also changed. Soldiers don't date or even talk to local girls anymore. Interestingly, many of these guys are also stone-sober. Not recovering alcoholics. They just don't drink.…

At 25 I guess they are not interested in a romantic life, overall. it doesn't happen automatically, it's a learned behavior that starts in teens

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

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychologists recognize that a surprisingly large percentage of people have no little to no ability to visualize abstractions or engage in mentally taxing feats of empathy. These people are more prone to believe that it’s only possible to obtain insight about a circumstance from only those individuals in said circumstance. When people comment about this, it generates confusion for people like you. :)

What do I search for if I want to read up on that research?

Here could be an interesting starting point: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/726844v1.full.pdf

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

#587
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…

It's very compelling when it lines up with my worldview in a way that makes me feel validated. Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions. Unfortunately, I'm not a WASP so your 'horse theory' doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

> Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions

You forgot the part where I then accuse you of being the one blinded by ideology and bias.

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

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t you invalidate all social commentary with this argument? Surely there are trends in society that can be remarked on generally.

Your theory is that all social commentary is handwavey general remarks? If so, yes, let's invalidate it. I think effective social commentary is mostly grounded in the personal, the specific, and the (thoughtfully) statistical. Otherwise it's very easy just to project one's biases onto a complicated picture. E.g., consider whatever it is that people think is "ruining the kids" these days. In the 1700s, you know what w…

The error in your line of thinking is that you assume humans are better interpreting statistical evidence than they are broad logical arguments. I don't see any evidence of that.

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

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a tight-knit family is the foundation of all other social structures. But you're missing an important part there: the "tight-knit" part doesn't just mean "stays together no matter what". It means "genuinely care about each other and work well together." Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely important, for everyone in it. But a) the nuclear family you're almost certainly thinking about (a married couple…

> Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely important, for everyone in it. Telling people that it doesn't matter if they divorce and that they should put their own short-term happiness first and foremost is tantamount to denying this. And when it's the liberal upper class doing this, they're pretty much pulling up the ladder to effective social cohesion behind themselves, even as they hypocritically enjoy its…

A lot of this discussion seems to be wrapped up in the idea that the lower classes look up to the upper classes. Is there any evidence for this point? It seems to imply poor people unable to think critically and independently. Yet, there exists households of modest means where each partner holds their other half accountable-- yet nobody is talking about those people. What's different about them, and what differentiates them from other lower-class households that can't keep it together?

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

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving women into the workforce as certainly reduced fecundidity and marriage.

We're long past the time when we need to be concerned about maximizing children output as a societal goal. I'm much more interested in ensuring people have lives with meaning and growth than trying to pop out as many children as possible. If that means a woman has a career, great. If that means a woman wants to be a stay at home mom, also great.

This won't age well. We're on the cusp of a demographic crisis. We need more people.
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