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Education and Men without Work

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: Education and Men without Work

#281

Post by war1025 »

whytaka wrote: post #204
war1025 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would wager that a lot of the people wasting time playing video games all day are precisely the ones who would benefit most from serving in the armed forces. Traditionally that is probably where a lot of them would have ended up.

As cannon fodder to protect the privileged.

That's actually one argument people make for reinstating the draft.

With the draft, people from all walks of life were enlisted. (Yes, there were ways to weasel out of it, but beside the point)

Without the draft, the army is largely built from the lower-class, conservative, patriotic populous.

The argument is that the privileged would be less likely to send people off to war if it meant their loved ones lives were on the line.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#282

Post by notfromhere »

elfexec wrote: post #240

> Unfortunately, the two causes the article cites (dissolution of family structure and rise of single male households) are unaddressed. It's unaddressed because it's the journalist class and their kind that has waged a war against family, gender roles, gender itself and males. At least since the 90s as far as I remember, the predominant message in media is fathers are bad, males are bad and family is bad. Media has d…

The inability to understand what toxic masculinity actually is, is so very telling

Re: Education and Men without Work

#283

Post by notfromhere »

allovernow wrote: post #102
jfengel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, I think, is that the article seems to believe that the solution is "return to the 1950s". The world has changed. The relationships between men and women have changed. The relationship of the economy to individuals has changed. The article seems predicated on the notion that this number (male participation in the labor force) is the metric that matters, rather than anything about their mental health -- ha…

>The relationships between men and women have changed. The relationship of the economy to individuals has changed. >Well, if only women would return home, there would be more lucrative jobs for men, and more need for the women to be taken care of by a man". That ship has sailed Worth noting that the current changes are explicitly counter to traditional roles which have existed for thousands of years. Yes, appeal sole…

Maybe arguing for a solution where women were property of their husbands is cruel. I reckon the people making these arguments don’t expect to be on the barrel-end of that social dynamic.

Maybe we as men can figure out a different way to interact in society that doesn’t require stripping the other half of their rights.

Maybe the people making this argument just can’t compete in the modern world.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#284

Post by chongli »

halfnormalform wrote: post #247
chongli wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind regardless of what you want as a woman, there's very real economic risk to being dependent on a man. Before we automated away most of the jobs for men (leading to the current crisis) we did it first for women, with household appliances like refrigerators, laundry machines, and dishwashers. Go back to the 18th century (or earlier) and you'll find that husband and wife are equally dependent on one another.…

Eh, the "family bond" of the Amish also involves ruthlessly shunning their children and the children of their neighbors for doing things that most people would consider completely normal, so grain of salt re: tight bonds. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/amish-shun...

It goes both ways. The Amish have very deep and committed beliefs about their way of life and its connections to the family unit, which is primary in their community.

What we consider “completely normal” (cell phones, dating apps, sharing economy conveniences and luxuries) hasn’t done anything to keep us from atomizing to the point where people are killing themselves directly or through alcohol/drugs. The Amish want to keep those things out of their society because they see plainly what the rest of us have become.

It’s extreme and difficult to understand, but I wouldn’t call it ruthless. Those who are shunned have made the informed decision to reject their rules and leave.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#285

Post by [deleted] »

bnjms wrote: post #113
wccrawford wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Men generally have the biological need to go do and wander and discover things." I see no evidence that this is a male thing, versus a female thing, or even that all men feel this. I see plenty of men who just coast through life with no curiosity or drive. They don't explore or discover, they just consume and do what they're told so they can consume some more.

> I see no evidence that this is a male thing, versus a female thing I’ve yet to see a valid generalization for men that did not hold for women. Though sometimes the perspective changes.

[deleted]

Re: Education and Men without Work

#286

Post by tathougies »

notfromhere wrote: post #282
elfexec wrote: post #240

> Unfortunately, the two causes the article cites (dissolution of family structure and rise of single male households) are unaddressed. It's unaddressed because it's the journalist class and their kind that has waged a war against family, gender roles, gender itself and males. At least since the 90s as far as I remember, the predominant message in media is fathers are bad, males are bad and family is bad. Media has d…

The inability to understand what toxic masculinity actually is, is so very telling

What a vapid, empty response. I would be ashamed to write something so mindless in response to a well thought out comment. It would make me feel as if I'm resorting to cliche rather than engaging in an intelligent conversation.

The commenter is absolutely right that the media is obsessed with articles on toxic masculinity. This is perhaps not a bad thing in and of itself, but media space is limited, and journalists often harp on toxic masculinity to the exclusion of all else. You'd be hard pressed to find a major journalist or sociologist who would be willing to even point out which traditionally male behaviors are not toxic. That and the implicit taboo about criticizing any part of modern womanhood by the media makes it seem as if men (and white people for that matter -- and I am not white so dont play that game with me) are the only class whose toxic traits are written about so openly.

The number of articles published praising women for what would previously have been grave vices dwarves the number of articles written that even dare to broach the topic of there being any goodness in traditional masculine roles, which for better or worse, it is clear men are attracted towards.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#287

Post by yocheckitdawg »

belorn wrote: post #208
tathougies wrote: post #5

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but esp…

"Most people (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) would rather take the short term thrill of continuous dopamine" Please don't spread misinformation. Take an study like Sex differences in addiction ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286725/ ). If anything the propensity of the female psyche is more likely to become dependent on dopamine, but its an…

This is an interesting comment to think about, I hadn't thought of comparing Women's social media usage to Men's video game playing.

There are a lot of similarities at least on the surface, definitely an interesting one to think about.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#288

Post by _fq4v »

lidHanteyk wrote: post #67
tmux314 wrote: post #42

There's a very weird "let them eat cake" attitude in this thread which I find distressing. The study reports on the millions of working age men in the US who are essentially too depressed and face too many obstacles to search for work. Instead, they're spending their days staying inside, getting high, and playing video games. They essentially have little to no chance to pursue romantic relationships. Many of them eve…

To give my perspective: I'm a cake-eater. I have a dayjob, but I don't really care about it beyond basic professionalism, and I spend a fair amount of my spare time with cannabis and video games rather than with people. Who cares if my male peers think I'm a loser? Most of them are incompetent mooching pieces of shit, and I don't have to believe in their crab mentality. They can say "loser" all they like. Who cares i…

Youre right you have dodged a bullet in not having to raise another mans child or being in a loveless marriage. However, societally speaking, there is an alternative.. Good enough marriages where men raise their own children.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#289

Post by _fq4v »

notfromhere wrote: post #283
allovernow wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The relationships between men and women have changed. The relationship of the economy to individuals has changed. >Well, if only women would return home, there would be more lucrative jobs for men, and more need for the women to be taken care of by a man". That ship has sailed Worth noting that the current changes are explicitly counter to traditional roles which have existed for thousands of years. Yes, appeal sole…

Maybe arguing for a solution where women were property of their husbands is cruel. I reckon the people making these arguments don’t expect to be on the barrel-end of that social dynamic. Maybe we as men can figure out a different way to interact in society that doesn’t require stripping the other half of their rights. Maybe the people making this argument just can’t compete in the modern world.

There have been plenty of societies with strong marital bonds where women were not property. Even in England women were not property. That is a tired line that undersells reality. One could equally say men were property since under the law of coverture in england a wife could enter into debts on behalf of their husbands poteentially forcing them into servitude to pay that debt while men could not do the same to their wives.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#290

Post by pontifier »

gedy wrote: post #194
pontifier wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we should look toward legalization of prostitution to provide an alternative source of motivation for these young men to re-join the workforce.

That would be same as porn? Cheaper than a relationship and no need to make yourself attractive to a mate.

I don't think so. I imagine that because prostitution must involve some 2 way communication that it could satisfy a deeper need in people.

Why do some people go see therapists when they could just read self help books? It's the same thing right?

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