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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

#391

Post by hotpotamus »

AvocadoPanic wrote: post #190
rayiner wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do they undermine the norm? They don't do this on purpose they are also just humans. I don’t think they do this on purpose; I think they’re well meaning and don’t “want to judge.” The problem is that social judgement is what creates signals for what’s good and bad and what’s worthy and unworthy; what has value and what doesn’t. And people respond to signals. Imagine that you’re just an average dude growing up i…

Military or a trade would be a better choice.

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/do...

There's the 40 page document of all the medical reasons you won't qualify for military service, one of which I have. Everyone says just join the military, but I suppose 7 year old me should have thought of that before I chose to get bone disease.

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

#392

Post by brodouevencode »

> 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.

Why would such a person ever do something like this? This is basically living a lie? Has society gone so low that it’s considered admirable to take such a position?

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

#393

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

poszlem wrote: post #17

Rob Henderson also coined the term "luxury beliefs" which is one of the most apt name for something we've been witnessing lately ("defund the police" or "healthy at every size" or "marriage is just an oppressive institution of the patriarchy"). I highly recommend that other essay too https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-...

I find his overall argument that it is "trickle down values" that are responsible for many of the overall social ills of the poor extremely lacking in evidence, and if anything I think he's confused cause and effect.

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

#394

Post by HomeGear »

walkhour wrote: post #136
karpierz wrote: post #72

The article cites an anecdote about a young father who sat around the house arguing, fighting and drinking. He ends up getting kicked out of the house. The 1960s version of this story instead ends with the husband beating his wife behind closed doors without repercussions. Which is preferable?

> the husband beating his wife behind closed doors without repercussions Families were much bigger back then. The extended family was always around. Communities were much tighter and actually existed. I think you don't have a good understanding of those times if you think women could be beaten around without repercussions, and honestly, thinking women are so helpless smells of sexism.

Hilariously off base. There were multiple mechanisms used to keep women from talking about abuse - not just physical. Divorce was shamed, “airing dirty laundry” was shamed, the economics of leaving, etc.

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

#395

Post by fullshark »

deebosong wrote: post #194
AviationAtom wrote: post #79

I teach many folks that have just left high school, and entered the military. Their being content with doing pretty much nothing shocks me. Seeing the military enabling the behavior, even more so. All because recruiting is so hard right now. Many of the recruits do join the military because they have exhausted other options. It's sad to see how productive society once was, versus where we are now. It legitimately mak…

I'm not that young, but not old enough to have witnessed generational patterns of young men shifting as a cultural phenom. That being said, what do you feel is the cause of a drain in motivation on the endemic level? For some reason my gut reaction is to think that it's the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, and wages stagnating while prices go up. And then couple that with social media, of the life we're all to…

> That being said, what do you feel is the cause of a drain in motivation on the endemic level?

It's a natural reaction to the fact that opportunities are shrinking in terms of quality and payoff. There are lots of "jobs" but they don't offer long term stability or growth.

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

#396

Post by DeathArrow »

FabHK wrote: post #301
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.”…

> The article is right on the mark talking about the importance of social expectations for men. My family’s rigid expectations have been such a blessing. Émile Durkheim basically introduced the discipline of sociology with his study of suicide. He found that the ratio of suicide was higher among protestants than among catholics, and concluded that it was because they were less embedded in strict norms, and freer to d…

>they were less embedded in strict norms, and freer to do whatever they pleased,

I would argue that strict norms - if they don't come into contradiction with what is natural and proven in time as beneficial - might imply more freedom than some kinds of "freedoms" or "rights" imposed by force if those "freedoms" or "rights" come into contradiction with the natural way societies and civilizations evolved.

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

#397

Post by jcstk »

simulate-me wrote: post #218
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…

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

The author provided data and graphs to highlight the problems in America he believes are being caused by a root problem of society having low expectations for men.

He doesn't provide any data to reflect what society's expectations are. Those are just his thoughts.

That's a big distinction.

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

#398

Post by DebtDeflation »

taylorius wrote: post #112

I think these "chattering classes" overestimate their influence on how young people grow up. Their position papers and articles in the Atlantic are nothing compared to the tidal wave of media from Youtube, Tiktok, Hollywood etc. And those media engines prize the quick dopamine hit above all else - criminals, gangsters, hustlers - anything but a hard working family man.

Social media also encourages people to present a highly exaggerated and curated, if not outright fabricated, view of their lives to the world. Others in their networks then compare this to their actual lives and feel inadequate.

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

#400

Post by lkey »

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 meant the fact of a divorce involving children sucks (for the kids especially).

I wasn't arguing that parents with children shouldn't divorce at all. Each couple will need to consider the pros and cons as best they can.

I myself was a product of a home that tried both 'stay together for the kids' and 'extremely messy 6 years long divorce' in that order. That relationship was doomed from the start, it would have been better if they'd never met. My dad is/was a high-functioning drug addict (among other thing), divorce was always the best answer for them.

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