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Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

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Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#81

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #70
courtf wrote: post #40

I expected some level of hand-wringing here in response to this article. Maybe it's something in the water in rural America, but none of this is unusual or extreme, and if this behavior is foreign to you, then you and I grew up in different circumstances. Getting together with the boys and breaking the law, pushing each other to go a little further each time, is a rite of passage all over the world. Maybe it's practi…

On the one hand society expects people to be "just, upright citizens" . And on the other hand society expects the military to fill the ranks of infantry and enlisted sailors, including the reserves. From at least some perspectives this is confusing: we're all only here because our, overwhelmingly male, ancestors went to war and won. Conjecture: a society that doesn't foster risk-taking behaviour in young males may so…

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.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#82

Post by jariel »

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…

Nothing anachronistic about it at all though.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#83

Post by lowdest »

throwawaygh wrote: post #59
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood your question to be around the potentially commonly held belief (read: what I've heard) that city folk are generally brought up with less responsibility bestowed upon them than rural folks (and the scale that exists between those two extremes). Maybe not entirely "responsibility bestowed" but also the behavioural differences (distractions available, ability to deal with boredom) that come with the densit…

Hm. My experience is exactly the opposite. Shooting a sign with buckshot or taking out a mailbox are completely unthinkable in my city neighborhood, but totally normal back home.

I was thinking the same thing, based on my teen years in a small town far away from any city.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#84

Post by dx87 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #61
courtf wrote: post #40

I expected some level of hand-wringing here in response to this article. Maybe it's something in the water in rural America, but none of this is unusual or extreme, and if this behavior is foreign to you, then you and I grew up in different circumstances. Getting together with the boys and breaking the law, pushing each other to go a little further each time, is a rite of passage all over the world. Maybe it's practi…

Honestly everyone I know that was like that, that broke the law when they were young, turned out to be unsuccessful. Many are addicted to opiates. Very few have real jobs. None of them are educated beyond high school. Frankly, they're all harshly considered "losers." It doesn't surprise me these things happen in rural America. Small towns, your dad knows the local sheriff, you doing something "illegal" and getting ar…

It's not just rural towns. My dad grew up in the suburbs outside a major city, and he has similar stories of people getting drunk and destroying property in high school. The cops were just as lenient as well. He told me one time he was drinking with some friends and they got pulled over, and the cop just told them to drive straight home because it was the middle of the night and he didn't want to deal with a bunch of drunk teenagers.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#85

Post by keenmaster »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #51
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…

There used to be 'sportsman's' clubs, ham radio clubs, sailing clubs, hiking clubs, bowling leagues, search-and-rescue, jeep clubs etc that have to an unfortunate degree just faded away only to be replaced by meetup groups that just seem to be trying a little...too...hard.... Fraternal organizations, hell, that's what they're for! Men of 30 and up to get together and drink beer and tell war stories. It's not weird an…

I want the old Viennese/Parisian/Arabian intellectual cafe and salon clubs to come back. I would join one in a heartbeat.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#86

Post by wombatmobile »

r29vzg2 wrote: post #52

The most striking quote to me from this was: > In 1960, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the U.S. was 3 percent. In 2000, it was about 30 percent. Today, it is 40 percent. No matter how you feel about it, it’s got to be said that change thing large has to have some sort of affect on the population. And those effects are still quite unknown.

Yes, adolescent behaviour is a consequence of parenting.

Marriage is not a guarantee of good parenting. It's just a legal status that may or may not indicate a capacity and readiness to perform good parenting.

So, what is good parenting, and how does it work?

It is an inter-generational positive feedback system. All mammals have it. The human parenting lifecycle is longer than most.

Securely attached parents have higher baseline oxytocin (OT) and a more pronounced OT response to interactions with their children. OT augments the mesolimbic DA system response to visual child stimuli, enhancing their reward value. It also inhibits AMY and augments anterior insula (AI) responses to infant-cry stimuli, facilitating a more empathic reaction. OTmay also modulate prefrontal cortex activity to suppress negative emotional reactions to infant crying.

These neurobiological influences promote responsive, affectionate caregiving, which in turn promotes OT activity in children, along with child attachment behaviors that further engage parental brain systems, resulting in a positive feedback cycle that culminates in a mentally healthy, securely attached child.

Genetic influences of the child can also either support or interfere with child attachment behaviors and parent-offspring bonding. OFC, orbitofrontal cortex; PFC, prefrontal cortex.

The biology of mammalian parenting and its effect on offspring social development James K. Rilling1, and Larry J. Young

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4306567/

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#87

Post by dx87 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #81
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand society expects people to be "just, upright citizens" . And on the other hand society expects the military to fill the ranks of infantry and enlisted sailors, including the reserves. From at least some perspectives this is confusing: we're all only here because our, overwhelmingly male, ancestors went to war and won. Conjecture: a society that doesn't foster risk-taking behaviour in young males may so…

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 troops what needs to be done, and let them decide how to get it done.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#88

Post by BLKNSLVR »

dvtrn wrote: post #54
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood your question to be around the potentially commonly held belief (read: what I've heard) that city folk are generally brought up with less responsibility bestowed upon them than rural folks (and the scale that exists between those two extremes). Maybe not entirely "responsibility bestowed" but also the behavioural differences (distractions available, ability to deal with boredom) that come with the densit…

This is a “fact”, you say? Provably so?

Fair point, I've edited my commentary.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#89

Post by jackcosgrove »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #38
dx87 wrote: post #9

This post resonates with me, but I definitely don't think it's hopeless. I'm in my early 30s, and have "no friends". There are people I would consider my friends, but as we grew up, we got adult responsiblities like jobs and family, most moved to different states for work, so I haven't actually been able to see them for years. Recently I've been working to improve my life, so I've been going out for walks around my n…

> I really believe that the "loneliness epidemic" is a product of a generation that socializes almost completely online, and has no connection with their community. I agree about "connection with their community" but I'm less sure that socializing online is the root cause, though I agree it almost certainly a contributing factor at this point. I live in a developing country which has substantially more street life, c…

We embrace isolation and anomie as we have more disposable income. It's our choice because we find value in comfort and privacy. The best argument to be made that this is a poor choice is that we discount the work needed to maintain social relationships, and chase after bright shiny things at the loss of something more valuable.

You could also say that we discount the discomfort of living close to others after we have achieved some separation. I definitely think being poor is romanticized by some strains of thought.

I think a desire for authentic community is a mark of material affluence, and should not be seen as a regression. The community we desire is not actually authentic. We don't want to be around poverty or dysfunction or addiction, which are all elements of authentic communities. We want a sanitized community. It's just the next ask after air conditioning.

Re: Family instability fuels rising nihilism among young men

#90

Post by elipsey »

"What has been getting far worse, however, is family life. Stable families have been in free fall over the last few decades. In 1960, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the U.S. was 3 percent. In 2000, it was about 30 percent. Today, it is 40 percent. (This figure obscures class divisions: for college graduates, only one out of ten children is born out of wedlock. For those with only a high school diploma, six out of ten are born to unmarried parents.) The lack of stable families has contributed to the widespread mistrust of others and lack of social relationships among young people."

It is certainly a preciuos story that lack of trust amongst children is caused by lack of marriage amongst parrents, but the author has not furnished evidence that this is a causal relationship.

"We didn’t really believe that the adults in our lives cared about what we did. Seth got thrown out of his house and wouldn’t tell us why. Josh and Brandon’s dad had been divorced five times, and he was always traveling for work. My adoptive mother had recently moved to another town."

I know many adults today who had abusive or indifferent parents that did all of these things _while married_.

The factual claims in this article are not supported by the text. City Journal is operated by Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative 501(c)(3) tax exempt think tank. They seem to be more interested in promoting their values than showing their work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute

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