Young men are struggling. At least, that is the message being conveyed by a significant number of podcast hosts and individuals online. There’s definitely a lot of truth in the statement. Young men are struggling. But why? How can the vast majority of the younger generations of an entire sex be struggling so much in a society that is so advanced industrially and technologically?
You’ll hear varying answers to those questions. Porn, low testosterone, poor diet/horrible food choices, and an education system having a structural and environmental setup that clashes with male learning are all typical answers to the question as to why young men are struggling. And, no doubt, these factors certainly contribute to the struggles of young men. But I believe young men are struggling due to much deeper reasons.
Young men are struggling at a societally foundational level. We have chipped away, for decades now, at the societal foundations that are necessary for positive male functionality. The results of doing this, which are more present than ever, are often articulated by people as a meaning crisis. And this is correct; we do have a meaning crisis, and it has crippled young men.
But in order to understand why there is a meaning crisis for young men, it is essential to understand the most common forms of meaning that have tethered males to stable functioning in day-to-day life for generations. The answer is quite simple: God and family.
Ah, and now you see the problem. There has been an all-out assault, a quite successful one, on both of these sources of meaning for decades. And this was done in the name of the ultimate goal of liberalism: to unchain the individual from all bounds that are keeping him from achieving total individual freedom, i.e., becoming God.
Fortunately, many young men have seen just how damaging this process has been for society and are seeking to return to the more traditional sources of meaning. Thankfully, God was, and is, always there. We were the ones who turned our back on Him. He didn’t do that to us. And He always wants people to return to Him, which we are seeing young men do in large numbers. This is wonderful news.
But the other source of meaning, the family, requires participation from both human sexes, which we are not seeing. As a result, the resurgence of this source of meaning seems significantly less likely.
See, young women are on the completely opposite end of the spectrum from young men. This clash of the sexes was captured statistically by the University of Michigan in their recent research that showed the sharp bifurcation politically between young men and women. But the clash isn’t just political; it’s cultural. While a growing number of young men are enamored with more traditional sources of meaning, a large percentage of young women appear to still be quite enamored with the feminist, girl-boss lifestyle. And this reveals what is at the heart of the clash of the sexes: traditionalism vs. modern liberalism.
Young men yearn for a return to traditionalism because it provides them each, individually, with a mission. In a more traditional society, men, in general, know their everyday purpose. They are to take care of their family. Which means going out into the world and making something of yourself. So, there is a deeper meaning behind why they go out and work. Work enables them to fulfill their duty-bound purpose as a man; it’s not just an exercise to serve the corporate machine and pursue material gain for the purposes of self-indulgence.
Many young women, on the other hand, are perfectly content to continue down the road, status quo, because they are doing well economically, specifically compared to men when both are in their 20s, and women are more materialistically driven than men. The materialistic gain and career success are enough, many young women tell themselves, to justify their emotional misery. Oh, and they are miserable. The most unhappy members of society, in fact, are these single, childless, career-driven women. (Why do you think we have the childless cat lady and “hitting the wall at 30” stereotypes?)
And then, there’s the promiscuity. Oh, the promiscuity. Young women today are significantly more sexually active prior to marriage than the vast majority of women throughout American history. Many of them have, unfortunately, bought into the foolish notion that it is empowering to exercise their female sexuality. And how often should they exercise it? Well, on a whim.
However, there’s a major flaw in this thinking. Behaving like a whore is not empowering! It’s gross and is inevitably going to lead to some heavy emotional and psychological damage. Sure, men love promiscuous women when they are also behaving like degenerates. But when men are looking to start a family, female promiscuity, past or present, has the same effect a crucifix has on a vampire. It repels us.
So between the pursuit of career-driven material success and promiscuity, it appears as though many young women are not interested in having a family, or at least, it’s not a primary priority for them. As a result, many young men are giving up on the prospect of ever getting married. And this is what I believe to be the primary reason why young women significantly outpace young men economically. Many young men feel as though they’re never going to get married, i.e., never have a family for which to provide. Well, we guys don’t need as much money to live on when we’re on our own because we’re not as interested in accumulating “stuff” as women. Therefore, why push hard for major career success, i.e., more money?
Depressing, right?
Look, I realize I’ve probably come across as quite harsh of young women and as though I’m blaming them for all of the ills of current young male-female relations. That hasn’t been my intent. Men, including us young men, certainly aren’t perfect. For example, men of the prior generations let all of this feminist and gender egalitarian garbage take hold in society, oftentimes signing off on it. Another example, one that is more critical of us young men today, is that a young man shouldn’t just settle for a cheap or easy job that gets him, alone, by. Even if a young man despondently feels as though he’s never going to get married, he should still go out and make something of himself just in case it does actually end up happening. So, again, we men aren’t perfect. But young men today in America are far more inclined to gravitate towards what will ameliorate our sociocultural ills regarding male-female relations than young women appear to be. So we’ve got to figure out how to get young women on the same train.