Most Young Men are Lost and Unimpressive. Here's Why.
A compilation of great content about why men are struggling and what we can do about it.
Hello Bar-Setters,
Over the past two weeks, I’ve tried to spell out some of my most foundational beliefs about what is causing our cultural devolution and how we should prepare our kids to live well in a world of supernormal temptation.
This week, I want to take a step back and point to a specific, related topic that has begun to get a lot of press…
We Aren’t Doing a Good Job Developing Modern Men
I’ve certainly found this to be the case over my decade plus working at a high school. There are exceptions, no doubt. But the majority of young men today lack a sense of aspiration, vitality, or any clarity about what they stand for. They posture and make exaggerated displays of “coolness” to signal their conformity, but these efforts only serve to highlight their insecurities. Young men (and far too many older men too) are, largely, lost and unmotivated. And I’m not the only one who is noticing this.
Over the past couple months, there has been a wave of phenomenal articles that address this issue. My articles on the need for a “Moral Equivalent of War” and on supernormal temptation strike at much of what has caused this issue. As I wrote last week:
Today, adolescent males often fail to cultivate productive virtues—they fail to develop charisma, confidence, health, athleticism, humor, resilience, etc.—because there is an easier way to satisfy their drives.
They can effortlessly quench their innate thirst for status, connection, women, and personal empowerment through two particularly powerful supernormal stimuli: porn and video games.
As an extension of these posts, I want to point you to a compilation of great, recent content from around the web that focuses on the state of current men and what we can do about it. Onward!
Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness. By Christine Emba
I chose to start with this piece from the Washington Post’s Christine Emba, because it comes from an atypical source. Christine is young, unmarried, and a feminist. She’s able to speak from a firm grasp of the modern social climate as well as from her experience in the modern dating pool. It’s a great article, albeit a tad ambitious. The article also gives you the option to have Emba read the article, which I recommend.
A quote:
A baby-faced, 19-year-old University of Florida freshman with short, white-blond hair, Bray was wearing a hoodie despite the heat…
… He doesn’t really identify with the manosphere, he told me, but can understand why others might. “I feel like there’s a lot of room to be proudly feminine, but there’s not, in my opinion, the same room to be proudly masculine.”
Men were constantly told to be “better” and less “toxic,” he said, but what that “better” might look like seemed hard to pin down. “You pretty much have to figure it out yourself. But yet society still has the expectation that, you know, you have to be a certain way.”
Then he turned wistful. “I don’t feel like men in general have the same types of role models that women do, even in their own personal lives… Just because you’re in the majority doesn’t mean you don’t need support.”
Fight!: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s cage match is a great idea. And why your kids should take up MMA. By Marc Andreeson
Andreeson is a tech-billionaire best known for his optimism about AI. But this is a thought-provoking call for all of us (men and women) to get back into the arena!
A quote from the article:
In our present time, where many young people are suffering from anxiety, depression, and what can be described only as anomie—again, from the Greek, ἀνομία, “lawlessness,” a collapse in the code of expected adult behavior—what could be better than a return to earned self-respect?
No One Expects Young Men to Do Anything and They are Responding By Doing Nothing. By Rob Henderson
You have to love that title. Rob Henderson is younger than me (which is very young, mind you) and he is brilliant. Henderson is a product of the foster care system who overcame his circumstances, joined the Air Force, and then studied psychology at Yale and Cambridge. His unique background, somehow, led him to question the majority of the University orthodoxy and it’s fantastic.
A quote from the article:
Norms were loosened around being an absentee father. So more men took the option.
But nobody wants to admit it because it upsets people.
Instead, we retreat to discussions of poverty and economics because talking about family and parenting makes people feel weird and judgmental.
But young men will only do what’s expected of them.
And a lot did use to be expected. There were social norms to work hard, provide, take care of loved ones, and so on.
Today, these norms have largely dissolved.
Young men have responded accordingly…
… People think that if a young guy comes from a disorderly or deprived environment, he should be held to low standards. This is misguided. He should be held to high standards. Otherwise, he will sink to the level of his environment.
The Dating Pool Dropouts, By Olivia Reingold
Another woman’s look at the sad state of modern dating. If you’re married, you probably don’t understand how bad the online dating universe has been for both men and women in the aggregate. Many men are 100% ignored and many women are just giving up.
A quote from the article:
…then there’s the problem of not knowing how to approach a woman. He suspects his coworker might have a crush on him, and yet he worries that one wrong move and he’ll be labeled “creepy.”
It’s a common worry for men in the post–#MeToo era. In a 2016 study, over 95 percent of respondents replied that men were much more likely to be “creepy people” than women. One twentysomething on Reddit, who wanted to ask out an employee at his local pet store, groaned that men are “expected to be the hunters but are shunned for doing so in public unless it’s on a stupid app.”
So Santiago does nothing.
It is interesting that much of the conversation about creating better men comes from women. In our culture, this seems to be the necessary first step. There is a misguided sense among many that being pro-male is somehow anti-female. In his newsletter, Chris Williamson does a great job of clarifying why this approach is so misguided:
There is an assumption that any attention paid toward men takes it away from women, or some other minority group who is more-deserving.
After all, haven’t men had it good for long enough?
Maybe they should just suck it up for a while?
But empathy does not work this way, it’s not a limited resource.
Recognising the plights of men does not ignore the plights of women.
And ultimately women end up suffering in any case—as it’s this increasing cohort of apathetic, checked-out and resentful men who contribute to the exact lack of eligible partners that women say they are struggling with.
Women posting "boohoo poor patriarchy sad" whilst also complaining about "where are all the good men at?" is mating-logic seppuku.
I’ll conclude with some more optimistic and solution-oriented posts. If you are a parent with a son, you’ll want to check out this fantastic podcast episode:
The Five Shifts of Manhood, Jon Tyson on the Art of Manliness Podcast.
Tyson is the author of The Intentional Father, a book that I gift and recommend often! A quote:
My definition of masculinity is… “The joyful pursuit of sacrificial responsibility.”
Also, there is this fantastic podcast conversation between Tim Ferriss and world-renowned science of happiness expert, Arthur Brooks. Much of the commentary in the above articles points to the lack of solid male role models and how important role models are for men. I can think of few better than Arthur Brooks.
Thank you so much for reading and sharing this with anyone you think would find it valuable!
If interested in more on this topic, I discuss it in chapter 10 of my book in a section titled, What Do You Stand For?
Carry the fire!
Shane