Ep 29 - The Thing With Men

What is the solution to the so-called "male crisis"? And what is the cause in the first place? Opinions abound. There may be more going on than we can see at first glance. 

Transcript

Welcome back to The Willing Fool. This is episode 5. I'm your host and lead fool, Paul Tremble. So good to have you back. We are going to continue on. Uh, thanks for being part of the season. So last episode we talked about the hot button topic of, uh, trans and trans thoughts and ideology as, uh, we are seeing it and perceiving it, moving about in the culture.

And this episode, I want to circle back. We talked a little bit in episode two about male female issues and I want to circle back to that and hit it from a slightly different angle because I saw something a few weeks ago that was an article written by a woman on the I don't know what you want to call it or even what they did call it, but I'm going to use the word male crisis.

So it's something that you'll read about if you, you look in the, um, just current articles and things like that these days. Um, and what, what the male crisis is in just a broad outline, uh, in many, many different metrics, males are falling behind, uh, females. And things in the employment sphere, professionally, certainly in education, number of college students, number of college graduates, grades in school, uh, disciplinary outcomes.

Obviously, you have a longstanding, incredible inequality in the prison system, men and women. Uh, you could talk about use of, uh, the, the drugs that are sort of racking, uh, especially rural America, but in general America these days. Um, there's a lot of, uh, drugs and deaths of desperation where people are disengaged and therefore just turning to drugs and basically taking drugs into death.

And that's disproportionately affecting males, although it's definitely affecting both males and females. Anyway, so just super broad picture. There's a lot of ways in which, um, males are seen or perceived to be really struggling in a way that's It's more than the past or kind of new in a sense. So lots of takes on that you'll find if you just kind of look around and read articles and listen to podcasts and things.

Well, part of what this woman was describing who wrote a book about the male crisis, and I don't think she came out with this idea out of, um, out of the blue. I think she had written about women's things and then people were kind of pressing her like, hey, what about the boys and what about guys? And so she just, okay, I'll write this book.

So, so give her credit that she's probably coming from an authentic place that she was asked to weigh in on this. But the little bit that I got was, to me, it felt really symbolic of lots of other things I've read. So my point in episodes like this is never, Hey, look at this woman and what she said, um, you know, and take this view on it, like my view.

It's, it's way more, you know, sometimes it just helps to have a particular lens to look at a topic through. Uh, but these are things you pick up, I'm picking up from thousands of sources, not just one, but Hundreds, if not thousands anyway, and it was so interesting because the interviewer interviewing her about her book and what she said, she's like, you know, one of the people you went after in this book, uh, or criticized with Jordan Peterson, Jordan Peterson, a very famous public figure at this point.

He was a, uh, psychologist and psychology professor, uh, very prestigious universities, uh, well respected. He's ventured into more like the general cultural sphere as well as a very small way overlapping political or at least political topics, not politics itself, sphere. And uh, he's become a lightning rod.

But, one thing you can say about him is he's, he's, he's influenced a lot of people really, really strongly and powerfully. Certainly men and women. But in an interesting way, sort of disproportionately men and even disproportionately young men who is sort of the target audience of who this book is about, this male crisis, it's young men, men for sure.

And then maybe a somewhat subset of that of special consideration is young men who seem to be just a greater risk of being alienated and disengaged than in previous generations in our culture. So anyway, Jordan Peterson, huge, huge influence, uh, among this subset of the population. And it's really interesting, like I've read, in some cases, just the comment section of some of his videos, and to read what people write, both men and women, it's really moving.

Just many, many people have found the things he's pointed out, the advice he's given, uh, just a needed. Um, source of help and inspiration that they really weren't and didn't get anywhere else, uh, to the point where people say, you know, this changed my life or this is a father figure, like a father figure.

I didn't really have just many, many people. So anyway, the interviewer is like, why, you know, isn't this guy trying to help? And, and so she goes on to explain her, her, um, um, justification for whatever. And she criticizes other people too. I think probably Trump is in there and then another guy that has a big following, Andrew Tate.

Um, and they're kind of lumped together, at least as I gathered it. And as I was reading it, I just thought, man, the, the fact that This guy, Andrew Peterson, uh, sorry, Jordan Peterson, is being lumped together with Trump and Tate, who are very, very different figures of, uh, different, different overall conceptions of, um, what they're saying and how they're saying it, what their motivation is.

Uh, it's just, it's startling and it's amazing. And it made me think, well, this, this seems to be More of a symptom of our problem, if there is a problem with the male crisis, which I think there is this seems to be more of a symptom of it than a good diagnosis of it. Like she she herself, I think, is more of a part of the problem than any sort of solution.

Here's an actual very, very respectable, I think, very purely motivated, um, male figure who's doing his best to speak wisdom. To people, I'm sure imperfectly, but, but doing it and, uh, doing it well and having an effect and actually changing it and her only, you know, her main, uh, thrust seems to be only to be able to tear him down and it's like, well, who, who are the male models that you are lifting up in his absence and, and what are you proposing?

That's so, you know, so different than what he's saying. Yeah. And, um, without going too deep into the rabbit hole, it, it was noted, um, by the, the author of the article as well that just some of her quotes as she went back and forth being interviewed by the, um, the writer of the article, um, you know, what do you think, like, what do you look forward to for boys and how do we help them and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It was just interesting. Some of her comments were like, well, you know, I, I don't know. I think. The boys, did they really need to dress masculine? No, they don't need to dress masculine. They should just be generic. I mean, the girls can still dress like girls, of course, but then the boys, they just need to be kind of this androgynous thing.

And, uh, she even compared it. She said they, you know, I, I, I don't know that they're ready for it yet, but it was sort of implied, like, my hope is eventually we could just convince all the boys to be like David Bowie. Who is this pop figure who is known for being androgynous, dressing androgynously and carrying himself off that way.

He's, you know, kind of an extreme of performance artist. And, uh, but, but to hold that up as the hoped for goal and norm of what she thought boys should be like, meanwhile, tearing down what would be like a more conventional, um, figurehead putting out a vision for what. What men can be, what boys can be. It just felt like this seems to be a good snapshot of where we are at the moment.

It is perfectly acceptable to accuse, criticize, critique, tear down anything, any man, anything masculine, um, and to posit in its place something that is really of questionable significance. Value and questionable practicality like really you're gonna just get all men to be sort of these androgynous Neutral beings who aren't aren't particularly masculine and it makes sense, you know, it kind of fits just Zooming out like listening to the language listening to the rhetoric.

I Mentioned in that episode too. I think these terms we have toxic masculinity Which I I'm fine with the term existing. It does describe a real thing Um, but it gets so much play, and it gets used in certain ways. Is there any toxic femininity? Of course there is, unless you're an idiot. You have to think, if there's a such thing as toxic masculinity, there's probably a such thing as toxic femininity, but you've never heard of it, and you probably won't hear of it.

Uh, this is a complete double standard, two different ways of looking at things. There's patriarchy. Uh, which again, I think it's fine as a word and does exist and has existed, but you're never going to hear matriarchy. And though that may be much rarer at the cultural level, it certainly exists on like the family unit level.

There's, there's patriarchal families and there's matriarchal families. And if you think of a patriarchal family, I mean, I could ask the question, what feeling do you have when I say that patriarchal family, imagine a man that just kind of dominates his family. He's the one in charge. Everything kind of has to go through him versus what's the feeling if somebody says it's a matriarchal family.

There's a matriarch. There's a woman in charge. Um, she kind of dictates the tone and the culture and everything that happens kind of has to go through her in one way or another. And my guess is if you're like me, your instinct is to have a really negative association with the first one. Like you associate that with negative, unhealthy, it's oppression.

The second one, right? Kind of gets a pass and maybe even has a positive tone like, Oh, of course. Yeah, there's, there's matriarchs. There's women who are just very invested in their families and they want everyone to do well. Uh, and they're very influential and that's probably a good thing. And so you just, I think this is because of this point, how much cultural conditioning I'm obviously I'm hypothesizing here, but how much cultural conditioning we have.

My, my initial gut reaction to the first one is, um, overwhelmingly negative. And then my gut reaction, it's like, it has to be negative. And then my gut reaction and first thought and feeling of the second one is positive. Like I associate positive associations and motivations with such a woman, but the opposite of that with such a man.

And I think there are plenty of people right now who will say, yes, of course. And they're the thing that they may or may not be bold enough to say is because men are worse.

Uh, and I'm not saying this is like a hand wringing self pity thing, it's not, that's not what I'm saying or what I'm feeling. I just think I'm trying to articulate something that I think is real and present but unspoken these days. Um, this is the sort of, it's just sort of this undercurrent, this conscious sometimes, subconscious sometimes thing.

But it's the same reason toxic femininity is not discussed or defined or anything like that. It wouldn't be weird to hear something like male privilege being discussed, or manspreading or mansplaining. These, again, I'm fine with the terms existing. And I do think they describe things that happen, their tendencies, their dynamics.

But here's the thing. There are other tendencies and dynamics that are also real. But they do not have terms invented. To describe them, because in most other circumstances, if it's a different population group, we will chafe and resist instinctively putting a population group, uh, and then attaching to it a negative word or action and putting it together, portmanteau word, smoosh it together, make a little new German word that's just like, Oh, paints a particular subgroup of the population in a purely negative light and then is used to sort of broad brush.

so it could be under overstated. I mean, it's fine. Memes exists to describe things and dynamics. It's okay. But the way I've heard these things used sometimes is, uh, as a cudgel, a tool, just kind of a way of, um, continuing to paint the most negative picture possible of Subgroup. So all these things, they're not individually, they're probably not very important, but if you take them as just individual data points that collectively together have an effect on society, uh, that effect I would say is to, um, it's going to be demoralizing.

It's, it, it, it does have a demoralizing effect. And you see this in a lot of different, I mean, it's been discussed for now a couple of decades. The portrayal of American males in the media is, uh, generally overwhelmingly negative. I mean, dads, you've got cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and whatever's named Peter from Family Guy.

Um, they're almost universally buffoons. You can have commercials, uh, where the husband, father is portrayed as a complete idiot. You will, I, I, as far as I've, I've never seen. portrayed in that way. And I'm not saying I want to, I don't want to, I'm just pointing out the obvious asymmetries there. It's sort of like open target, open season on males.

Um, and even if you say something like that, like if I say something like that, public, which I never have, um, I will cringe internally just to voice it. Because I will anticipate at least a possibility of one or more people coming back to me with a, uh, a counter, a counter argument, a rebuttal, or put in, put in place and almost like a counter attack.

You know, why all this is legitimate because of a patriarchy, past oppression, or that men actually are buffoons and idiots and losers. Um, so I think all this is just there. It's present in the general culture. And. Uh, if you were going to design a program to sort of subtly and unofficially undermine and alienate and disengage a population, I would say this is a good one.

I would say it's, it's going to hit people in, in slow waves. Uh, it's gonna be hard to defend yourself against because people already have those defenses kind of at the ready. But it's not going to do anything good, obviously, for that sub population. And since that's about 50 percent of the population, it's probably not going to be good for the community, the culture as a whole.

Uh, and I think there's a, there's an extra element in there, in this, my theory, my opinion or hypothesis is there's something, particularly something about the traditional association of men, masculinity, with strength. Uh, or with firmness of purpose or whatever. Um, that is particularly offensive these days.

I talked about this in the last episode. Anything that smacks, and it definitely doesn't have to be male or men, but anything that smacks of, of, of firmness and resolve that isn't only affirming to what any individual feels and thinks. Anything that's like, you know, An immovable object that won't go along and get in line with affirming the feelings of the individual feels a bit like an existential threat to a lot of people.

And I think this is, this is why part of the reason, maybe not the only reason why a figure like Jordan Peterson has attracted so much vitriol, so much hate. Um, because Uh, he's, he's a smart guy, but he's, he is, um, he doesn't like to be steamrolled or for people to try to trap him, uh, which has happened many, many times.

And he stands his ground, you know, and he doesn't, he doesn't kowtow, uh, and that's really a hard thing to do these days. Uh, and if you add to that, that he is a man and that he has this demeanor, that it kind of is what people associate with men, conventionally or traditionally, father, grandfather figures.

Uh, he, he embodies that I think to some degree and people sense that and they, uh, therefore he's like a lightning rod for this, this reaction. To the fear that people have, this angst that they have, this existential threat. They don't want anything or anybody around who reminds them of, uh, that they might not be able to define reality the way they want.

Uh, that's a, that's a big threat. It could be a person. Uh, it could be any talk of God. It could be any talk of morality. It could be any talk, talk of obligations outside of Your, your feelings, it could be talk of, um, the meaningfulness of categories like gender, uh, things like that. The integration of sex with the rest of life instead of just being the whatever individual pursuits of a person's preferences and feelings.

Uh, anything that reeks of that gets, gets heat and gets attacked, uh, in, in these days, these, these, these days in our culture. I think he's one manifestation of that. Um, so where, where is this going? Well, in terms of our season, this podcast, what we're going to do next is we're going to go back to that. I told you, I think Jesus, as he walked through the fields of Galilee, of Judea, Samaria in his day, he, he walked with this strength of purpose, with the strength of resolve and strength of understanding.

of, of himself, of the role that he played, of his vocation, his calling, and again, obviously he had a distinct identity, uh, that we don't share, but I think what he, what I'm talking about, what he walked around with is something that is accessible to any person today. Any human being has access to this same, this same source of strength, of power, of understanding.

It's, it's, it's deeper and better than I think we, we think I'm talking about believers. I'm talking about Christians. I'm talking about unbelievers. I'm talking about atheists. I think the message is actually that this, this, this kernel of strength that he had is stronger and better than we imagined. And not only that, I think it's just a really, really superior and powerful antidote to this very diminished.

Barren, sterile worldview that I've been talking about where there is no meaning, you know, all the reality is material reality. Anything outside of that is simply emergent, accidental, byproduct, and therefore we create the definitions. We create any meaning. Anyone could argue it to death, disagree, whatever, uh, the only real values are equality and freedom.

Just whatever. There's nothing for you to do. So just do whatever you want to do, be whatever you want to become. Uh, there's zero categories, there's zero meaning, you have to invent it from scratch. I, I think we're not meant to be like that, like people are not thriving under that way of thinking. It is, it is, it is too open and I'm not saying that because of like, well, I've just concluded that it's too open, so we need to invent something and that something is going to be of a religious nature.

I don't think that's the case. I think, I think there just is more meaning to that. There is more purpose built into reality than that. And we have ignored it. We've oppressed it, suppressed it, and said it's not there. Um, and, and now here we are, just, okay, everybody invent your own meaning, invent your own identity, invent your own definitions, invent your own categories.

Uh, nobody has to agree with you, nobody will agree with you, um, everything's just about expressing yourself to the fullest extent possible. That's so meaningless. That's so It's so destitute, it's so impoverished as a way of life and people are not thriving under that and will not thrive under that. So what we'll be talking about is an alternative to that.

It's extremely powerful. Uh, and I think even as a believer, as a Christian, these are some elements of this. I think I have not, I have not understood, I've not been in touch with, and it certainly hasn't been like in the forefront of my mind or I haven't understood it as a major part of the narrative. So, that's what we'll get to, uh, that's it for this episode, see you next time.