State of Health Report Shows Growing Despair Among American Men

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/state-health-among-american-men-040100395.html

by eplanit • 7 years ago

166 138 7 years ago

finance.yahoo.com

hestipod6• 7 years ago

I've spent every night for the last few months trying to find a way/reason to keep going mentally. Before that it was every other night, a few times a week, few times a month etc. Before the inciting event for this decline, badly done and ultimately unneeded surgery fifteen years ago taking away everything, I never ONCE considered this. In fact I was positive when discussing the topic that I would NEVER do such a thing and that there would always be a way, always be family or friends, always be a system there to hold me up. Because that's what I had been indoctrinated to believe. It wasn't true.

I worked hard, in a career beneficial to society. I helped people, always had great empathy, and treated others with respect. Even then I didn't really get it when I would come across someone like I am now. Someone who suffered and lost it all. Someone on the edge. I did what I could to help them but I was as ignorant and naive as ever believing the rest of the system and society would give them that same attention and value. I thought it would be ok. It's not ok.

The truth is in American society has decided human life and security isn't the most important thing. It's decided INDEPENDENCE and profits and ego and the chance to be wealthy and powerful is. Everyone for themselves. Guns are rights but healthcare is an "entitlement". Equality is somehow "wrong".If you need help you are "weak" and a "loser" and "nobody is going to live off MY tax money". They think if you can even open your eyes, or type an occasional rant online, that means you can grind away like everyone else and "why don't you just" and they KNOW this is true because they KNOW they would be able to when they reached this unfathomable state. Saying this will make a lot of people angry because nationalism is an identity for many and ultimately proves the point.

About the same time my health was ruined a friend in Belgium had a similar experience. He was given social support to keep his flat, healthcare, spent a few years reeducating in a new skill and was able to reenter society and function. He has a happy life and family now. My experience was denials from government assistance programs, struggling to manage with savings and small private pension but no health insurance, watching a family full of puritanical hypocrites turn away and blame. My friend lost something of his life, but was allowed to regain one worth living and not fear every little bump being the end. He gets to have a future as a result. I do not.

Next came cycles of motivation and disappointment and trying as hard as I could to hold it together only to have things collapse because with more limits and needs nobody can manage that alone despite what everyone needs to believe for their own mental security. The root of victim blaming right there folks. Some people are always going to need help. Some can rebuild at least some but still need help doing so. Stability. Access. Caring.

After you see that help isn't coming comes the anger...then that anger slowly morphs into despair. Then one day comes this indescribable sensation that even the moment before you couldn't believe would ever TRULY happen even thinking abstractly about it. Acceptance. Not acceptance of the decline. Not acceptance of the despair. Acceptance that you aren't afraid to let all of this life go anymore. You don't WANT to not BE...but you want to not be THIS. You want suffering, judgement, isolation, pain, complete lack or agency in LIFE anymore. You are exhausted all the time and it's not worth the tiny if any moments of joy anymore.

You are still rational. You aren't running around with your underwear on your head and flinging you poo at people. You are just running on empty, You swim as hard as you can and you sink, you relax and go with it and you sink, nothing works. It's always said to be your fault, not the fact you were unceremoniously dropped in the ocean and told to fend for yourself whilst people give "advice" from the shore like "just learn how to swim" and then get offended when you cannot as if your drowning insults them. You have walked over every "next hill" for years looking for petrol, and it's never there. Or if it IS there 1/1000000000 times and some nice and truly well meaning shopkeeper is smiling and waving you there, someone else swoops in front and takes the rest or the shop closes right as you straggle up to it because you stepped in a hole and that slowed you down even more.

Despair isn't some inexplicable thing. It's 99% of the time rooted in clear, multiple causes. But this society, ESPECIALLY this society, won't face or address them. Most people like me don't end up like me out of some fault in themselves or some unsolvable problem. But it's easier to punch down for both ego fulfillment and to bolster your own feelings of personal safety because YOU are better than that and it will never happen to you. You were smart, and planned, and have good people around you. Well guess what...the "Just World" isn't.

There was a time I was an activist for health and social issues. It never had any macro effect. I tried to "just get out of you don"t like it!" Doing that alone is very, very hard and I could never get it to work permanently. The damage done here would follow me everywhere and ironically block the path to even a life in those better conditions. There was a time I thought about crazy things like applying for asylum in a more socially conscious country, but the truth is people in this situation don't get approved. I am out of fuel and hope, there is no petrol station over the next hill, and my bootstraps were worn to dust years ago. There are countless people like me and nobody here ever thinks they will be one of them.

codyb• 7 years ago

I think a big issue is the incredible juxtaposition between what you learn about America as a child...

The land of opportunity Work hard and be rewarded The shining nation on the hill

And what you see as an adult

Lose your job? No healthcare, and little support

Get cancer? Go bankrupt and lose everything if you’re not lucky or super rich

Let’s pass major legislation! Oh great another huge tax cut for the mega rich.

Go to school? Be saddled in debt for decades.

Get out of school? Work multiple jobs just to make ends meet in a system that favors employers

And how’re you supposed to escape? By buying material possessions that don’t bring lasting quality of life improvements, or by wallowing away in a drugged up haze, or by binge watching television and other media.

We’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world but we our government is increasingly disfunctional and tailored to special interests and the wealthy.

Meritocracy? Ha. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is being hollowed out.

This administration certainly hasn’t helped as it amplifies its fear based rhetoric of migrants, and crime while pushing us backwards on climate initiatives and ruining our reputation abroad.

It’s no wonder people are depressed. Wage slavery sucks, living on a knife’s edge sucks, and there’s really not much going on to change it.

I’m pretty hopeful for the younger generations, but boy is it a mess they’re inheriting.

alfromspace2• 7 years ago

Meritocracy? Ha. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is being hollowed out.

This administration certainly hasn’t helped as it amplifies its fear based rhetoric of migrants

Migration was and is a big part of the process. Not the only part, but still a problem to be solved. If you presumably want a European-style healthcare system in America and a job market that doesn't only favor employers, you'll need to acknowledge that the laws of supply and demand apply to labor and social services, and that an all-inclusive welfare state and mass migration can't work together.

NTDF9• 7 years ago

I've said this in the past but I'm going to reiterate at the expense of much downvotes again.

America is the third world country of all developed countries.

For individuals like you seeking human connection, I highly recommend SE Asia as a place to permanently migrate to.

You will find meaning in mingling with people who don't care about the rat race on the edge. Comes with its own shortcomings but you've lived the lonely life of America. It cannot go lower than this.

wavepruner2• 7 years ago

Thank you for this post. I really resonate with it, although I have drawn perhaps a different conclusion.

Due to my limited ability to type/dictate and the controversial nature of my experience, I am not going to go into detail. I just want to give another data point to people claiming that more welfare programs will make these problems go away.

I have completely given up on the traditional health care system. It is so unbelievably bad when it comes to my illness that I am better off becoming my own doctor and paying for everything out of pocket. Because of this, I am a strong proponent of reducing welfare programs(except UBI) and making healthcare participation an option. I am battling a crippling illness. Almost no one has moral high-ground to insist that I give them my money for their health care. I am so so much sicker than easily 99% of the population. I should qualify for disability, but I don't because my illness is poorly understood by slow-moving government bureaucrats.

But I am fortunate to have identified the cure, and in a few years perhaps I will be back to normal. At that point I will be happy to pay health insurance premiums to help those sicker than I, but right now, my survival depends on the ability to not pay. $3000/year is the difference between life and death for me.

TurkishPoptart• 7 years ago

IYDMMA, what's the illness and what's the cure? I am a "temporary staff" member at a state-run hospital entity, but because I'm not "full-time" (which makes no sense because I work 40 hours a week) I'm not entitled to health benefits. So I am trying to bullshit my way into other "full-time" jobs in order to get the health care I need. The state used to give me free health care, but because I make $40ishK a year, they have taken it away.

ac29• 7 years ago

I am a strong proponent of [..] making healthcare participation an option.

You'll be happy to know then that a key provision of Obamacare was gutted, and there is now no fee/tax/penalty for not being insured.

https://www.healthcare.gov/fees/fee-for-not-being-covered/

Dont take this post as an approval of the change - I think it will end up making healthcare more expensive for everyone, as now there is less incentive for healthy people to carry insurance. Not carrying insurance in the US is extremely risky in my opinion, but most healthy young adults don't end up needing much medical care, and a few hundred dollars a month is not a trivial expense. Certainly when I was younger not carrying health insurance for a period of time was the difference in making rent or not.

Unsimplified• 7 years ago

Keep up your hope. There are incredible upcoming economic and technical advancements. Me and thousands of like-minded super professionals are quietly working passionately for you. Please.. we're trying our hearts out here.

hestipod6• 7 years ago

I think it's great you are working to better lives and applaud that. It's not for lack of effort by the truly good people that things are like this. It's not a failure of yours and those like you. The failure is of the selfish, greedy, narcissistic, unempathetic, etc and the system they built. Nothing is going to change in my lifetime, let alone the actual, short, practical time I have coming up to effect any change. The hope is gone and that's why rants are all that's left and even those get snuffed out when they can with arguments and voting. I hope you change the world with your efforts...I really do.

disabled7• 7 years ago

You nailed it.

I am disabled myself and I have experienced this. But, I am a dual US|EU national.

I actually experienced a very traumatic injury on Thursday, and had to be seen in my city's level 1 trauma unit. I am physically disabled and fell down some steep concrete stairs, (I probably need to use a wheelchair probably from now on.)

I ended up having surgery to repair the injury on Friday.

My pain was under control in the ambulance, but that was it.

I literally screamed nonstop during Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, due to the hospital refusing to give me adequate pain control. My abdominal muscles are still sore and my voice is gone still. When pain management finally came on Monday, they cared more about what medications I could "get outside" the hospital and "what the maximum quantity would be" more than actually controlling my pain.

They didn't even have any pillows for me on the unit to elevate my limb.

The whole experience was extremely traumatic and barbaric. It was reminiscent of a third world country.

Supposedly this is one of the best trauma units in the country, too.

I am done with this country. I cannot do this anymore. It is killing me.

hestipod6• 7 years ago

Sorry you experienced that. I understand you intimately for all the good that does. I've been both provider and patient and know how wrong it all is here. I have been done with this country for a long time, but every attempt to stabilize elsewhere was ruined by the damage done to me here as I cannot independently meet the requirements. Some sick irony. Taking away someone's health, in a pay to play society without safety nets, is mostly a death sentence. If I had a way out of here back to Europe that was sustainable I'd take it but the clock is running out on me. Other people are always the one dictating if I get to live or not and I have lost all agency. Opting out of it all is the only power I have left and if I am not careful even that will be denied and more trouble added. The same system that won't help to live will forcibly prevent you from saying "no more". Ah but for an accident of geographical birth. Wrong place and wrong time. I hope you can at least get back to the EU and have a better chance...if that's possible for you. But I also know damage done travels with us as well.

Clubber• 7 years ago

Doctors are afraid to get arrested for prescribing pain meds. The government has injected itself into healthcare as a political response to the media response to the "opioid crisis."

I have an elderly family member (70s) that is treated as a pariah by one of the few pain clinics accepting new patients in the city.

Faark• 7 years ago

Wait, you were talking about the US? I'm kind of surprised, since not being able to get "real painkillers" is one of the talking points I sometimes read about my local (german) system. Probably more focused on over-the-counter drugs, but this obviously also has an impact on what hospitals try to give.

So yeah, you're experience doesn't really fit my worldview, unless this is a hard counter-reaction to the recent opioid-epidemic.

RocketSyntax3• 7 years ago

Feel like we're either fat and unmotivated, or overworked and unsatisfied... with only a thin slice finding something in the middle.

40acres• 7 years ago

Just turned 28 and can say I easily fit the bill for 3/4 of these descriptions. I've been chalking it up to a quarter life crisis and am desperate for a geographic move to add some new experiences to my life.

notadoc3• 7 years ago

Moving will briefly introduce new experiences but you will quickly adjust.

Finding and developing new interests and hobbies is a much better longterm solution.

humanrebar• 7 years ago

Is being fat and overworked in the middle?

RocketSyntax3• 7 years ago

Hahaha, you tell me.

AtlasBarfed3• 7 years ago

Despite it's dubious underpinnings and specious applications, the theory of the disposable male seems to fit this.

The only thing the majority of men are useful to in society is work/production. If you take that away, then the other function of men (reproduction/fertilization) can be accomplished by a much smaller fraction of the male population.

We are taking away the only thing that justifies the existence of most men, and we are reminding them of it every day with the society we are creating with no safety net or healthcare.

But after the last election, I stopped caring.

Ancalagon• 7 years ago

The article mentions younger female age groups are also experiencing marked increases in ODs and suicide rates, albeit not as quickly. It is not just men dying more often from despair.

Additionally, the female age-adjusted obesity rate is higher than men's (41%! vs 38%) which can lead to larger health problems later in life, so we may only just be seeing the S-curve for equivalently increased female mortality rates.

AtlasBarfed3• 7 years ago

It must be really hard being obese in a media-saturated world of photoshopped instagram.

bwb2• 7 years ago

Well said, i am so frustrated for how much value american culture puts on work but not life for men. I think all Americans could benefit from a better balance between the two...

t34543• 7 years ago

This isn’t helped with the feminism bandwagon. It’s turner into a power struggle, and lost bearing on what’s right.

mrfusion• 7 years ago

What about retired men?

angmarsbane• 7 years ago

and stay-at-home Dads?

dunstad• 7 years ago

You mean the 2018 midterm election?

gumby6• 7 years ago

The idea that the measure of. A person is their job is a relatively new idea, really back to the industrial revolution. Something that recent should be relatively easy to flush out of society (“relatively” meaning only a few decades.

This kind of reductionist world view is what screws up efforts to provide UBI, universal health care etc.

rayiner• 7 years ago

The idea that the measure of. A person is their job is a relatively new idea, really back to the industrial revolution.

Only in the sense that specialized “jobs” are a product of the industrial revolution. But the idea that people are defined by their work goes back basically to the dawn of time. Many English last names come from peoples’ trades (Smith, Miller, etc.). In hunter gatherer societies, rituals for adolescent males often revolve around hunting and war. Men who couldn’t do those things were a burden on their community, unless they fit some other social niche (spiritual leader, etc.).

aldoushuxley001• 7 years ago

I would imagine a safety net and subsidized healthcare actually diminishes the traditional biological functions of males in human populations. With a safety net e.g., the males don't need to necessarily be the breadwinners/hunters to the same degree and so their traditional function is less required.

But yeah the dispoable male is a dubious theory.

AtlasBarfed3• 7 years ago

It explains so many parts of what seems to happen on online dating, but like many theories it's probably waiting for a better one, or a better version of this one.

It definitely gets oversimplified/overapplied and abused in service of more extreme MRO/Incel people, but last I looked there were actual biological evidence from other species.

chongli• 7 years ago

I think if you ask most women, they’ll disagree with this hypothesis. I doubt very many women aspire to be single parents. Fewer still aspire to polygyny with one high status man.

toomuchtodo3• 7 years ago

The data shows that educated women seek men of similar means and status (Men happily date down due to different optimizations), which are in short supply. What option women settle on because of that isn’t yet clear.

With regards to poly whatever, it’s frequently mentioned that the top 80% of women are competing for the top 20% of men on dating apps. What happens as cohorts age will be the interesting part.

If I had to wildly speculate, a whole lot of folks are going to end up unhappy, and those who can will settle for whatever partner they can find once they meet the point of emotional exhaustion (ie loneliness, etc).

rawoke083600• 7 years ago

Yooo ! After reading the above comment... I realised SkyNet is not mans biggest enemy !

ljw10012• 7 years ago

The decline in life expectancy is occurring in part due to deaths from despair. From 2007 to 2017, the mortality rate from drug overdoses increased 82%

This is a perfect example of how corporate greed (and a political system that now mostly exists to support it) is ravishing the American people. After decades of obvious abuses, the company pushing OxyContin is finally being stopped, but no one is going to jail (see: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762455218/as-drugmakers-face-...), and although the company is bankrupt, we're merely locking the barn door after the billions have escaped.

notadoc3• 7 years ago

You're looking at the symptom rather than the disease.

The despair is the disease. Drug and alcohol use are from people self-medicating their symptoms.

If anyone cared to address this problem, they'd look at what causes despair. That despair is often from economic and social distress.

Instead, everyone is outraged up on a media and politically driven moral panic about pharmaceutical medication that happens to be rarely abused and is almost never addictive (fewer than 0.1% chance of becoming addicted to prescribed painkillers, study on over 640,000 patients, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400458).

whiddershins• 7 years ago

No, drug and alcohol addiction definitely can produce despair. Causation can and does work both ways in this one, causing a spiral which is almost impossible to trace back to a single thing.

No, I don’t think economic problems per se cause despair. People are richer, much richer, than 100 or 1000 years ago. I don’t think that changes the fundamental human struggle with meaning, hope, purpose, and everything else that wards off despair.

mjevans• 7 years ago

I agree the problems should be fixed, but it's a serious enough problem that both the symptoms __and__ the underlying causes need to be addressed. Just working on one or the other isn't going to resolve the issue.

pitaj2• 7 years ago

The pharma companies are merely a useful scapegoat for the real cause: awful state policies. This is blatantly obvious after only a small amount of research, like the fact that opioid overdoses have increased as opioid prescriptions have decreased.

The government restricting the supply of opioid painkillers has only served to push those who need them into the black market. Blaming companies like Purdue is only playing into the same talking points as the drug warriors: evil dealers pushing dangerous drugs onto innocent people.

We need to decriminalize and legalize all drugs: possession, creation, and distribution.

dpark4• 7 years ago

The government restricting the supply of opioid painkillers has only served to push those who need them into the black market

This is a pretty shallow summary of the actual state of affairs. Yes, people who need drugs have been forced into the black market. But so have people who are addicts. Legalizing might or might not help, but it doesn’t help to pretend that everyone is a chronic pain sufferer.

The reality is that for decades many people were handed highly addictive painkillers for relatively minor pain (and for too long for acute pain). The end result is an epidemic of addiction. Those addictions didn’t evaporate when doctors started to reduce the frequency of opiate prescriptions. Hence the shocking reality that “opioid overdoses have increased as opioid prescriptions have decreased.” Well, yeah. A bunch of addicts have turned from Oxycodone to heroin.

jtbayly• 7 years ago

Just to let you know, the word you meant to use is “ravaging.” It’s almost an antonym to “ravishing.”

notadoc3• 7 years ago

This is not too surprising for many reasons.

Also, a significant part of modern American culture actively devalues men and thinks of men and masculinity as problematic. This is particularly true within certain political movements and social cultures. That has health consequences, as is already widely known from many studies on various other forms of discrimination and discriminatory movements.

downerending• 7 years ago

This has become a lot more noticeable within the last few years (e.g., the Washington Post editorial "Why can't we hate men?"), and it is indeed having a negative effect on my state of mind.

Not easy to do, but I've been working hard on withdrawing from social media, outrage news, etc., and those who are wrapped up in it. It seems appealing in the moment, but I do think it ultimately contributes to this sort of despair.

_bxg1• 7 years ago

The headline is a weird, cherry-picked minor point from within the article. I had to Ctrl+F to even find it (after skimming).

Shivetya• 7 years ago

well the vilification in the media certainly does not help, the amount men are bombarded with the message that they are source of so much wrong has to be overwhelming to many.

anecdotal nonsense, a few years back we went through a wave of new HR videos about harassment and intimidation and not one had a non male aggressor. it was so bad the women attending the sessions were mocking the presentation.

fortunately they canned that approach not long after after the poor reception.

threatofrain3• 7 years ago

Is the media really shaming young men for being useless? What are the most notable movies or shows?

Doxin2• 7 years ago

Anecdotally it seems to me that the "lazy, young, and failing at everything" stereotype is much more prevalent for men than women in popular media. On the other side the "young but really capable and never giving up" stereotype is much more common for women.

Of course inversions of these tropes can be found all over the place so to properly see if there's a skew you'd need to analyse a whole lot of media and see which is more frequent. I'm not about to embark on that project so the best I can give you is a description of how it feels to me.

In the end I don't think these sorts of stereotypes are too unbalanced, for every bad female stereotype you can find a bad male stereotype. I feel like the conversation shouldn't be about who has it worse and deserves compensation, it should be about how we decouple both good and bad stereotypes from gender or skin color or sexual orientation or what have you.

You need stereotypes to tell compelling stories, otherwise you'd have to explain every single character in-depth. This isn't a bad thing, but we need to be more careful about attaching stereotypes needlessly to real existing groups of humans.

If I were a script writer and it'd be up to me I'd probably just write the script with whichever stereotypes it needs, and then once the script is done flip some coins for the irrelevant character attributes such as gender or skin color or eye color. As far as I can tell those basically never matter for telling a story. Even in the case of it being historically inaccurate I wouldn't say it matters: you're already suspending your disbelief for a lot of stuff in the movies, the idea that e.g. a woman would be a commander in the first world war isn't a stretch big enough to break immersion.

I need to learn to write more coherently and start a blog I think.

kop316• 7 years ago

Not exactly "young men", but I'd argue the Simpsons and Family Guy are noteable for the dumb white male father figure.

droithomme2• 7 years ago

not one had a non male aggressor

Decades ago I briefly dated an extremely physically abusive woman. Nearly killed me a couple times. I ended it. Not a single person has the slightest bit of sympathy over this. I've never struck a woman but maybe I should have in self defense. If I had though I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever I would have been reported, arrested, and imprisoned, regardless of all facts.

octokatt• 7 years ago

Hey, from an internet stranger, I'm sorry this happened to you. That's a terrible situation, made worse by the culture around you.

I hope you've found support since then; if you haven't, here's my anonymous support.

Here are links to finding more support: https://malesurvivor.org https://victimconnect.org http://www.mensadviceline.org.uk

superqd• 7 years ago

From an early age, my dad told my brothers and me, ALL the time that we should never hit a girl or woman. Ever. He drilled into us that there is never a reason to do this.

Fast forward to high school and college, and I freeze when a woman gets physically aggressive and starts to seem violent. A part of my brain expects to fight back, but years of inculcation of the mantra, "never hit a woman" stopped me from responding (and it's not quite in my nature to run). So I just tried to shrug it off while such things happened.

But, yeah, people should not hit people, unless in self defense, etc. Definitely if someone is attacking you it should not matter their sex when defending yourself. Ideally, anyway.

moosey• 7 years ago

Although I'm male, I live my life surrounded by women and have a large focus on women's issues. I also see the writing on the wall: IVF technologies that are being developed today will further erode the value of men in most if not all non-socially conservative societies. I predict large numbers of women in single, cohabitating, or lesbian arrangements having children together because large numbers of men have proven themselves insufferable. I certainly know I have demonstrated as much in the past.

Men capable of rethinking their relationship with women and what it means to be a male, rather than a man, I imagine will do fine in the coming social upheaval.

throw1234651234• 7 years ago

What you basically said is that women > men - [physical advantages, reproductive necessities]. You didn't explain why.

uoaei2• 7 years ago

Women, collectively (at least in the sphere of the "public conversation"), are growing increasingly tired of dealing with men and their idiosyncracies. Or rather, they are realizing there are alternatives to silently accepting the errant behavioral traits.

No one is making an absolute value claim of the two genders, so your comment is at best begging a divisive question that isn't relevant here.

w3mmpp• 7 years ago

I believe you've been brainwashed, time for you to quit what seems like a pretty toxic female environment.

1123581321• 7 years ago

I don’t think reducing the value of men or women to their reproductive traits is a healthy outlook.

Additionally, the same technology level that could make men reproductively useless could do the same for women. In reality, neither will happen.

nostrademons• 7 years ago

I could see lesbian parenting becoming more common with greater social acceptance.

Single or cohabiting though? As a recent parent, I doubt it. Raising children remains extremely challenging, and significantly easier if you have a committed partner for it. There's no way my wife would be able to go on, say, a 10-day business trip to Laos or a 3-day industry conference if I weren't holding down the fort at home, or for that matter able to get to the gym tonight if I weren't picking our son up from daycare, taking him to gymnastics and cooking dinner for him.

How a couple chooses to split up the labor in their relationship is their business, but the fact that there's more than enough labor for a couple isn't going to change regardless of technology.

hinkley• 7 years ago

I think GP is talking about a James Holden or an It Takes A Village Scenario. Where one child or group of children has a larger pool of guardians looking out for them. Doesn’t even have to be that exotic. My aunt’s neighborhood took it in turns to take all the kids one day a week, so the other parents had a few days for their own stuff and appointments.

TulliusCicero• 7 years ago

Possible, though I've read complaints about the reverse as well. That more men don't feel they need women in their lives anymore, despite being straight, because of, well, porn.

Fjolsvith• 7 years ago

The MGTOW movement is a thing.

matheusmoreira• 7 years ago

Systematic devaluation of half of the human population can't be healthy. What's the point of engaging in a society that doesn't value us?

Men capable of rethinking their relationship with women and what it means to be a male, rather than a man

And what does this mean, exactly?

dpark4• 7 years ago

This is some pretty severe self-loathing. You should find yourself a better environment if this is what you’re being told.

Men capable of rethinking ... what it means to be a male, rather than a man

What does this even mean?

friendlybus2• 7 years ago

I agree we'll sees a swing in political narratives from 'strong man 1% wield fire' to minorities to lgbt and the great mother. It's already begun, reddit is bathed in it. We might see a loud minority of lesbians start bra burning or whatever as a political story in a few years. But when it comes to statements about large scale social changes from disruptive technology causing a political change one needs to be more careful.

sjustns• 7 years ago

Just wanted to leave a few quotes here, from The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills, one of my favorite books. Also, if any of this resonates, see the link in my profile and come read with us:

"The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. Even when they do not panic men often sense that older ways off feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That—in defense of selfhood—they become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private men?

Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? It is not only information that they need—in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need—although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves."

"What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of private individuals in our time? To formulate issues and troubles, we must ask what values are cherished yet threatened, and what values are cherished and supported, by the characterizing trends of our period. In the case both of threat and of support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure may be involved.

When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a crisis—either as personal trouble or as a public issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of panic.

But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values, nor experience any threat? That is the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, becomes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which if it is total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise.

Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not yet formulated in such ways as to permit the work of reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles—defined in terms of values and threats—there is often the misery of vague uneasiness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values threatened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in short, they have not been carried to the point of decision. Much less have they been formulated as problems of social science."

"Yet men do not usually define the roubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they take part."

He goes on to talk about the relationship between work and leisure as a "crisis of ambition" in American society. Great read.

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

The following, recent Rolling Stone article provides some real-world context.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/suicid...

rpiguy4• 7 years ago

It is at times like these that I wish Hacker News included number of views in addition to the number of replies.

Threads like this give the impression that everyone is miserable and fill up quickly with sad stories.

It’s good the internet gives those people an outlet and a place to connect, but if this was say viewed by thousands and only got 60 replies it might provide some perspective. Most people are just fine.

threatofrain3• 7 years ago

Firstly, if you're saying most people are just fine then that's surely the wrong framing; you don't wait until most people are hurting.

Secondly, why does one try to persuade people that the scope of hurt isn't that bad by... eyeballing a HN post for popularity? And using that to counteract a report full of collected data?

kwoff• 7 years ago

So, what is your source that "most people are just fine"? I'd wager that what you mean is, you're fine and you think most people you know are fine. Good luck, in any case.

rpiguy4• 7 years ago

These two articles sum it up nicely. About 5.7% of men are depressed and about 8.7% of women. Most people are just fine. I hate alarmist journalism and sensational headlines.

https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-statistic...

https://www.verywellmind.com/depression-statistics-everyone-...

tathougies2• 7 years ago

The good news is that the social groups where both traditional masculinity and femininity are not looked down upon (typically conservative, religious folks, not necessarily any particular religion, either) will grow due to the higher birth and family stability rates. This will hopefully lead to better mental health for both men and women who are suffering under the current system.

matt4077• 7 years ago

That theory (with a different group of people) has been a favorite of racists for at least two centuries. Yet, somehow, it never really materialises.

In your specific case, it is bound to fail because the children of religious parents are rather likely to leave religion. The various kinds of injustice children experience at the hand of religious organisations helps in that regard.

If you don't believe me, just think back in time: religious people have always had more children. And yet, religion has a been declining for a long time.

Among the most reproduction-happy have been groups like the Amish. But they haven't taken over the US, have they?

scottlocklin• 7 years ago

Among the most reproduction-happy have been groups like the Amish. But they haven't taken over the US, have they?

You realize their population in 1900 was around 6000, and they're now 325,000 right? At current "population doubles every 20 years" rates, well, it won't be long now.

tathougies2• 7 years ago

Really? I'm pointing out that religious populations like Catholics and Muslims are increasing and im being accused of racism? These are the two most diverse religious groups on the planet. Your accusation is laughable

throwawayhhakdl• 7 years ago

When I was in high school I had a stereotypical thought that most of the ass hole more popular guys would have shit lives after college. Historically that wasn’t true. But nowadays... it seems more valid. Most of the guy’s who followed stereotypical social strategies in high school have turned out pretty poor. The guys who have done well are the one man who were smart or kind. Your value to others should be self evident from being a person people like. People saying it’s all about work and money... sound like assholes who don’t realize it.

shaki-dora2• 7 years ago

I'm a man, and for the life of me I don't get how people are feeling personally attacked by feminism. Same with racism: I just don't connect these issues with me as an individual. And I've never experienced an interaction where others have done so, either. I've been to any number of feminist events with my partner, and nobody ever made a negative comment rooted in the fact that I'm a man.

droithomme2• 7 years ago

I supported feminism as it was originally explained to me, as against violent and abusive dictatorial strictly patriarchal systems insidiously designed to suppress and oppress minority viewpoints and ways.

But since then I've realized there are many other things that feminism means to people. It's not a great label as it doesn't mean anything in particular. Some variants are definitely bigoted hate against a certain gender. I don't agree with those. Diffusion of label-meaning: what can be done about this. For me... be a label-skeptic. Irrelevant, though no one cares. Only mindless labels matter in the great big wide world.

godzillabrennus• 7 years ago

Totally understand where you are coming from. My wife and I tend to see modern feminism as a way to tell males that being masculine is bad while simultaneously telling females that being feminine is bad. Seems like the same pay for the same work aspects of the movement are where they should instead focus.

Likewise politically, I’m for individual liberty for all adults but not for an anemic taxation system for the rich.

I guess that makes me a centrist these days?

AlexandrB2• 7 years ago

I often ask the same question. But apparently so many feel personally attacked by feminism that you’ve been downvoted into oblivion.

friendlybus2• 7 years ago

People that have sexual trauma are trivially easy to trigger with large shows of political power or 'abuse' around sex. It worked on me when I was younger. The only solution is to get your sex life in order and some of the people engaged in that debate are doing just that.

jalla• 7 years ago

Be a male at school today, in most of the Western world, and you will experience misandry by your teachers.

sdegutis• 7 years ago

Discovering what true masculinity means and how to fulfill it is going to be key for men today to keep their sanity and hope. And that begins with courage and a sincere search for the truth, and it continues with the courage to stand up for the truth in the face of threats and injustices.

State of Health Report Shows Growing Despair Among American Men

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