For a long time, the media have treated American men as an afterthought. In fact, anybody who spoke to American men writ large was considered bad.
My friend Jordan Peterson speaks to men all over the world, specifically young men who feel lost. And the media hate him for it. They treat him as though he’s a very bad person for speaking to audiences of young men.
But suddenly the media have realized young men represent 50% of the American population — and men are falling behind by every single metric. Men are falling behind women when it comes to college degrees. Men are falling behind women when it comes to job performance. Men are falling behind women when it comes to life satisfaction in some measures. These are all areas in which men are falling behind.
This has raised the question: What exactly is happening to American men now? That question cannot be answered in a vacuum without explaining what has happened to American women.
The Bible has a lot of wisdom embedded in it. One of these pieces of wisdom in Genesis, chapter two, tells about the formation of women. God says man should not be alone; he needs a “helpmeet.” In Hebrew the word for “helpmeet” means “our needs are connected,” which literally means a “helper against him.” In other words, men and women are two halves of the same whole. That’s also expressed in that same chapter with the statement that a man shall leave his father and mother and join his wife; he shall cleave to her and they shall become one flesh. The basic idea here is that men are incomplete without women and women are incomplete without men.
So when explaining the shortcomings of modern American men, you also have to link that with their roles versus the roles of the women, because they do not exist in a vacuum.
There’s a whole issue in Politico about what’s wrong with American men. Every single piece in that issue is written by a woman, which is a weird way to ask what’s wrong with American men; they should have a diversity of viewpoints about what exactly is happening with American men that should include some males.
Why is Politico beginning to notice something “wrong with American men”?
Because men are turning away from the Democratic Party — in droves. Many people in the media are suddenly realizing that when American men fall off the train, that is very bad for America.
Traditionally speaking, the role of men was pretty simple. The role of men was: You protect your family; you defend your country, your values, your community; you provide for your family. These were the roles of men: protect and defend and provide. Men are still expected to provide and defend our families. That is still true for large swathes of the American population.
But there are a bunch of men who no longer do this — because our culture shames them for it. The culture has decided not to treat men and women as two potential halves of a greater whole that is united in marriage. Instead, we’re supposed to treat men atomistically and women atomistically and then celebrate the atomism. We’re supposed to celebrate the falling apart, which is presumably why there is a piece in The Wall Street Journal titled, “Divorce Parties Are a New Hot Invite.” The article says:
Now, a culture shift is under way. The U.S. divorce rate has been dipping, but those who get them feel freer to trumpet their breakups. The number of American adults who consider divorce to be morally acceptable has hit historic highs, according to Gallup polls. ‘Divorce used to be something to be ashamed of due to societal pressures and stereotypes. … But today, people have decided to nip that societal shame and instead embrace being divorced as another stage of life that some of us experience.’
Now, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? I would argue it’s a very bad thing. A divorce is a tragedy. It means that a marriage has ended. It means that potential fulfillment of male and female in monogamous marriage has been broken up, that the basic predicate and foundation for the formation of a family, which is the building block of society, has fallen apart. Men lose themselves when they are not part of this institution; women lose themselves when they’re not part of this institution because they are the countervailing part of what men are supposed to do.
Removing one half of a whole means the other half is going to seem insufficient. That’s particularly true of men when they are deprived of their goals, when they are deprived of their duty, when their aggressive instincts are not channeled in the most positive possible direction. What you end up with is true toxic masculinity because men in the wild are terrible: rapacious, violent, aggressive, territorial.
But when all of those instincts are channeled to protect, defend, and provide, then those instincts can be sublimated to a higher goal. When the higher goal goes away, men end up being incredibly destructive, either to others or to themselves. That’s exactly what we are seeing right now.
But the media refuse to acknowledge that because what they like is the moral status they have built in which we are supposed to pretend all acts of sexual union are equally morally praiseworthy and societally useful. We’re supposed to pretend everybody’s individual decision-making with regard to relationships is equally good and equally valid. We’re supposed to pretend the liberated woman who is no longer expected to get married is somehow better off than the woman who got married at 20, had kids with a husband, maybe had a part-time job, and then maybe had a full-time job.
We valorize people for making decisions that are contra the traditional patterns of life, even though the traditional patterns of life provide the actual framework for success for both men and women. This doesn’t mean that every marriage from 1930 is better than every marriage from 2020 — nothing like that. But it does mean that a society that expects men and women to become complementary parts of a fuller whole is a better society and a more healthy society than one that says they’re completely apathetic about this.
Because here’s the truth: When you say you are apathetic about a moral standard, what you really mean is that you are against the moral standard — because the standard makes demands of you. If you oppose the demands, that’s not apathy; that’s opposition.
The opposite of the traditional moral standard is not apathy. It is absolute chaos.
And that’s what we are seeing right now. We refuse to acknowledge the complete restructuring of society, so men and women have been broken into groups like two separate groups that were not expected to come together over marriage. They’ve now become reactionary and oppositional.
When any two groups become so reactionary and oppositional that they never look inward to ask “what can I do to fix the problem?” but instead look outward at the other person to say “I’ll do the precise opposite,” you get a recipe for a complete breakdown. You end up with both toxic femininity and toxic masculinity: the valorization of a lifestyle that says abortion is an act of good for women and a valorization on the other side that says men should treat women like pieces of meat and the true mark of a man’s success is how toxically aggressive he is.
Get rid of the institution of marriage and people go back to their basest instincts, especially those that have been shielded from biology. You end up with people indulging their basest instincts and being unhappier.
I’m convinced that men are in crisis, and I strongly suspect that ending it will require a positive vision of what masculinity entails that is particular, neither neutral nor interchangeable with femininity. There’s no one script for how to be a woman or a man. But despite a push by some advocates to make everything from bathrooms to birthing gender-neutral, most people don’t actually want a completely androgynous society.
We must find new ways to valorize the traditional role of men, to tell a story that’s appealing to young men and socially beneficial rather than sitting around listening to people who would warp a perceived difference into something ugly and destructive.