First thing that comes to your mind when you're asked why are young men struggling right now?
Well, like most quote-unquote crises, it's a multi-dimensional issue. One is just biology. Men mature later. Their prefrontal cortex is biologically 18 months behind a girl's. That's kind of the gas on gas off brake, the part of your brain that says stop playing video games and go study for your chemistry exam. So, just biologically men start 18 months behind a woman. You have a lot of the traditional on-ramps into the middle class have disappeared in manufacturing for young men. There is, I think, a societal fissure, and that is men used to know their role. They were going to be kind of protectors and providers. That's been torn up a little bit. I also think there's a lack of empathy for young men because men of my generation had so much unearned advantage that when you have four in five people who die by suicide are men, there's really not a lot of empathy because non-whites and women have faced such an uphill battle for so long that there just isn't the same amount of attention on this group as you would typically find when a group like this is struggling. So, there's a variety of factors that have all led to this perfect storm of young men failing.
I heard you speaking on a podcast the other day, and something really stood out that you said, which was that when you hear from young men struggling, often they are blaming women for their romantic relationships, and they're blaming immigrants for their financial problems. What do you say to those young men?
So, I think that's a minority of young men, but that's when you know you've lost a young man. And unfortunately, a lot of the manosphere, who are just grifters trying to tap into this anger and trying to tell young men that their romantic problems are not their fault, that the fault of women's unreasonable expectations, or their economic problems are the fault of immigrants. It's very easy these grifters, which I think is mostly, you know, many of the most popular figures in the manosphere I would describe accurately as grifters, are trying to attract a large audience of people by telling them it's not their fault. And to demonize another group and then, you know, buy my crypto trading platform class. So, but I think the majority of young men are trying to better themselves and trying to overcome some of their struggles just as other groups are. But I think unfortunately the algorithms online elevate incendiary content and there's no shortage of incendiary content online, but that's not, you know, like the far right to its credit recognized the problem first with the with young men. The problem there is their solution is to take women and non-whites back to the '50s, which isn't a solution. And the far left, to be fair, their advice to young men is that they should act more like a woman and that's I don't think that's helpful advice either. So, I don't think either side of the political spectrum is actually, you know, adding in a helpful way to this debate. But that's when I know I've lost a young man when I'm mentoring him is when he starts blaming other people for his problems. And with respect to women, I think that each gender has done a really good job convincing themselves that it's the other gender's fault.
It's interesting that you talk about the big technology and the dangers of big technology. I wanted to get your thoughts on that, the dangers of big technology but also the dangers of big tech and big social media to spread this kind of far right sort of manosphere type stuff.
Richard Reeves, who's my Yoda on this, who does really solid research at the American Institute for Boys and Men, he doesn't have a large following on social because he doesn't say incendiary things. He's thoughtful and points to data. Some of the people in the manosphere are some of the female TikTokers who I think engage in pretty serious misandry. The algorithms love that content because a lot of people weigh in and say, 'Yeah, their sensors get tickled.' And at the same time, a lot of people weigh in and say, 'That's ridiculous and a hateful thing to say.' And the algorithms love that because every additional comment or small argument back and forth in the comment section is another impression and another Nissan ad and more shareholder value. So, we now have economic incentive from some of the most powerful companies in the world to start fights and elevate incendiary content beyond its organic reach. So, there's unfortunately now an economic incentive from the world's most powerful companies to divide us and get us fighting with one another.
What's the consequence of all this? What's at risk? Because in your book you say there's nothing more dangerous than a lonely man. What do you mean by that?
The darkest moments in society, whether it was genocide in Rwanda or the Weimar Republic descending the world into 70 million deaths in the middle of the last century, all have one thing in common, and that is a disproportionate amount of young men who lack economic or romantic opportunities. Young men, when young women don't have opportunities, they sometimes pour that energy back into their professional life or their friend network. When men don't have the guardrails of a relationship or a job, they oftentimes pour that energy into conspiracy theory, online content, misogyny, nationalism. And that group becomes very prone or susceptible to a strong man demonizing other people, saying the enemy is within, blaming immigrants, and telling them, quite frankly, to take up arms or to put aside any rational thought or any grace. Nobody has a right to a job. I'd like to think that the government has a responsibility to provide economic opportunity. But the reality is show me a nation with a lot of young men that are failing, I'm going to show you an unstable, violent nation. So, women and society aren't going to continue to flourish if men are flailing. And just to put a fine point on it, who wants more emotionally and economically viable men? Women. So, this is a big issue for society and it has been throughout history.
You've put a lot of your energy into this. I mean, you have a lot of resources. Your family's going to be fine. Why put all your energy into this topic? Why is this so important for you? You've dedicated so much time and energy into this particular topic.
Well, I have two boys. I have 15-year-old and 18-year-old boys, and they're going to be fine because one of the very unfortunate things about this problem, and it's like every other problem, is that it's entirely or it's inversely correlated to your income. My boys are being raised with two loving parents and we have resources, which quite frankly solves a lot of these problems. But I do think about young men a lot having two boys and trying to raise, you know, I see my job as just preparing them for others. And so, I think about it a lot. Also, just to be blunt, I relate to these young men. I was a young man raised in a single parent home. My mother lived and died a secretary. I didn't have a lot of economic or romantic opportunities. And had it not been for the grace of big government providing me with financial assistance and accessible, affordable, great secondary education and an incredible economy that gave me opportunities to raise money and make a living in the internet, I could have very easily been one of these young men who was struggling. So, I relate to them. Also, just bluntly, if you consider yourself someone who's interested in ideas and likes to communicate, this was such an obvious issue of just enormous dimensions. There wasn't a thoughtful conversation around this. The people who entered the void here were really unproductive voices. And you know some of them that they just came in and started saying these incendiary, vile things about the problems or the reasons that young men were flailing. So, I just saw it as an interesting... I'm emotionally attached to the issue. I have a vested interest in it. Raised trying to raise two young men. And I saw it just as an obvious conversation that other people were having, but I didn't think the conversation was getting the attention or the thoughtful, data-driven dialogue it deserved.
I think, you know, as men we grow up hearing to one degree or another what it means to be a man, that definition of manhood. What was the message for you growing up? What was the message for you in terms of what does it mean to be a man growing up?
