Writer.
New York.
Over edjamaketd.
Cultural myopic view that is no doubt accurate as far as the East River.
Posted on 09/21/2008 5:41:43 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Not so long ago, unmarried men were called "bachelors," but the word now seems oddly out of date. Back in the day, bachelors were a minor, outsider group populated mostly by loners of ambiguous sexuality or Hefnerian swingers with a taste for cool jazz and dry martinis. Today, as men marry well into their 20s and 30s and enjoy both a boundless pool of sexually available women and a commercial culture awash with "stupid fun," the young, unmarried male has become a far more prominent -- and more vexing -- social type. He has devolved into the child man -- or, if you like, man child, boy man or "basement boy" (a nod to his penchant for taking up residence in the rec rooms of suburban parents) -- with crude obsessions for Xboxes, "hot babes," and Will Farrell and Seth Rogen movies. The emergence of this social type is the subject of two timely books, "Men to Boys" and "Guyland."
"Men to Boys," by Gary Cross, a cultural historian at Penn State, offers by far the more, well, mature analysis of boy men. Putting his academic skills to good use, Mr. Cross traces a gradual devolution over three generations from the lingering Victorian ideals of masculine self-restraint, gentility and "measured deference to female culture at home" to the buffoonery of radio host Howard Stern and ex-basketball star Dennis Rodman.
Mr. Cross's early chapter on the Greatest Generation is perhaps the richest in his thoughtful journey through the male-strom of modern masculinity. Transcending the tired clichés about the era's "Father Knows Best" patriarchal conformity, he finds in the 1950s culture a complicated response toward older ideals of masculine probity and self- denial.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity", by Gary Cross
and
"Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men", by Michael Kimmel
An interview with Cross is at http://www.cup.columbia.edu/static/gary-cross-interview .
Generally on target, but given that video game adoption is rising even among the elderly it’s very difficult to accept the association between video games and the people complained about in the article.
The creation of the boy-man is deliberate. The gramscian socialists and their hangers-on in academia and the media. All the victimhood, nihilism, agressive-pacifism and self-loathing that the socialists feel for themselves is projected onto others. It is now our turn to deny their fundamental tenets - and if in the process we must ignore or reject some of the institutions they have parasitically overwhelmed, so be it.
Turn off your television and read a book. Turn off your radio and pick up a musical instrument. Learn do for yourself and your family, because in the end, the instruments of the state cannot (in some cases will not) defend and protect you.
Same here.....After working four ten and a half hour days,one twelve hour day and the odd Saturday, I feel like a god when I can stay up til 10pm.
I divorced a DIAGNOSED PSYHOPATH with a 15 year record of child abuse an neglect, who injured our children DURING the trial, and who had her older kids taken away from her by CPS in the past.
I don;t drink, smoke, do drugs, and 25 witnesses testifies on my behalf and 1 testified on hers but ended up confirming my story anyway.
The children were living with me DURING the trial, after she called the police and told them I assaulted her- only to have it proven I was not even home at the time.
It was shown that they dramatically improved while living with me.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
End result- Idiot NY STATE SUPREME COURT Judge John O’Donnel GAVE THE KIDS BACK TO HER AND LET HER STEAL ALL MY PROPERTY.
And to the idiots who automatically chime in with “huh- you married her” - when you are dealing with a PATHOLOGICAL LIAR and DIAGNOSED PSYCHOPATH it is pretty shocking when you find out everything you knew for years about her was a lie.
Thanks, Hugh Hefner and Gloria Steinem. You have done great work for your unacknowledged master, Karl Marx, by breaking down American families and thus American society.
Yeah bro, I can’t remember the last time I actually had a relaxing vacation. I think it was about 3 to 4 years ago.
I’m really sorry. That’s horrible. How are you assuring that abuse of the children doesn’t continue?
Does being laid off count?
My "gaming" friends laugh at me because I play this little, old, primitive game with little boxes that move around the screen.
When they try to get me to learn and play something new, I laugh at them and tell them that I don't have weeks of time learning how to play a stupid-ass game. In the amount of time it would take me to become proficient in that drivel, I could learn to speak Japanese or build a greenhouse.
So, on occasion, they find me moving little boxes around my computer screen (and I regret the time wasted doing that too....but it does help me relax after working 12 hours in my business).
Instead of strictly focusing on gay marriage and other nonsense for the breakdown of marriage, family, etc. Maybe much of the focus needs to put on the legal system. Guys are absolutely screwed in divorce proceedings and custody battles. Marriage is not worth it anymore.
I’ve live with my gf/fiance for a few years now and I can already see the signs of a bad situation occurring.
I'm almost 50 years old, if I was 25 years old again, just why in the world would I want to get married to some women who demands I be overtly sensitive and seek out my "feminine" side to be her male girlfriend, listening to her whine everyday
Sexual gratification is basically free if you have no religious morals or qualms about bedding women with no strings attached.
I can father as many children as I want as long as I pay for them without any real consequences since fatherhood is archaic and a burden.
I can play WOW or Evercrack to my hearts content without having to deal with a family
Women deconstructed men and fatherhood for 30 years and they got a bunch of self adsorbed effe boys ( military men not included )
The foundation of the social construct that made this country great, families and manhood, has now fallen apart and we will pay a heavy price if we already haven't
How to “domesticate” little boys is a challenge to every time and culture. Testosterone is a powerful chemical. A society composed of the cast of “Lord of the Flies” would not be a very nice place.
Having said that, America — and much of the Western world — has gone too far in the other direction, waging what some have termed the “War on Boys.” This has led to the increased feminization of males beginning in and most prominently seen in government schools.
This MAY serve to explain why we now are seeing more and more women in leadership positions: The guys have largely given up. While there are — and, hopefully, always will be — exceptions, many of these men-boys no longer even want to compete for those jobs.
Gotta run. There’s a very large woman in a loincloth carrying a spear at the door...
Not in my house...our seven year old is starting center and starting DT on the eight year old football team...he’s playing above his age...gotta go - game time in one hour.
The socially acceptable 'extreme' is going rock climbing.
From my perch here in Baghdad, any of the troops I work with are fascinating oddities in their home towns. Everyone here is a volunteer of one sort or another, and outside of our immediate social circles, thought of as very unusual for it.
For an increasingly early adolescent-like society, there's no understanding of why someone would seek out challenges, rather than just take the easy way and get paid. Doing as little as possible to get paid and screw off has gone from being the preferred route for certain classes of scoundrel to the American dream itself.
I'm returning home in a few weeks, after my third trip to Iraq. For as goofy and irresponsible as the troops here can be on occasion, they're head and shoulders above their civilian counterparts, and I'll miss working with them. They're far more emotionally developed and mature than their peers. Peers who avoid any chance to test themselves in the real world, and sneer at those that do as suckers.
I can't watch most will farrell movies. "Elf" was the only one I could bring myself to sit through the whole thing.
Marriage only compounds a bad situation. Run while you can.
If it is of any help, my step brother went through a similar situation with custody of his 2 boys. The woman (drug addict) moved to a different state after she took all his assets. He followed, got a new job and stayed in his sons lives. Now both boys are 17 & 19 and have moved in with Dad. In the end they figured out who really had their best interests at heart.
Financially this divorce devastated him. He has never achieved the success in business he could have earned, but his sons are turning into decent men and know their father loves them.
Hang in there.
“When they try to get me to learn and play something new, I laugh at them and tell them that I don’t have weeks of time learning how to play a stupid-ass game.”
Yep, same here. I don’t have that kind of dedication. I can’t believe anyone spends that much time and effort on a game.
lets see, treated like girls till they are out of high school because the teachers say there's no difference, let alone if they are without Fathers because they are deemed necessary, and then they are surprised at the outcome??? please...
So now I’m the bad guy.... I’m the one to blame for society’s ill all because I wouldn’t find some slut who, statistically, take half my stuff, cheat on me with my buddy and leave me for dead.
Sorry, but I disagree with this liberal non-sense. Sounds to me like they’re looking for new victims to create for their justification of a skewed world-view.
All I got to say is.......whatever!
The reason you are working so hard is because you are one in a dwindling pool who is willing and able to work full time. The money's OK, but you can't get help, and try to take a weekend off.
“and I can already see the signs of a bad situation occurring.”
You had BETTER pay attention to your instincts. If you marry and then the sh*t hits the fan, you can be damned sure that the family courts will NOT be in your corner.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
It ain’t your heart that’s telling you to stay, bro, it’s another organ. IMHO.
These arguments have been around for a long time, but for the most part, they are symptoms of the problems, not the problems themselves.
To begin with, let’s get to the very basics of human biology. It’s obvious that men and women have to reproduce, somehow. What is less obvious is that their reproductive *motivations* are different. This is seen in almost all sexual animals, so we have to consider that it applies to us as well.
Males are motivated to get their DNA into the next generation of offspring. But females are motivated to get both the *best* male DNA for their offspring, as well as the *best* male provider to help them raise their offspring. Unfortunately, if there are a lot of males around, it is likely that these are not the same male. So the idea of “cheating” and sexual competition exists, even at a primitive level.
But while this will accomplish basic reproduction, some animals have figured out a better way—monogamy. This improves the process for males, females, *and* their offspring. The male is assured the offspring has his DNA, and the female gets a two-for-one deal, that by accepting the male’s DNA, she gets a guaranteed provider as well. And, of course, the offspring benefit by having two parents to support and raise them.
Humans have taken monogamy one step further, though. They created the idea of marriage, which is not just an agreement between a man and a woman, but was also “socially enforced” by other people as well. If someone was married, they were “off limits”, or else. This was a very effective tool to prevent cheating, not just a stupid social construct done as a ritual.
However, people are masters as messing up a good thing, so they started using marriage for unintended purposes, such as diplomacy, and financial agreements. And finally, easy divorce was made possible, which turned a lifetime reproduction agreements into a joke.
Only because of the immediate and obviously destructive effect this had on children, did the secular law begin to intervene and replace the socially enforced marriage agreement with a civilly enforced agreement. That is, alimony support for the wife, and child support for the children.
Alimony was based in the idea that the wife was committed to the idea of raising the couples offspring, so had no other means of support than her husband or ex-husband. Children as well were dependent on the adult male.
But then a social movement arose to encourage women to seek employment outside of the home as well. The promise was two-fold, of job satisfaction, and to improve the standard of living of her family with a second income. However, this was negated by the government raising taxes so high that the typical family had no choice but for both parents to work. And this was very detrimental to the children as well, depriving them of both provision and parenting.
After all that, however, stripped of the value of marriage to the husband, in that it neither assures that his children’s DNA is his, and equating him solely with provision without reward, often even refusing him parenting of the children, a walking wallet, it is no surprise that many men reject marriage altogether, and revert to the previous non-monogamous biological state.
Some States, in their own vested interest, now demand that women provide the name of their children’s biological father when they are born. They do this in hope of recovering any welfare money paid to the mother if they can.
However, in the future, this may also provide fathers with a process to establish paternity after birth, not just to automatically assume the financial responsibility for the child. If the child is not his, then he will have a short time in which to divest himself of child and mother. And this will restore the balance of marriage somewhat.
But until taxes are lowered to the point where a man can support his family on just his income, his wife free to give full parenting to the children, men will still be partially locked out of the system—caught between endless numbers of other men with more desirable DNA, and just being a walking wallet, providing endless money and receiving little in return.
Monogamy and marriage is a better way, if they are respected, and the vast majority of men would prefer to be both monogamous and married, but only if they get something out of the deal.
Run, don't walk, to the nearest EXIT. The red flags you and others see don't disappear with marriage or children. Don't ignore them hoping things will "get better". They won't, and all your "hopes and dreams" won't make them so. These flags are warning you there are big problems ahead and the end is almost guaranteed to be nasty.
Character, honesty, love, and a genuine commitment to the welfare and genuine needs (notice, I didn't say "wants") of your spouse counts. If either or both of you don't have it, consider yourself scr*wed if you proceed with marriage!
This story is right up my alley.
Maybe this idiot needs to read:
From Courtship To Courtroom by Jed Abraham
Then she will understand why men are remaining bachelors.
35-yr old bachelor for life and loving it. Whoohoo!!!!
It gets easier, my friend.
Young women have abetted this trend by actively embracing the “slut” lifestyle.
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