In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men

Are committed fathers an endangered species in our culture? Fr. Gordon MacRae draws a troubling corollary between absent fathers and burgeoning prisons.

Wade Horn, Ph.D., President of the National Fatherhood Initiative, had an intriguing article entitled “Of Elephants and Men” in a recent issue of Fatherhood Today magazine. I found Dr. Horn’s story about young elephants to be simply fascinating, and you will too. It was sent to me by a TSW reader who wanted to know if there is any connection between the absence of fathers and the shocking growth of the American prison population.

Some years ago, officials at the Kruger National Park and game reserve in South Africa were faced with a growing elephant problem. The population of African elephants, once endangered, had grown larger than the park could sustain. So measures had to be taken to thin the ranks. A plan was devised to relocate some of the elephants to other African game reserves. Being enormous creatures, elephants are not easily transported. So a special harness was created to air-lift the elephants and fly them out of the park using helicopters.

The helicopters were up to the task, but, as it turned out, the harness wasn’t. It could handle the juvenile and adult female elephants, but not the huge African bull elephants. A quick solution had to be found, so a decision was made to leave the much larger bulls at Kruger and relocate only some of the female elephants and juvenile males.

The problem was solved. The herd was thinned out, and all was well at Kruger National Park. Sometime later, however, a strange problem surfaced at South Africa’s other game reserve, Pilanesburg National Park, the younger elephants’ new home.

Rangers at Pilanesburg began finding the dead bodies of endangered white rhinoceros. At first, poachers were suspected, but the huge rhinos had not died of gunshot wounds, and their precious horns were left intact. The rhinos appeared to be killed violently, with deep puncture wounds. Not much in the wild can kill a rhino, so rangers set up hidden cameras throughout the park.

The result was shocking. The culprits turned out to be marauding bands of aggressive juvenile male elephants, the very elephants relocated from Kruger National Park a few years earlier. The young males were caught on camera chasing down the rhinos, knocking them over, and stomping and goring them to death with their tusks. The juvenile elephants were terrorizing other animals in the park as well. Such behavior was very rare among elephants. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Some of the park rangers settled on a theory. What had been missing from the relocated herd was the presence of the large dominant bulls that remained at Kruger. In natural circumstances, the adult bulls provide modeling behaviors for younger elephants, keeping them in line.

Juvenile male elephants, Dr. Horn pointed out, experience “musth,” a state of frenzy triggered by mating season and increases in testosterone. Normally, dominant bulls manage and contain the testosterone-induced frenzy in the younger males. Left without elephant modeling, the rangers theorized, the younger elephants were missing the civilizing influence of their elders as nature and pachyderm protocol intended.

To test the theory, the rangers constructed a bigger and stronger harness, then flew in some of the older bulls left behind at Kruger. Within weeks, the bizarre and violent behavior of the juvenile elephants stopped completely. The older bulls let them know that their behaviors were not elephant-like at all. In a short time, the younger elephants were following the older and more dominant bulls around while learning how to be elephants.

In his terrific article, “Of Elephants and Men,” Dr. Wade Horn went on to write of a story very similar to that of the elephants, though it happened not in Africa, but in New York’s Central Park. The story involved young men, not young elephants, but the details were eerily close. Groups of young men were caught on camera sexually harassing and robbing women and victimizing others in the park. Their herd mentality created a sort of frenzy that was both brazen and contagious. In broad daylight, they seemed to compete with each other, even laughing and mugging for the cameras as they assaulted and robbed passersby. It was not, in any sense of the term, the behavior of civilized men.

Appalled by these assaults, citizens demanded a stronger and more aggressive police presence. Dr. Horn asked a more probing question. “Where have all the fathers gone?” Simply increasing the presence of police everywhere a crime is possible might assuage some political pressure, but it does little to identify and solve the real social problem behind the brazen Central Park assaults. It was the very same problem that victimized rhinos in that park in Africa. The majority of the young men hanging around committing those crimes in Central Park grew up in homes without fathers present.

That is not an excuse. It is a social problem that has a direct correlation with their criminal behavior. They were not acting like men because their only experience of modeling the behaviors of men had been taught by their peers and not by their fathers. Those who did have fathers had absent fathers, clearly preoccupied with something other than being role models for their sons. Wherever those fathers were, they were not in Central Park.

Dr. Horn pointed out that simply replacing fathers with more police isn’t a solution. No matter how many police are hired and trained, they will quickly be outnumbered if they assume the task of both investigating crime and preventing crime. They will quickly be outnumbered because presently in our culture, two out of every five young men are raised in fatherless homes, and that disparity is growing faster as traditional family systems break down throughout the Western world.

Real men protect the vulnerable, not assault them. Growing up having learned that most basic tenet of manhood is the job of fathers, not the police. Dr. Horn cited a quote from a young Daniel Patrick Moynihan written some forty years ago:

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th Century Eastern Seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations for the future – that community asks for and gets chaos.”

It’s easy in the politically correct standards of today to dismiss such a quote as chauvinistic. But while we’re arguing that point, our society’s young men are being tossed away by the thousands into prison systems that swallow them up. Once in prison, this system is very hard to leave behind. The New Hampshire prison system just released a dismal report two weeks ago. Of 1,095 prisoners released in 2007, over 500 were back in prison by 2010. Clearly, the loss of freedom does not compensate for the loss of fathers in managing the behavior of young men.

There is very little that happens in the punishment model of prison life that teaches a better way to a young man who has broken the law. The proof of that is all around us, but – especially in an election year – getting anyone to take a good hard look inside a prison seems impossible. We live in a disposable culture, and when our youth are a problem, we simply do what we do best. We dispose of them, sometimes forever. Anyone who believes that punishment, and nothing but punishment, is an effective deterrent of criminal behavior in the young is left to explain why our grotesquely expensive prisons have a 50 percent recidivism rate.

As I have written before, the United States has less than five percent of the world’s population, but twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners. The U.S. has more young men in prison today than all of the leading 35 European countries combined. The ratio of prisoners to citizens in the U.S. is four times what it is in Israel, six times what it is in Canada and China, and thirteen times what it is in Japan. The only governments with higher per capita rates of prisoners are in Third World countries, and even they are only slightly higher.

For a nation struggling with its racial inequities, the prison system is a racial disaster. Currently, young men of African-American and Latino descent comprise 30 percent of our population, but 60 percent of our prison population. But prison isn’t itself an issue that falls conveniently along racial divides.

New Hampshire, where I have spent the last eighteen years in prison, is one of the whitest states in the United States, and yet it is first in the nation not only in its Presidential Primary election, but in prison growth. Between 1980 and 2005, New Hampshire’s state population grew by 34 percent. In that same period, its prison population grew by a staggering 600 percent with no commensurate increase in crime rate.

In an election year, politicizing prisons is just counter-productive and nothing will ever really change. Albert R. Hunt of Bloomberg News had a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times (“A Country of Inmates,” November 20, 2011) in which he decried the election year politics of prisons.

“This issue [of prison growth] almost never comes up with Republican presidential candidates; one of the few exceptions was a debate in September when audiences cheered the notion of executions in Texas.”

This may be so, but it’s the very sort of political blaming that undermines real serious and objective study of our national prison problem. I am not a Republican or a Democrat, but in fairness I should point out that the current Democratic governor of New Hampshire has but one plan for this State’s overcrowded and ever growing prison system: build a bigger prison somewhere. And as far as executions are concerned, the overwhelmingly Republican state Legislature in New Hampshire voted overwhelmingly to overturn the state’s death penalty ten years ago. Governor Jeanne Shaheen (now U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen), a Democrat, vetoed the repeal saying that this State “needs a death penalty.”

But for me, the most mindless politics of all are those of groups like Voice of the Faithful, obsessed with the “survivors” of priestly misconduct – both real and feigned – from 30, 40, or 50 years ago. But they have absolutely nothing to say about the thousands of young men dumped annually into prison systems from which they emerge with little hope of ever recovering from what they encounter there. How can anyone claim to protect young people while ignoring that? Perhaps the VOTF people concerned for youth at the hands of priests would do well to read Jeremy’s comment posted awhile back on These Stone Walls.Gordon-MacRae-Falsely-Accused-Priest-Land-of-Nod-East-of-Eden

Eighty percent of the young men I have met in prison grew up in homes without fathers. The problem seems clear. When prisons and police replace fathers, chaos reigns, and promising young lives are sacrificed.

Before we close the door on Father’s Day this year, let’s revisit whether we’re prepared for the chaos of a fatherless America. “Fathers” and “Fatherhood” are concepts with 1,932 direct references in the Old and New Testaments. Without a doubt, fatherhood has long been on the mind of God. Report Post Edit/Delete Message

That’s an excellent question. However, I think there are ways to transport the bull elephants back into the park. The biggest fence keeping families apart is welfare. On the other hand, if we cannot roll back the social welfare state, the only other recourse is more government authority to round up and imprison the roving bands of young males. That, by the way, is our current approach, and it doesn’t work nearly as well as encouraging the families to stay together in the first place.

That’s NOT what your link was about. People can read it for themselves. And as for fighting back, the problem is in the laws and courts. Men fight back with everything they have - legally - and still are denied basic rights to their own children. Women are granted absolute power through mere hearsay. And then to slander such fathers with laziness or selfishness or lack of attention to fatherhood is just vile. You posted your stinking article, so you’re bound to its lies. Don’t try to backpeddle now - it says what it says.

AMEN!

I grew up in the kind of family where the man was the head of the household. Did that diminish my mother’s role? Certainly not! Each had something unique to give, and nothing was done in our house without my parents consulting one another!

It’s one thing if there’s a divorce, or a death, in the marriage: we don’t always have control over life’s circumstances! I do believe that every child should have a chance at having 2 parents: the parents in turn have the responsibility of creating a stable environment for the child by being committed to the other parent, and careful of whom they choose to potentially raise that child WITH THEM.

Thank you, Mom and Dad! Until we meet again in Heaven!

The solution does not lie in what to do with the prison system. We need to keep dangerous criminals under lock and key, and of course, we need to stop locking people up for marijuana law violation (throwing the libertarians a bone).

What needs to be done is ridding ourselves of a system that rewards fatherless child rearing*, ridding ourselves of an education system that embraces sexual immorality, and allowing true morality to be taught, and rewarded, in schools, homes, and society in general.

Pray for revival.

*This involves not only welfare (the pathetic positive reinforcement to unwed mothers) reform, but an absolute SHAMING of irresponsible fathers.

That’s NOT what your link was about. People can read it for themselves.

I encourage anyone following this thread to do so.

And as for fighting back, the problem is in the laws and courts.

Passed mostly by men, and enforced mostly by men.

Men fight back with everything they have

In what alternate reality? Where are the class action lawsuits, or the mass demonstrations? Apart from MRAs who are fighting an uphill battle, where have men done anything but capitulate?

You want to know what men are doing with everything they have? Check out the football stadiums on Sunday. You will see men with plenty of money to spend to support MRAs, who choose to make players they don't even know rich instead.

How about prostitution? That is a 20 billion dollar a year industry in the US. How come men have so much money to spend on hookers, but none to spend on MRAs?

I know, I know, men don't account for all of it. OK, let's assume that men account for only half of that, even though we know it's way more. That's still 10 billion a year that could have been spent in support of MRAs, but made abusive pimps and expensive prostitutes rich instead.

And then to slander such fathers with laziness or selfishness or lack of attention to fatherhood is just vile.

And how many fathers do you know who have defended their sons against a school system that allows girls to kick them in the nuts for no reason?

You posted your stinking article, so you’re bound to its lies. Don’t try to backpeddle now - it says what it says.

Yes, and what it says is that men cause a lot of their own problems with their penis dictated servitude. If you want to pretend that isn't happening, then go ahead.

Passed mostly by men, and enforced mostly by men.

Family and divorce court judges are hugely female, and the laws are overwhelmingly lobbied for and voted on and passed by and openly claimed for women.

...men cause a lot of their own problems with their penis dictated servitude. If you want to pretend that isn't happening, then go ahead.

Right there is literally classifying men as genitally driven animals. It is more than sexist and insulting, it's the rape of manhood and men's humanity itself through the most basic and vile lie that literally defines feminism. Or rather, to put it into your terms, it is the mindless rage of vagina dictated codependent hypocrisy and a calculated, scheming attempt to inflict emotional and psychological damage based solely on blind and collective hatred of men simply for being male.

Take your lying filth somewhere else, you feminist man hater.

Family and divorce court judges are hugely female, and the laws are overwhelmingly lobbied for and voted on and passed by and openly claimed for women.

You might want to ask any divorce lawyer who represents fathers what the most common reason is when they lose. If my information is current, that reason is because the father later decides he doesn't want custody.

As for violence, I get that the court system is biased, but I know abused men can get justice from personal experience. I know of a man who not only beat false abuse charges, but got a restraining order against her. How? He had someone in his life who made sure he knew his rights and what he had to do (file charges). That someone you just called a "feminist man hater".

Interesting that throughout all of that ranting, you didn't make any effort to show where I was wrong.

Why don't you start by explaining the billions spent on prostitution instead of MRAs?

Or rather, to put it into your terms, it is the mindless rage of vagina dictated codependent hypocrisy and a calculated, scheming attempt to inflict emotional and psychological damage based solely on blind and collective hatred of men simply for being male.

Well that makes a lot of sense. I hate men, so I want them to stop spending billions a year on prostitution, and start using some of that money to defend themselves and their sons.

Take your lying filth somewhere else, you feminist man hater.

You can call my posts whatever you like, but I'll let the moderator of this forum decide what I can post here, not you.

I hate men, so I want them to stop spending billions a year on prostitution, and start using some of that money to defend themselves and their sons.

No, you hate men so you want to teach them to hate themselves, and slander their characters, by accusing victimized fathers of being people who go to prostitutes and abandon their families.

How sick is that?

All-in-all, you promote what is one of the most depraved and vile slanders I've ever heard of against fathers. I can't even imagine the depth of rage and hatred it would take to come up with such a twisted and insane position on this subject. You're attempting to rape the very souls of all men, with an utterly consciousless completely indefensible accusations. The idea that you would stand in front of a group of fathers who have had their children stolen by the court system and tell them they abandoned their children by spending money on prostitutes is a farce - you wouldn't get out of the room alive.

If you are not the most black-hearted of feminists, I certainly can't tell the difference. Your words are the result of group strategy meetings that decided to make the most terrible accusations in order to undermine the dignity of these victimized fathers. It is a strategy of demons, made in hell, for purposes of evil.

No, you hate men so you want to teach them to hate themselves, and slander their characters, by accusing victimized fathers of being people who go to prostitutes...

The Growing Demand for Prostitution

From that link, "Most were married or partnered, like the majority of men who patronize prostitutes."

And

"It’s a multibillion-dollar industry; it makes more money than the NFL, the NBA, and Major League Baseball combined.”

Here are some other angles.

What Kind of Men Go to Prostitutes?

Secret Service Scandal: Why Men Buy Sex

and abandon their families.

Are you referring to the reason most lawyers lose their cases? Once again you attack me without offering anything to show otherwise.

How sick is that?

The readers can be the judge.

All-in-all, you promote what is one of the most depraved and vile slanders blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Maybe I see billions of dollars spent on prostitution as a problem in itself, never mind that the money could be going to MRAs instead, and I want to discuss solutions. It tells me a lot about you that you would rather pretend it's not a problem. Maybe you're the feminist man hater whose intent is to prevent men from ever uniting and fighting for their rights by keeping them focused "elsewhere".

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