Steven Pinker pitches a convincing theory of how/why young men self-radicalize due to social exclusion that had me nodding along from my own personal experience. Made total sense and described exactly how I once was tempted to partake when I was younger.

I had no idea it was so controversial. Every time I've seen coverage of Pinker, his statements are completely taken out of context and he's spun as some sort of alt-right apologist. These are conversations we need to have.

(I first saw him talk about it in his sit-down with Sam Harris.)

Do you have a link / reference to that discussion?

Not OP, but here is a link to the Pinker-Harris talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByGC3Vwaio0

> his statements are completely taken out of context and he's spun as some sort of alt-right apologist.

This also happens a lot with Sam Harris, Joe Rogan and anyone who critiques or discusses certain topics. Even though they are obviously not remotely alt-right (indeed they're on the left). It's incredibly frustrating, self-defeating and has a dangerous chilling effect.

You can witness the same problems in this very thread.

>Sam Harris

Sam Harris has been consistently taking alt-right positions for the past few years (at least). I don't think it's unfair to associate him with the movement.

I think perhaps part of the issue is that lots of Americans who think of themselves as liberal, and who were shocked by the idea of Trump becoming President, actually agree with him on a lot of issues. So, yeah, Sam Harris still presents as an anti-Trump liberal. But if you look at what he's actually saying, he's much closer to Trump than he is to the liberal left. (His atheism is these days just a fig leaf for an anti-Islam stance.)

Here's the problem: If I took what you just stated and replaced "excluded male" with "African American" it would make just as much sense and be a societal force going back hundreds of years. Yet there's a segment of society that claims that racial equality is already achieved and the African American community is solely responsible for its own problems. In fact, this is often the same segment that complains loudly about how society excludes males. This is why it's hard to take the "excluded male" argument seriously sometimes.

This is a superficial comparison of these trends and also dodges the point. So what if the people complaining about excluded males are hypocrites. Are they correct? They can be wrong about black people and still correct about men.

Interestingly the same writer wrote this recently:

"I’ve written before about the lack of resources for young men during critical times in their lives. What feminism does for women — providing girls with alternative media, cultural norms, and a language to understand sexism — is what we need for boys and young men.

I don’t believe young American men end up in racist and sexist online spaces — spaces that radicalize — because they are innately bigoted. They end up there because they are confused and seeking out community, and no one else is providing an alternative."

https://gen.medium.com/young-white-male-rage-is-the-biggest-...

The principle of charity leads me to take the view her heart is in the right place but she like many of us has published caustic words on the internet that don't really represent us correctly.

Establishment: let's attack men for decades, undermine their position in society and the structures they value

Also establishment: why are men so angry?

Speaking as a man, I can state for myself that I don’t feel attacked by “the establishment”, whatever that is.

Give it time.

Is "undermine their position in society and the structures they value" some sort of euphemism for allowing women the same rights and opportunities that we have?

Because as a man I genuinely see this as a good thing.

We've gone from a single decent income being enough to provide for one's family to two incomes now being all but required can sure make it look that way. Before the 1970s/90s (depending on where you live) a man was "the" income. That was his role and it gave him something to optimize for. Now he's only bringing in half and that's assuming When everyone else around you gets a promotion it feels like you've been demoted even if you haven't. So what do you do to find meaning? Therein lies the rise of extremist movements, nobody ever made their mark on the world by being rabidly centrist.

Edit: Am I being downvoted for being wrong, wrongthink or because my opinion makes people uncomfortable?

> When everyone else around you gets a promotion it feels like you've been demoted even if you haven't.

I think a more descriptive / honest version of that statement is: When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

Interesting take. Do you have any ideas how should society address that feeling of oppression?

Edit: fix typo

That is a fair question. Frustratingly, I think an important part of the solution is actually pampering and providing disproportionate help to the "historically privileged that think the recent equality is oppression against them". After all, empathy is the most important thing, even if the person you are giving it to is particularly bad at showing empathy back (and refuse to acknowledge the structural privileges they have had).

Has society attacked men, undermined their position in society and the structures they value?

Or has it just moved on and empowered everyone else to expect the same freedoms and responsibilities as men?

From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job) it looks very much like the removal of the systemic disadvantages on other groups is misinterpreted by some as an attack on them.

Removing laws that keep others down is not an attack on you.

> From where I'm sitting (white male, in an office, working a tech job)

That's not a majority of men.

> and the structures they value?

I don't know about the rest but about this, e.g. most male spaces have been actively dissolved or forcefully turned gender neutral.

what is a "male space"?

Boy scouts would be a good example.

For those unaware, the Boy Scouts of America changed their policy a couple of years ago to allow girls into more parts of their program, since they realized a lot of boys had their sisters tag along, in part because the Girl Scouts program has little emphasis in hiking and camping.

Even with the new policy, at the troop level (~30 kids), which is where most BSA activity is focused, they will still be gender-segregated: there will be boy troops and girl troops. They will interact at district and council levels, but that's it. Cub Scouts (for younger kids age 7-11) will optionally have mixed units.

There's still plenty of "male space" in the BSA. And learning how to interact respectfully with other genders at that age is a good thing.

This is a good summary of the official policy. But, it has not been my experience in practice. In my district there are 2 girl troops and neither is following the official policy. They meet in the same place at the same time as their corresponding boy troop. They do all troop activities together as well.

The official policy is not enforced because no one wants to be called a sexist. But it does have an effect on the boys. They behave differently around girls. And what was once their only male space is now gone.

So my experience is totally anecdotal. And maybe everyone else is following the program. But it is really heartbreaking to see in person.

Having taken my son to cub scouts lately, what happened when a girl enters what is normally a boy only space is pretty telling. The boys act different when a girl is around, and the girl plays social games with the boys that make it clear one boy was lessor and should be ostracized. (like she made it clear 1 or 2 kids were cool enough to be around her and everyone else wasn't) And addressing this behavior by the girls was never addressed because they didnt want to be perceived as being against girls in scouts. When the boys decided to ocstracize one of the others, it was addressed, but it was from my observation never followed with the girl scouts.

Further it lessened the amount of resources the boys got. Girls have to get their own den leader. So packs that had no girls had double the amount of adults attending to their needs, while others had an adult running activities for a single girl scout.

The idea that trying to teach young boys stuff like brotherhood is disrupted by adding a girl in the mix shouldn't be controversial, but here we are.

Having been to a male-only school, I tend to see the gender segregation of children as a terrible idea.

having gone to the same kind of school, I'm inclined to agree. years of deferred socialization...

that said, some people seem to feel very strongly about having at least some same-gendered spaces for children to be in. I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile that with the growing understanding that not everyone is straight, fits into a binary gender, etc., but to leave at least a couple "boy spaces" and "girl spaces" doesn't seem too harmful.

Incredibly, you seem to consider the process of granting equal rights to women “undermining the position [of men] in society”.

If this isn’t what you intended to imply, then the only other reading of your statement suggests that you think men have not historically held almost all positions of power in society—which, demonstrably and obviously, they have. https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/america-is...

That’s an uncharitable interpretation. There are plenty of other plausible interpretations of the op’s statement: the Homer Simpsonization of male characters in TV comes to mind (dumb husband paired with super smart, capable wife describes a whole lot of sitcoms, or see all male characters in the recent Star Wars flicks), the undermining of works of literature simply due to the author being white and male, etc.

It’s subtle, but it’s out there. I suspect that there is plenty of subtle and not so subtle bias all over the place against all sorts of people. We should be working to eliminate all such biases.

Often the gender role issue is treated as zero-sum, which it isn’t. A strong male role model doesn’t detract from a strong female role model.

There's a difference between re-balancing, and undermining.

What do I care that all the kings of England are white men "like me" when I have never been nobility? Take away unfair power mechanisms, don't simply re-implement them facing the other direction.

This is obviously a complicated issue, but the tone often taken with issues like this are glib, and vindictive towards the current male generation.

But most traditional/historic family dynamics in the west involve the woman/mother being subservient to the man/father. Am I missing something here? (And no, I do not see how being the breadwinner vs the homemaker makes this right.)

> Am I missing something here?

"Women and children first" is pretty universal. The history of roles is a bit more complex than "men rule over women".

It’s a piece published in mass media. It does have an impact, a large one.

> Columns are exeggarations meant to incite discussion

We’re discussing it now.

> The author of this particular column is a writer of feminist literature so of course her views are going to be extreme.

The Guardian is a mainstream publication, not an extremist one. They can publish whatever they want, I’m just saying this rhetoric is hateful, unhelpful and possibly part of the problem of male extremism mentioned in the OP.

> Except you didn't say that, instead you claimed all journalists in the mass media hold the views of one columnist in a left-leaning newspaper.

I did not say that.

You can rest your case all you want, you're still wrong. The language in the original comment did not imply ALL journalists. You are arguing against your own misunderstanding.

I claimed journalists in mass media as stated in the original comment.

I concede that he did not say all of them, but it doesn't even back up the claim of a single journalist holding that view.

sounds like he is being social excluded because he is a man.

Say anything you want is a lie. Let's see some real hate speech in a column targeted at minorities. You won't. So why should it be tolerated for any group.

Which part of the column was hate-speech?

>But... it's the column section? It's not journalism. It is, however, a piece of work that the paper stands behind. If it were not, it should not be there; newspapers are curated, unlike, say, YouTube or a comments section. >Are you saying mass media should stop the age-old tradition of the column section We're saying they should exercise more discretion in what columns they publish. If they don't, they should give up any then-false pretense of being reliable, believable, reputable, etc. The local paper doesn't have to publish the column Crazy Herman sent in about how dragons are cultivating furries' minds for use as concubines, and doing so makes the paper look less respectable. Plus, in a lot of online media, the Opinion columns are often interwoven among actual reporting, making it less obvious which each is. Especially with this format, which columns they choose to publish become part of the paper's image... and even if unintended, "I drink male tears" columns gives the idea that that publication supports dismissiveness of the emotions of men.

Testosterone levels are correlated with aggression but does not actually cause it, and research which tries to predict aggression based on natural occurring testosterone levels always fail because... it does not actually cause aggression.

More recent (ie newer than 20th century) research into testosterone levels have found a more accurate model of what testosterone actually do in regard to aggression. It increases the amount of energy an individual will spend in order to defend social status when challenged. In societies where male social status is tied with aggression you thus see a link.

Testosterone levels however does not predict attempts to gain social status, including in societies where aggression is the main method for it. You can pump up a man at the bottom of the social hierarchy with as much testosterone as the person at the top and the hierarchy does not change one bit. Its a purely defensive mechanism, which is further explained in that testosterone levels increases after people gain social status. It is a response to how much effort should be spent defending social status based on recent success.

Society as the collective effect of hormones would be the amount of instability that the social hierarchy will have. The lower the amount the less people will defend it, the more incentives there will be to attempt increasing it, potentially resulting in more "aggressive" behavior.

Erosion of belief in democracy will lead to extremism.

> I drink male tears” coffee mugs as sipped by journalists at global media publications* look particularly dangerous and distasteful in this age of mass shootings

If someone commits a mass shooting I don’t think it’s the text on a mug that’s responsible.

It's not just the journalists who tend to be anti-male. The psychological and sociological establishments have been subtly anti-male for a long time.

An example of how this anti-male bias manifests is in the very language used in academic work on men. So often there is talk about "toxic masculinity" when discussing boys and men, and discussions of how male traits are problematic - described as 'aggressive' and 'uncooperative' - while female traits are almost universally described in more positive terms.

Of course both genders exhibit destructive behavior, but women do not have to suffer the same harsh treatment in the academic literature as men.

We could speculate on the reasons for this bias, but I believe it can be tied to the overall anti-male climate, which in itself is an overreaction by the rest of society - but the intellectuals in particular - to the unequal treatment of women for most of history.

More speculatively, I believe the high numbers of women and effeminate men in academia, especially the social sciences, have biased the field.

Blaming the victims of mass shootings for antagonizing the shooter is never a good look. The reason you get "blasted" online is because the sentiment takes a broad brush and paints men awfully (ironic considering the "pointing to all men statement"); this fatalistic (and frankly entitled) view that unless men are babied and served to at the exclusion of everyone else they'll turn violent and ruin the party for everyone.

If you want to assign systematic (and in some cases personal) blame I'd say look to the voices championing strongest for a back step of social progress for the "sake of men". Just from my own experiences in the southern US (poster child for the "follow an arcane set of rules and defend your "masculinity" and cash out on full ride entitlement") I've seen the systematic undermining of young men's skills and development in favor of baseless dreams of a past (that may have never existed). A handful of journalists taking the piss are nothing compared to the semi-coordinated movement looking to weaponize a vulnerable (by their own making) segment of the population.

Sympathy for the lonely, education for the unskilled, exposure for the unsocialized; these are all good ideas to move forward. Just, imo, never fall into the trap of assuming any of this is "natural" and something to be accepted (or even embraced).