The Boy Crisis

[dneal]

This is a shout out to @dneal, is it your purpose to post something for which you hold as true,‘then troll the rest of us to agree? The honest feedback or pushback is something you should consider.

Chuck, with all sincerity - you are a smart guy. I don't have all the answers. I comment on things that interest me and that I've looked at over the years. I try to share that. I'm happy to learn too. Jar's posts in the "Definition of Christian" thread come to mind of how much knowledge can be shared that I'm happy to benefit from.

Make your case. You can persuade with well crafted posts. Links to op-eds, not so much; and not at all with vitriol and insult.

Same goes for you, Chip. If I just posted Fox and Newsmax links all day, and posted nonsense about "Left Wing Loonies", would you be persuaded? Would you find the posts interesting? Or would you just roll your eyes and move on?

[ethernautrix]

I listened to the Dr. Warren Farrell interview. Thanks for the link, dneal. I have the longer video saved to "watch later."

So... is it more precisely a Father Crisis? Rather like the chicken-or-the-egg question.

Note that I only half-listened while engaged in other tasks (and "rewound" a couple of times which interrupted the flow), so I'm blurting my reactions.

When I hear about the unintended consequences of divorce, I can't help but think why divorce's becoming easier to obtain was crucial: so many women were prisoner to their husbands. In my own lifetime, a woman wasn't able to get her own credit card and in (I've forgotten what state), until the late 1990s, marital rape was considered a husband's right and a woman's duty.

Maybe the larger problem is... we suck as people. Haha.

When pre-marital pregnancy was stigmatized, especially before Roe v. Wade, marriage was often the solution, but it was a decision based on panic and saving face, not so much on what would be best for all involved.

I don't know. I started blurting stuff out, with one eye on the clock (gotta run errands before the scattered thunderstorms arrive), so maybe now isn't the best time to comment. Thoughts are all ajumble in my head: Men build skyscrapers and bridges! Men dig deep into the earth for coal and diamonds and other commodities! Men are soldiers! (I know that women are soldiers, too -- and police officers and fire fighters. Fitness: Are women as strong as men for these jobs? Look at some of these morbidly obese cops, though. I mean, seriously.)

All ajumble.

I do want to point out, though, that a recent study (which I'd have to find the article I skimmed to cite sources) shows that team participation in sports leads to better mental health than no participation in sports which is better than participation in solo sports, like swimming and cycling. The YT video was published about two years ago. Just throwin' it out there.

It's a big issue: men, women, boys, girls. The controversial What is a woman? Well, what is a man? Is the boy crisis (which I wasn't aware that there was a capitalized topic, The Boy Crisis, when I blurted out my questions in the other thread, just something I was sortv noticing semi-consciously) a factor in the transgender trend?

I'm kindv laughing over here cos what the hell is going on?! Society is just spinning out, all these tornadoes of controversy wreaking damage here and there. That's just my perception; I'm not an expert; I haven't been paying close attention. I'm more like a honey bee drowsily wandering the garden than a... thing that picks up a subject and studies it indepth, what is that? A genius, probably. (Penn Jillete says that we invented the word genius to make an excuse for laziness. Ouch. That sounds right, maybe cos I can feel the pang!)

I'm leaving this comment, cos if I start over, I don't know when that'll be, and other comments will divert me, so... FWIW. I gotta outrun some thunderstorms, y'all.

[Empty_of_Clouds]

[22.2315-2315/49.16.6]

archive searched

date retrieved

partial record presented

/On the 50th anniversary of the ISSA and IRSS, Jay Coakley, a foundational scholar in the development of the sociology of sport, reflects on the lasting power of the Great Sport Myth (GSM) to shape cultural understandings of sport. Situated in an unshakable belief about the inherent purity and goodness of sport, it is argued that the GSM has shaped uncountable decisions to embrace and sponsor sports despite their costs and what they may preclude in the way of other private and public choices. In assessing the challenges of the field, the author points to the influence of the GSM in masking and enabling personal power that has enabled ruling elites to appropriate public money for private gain/

[dneal]

@ ethernautrix - A little diversion first. My wife was watching a "Bret and Heather" video yesterday morning. I heard most of it, but the gist was a problem of "specialization". We've categorized and diversified disciplines to the point that people become so specialized that we've sort of lost sight of the bigger picture. We can metaphorically discuss every minor detail of every tree, but have completely lost sight of the forest and the complex system it is. How everything interacts with everything else...

There are positives and negatives to pretty much everything. Modernity has changed the situation of every human, but we seem to become myopic on specifics and only focus on the negatives (or the positives, as it suits an agenda). Modern women certainly have a legitimate set of grievances, but they ignore the benefits they enjoyed. "Women and children first", for example. The evil patriarchy that wouldn't let women vote or have bank accounts also sacrificed men's lives to protect women. My wife and I joke about what if it were men who rebelled against the system. "It's not fair that I have to go out and till the field, hunt the mastodon, work the factory job, provide for the family, get drafted to fight the wars, not be allowed on the lifeboat, etc..." When we start arguing the point from the "oppression olympics" perspective (who has or had it worse), the conversation fails. Life is nasty, brutish, and short - for everybody. Doesn't matter what kind of genitals one has.

We've changed a lot in society since the post-war era. Thousands of years of evolution altered by technology and convenience and discovery. We did it for a lot of noble reasons - women's rights being one. But we've also ignored (or were ignorant of) the repercussions. Solving some problems created others.

Yes, the thesis Dr. Farrell advances is that societal changes have created conditions detrimental to boys - and the father role is part of it. What's interesting in the Peterson interview is that while Farrell makes his points on the perspective of boys - Peterson interjects with the problems created for girls who don't have a positive father figure.

I don't know why society can't stop shouting myopic perspectives at each other, while ignoring, discounting, dismissing and recently demonizing anything that doesn't align with one's specific narrative. We're fighting over which species of tree is best, and which one is worst - ruining the forest and wondering why we don't have as much shade as we used to (the metaphor starts to fall apart... lol).

[Chuck Naill]

As with most things, the way to raise girls and boys is learning what not to do, or breaking the mold of dysfunction.

[Bold2013]

Maybe the larger problem is... we suck as people. Haha.

Agreed.

[Chuck Naill]

Sad

[Chip]

If you'd like a deeper dive than a YouTube video, there are many books and papers on the subject, starting with Arnold van Gennep (1909) Les rites de passage/The Rites of Passage.

"Rites of passage have three phases: separation, liminality, and incorporation, as van Gennep described. 'I propose to call the rites of separation from a previous world, preliminal rites, those executed during the transitional stage liminal (or threshold) rites, and the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.'

In the first phase, people withdraw from their current status and prepare to move from one place or status to another. 'The first phase (of separation) comprises symbolic behavior signifying the detachment of the individual or group ... from an earlier fixed point in the social structure.' There is often a detachment or 'cutting away' from the former self in this phase, which is signified in symbolic actions and rituals. For example, the cutting of the hair for a person who has just joined the army. He or she is 'cutting away"'the former self: the civilian.

The transition (liminal) phase is the period between stages, during which one has left one place or state but has not yet entered or joined the next. 'The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae (threshold people) are necessarily ambiguous.'

In the third phase (reaggregation or incorporation) the passage is consummated [by] the ritual subject. Having completed the rite and assumed their "new" identity, one re-enters society with one's new status. Re-incorporation is characterized by elaborate rituals and ceremonies, like debutante balls and college graduation, and by outward symbols of new ties: thus 'in rites of incorporation there is widespread use of the sacred bond, the sacred cord, the knot, and of analogous forms such as the belt, the ring, the bracelet and the crown.' "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage

A classic of the genre, with a deeply feminine point of view, is Coming of Age in Samoa.



While Polynesian scholars have pointed out some flaws in the work, it endures as a landmark.

My comment about Iron John refers to the 1990 book by poet Robert Bly.



Based on the Grimm brothers tale, it explores male identity and coming-of-age from a Jüngian perspective "applied to myths, legends, and fairy tales to find lessons especially meaningful to men and the men's movement.

Bly believed that the fairy tale of Iron John contained lessons from the past of great importance to modern men, which could provide positive images of masculinity in an increasingly feminist age. He considered Iron John to be an archetype of the Self, and the hero’s interactions with him to represent a katabasis, or exploratory journey into the inner depths, where new sources of positive masculine sexuality could be found and tapped.

Bly also stressed in the book the need in consciousness raising to accept the father’s world, the paternal values of limitation, sobriety, and authority; and warned against the dangers of the high-flying ascensionist who is “flying away from the father, not toward him...the psychology of men like Thoreau determined to have a higher consciousness than their fathers”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_J...Book_About_Men

The video is a watered-down neo-con version of Bly's ideas.

Another good book on the subject is Nature & Madness by Paul Shepard.



"Does any species other than the human befoul its nest, destroy the habitat on which it depends? Strangely, yes; such shortsightedness happens in the natural world all the time. But no species does so with as much conscious awareness, a matter that fascinated the philosopher Paul Shepard. In Nature and Madness he examines the human animal in relation to the natural environment, showing the kinds of psychic disjunctions and troubles that have developed over the generations that humans have been seeking to distance themselves from the world. Shepard locates the source of much of those troubles in the invention of agriculture, an act that gave humans the false idea that nature can be controlled and micromanaged in every detail--an idea that has found modern fruit in such things as dam-building and genetic engineering.

Environmental destruction, writes Shepard, is a "mutilation of personal maturity," a failure of emotional development; continuing the metaphor, he adds that 'the only society more frightful than one run by children ... might be one run by childish adults.' "

https://archive.org/details/ShepardNatureAndMadness

In short, Shepard believes that in the present day very few children and adolescents have the time or guidance to learn how the world works, through observation and experience. Thus, they pass their lives in an immature state, driven by childish urges and desires.

Shepard was a close friend and we talked about the book, and the ideas, many times.

[Lloyd]

Related to dneal's post - I read this applicable quote the other day

If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression.

by Toni Morrison




Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Lloyd]

I thought this pediatrician's thoughts on part of this was interesting. I made a pdf of the short journal opinion piece.

COMMENTARY

Why Do Young Men Target Schools for Violent Attacks? And What Can We Do About It?
Barbara J. Howard, MD

http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/62abc772...Commentary.PDF


Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

Warren Farrell is a curious case. He started out in the 1970s as a scholar and advocate for feminism, serving on the board of NOW, then initiated a similar "mens movement." Now he seems to have flipped over to the male side completely. Peterson is well-known for blaming the psychological ills of boys and men on women, along with things such as pay disparity (women are too agreeable (!), low self-esteem, domestic violence, etc.

Something that just occurred to me is that male-dominated institutions that oversee rites of passage (the Catholic and Southern Baptist churches, the Boy Scouts) have proved to be hotbeds of rape and molestation. Not only have they allowed the acts, but have gone to great lengths to excuse them and cover them up. Is sexual submission to a priest a Catholic rite of passage? Seems as if that would produce a large cohort of alienated, pathologically angry young men.

In Leave No Trace, survivors speak about what they endured under the Boy Scouts of America, leading to the biggest sexual abuse settlement in history.

David Smith
Wed 15 Jun 2022

For John Humphrey, childhood used to mean having fun in the backyard of his home in New Jersey. “We had a rule that we couldn’t go any farther than the bell or the sound of my mother’s whistle,” he recalls. “I was always digging and playing.” Then Humphrey went to a school that offered a Boy Scout programme. “I just loved the outdoors and this particular troop camped 12 months a year. It didn’t matter – winter, snow, ice, hot – I loved that part of it.”

Between the ages of 11 and 13, Humphrey was sexually abused by a Scout master more than 200 times. His hair fell out when he was 13 and he has been bald ever since. He buried the trauma for decades and did not break his silence until he was 55.

Humphrey’s is among the stories told in Leave No Trace, a documentary that investigates the century-long cover-up of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). The film tells how, after more than 82,000 men stepped forward, the BSA filed for bankruptcy, leading to the biggest sexual abuse settlement in history.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...e_iOSApp_Other

[Lloyd]

As horrific as the man-preying-on-boys, what percentage of boys at these male dominated institutions has this happen to them? Was a very high percent of all pedophilia attributable to these groups?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

As horrific as the man-preying-on-boys, what percentage of boys at these male dominated institutions has this happen to them? Was a very high percent of all pedophilia attributable to these groups?

Presumably the actual figures are somewhat hard to determine, given the withholding of information.

If you want to know, try a search. I'm not your research assistant.

[Lloyd]

My point is that I think both these percentiles would be miniscule. Tragic and, in many cases, preventable but not a huge societal impact.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chip]

My point is that I think both these percentiles would be miniscule. Tragic and, in many cases, preventable but not a huge societal impact.

So the steep decline of the Catholic Church, particularly in historically Catholic countries such as Ireland, is not a huge societal impact?

So the Boy Scouts going into bankruptcy because of sexual assault claims is not a huge societal impact?

[Lloyd]

My point is that I think both these percentiles would be miniscule. Tragic and, in many cases, preventable but not a huge societal impact.

So the steep decline of the Catholic Church, particularly in historically Catholic countries such as Ireland, is not a huge societal impact?

So the Boy Scouts going into bankruptcy because of sexual assault claims is not a huge societal impact?

Ireland? I didn't know we were talking about the worldwide issue.

Not in my eyes (raised Jewish, never a scout). I went to public school not a Catholic school. Virtually none of my classmates were scouts. I've yet to read about any of them committing atrocities.
Isn't the Catholic Church and the (Original) Boy Scouts more likely to teach that boys were better than girls? Girls couldn't become a priest nor could they do survival- they could make smores and sell cookies.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[TSherbs]

As horrific as the man-preying-on-boys, what percentage of boys at these male dominated institutions has this happen to them? Was a very high percent of all pedophilia attributable to these groups?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

What was the point of this question, Lloyd?

Most abuse on children is perpetrated by adult members of their households. Parents, greatest among them. Fathers greatest among them all.

"Pedophilia" is not a specific criminal act, is it? So, if you determine which actual form of abuse or assault you mean, you can look up all those statistics on public databases.

[Lloyd]

As horrific as the man-preying-on-boys, what percentage of boys at these male dominated institutions has this happen to them? Was a very high percent of all pedophilia attributable to these groups?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

What was the point of this question, Lloyd?

Most abuse on children is perpetrated by adult members of their households. Parents, greatest among them. Fathers greatest among them all.

"Pedophilia" is not a specific criminal act, is it? So, if you determine which actual form of abuse or assault you mean, you can look up all those statistics on public databases.

I was countering Chip, above. He was blaming the effects of the Church and Scout pedophilia for the boy crisis.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chuck Naill]

As horrific as the man-preying-on-boys, what percentage of boys at these male dominated institutions has this happen to them? Was a very high percent of all pedophilia attributable to these groups?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

What was the point of this question, Lloyd?

Most abuse on children is perpetrated by adult members of their households. Parents, greatest among them. Fathers greatest among them all.

"Pedophilia" is not a specific criminal act, is it? So, if you determine which actual form of abuse or assault you mean, you can look up all those statistics on public databases.

I was countering Chip, above. He was blaming the effects of the Church and Scout pedophilia for the boy crisis.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

How could either be a dominant force and not the parents themselves? I have encountered teachers and coaches with no filter. A parent should put them in line. Parents are their child's advocate.

[Lloyd]

As horrific as the man-preying-on-boys, what percentage of boys at these male dominated institutions has this happen to them? Was a very high percent of all pedophilia attributable to these groups?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

What was the point of this question, Lloyd?

Most abuse on children is perpetrated by adult members of their households. Parents, greatest among them. Fathers greatest among them all.

"Pedophilia" is not a specific criminal act, is it? So, if you determine which actual form of abuse or assault you mean, you can look up all those statistics on public databases.

I was countering Chip, above. He was blaming the effects of the Church and Scout pedophilia for the boy crisis.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

How could either be a dominant force and not the parents themselves? I have encountered teachers and coaches with no filter. A parent should put them in line. Parents are their child's advocate.

Did you look at what Chip wrote?

What if a child doesn't tell their parents?

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™