well the vilification in the media certainly does not help, the amount men are bombarded with the message that they are source of so much wrong has to be overwhelming to many.
anecdotal nonsense, a few years back we went through a wave of new HR videos about harassment and intimidation and not one had a non male aggressor. it was so bad the women attending the sessions were mocking the presentation.
fortunately they canned that approach not long after after the poor reception.
Decades ago I briefly dated an extremely physically abusive woman. Nearly killed me a couple times. I ended it. Not a single person has the slightest bit of sympathy over this. I've never struck a woman but maybe I should have in self defense. If I had though I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever I would have been reported, arrested, and imprisoned, regardless of all facts.
> The decline in life expectancy is occurring in part due to deaths from despair. From 2007 to 2017, the mortality rate from drug overdoses increased 82%
This is a perfect example of how corporate greed (and a political system that now mostly exists to support it) is ravishing the American people. After decades of obvious abuses, the company pushing OxyContin is finally being stopped, but no one is going to jail (see: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762455218/as-drugmakers-face-...), and although the company is bankrupt, we're merely locking the barn door after the billions have escaped.
The pharma companies are merely a useful scapegoat for the real cause: awful state policies. This is blatantly obvious after only a small amount of research, like the fact that opioid overdoses have increased as opioid prescriptions have decreased.
The government restricting the supply of opioid painkillers has only served to push those who need them into the black market. Blaming companies like Purdue is only playing into the same talking points as the drug warriors: evil dealers pushing dangerous drugs onto innocent people.
We need to decriminalize and legalize all drugs: possession, creation, and distribution.
You're looking at the symptom rather than the disease.
The despair is the disease. Drug and alcohol use are from people self-medicating their symptoms.
If anyone cared to address this problem, they'd look at what causes despair. That despair is often from economic and social distress.
Instead, everyone is outraged up on a media and politically driven moral panic about pharmaceutical medication that happens to be rarely abused and is almost never addictive (fewer than 0.1% chance of becoming addicted to prescribed painkillers, study on over 640,000 patients, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400458).
Also, a significant part of modern American culture actively devalues men and thinks of men and masculinity as problematic. This is particularly true within certain political movements and social cultures. That has health consequences, as is already widely known from many studies on various other forms of discrimination and discriminatory movements.
Discovering what true masculinity means and how to fulfill it is going to be key for men today to keep their sanity and hope. And that begins with courage and a sincere search for the truth, and it continues with the courage to stand up for the truth in the face of threats and injustices.
Just turned 28 and can say I easily fit the bill for 3/4 of these descriptions. I've been chalking it up to a quarter life crisis and am desperate for a geographic move to add some new experiences to my life.
It is at times like these that I wish Hacker News included number of views in addition to the number of replies.
Threads like this give the impression that everyone is miserable and fill up quickly with sad stories.
It’s good the internet gives those people an outlet and a place to connect, but if this was say viewed by thousands and only got 60 replies it might provide some perspective. Most people are just fine.
Firstly, if you're saying most people are just fine then that's surely the wrong framing; you don't wait until most people are hurting.
Secondly, why does one try to persuade people that the scope of hurt isn't that bad by... eyeballing a HN post for popularity? And using that to counteract a report full of collected data?
So, what is your source that "most people are just fine"? I'd wager that what you mean is, you're fine and you think most people you know are fine. Good luck, in any case.
When I was in high school I had a stereotypical thought that most of the ass hole more popular guys would have shit lives after college. Historically that wasn’t true. But nowadays... it seems more valid. Most of the guy’s who followed stereotypical social strategies in high school have turned out pretty poor. The guys who have done well are the one man who were smart or kind. Your value to others should be self evident from being a person people like. People saying it’s all about work and money... sound like assholes who don’t realize it.
I'm a man, and for the life of me I don't get how people are feeling personally attacked by feminism. Same with racism: I just don't connect these issues with me as an individual. And I've never experienced an interaction where others have done so, either. I've been to any number of feminist events with my partner, and nobody ever made a negative comment rooted in the fact that I'm a man.
I supported feminism as it was originally explained to me, as against violent and abusive dictatorial strictly patriarchal systems insidiously designed to suppress and oppress minority viewpoints and ways.
But since then I've realized there are many other things that feminism means to people. It's not a great label as it doesn't mean anything in particular. Some variants are definitely bigoted hate against a certain gender. I don't agree with those. Diffusion of label-meaning: what can be done about this. For me... be a label-skeptic. Irrelevant, though no one cares. Only mindless labels matter in the great big wide world.
People that have sexual trauma are trivially easy to trigger with large shows of political power or 'abuse' around sex. It worked on me when I was younger. The only solution is to get your sex life in order and some of the people engaged in that debate are doing just that.
Just wanted to leave a few quotes here, from The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills, one of my favorite books. Also, if any of this resonates, see the link in my profile and come read with us:
"The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. Even when they do not panic men often sense that older ways off feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That—in defense of selfhood—they become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private men?
Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? It is not only information that they need—in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need—although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves."
"What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of private individuals in our time? To formulate issues and troubles, we must ask what values are cherished yet threatened, and what values are cherished and supported, by the characterizing trends of our period. In the case both of threat and of support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure may be involved.
When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a crisis—either as personal trouble or as a public issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of panic.
But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values, nor experience any threat? That is the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, becomes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which if it is total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise.
Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not yet formulated in such ways as to permit the work of reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles—defined in terms of values and threats—there is often the misery of vague uneasiness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values threatened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in short, they have not been carried to the point of decision. Much less have they been formulated as problems of social science."
"Yet men do not usually define the roubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they take part."
He goes on to talk about the relationship between work and leisure as a "crisis of ambition" in American society. Great read.
I've spent every night for the last few months trying to find a way/reason to keep going mentally. Before that it was every other night, a few times a week, few times a month etc. Before the inciting event for this decline, badly done and ultimately unneeded surgery fifteen years ago taking away everything, I never ONCE considered this. In fact I was positive when discussing the topic that I would NEVER do such a thing and that there would always be a way, always be family or friends, always be a system there to hold me up. Because that's what I had been indoctrinated to believe. It wasn't true.
I worked hard, in a career beneficial to society. I helped people, always had great empathy, and treated others with respect. Even then I didn't really get it when I would come across someone like I am now. Someone who suffered and lost it all. Someone on the edge. I did what I could to help them but I was as ignorant and naive as ever believing the rest of the system and society would give them that same attention and value. I thought it would be ok. It's not ok.
The truth is in American society has decided human life and security isn't the most important thing. It's decided INDEPENDENCE and profits and ego and the chance to be wealthy and powerful is. Everyone for themselves. Guns are rights but healthcare is an "entitlement". Equality is somehow "wrong".If you need help you are "weak" and a "loser" and "nobody is going to live off MY tax money". They think if you can even open your eyes, or type an occasional rant online, that means you can grind away like everyone else and "why don't you just" and they KNOW this is true because they KNOW they would be able to when they reached this unfathomable state. Saying this will make a lot of people angry because nationalism is an identity for many and ultimately proves the point.
About the same time my health was ruined a friend in Belgium had a similar experience. He was given social support to keep his flat, healthcare, spent a few years reeducating in a new skill and was able to reenter society and function. He has a happy life and family now. My experience was denials from government assistance programs, struggling to manage with savings and small private pension but no health insurance, watching a family full of puritanical hypocrites turn away and blame. My friend lost something of his life, but was allowed to regain one worth living and not fear every little bump being the end. He gets to have a future as a result. I do not.
Next came cycles of motivation and disappointment and trying as hard as I could to hold it together only to have things collapse because with more limits and needs nobody can manage that alone despite what everyone needs to believe for their own mental security. The root of victim blaming right there folks. Some people are always going to need help. Some can rebuild at least some but still need help doing so. Stability. Access. Caring.
After you see that help isn't coming comes the anger...then that anger slowly morphs into despair. Then one day comes this indescribable sensation that even the moment before you couldn't believe would ever TRULY happen even thinking abstractly about it. Acceptance. Not acceptance of the decline. Not acceptance of the despair. Acceptance that you aren't afraid to let all of this life go anymore. You don't WANT to not BE...but you want to not be THIS. You want suffering, judgement, isolation, pain, complete lack or agency in LIFE anymore. You are exhausted all the time and it's not worth the tiny if any moments of joy anymore.
You are still rational. You aren't running around with your underwear on your head and flinging you poo at people. You are just running on empty, You swim as hard as you can and you sink, you relax and go with it and you sink, nothing works. It's always said to be your fault, not the fact you were unceremoniously dropped in the ocean and told to fend for yourself whilst people give "advice" from the shore like "just learn how to swim" and then get offended when you cannot as if your drowning insults them. You have walked over every "next hill" for years looking for petrol, and it's never there. Or if it IS there 1/1000000000 times and some nice and truly well meaning shopkeeper is smiling and waving you there, someone else swoops in front and takes the rest or the shop closes right as you straggle up to it because you stepped in a hole and that slowed you down even more.
Despair isn't some inexplicable thing. It's 99% of the time rooted in clear, multiple causes. But this society, ESPECIALLY this society, won't face or address them. Most people like me don't end up like me out of some fault in themselves or some unsolvable problem. But it's easier to punch down for both ego fulfillment and to bolster your own feelings of personal safety because YOU are better than that and it will never happen to you. You were smart, and planned, and have good people around you. Well guess what...the "Just World" isn't.
There was a time I was an activist for health and social issues. It never had any macro effect. I tried to "just get out of you don"t like it!" Doing that alone is very, very hard and I could never get it to work permanently. The damage done here would follow me everywhere and ironically block the path to even a life in those better conditions. There was a time I thought about crazy things like applying for asylum in a more socially conscious country, but the truth is people in this situation don't get approved. I am out of fuel and hope, there is no petrol station over the next hill, and my bootstraps were worn to dust years ago. There are countless people like me and nobody here ever thinks they will be one of them.
I think a big issue is the incredible juxtaposition between what you learn about America as a child...
The land of opportunity
Work hard and be rewarded
The shining nation on the hill
And what you see as an adult
Lose your job? No healthcare, and little support
Get cancer? Go bankrupt and lose everything if you’re not lucky or super rich
Let’s pass major legislation! Oh great another huge tax cut for the mega rich.
Go to school? Be saddled in debt for decades.
Get out of school? Work multiple jobs just to make ends meet in a system that favors employers
And how’re you supposed to escape? By buying material possessions that don’t bring lasting quality of life improvements, or by wallowing away in a drugged up haze, or by binge watching television and other media.
We’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world but we our government is increasingly disfunctional and tailored to special interests and the wealthy.
Meritocracy? Ha. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is being hollowed out.
This administration certainly hasn’t helped as it amplifies its fear based rhetoric of migrants, and crime while pushing us backwards on climate initiatives and ruining our reputation abroad.
It’s no wonder people are depressed. Wage slavery sucks, living on a knife’s edge sucks, and there’s really not much going on to change it.
I’m pretty hopeful for the younger generations, but boy is it a mess they’re inheriting.
I am disabled myself and I have experienced this. But, I am a dual US|EU national.
I actually experienced a very traumatic injury on Thursday, and had to be seen in my city's level 1 trauma unit. I am physically disabled and fell down some steep concrete stairs, (I probably need to use a wheelchair probably from now on.)
I ended up having surgery to repair the injury on Friday.
My pain was under control in the ambulance, but that was it.
I literally screamed nonstop during Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, due to the hospital refusing to give me adequate pain control. My abdominal muscles are still sore and my voice is gone still. When pain management finally came on Monday, they cared more about what medications I could "get outside" the hospital and "what the maximum quantity would be" more than actually controlling my pain.
They didn't even have any pillows for me on the unit to elevate my limb.
The whole experience was extremely traumatic and barbaric. It was reminiscent of a third world country.
Supposedly this is one of the best trauma units in the country, too.
I am done with this country. I cannot do this anymore. It is killing me.
Thank you for this post. I really resonate with it, although I have drawn perhaps a different conclusion.
Due to my limited ability to type/dictate and the controversial nature of my experience, I am not going to go into detail. I just want to give another data point to people claiming that more welfare programs will make these problems go away.
I have completely given up on the traditional health care system. It is so unbelievably bad when it comes to my illness that I am better off becoming my own doctor and paying for everything out of pocket. Because of this, I am a strong proponent of reducing welfare programs(except UBI) and making healthcare participation an option. I am battling a crippling illness. Almost no one has moral high-ground to insist that I give them my money for their health care. I am so so much sicker than easily 99% of the population. I should qualify for disability, but I don't because my illness is poorly understood by slow-moving government bureaucrats.
But I am fortunate to have identified the cure, and in a few years perhaps I will be back to normal. At that point I will be happy to pay health insurance premiums to help those sicker than I, but right now, my survival depends on the ability to not pay. $3000/year is the difference between life and death for me.
I've said this in the past but I'm going to reiterate at the expense of much downvotes again.
America is the third world country of all developed countries.
For individuals like you seeking human connection, I highly recommend SE Asia as a place to permanently migrate to.
You will find meaning in mingling with people who don't care about the rat race on the edge. Comes with its own shortcomings but you've lived the lonely life of America. It cannot go lower than this.
Keep up your hope. There are incredible upcoming economic and technical advancements. Me and thousands of like-minded super professionals are quietly working passionately for you. Please.. we're trying our hearts out here.
Despite it's dubious underpinnings and specious applications, the theory of the disposable male seems to fit this.
The only thing the majority of men are useful to in society is work/production. If you take that away, then the other function of men (reproduction/fertilization) can be accomplished by a much smaller fraction of the male population.
We are taking away the only thing that justifies the existence of most men, and we are reminding them of it every day with the society we are creating with no safety net or healthcare.
> And if men think their complaining should be heard, then go back over all of the times where women's complaints were completely ignored or even punished and is most scenarios, women never spoke up at all and suffered in silence.
So you're openly claiming that it's okay to exploit, abuse and silence men. Women suffered and now it's men's turn, right?
> Not saying men have shitty lives too but men can't all of sudden be the victims after millennia of victimization.
So you are saying men must also suffer millennia of victimization in order to repay their "debt" and finally be seen as equals. Is that right?
One of the biggest problems in all of these dialogues is the obsession of assigning "fault" and blame. The """patriarchy""" dates back, at least abstractly, to divisions in roles between men and women due to the reality of sexual dimorphism. I'm not sure how the societal consequences of genetics in primitive history is men's fault.
It’s patently untrue that someone can’t be both a perpetrator and a victim.
Also this is just disgusting. This basically says “Who cares. Men deserve it because they’re assholes.” This is no different than the overt misogynist who says women deserve to be treated like shit because “women are bitches”.
> But to be fair, the current state of gender relations is all men's fault.
My current plan is to make sure more males until the age of eighteen, at least, are raised and taught by women. Getting more women in the education and childhood development process early will close the critical gap we have in ensuring boys learn (from an actual woman!) the right way to interact with and treat women. When that happens, it won't be mysterious to men when they experience cooperation and authority coming from a feminine perspective.
It's about time we stopped having only men raise and teach every generation of men. Women have much to offer here too.
EDIT: I suppose English does need an irony mark. I was riffing on "all men's fault", which clearly discounts female involvement in culture and morality.
Although I'm male, I live my life surrounded by women and have a large focus on women's issues. I also see the writing on the wall: IVF technologies that are being developed today will further erode the value of men in most if not all non-socially conservative societies. I predict large numbers of women in single, cohabitating, or lesbian arrangements having children together because large numbers of men have proven themselves insufferable. I certainly know I have demonstrated as much in the past.
Men capable of rethinking their relationship with women and what it means to be a male, rather than a man, I imagine will do fine in the coming social upheaval.
I could see lesbian parenting becoming more common with greater social acceptance.
Single or cohabiting though? As a recent parent, I doubt it. Raising children remains extremely challenging, and significantly easier if you have a committed partner for it. There's no way my wife would be able to go on, say, a 10-day business trip to Laos or a 3-day industry conference if I weren't holding down the fort at home, or for that matter able to get to the gym tonight if I weren't picking our son up from daycare, taking him to gymnastics and cooking dinner for him.
How a couple chooses to split up the labor in their relationship is their business, but the fact that there's more than enough labor for a couple isn't going to change regardless of technology.
Possible, though I've read complaints about the reverse as well. That more men don't feel they need women in their lives anymore, despite being straight, because of, well, porn.
The good news is that the social groups where both traditional masculinity and femininity are not looked down upon (typically conservative, religious folks, not necessarily any particular religion, either) will grow due to the higher birth and family stability rates. This will hopefully lead to better mental health for both men and women who are suffering under the current system.
That theory (with a different group of people) has been a favorite of racists for at least two centuries. Yet, somehow, it never really materialises.
In your specific case, it is bound to fail because the children of religious parents are rather likely to leave religion. The various kinds of injustice children experience at the hand of religious organisations helps in that regard.
If you don't believe me, just think back in time: religious people have always had more children. And yet, religion has a been declining for a long time.
Among the most reproduction-happy have been groups like the Amish. But they haven't taken over the US, have they?
[+] [-] Shivetya|6 years ago|reply
anecdotal nonsense, a few years back we went through a wave of new HR videos about harassment and intimidation and not one had a non male aggressor. it was so bad the women attending the sessions were mocking the presentation.
fortunately they canned that approach not long after after the poor reception.
[+] [-] droithomme|6 years ago|reply
Decades ago I briefly dated an extremely physically abusive woman. Nearly killed me a couple times. I ended it. Not a single person has the slightest bit of sympathy over this. I've never struck a woman but maybe I should have in self defense. If I had though I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever I would have been reported, arrested, and imprisoned, regardless of all facts.
[+] [-] threatofrain|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljw1001|6 years ago|reply
This is a perfect example of how corporate greed (and a political system that now mostly exists to support it) is ravishing the American people. After decades of obvious abuses, the company pushing OxyContin is finally being stopped, but no one is going to jail (see: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/762455218/as-drugmakers-face-...), and although the company is bankrupt, we're merely locking the barn door after the billions have escaped.
[+] [-] pitaj|6 years ago|reply
The government restricting the supply of opioid painkillers has only served to push those who need them into the black market. Blaming companies like Purdue is only playing into the same talking points as the drug warriors: evil dealers pushing dangerous drugs onto innocent people.
We need to decriminalize and legalize all drugs: possession, creation, and distribution.
[+] [-] notadoc|6 years ago|reply
The despair is the disease. Drug and alcohol use are from people self-medicating their symptoms.
If anyone cared to address this problem, they'd look at what causes despair. That despair is often from economic and social distress.
Instead, everyone is outraged up on a media and politically driven moral panic about pharmaceutical medication that happens to be rarely abused and is almost never addictive (fewer than 0.1% chance of becoming addicted to prescribed painkillers, study on over 640,000 patients, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27400458).
[+] [-] jtbayly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notadoc|6 years ago|reply
Also, a significant part of modern American culture actively devalues men and thinks of men and masculinity as problematic. This is particularly true within certain political movements and social cultures. That has health consequences, as is already widely known from many studies on various other forms of discrimination and discriminatory movements.
[+] [-] sdegutis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RocketSyntax|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 40acres|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpiguy|6 years ago|reply
Threads like this give the impression that everyone is miserable and fill up quickly with sad stories.
It’s good the internet gives those people an outlet and a place to connect, but if this was say viewed by thousands and only got 60 replies it might provide some perspective. Most people are just fine.
[+] [-] threatofrain|6 years ago|reply
Secondly, why does one try to persuade people that the scope of hurt isn't that bad by... eyeballing a HN post for popularity? And using that to counteract a report full of collected data?
[+] [-] kwoff|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|6 years ago|reply
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/suicid...
[+] [-] throwawayhhakdl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shaki-dora|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droithomme|6 years ago|reply
But since then I've realized there are many other things that feminism means to people. It's not a great label as it doesn't mean anything in particular. Some variants are definitely bigoted hate against a certain gender. I don't agree with those. Diffusion of label-meaning: what can be done about this. For me... be a label-skeptic. Irrelevant, though no one cares. Only mindless labels matter in the great big wide world.
[+] [-] jalla|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] friendlybus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexandrB|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjustns|6 years ago|reply
"The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of men to orient themselves in accordance with cherished values. Even when they do not panic men often sense that older ways off feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are ambiguous to the point of stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary men feel they cannot cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That—in defense of selfhood—they become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private men?
Is it any wonder that they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap? It is not only information that they need—in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that they need—although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy. What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves."
"What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of private individuals in our time? To formulate issues and troubles, we must ask what values are cherished yet threatened, and what values are cherished and supported, by the characterizing trends of our period. In the case both of threat and of support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure may be involved.
When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a crisis—either as personal trouble or as a public issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel the total threat of panic.
But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values, nor experience any threat? That is the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, becomes apathy. Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a threat? That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which if it is total enough, becomes a deadly unspecified malaise.
Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference-not yet formulated in such ways as to permit the work of reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles—defined in terms of values and threats—there is often the misery of vague uneasiness; instead of explicit issues there is often merely the beat feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values threatened nor whatever threatens them has been stated; in short, they have not been carried to the point of decision. Much less have they been formulated as problems of social science."
"Yet men do not usually define the roubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they take part."
He goes on to talk about the relationship between work and leisure as a "crisis of ambition" in American society. Great read.
[+] [-] _bxg1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hestipod|6 years ago|reply
I worked hard, in a career beneficial to society. I helped people, always had great empathy, and treated others with respect. Even then I didn't really get it when I would come across someone like I am now. Someone who suffered and lost it all. Someone on the edge. I did what I could to help them but I was as ignorant and naive as ever believing the rest of the system and society would give them that same attention and value. I thought it would be ok. It's not ok.
The truth is in American society has decided human life and security isn't the most important thing. It's decided INDEPENDENCE and profits and ego and the chance to be wealthy and powerful is. Everyone for themselves. Guns are rights but healthcare is an "entitlement". Equality is somehow "wrong".If you need help you are "weak" and a "loser" and "nobody is going to live off MY tax money". They think if you can even open your eyes, or type an occasional rant online, that means you can grind away like everyone else and "why don't you just" and they KNOW this is true because they KNOW they would be able to when they reached this unfathomable state. Saying this will make a lot of people angry because nationalism is an identity for many and ultimately proves the point.
About the same time my health was ruined a friend in Belgium had a similar experience. He was given social support to keep his flat, healthcare, spent a few years reeducating in a new skill and was able to reenter society and function. He has a happy life and family now. My experience was denials from government assistance programs, struggling to manage with savings and small private pension but no health insurance, watching a family full of puritanical hypocrites turn away and blame. My friend lost something of his life, but was allowed to regain one worth living and not fear every little bump being the end. He gets to have a future as a result. I do not.
Next came cycles of motivation and disappointment and trying as hard as I could to hold it together only to have things collapse because with more limits and needs nobody can manage that alone despite what everyone needs to believe for their own mental security. The root of victim blaming right there folks. Some people are always going to need help. Some can rebuild at least some but still need help doing so. Stability. Access. Caring.
After you see that help isn't coming comes the anger...then that anger slowly morphs into despair. Then one day comes this indescribable sensation that even the moment before you couldn't believe would ever TRULY happen even thinking abstractly about it. Acceptance. Not acceptance of the decline. Not acceptance of the despair. Acceptance that you aren't afraid to let all of this life go anymore. You don't WANT to not BE...but you want to not be THIS. You want suffering, judgement, isolation, pain, complete lack or agency in LIFE anymore. You are exhausted all the time and it's not worth the tiny if any moments of joy anymore.
You are still rational. You aren't running around with your underwear on your head and flinging you poo at people. You are just running on empty, You swim as hard as you can and you sink, you relax and go with it and you sink, nothing works. It's always said to be your fault, not the fact you were unceremoniously dropped in the ocean and told to fend for yourself whilst people give "advice" from the shore like "just learn how to swim" and then get offended when you cannot as if your drowning insults them. You have walked over every "next hill" for years looking for petrol, and it's never there. Or if it IS there 1/1000000000 times and some nice and truly well meaning shopkeeper is smiling and waving you there, someone else swoops in front and takes the rest or the shop closes right as you straggle up to it because you stepped in a hole and that slowed you down even more.
Despair isn't some inexplicable thing. It's 99% of the time rooted in clear, multiple causes. But this society, ESPECIALLY this society, won't face or address them. Most people like me don't end up like me out of some fault in themselves or some unsolvable problem. But it's easier to punch down for both ego fulfillment and to bolster your own feelings of personal safety because YOU are better than that and it will never happen to you. You were smart, and planned, and have good people around you. Well guess what...the "Just World" isn't.
There was a time I was an activist for health and social issues. It never had any macro effect. I tried to "just get out of you don"t like it!" Doing that alone is very, very hard and I could never get it to work permanently. The damage done here would follow me everywhere and ironically block the path to even a life in those better conditions. There was a time I thought about crazy things like applying for asylum in a more socially conscious country, but the truth is people in this situation don't get approved. I am out of fuel and hope, there is no petrol station over the next hill, and my bootstraps were worn to dust years ago. There are countless people like me and nobody here ever thinks they will be one of them.
[+] [-] codyb|6 years ago|reply
The land of opportunity Work hard and be rewarded The shining nation on the hill
And what you see as an adult
Lose your job? No healthcare, and little support
Get cancer? Go bankrupt and lose everything if you’re not lucky or super rich
Let’s pass major legislation! Oh great another huge tax cut for the mega rich.
Go to school? Be saddled in debt for decades.
Get out of school? Work multiple jobs just to make ends meet in a system that favors employers
And how’re you supposed to escape? By buying material possessions that don’t bring lasting quality of life improvements, or by wallowing away in a drugged up haze, or by binge watching television and other media.
We’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world but we our government is increasingly disfunctional and tailored to special interests and the wealthy.
Meritocracy? Ha. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is being hollowed out.
This administration certainly hasn’t helped as it amplifies its fear based rhetoric of migrants, and crime while pushing us backwards on climate initiatives and ruining our reputation abroad.
It’s no wonder people are depressed. Wage slavery sucks, living on a knife’s edge sucks, and there’s really not much going on to change it.
I’m pretty hopeful for the younger generations, but boy is it a mess they’re inheriting.
[+] [-] disabled|6 years ago|reply
I am disabled myself and I have experienced this. But, I am a dual US|EU national.
I actually experienced a very traumatic injury on Thursday, and had to be seen in my city's level 1 trauma unit. I am physically disabled and fell down some steep concrete stairs, (I probably need to use a wheelchair probably from now on.)
I ended up having surgery to repair the injury on Friday.
My pain was under control in the ambulance, but that was it.
I literally screamed nonstop during Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, due to the hospital refusing to give me adequate pain control. My abdominal muscles are still sore and my voice is gone still. When pain management finally came on Monday, they cared more about what medications I could "get outside" the hospital and "what the maximum quantity would be" more than actually controlling my pain.
They didn't even have any pillows for me on the unit to elevate my limb.
The whole experience was extremely traumatic and barbaric. It was reminiscent of a third world country.
Supposedly this is one of the best trauma units in the country, too.
I am done with this country. I cannot do this anymore. It is killing me.
[+] [-] wavepruner|6 years ago|reply
Due to my limited ability to type/dictate and the controversial nature of my experience, I am not going to go into detail. I just want to give another data point to people claiming that more welfare programs will make these problems go away.
I have completely given up on the traditional health care system. It is so unbelievably bad when it comes to my illness that I am better off becoming my own doctor and paying for everything out of pocket. Because of this, I am a strong proponent of reducing welfare programs(except UBI) and making healthcare participation an option. I am battling a crippling illness. Almost no one has moral high-ground to insist that I give them my money for their health care. I am so so much sicker than easily 99% of the population. I should qualify for disability, but I don't because my illness is poorly understood by slow-moving government bureaucrats.
But I am fortunate to have identified the cure, and in a few years perhaps I will be back to normal. At that point I will be happy to pay health insurance premiums to help those sicker than I, but right now, my survival depends on the ability to not pay. $3000/year is the difference between life and death for me.
[+] [-] NTDF9|6 years ago|reply
America is the third world country of all developed countries.
For individuals like you seeking human connection, I highly recommend SE Asia as a place to permanently migrate to.
You will find meaning in mingling with people who don't care about the rat race on the edge. Comes with its own shortcomings but you've lived the lonely life of America. It cannot go lower than this.
[+] [-] Unsimplified|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtlasBarfed|6 years ago|reply
The only thing the majority of men are useful to in society is work/production. If you take that away, then the other function of men (reproduction/fertilization) can be accomplished by a much smaller fraction of the male population.
We are taking away the only thing that justifies the existence of most men, and we are reminding them of it every day with the society we are creating with no safety net or healthcare.
But after the last election, I stopped caring.
[+] [-] JohnClark1337|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mikelyons|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mainliningfbs|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] matheusmoreira|6 years ago|reply
So you're openly claiming that it's okay to exploit, abuse and silence men. Women suffered and now it's men's turn, right?
> Not saying men have shitty lives too but men can't all of sudden be the victims after millennia of victimization.
So you are saying men must also suffer millennia of victimization in order to repay their "debt" and finally be seen as equals. Is that right?
[+] [-] daseiner1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpark|6 years ago|reply
Also this is just disgusting. This basically says “Who cares. Men deserve it because they’re assholes.” This is no different than the overt misogynist who says women deserve to be treated like shit because “women are bitches”.
[+] [-] tathougies|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] harimau777|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Haga|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] humanrebar|6 years ago|reply
My current plan is to make sure more males until the age of eighteen, at least, are raised and taught by women. Getting more women in the education and childhood development process early will close the critical gap we have in ensuring boys learn (from an actual woman!) the right way to interact with and treat women. When that happens, it won't be mysterious to men when they experience cooperation and authority coming from a feminine perspective.
It's about time we stopped having only men raise and teach every generation of men. Women have much to offer here too.
EDIT: I suppose English does need an irony mark. I was riffing on "all men's fault", which clearly discounts female involvement in culture and morality.
[+] [-] moosey|6 years ago|reply
Men capable of rethinking their relationship with women and what it means to be a male, rather than a man, I imagine will do fine in the coming social upheaval.
[+] [-] 1123581321|6 years ago|reply
Additionally, the same technology level that could make men reproductively useless could do the same for women. In reality, neither will happen.
[+] [-] nostrademons|6 years ago|reply
Single or cohabiting though? As a recent parent, I doubt it. Raising children remains extremely challenging, and significantly easier if you have a committed partner for it. There's no way my wife would be able to go on, say, a 10-day business trip to Laos or a 3-day industry conference if I weren't holding down the fort at home, or for that matter able to get to the gym tonight if I weren't picking our son up from daycare, taking him to gymnastics and cooking dinner for him.
How a couple chooses to split up the labor in their relationship is their business, but the fact that there's more than enough labor for a couple isn't going to change regardless of technology.
[+] [-] throw1234651234|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w3mmpp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matheusmoreira|6 years ago|reply
> Men capable of rethinking their relationship with women and what it means to be a male, rather than a man
And what does this mean, exactly?
[+] [-] tathougies|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt4077|6 years ago|reply
In your specific case, it is bound to fail because the children of religious parents are rather likely to leave religion. The various kinds of injustice children experience at the hand of religious organisations helps in that regard.
If you don't believe me, just think back in time: religious people have always had more children. And yet, religion has a been declining for a long time.
Among the most reproduction-happy have been groups like the Amish. But they haven't taken over the US, have they?