Britain’s lost boys Sonia Sodha

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1od9KByZmQZiBztXn8HQbPgFMK6ichp7m/view not sure if link will work but af_english123 on X has made a glossary of terms that would be red flags if your kids are saying them

I've heard the Tin Men on a few podcasts and thought it was a great insight into mens struggles. It really broadened my understanding on the sort of problems men have to deal with.

I often say this about Peterson, but when he first came on the scene I couldn't figure out why he was so controversial. His book was really just generic dad advice. It made sense that his core audience was lost young men who never got generic dad advice.

I think Mike Cernovich was pushing a similar message before he headed off into Trumpian political agitation - stop feeling sorry for yourself, exercise, eat properly, get a job, make yourself an attractive proposition.

We can tear down these male gurus, and lots of the criticism is warranted. But I think many young men need to hear advice from older men. They aren't going to turn their lives around because Helen Lewis deploys the Big Waggy Finger at them.

Yes, that's exactly my point - a lot of Tate's stuff is pretty mundane once you strip away the tough guy theatricality folowed by a broad cheeky grin. Biddulph's created a niche for himself with a rather different audience - there's an almost excruciating wholesomeness which would probably turn off the Tates' constituency! Peterson's done extremely well for himself with very thin intellectual gruel indeed. North American questionnaire psychology and a bit of social conservatism. He seems to think of those 'big five' personality constructs as if they were real!

I'd almost forgotten about Milo. His star burned brightly for a little while and then he dropped back below the line of sight. I must do a quick Google and see what he's up to. But I should really be doing some work today . . .

There were historically a large number of men on the right (and probably quite a few today) who believe in traditional sex-based social roles and the like

The kind of guy who will carry the box of lab consumables for you, even though you were quite capable of carrying it yourself, because he knows he is stronger and cares enough that you don't get injured, even though you feel patronised by him. And who secretly thinks that you shouldn't be going out to work with a child in daycare, not because he hates women with jobs, but because he thinks your husband should earn enough to support a family and you should be doing the important job of raising your child.

The latter is fine in theory but falls down in contact with a reality in which financial abuse exists.

Classics, my arse. All those authors, bar Tolkien, Pratchett, and Clancy, are shelved in the science fiction ghetto.

Tolkien is the only one of those authors regarded as "classic".

A school's failure to promote an author doesn't mean that the books don't exist.

@Solrock

"It's the contrast between what one might describe as chauvinism and misogyny"

Thanks for this - not a distinction I'd thought through fully before, but explains a lot.

To add to the observations of @coronaway and @Wildflowers99 above, perhaps I can make a guilty confession. A few years ago, just before his arrest, I wondered what all the fuss was about Andrew Tate and went and had a look at some of his oeuvre online. Yes of course you can find the misogyny for which he is world famous but there's a lot of stuff which is punchily and theatrically delivered but which is much more banal. There's a fair bit of messaging along the lines of 'work as hard as you can and try and make something of yourself and try and get some exercise'. To our horror, my partner and I realised that we'd been doing this very thing for the last several years! Moreover, he managed to make exercise sound fun and interesting in a way which more sober campaigns to encourage exercise from a variety of official agencies have failed to do. There were observations for would-be entrepreneurs, such as if you're trying to start a business, do so as cheaply as possible to gauge if there's any interest from potential customers before you waste loads of money on stock or business premises. Again, hard to argue with. There was also content in which he spoke eloquently about the lives of people in poverty in low income countries and the work demands on nurses. So there's a good deal to suck people in and create a sense that he's on the same page as they are. His recent conversion (or 'reversion') to Islam was interesting - for someone who's usually got a lot to say for himself he's remarkably vague about the details of the theology. Maybe he and his team have done this as a strategic manoeuvre: "Where are all the pissed off young men whose frustation I can monetise?"

I must stress that I don't approve of this sort of thing - I'm just trying to throw a few thoughts into the ring as to how he and those like him have succeded in appealing to people and creating an audience for themselves. I'm reminded very much of the work that's been done on Jim Jones and the The People's Temple.

I'd much rather have an argument with right wing men I know, who might be a bit sexist on the surface but don't have a problem with strong women in practice.

It's the contrast between what one might describe as chauvinism and misogyny. There were historically a large number of men on the right (and probably quite a few today) who believe in traditional sex-based social roles and the like; but the crucial point is that they didn't actually hate women. If one has grown up to see the right as sexist, and the left as not, it is a real surprise when one realises just how much misogyny there is on the political left, and how much of the chauvinism of the right is just superficial.

I wish I could remember where I saw it, but there was some post-election polling on the minority shift to Trump, and one thing that jumped out among Democrat-voting men was the proportion of black and Hispanic men describing themselves as "highly masculine" compared to a much smaller number of white male Democrats who self-describe that way.

Hence I suppose that hilarious Harris ad with a bunch of obviously very gay actors pretending to be stereotypical working class men, sitting on trucks etc. That was a campaign that literally didn't know how to talk to men.

There’s one at work who is truly awful - prides himself on being incredibly woke and anti sexism, yet posts hideously offensive stuff about ‘kick a terf’ etc to the applause of all his fellow left wing men.

I can think of someone similar I know from left wing activist circles - his social media is full of "punch terfs" stuff, which would be scarier if he wasn't a little weedy guy who looks incapable of punching anyone. Pretty sure he's the dictionary definition of an incel even if he doesn't identify that way. Lots of seething misogyny hidden under the wokeness.

I'd much rather have an argument with right wing men I know, who might be a bit sexist on the surface but don't have a problem with strong women in practice.

V interesting and a different perspective. Tate himself is not white, so this makes sense to a degree. I’ve always felt, as a woman, handling your average sexist Reform voter is somewhat easier than your TWAW, insidiously sexist left wing man. There’s one at work who is truly awful - prides himself on being incredibly woke and anti sexism, yet posts hideously offensive stuff about ‘kick a terf’ etc to the applause of all his fellow left wing men.

My df would have counted as a 'lost boy. His df was killed in a farming accident when he was a child.

Df was from an affluent family, had plenty of opportunity and chose a career but was still nasty, abusive and bitterly resented his dds for gaining an education, leaving home and not remaining under his control.

Being able to walk into a job didn't stop him from hating successful women.

@WarriorN I saw the writers of Adolescence being interviewed on TV and talking about the issues involved. I think it raises really important points about how we communicate with young boys, and how we support them to cope with all the challenges they face these days.

coronaway

The problem is that such terms like incel. manshpere, Tate followers etc. are becoming so overused as to be meaningless.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions around incels and Tate followers which result in a misdiagnosis of the problem.

To quote Alexander DatePsych:

"Only 36% of ethnic minorities see Andrew Take as Very Unfavourable compared to 65% of Whites.

“In popular left-wing discourse and in some of the academic literature, the manosphere has often been described as a gateway to far-right or White supremacist movements.

But actually, fans of Andrew Tate are disproportionately ethnic minorities.

This is consistent with research on incels: Sparks (2023) found approximately 48% of an incel sample to be non-White and Costello (2022) found 36% of an incel sample to be BIPOC.

Relatedly, about half of incels also identified as left on the political spectrum.

This also seems to be the case at a glance of popular “red pill” influencers: like Tate, the sphere seems to be led by men of ethnic minority background.

There is relatively little ideological overlap between these dating ideologies and racial or nationalist ideologies.

They rarely talk about them at all.

If they do, it is often in opposition (the “red pill vs tradcons”).

Much of the manosphere has more in common with left-wing social justice ideologies than it does with right-wing racist ideologies.

Some subcultures (like MRAs) are little more than inversions of activist feminism, where concerns about gender inequality are paramount.

They are concerned with equitable outcomes in romantic relationships and employment for men, they substitute “gynocracy” for the feminist idea of “patriarchy” in their own folk sociology of the world.

Incels also have their own folk psychology of “white privilege” that they call “Just Be White (JBW).” It’s the same phenomenon that is described as “dating racism” in academic literature: romantic biases in Western nations that favor White individuals.

The manosphere is really more of a “rainbow coalition” than an ethnically homogeneous, far-right movement.

I know a lot of people see manosphere content and find the way men, women, and relationship dynamics are described as very unrelatable.

The manosphere appeals heavily to the “lived experience” of its subculture members, but the “lived experiences” of the majority outgroup is very different.

Perhaps part of the reason for this is the high ethnic and cultural diversity in the manosphere.

You hear a lot from men who would never have been in your dating pool, peer group, or on your radar because they come from a very different background."