Is masculinity in trouble? It probably depends who you listen to.

Unfortunately, I've been online in the last ten years or so, which means that I've seen my share of discourse on "toxic masculinity" and/or how some men were singularly awful to some people. I find it entirely believable that many people have had unpleasant experiences with male figures in their lives - I'm not exempt from this. That being said, what I find interesting is the following: 

(1) There seems to be a lack of empathy for people existing at the margins - the people who have fallen out of labour market participation, young angry men without economic viability which leads to diminishing prospects for a fulfilling relationship. There's this uncanny link to Gladwell's series on guns - sin is the failure to bother to care. Does being online lead to diminished empathy? Is it a function of late capitalism and declining civic participation? I have no idea.

(2) There seems to be a strong demand for role models. We have lifestyle and productivity vloggers in the vein of "this is how I woke up at 3am everyday and climbed two mountains before breakfast". We also have people like JBP who give the very useful advice of cleaning your room and sorting out your life, along with the whole fitness-masculinity-strength sphere. This is a strong function of having the internet effectively parent a generation.

(3) Seeing constitutes reality, and seeing is no longer a shared act. I find it hard sometimes to wrap my head around the idea that as a result of my regular media consumption I won't find many opinions that differ from mine, and I'm trying to break out of that by reading books I ordinarily wouldn't read.

And most of all, I don't feel like any of the discourse particularly matters much. I do however hope to mentor people when I have the capacity and stability to do so. I have been in teaching / mentor roles over the past few years so I do have some teaching / mentoring instinct, but that was in the context of being a student. I'm curious how it'll be going forward.

PS: My manual on getting out of research is found here.