No Country for Young Men

In my last piece, I critiqued our national narrative about “young men behaving badly.” These are the young men who make headlines for mass murders. Later, when the dust settles, we find that these men are struggling with social isolation and rejection by women. Internet sleuths almost inevitably find that they participated in forums trafficking in misogyny and bigotry.

The narrative that explains young men behaving badly goes like this:

1. Feeling entitled.
2. The inability to achieve what you think you should have.
3. Gravitating towards ideologies that scapegoat groups, blaming them for why you are not getting what you think should have.
4. Committing acts of violence against scapegoated groups.

I found the first step in the causal chain — feeling entitled, to be highly problematic. I suggested that we are all entitled. We are all acculturated to expectations in life, and the inability to achieve them will frustrate us. These “young men behaving badly” cannot achieve their goals because of cultural and economic changes in society.

The current piece is about the third step.

Why do young men go down these rabbit holes? If presumably we are all entitled, as I believe we are, why do young men gravitate to misogynistic and racist internet spaces?

I have a theory. They were seeking meaning and dignity, and we as a society could not give it to them.