The Fall Of Men: Why Men Are In Decline
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So go and enjoy. I would love to hear your feedback as you dive in and enjoy the growth. Right team, welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Today, we're going to be talking about the fall of men.

why modern men are in decline, some of the contributing factors. And I'd love to hear your take on this. Thank you so much to everybody that comments on YouTube, comments on Spotify, tunes into these videos, mans it forward. And by the way, don't forget to subscribe to the channel.

If you're subscribed, sometimes you don't even see the content that drops anyway. So if you like this content, hit the bell notification, subscribe on Spotify. All right. So let's dive in. You may have seen a lot of the stats. You may have seen the less men are going to college than ever before. There's less men in the workforce. There's more men living at home. There's less men dating. There's less men having sex. There's

Men are having more mental health issues than ever before. More men are taking their own lives than ever before. And all that's true, right? Men are more isolated than ever before. I mean, just go down the roster and what you will see in the research and statistically,

is that men in almost every category are in decline in so many ways. And this has to be something that not only we talk about more, but we flag as a very real challenge that we should all be concerned about. But I wanted to focus today on the three main contributing factors that I think are playing into this. There's others, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

But these are three main ones that if you are a man that feels like you're in decline, or if you know a man who is struggling and is in a little bit of a decline or a rut, one of these three things is probably contributing to him having a hard time. Number one is the crisis of meaning and purpose. We have largely strip-mined out the ways in which men find and derive meaning and purpose from existence.

For many, many men, the key here, we could talk about providing, we could talk about building, we could talk about protecting or contributing. The key here for pretty much every man that I have ever met in my entire life is one thing. Men derive purpose and meaning by being good at something that they can then contribute to.

to something larger than themselves. Okay, it's really an intersection of those two things. I want to be good at something that I find rewarding that contributes to something larger than myself.

That's somewhat of the fundamental formula for a man to find meaning and purpose in his existence. And it's more complicated than that, but it could be through his artwork. It could be through his musicianship, his woodcrafting, his ability to build a house, his ability to invent things, his ability to negotiate through hard conversations or situations or mediate between

between two people or two parties that are really heated. But regardless, men find meaning and purpose in being able to be good at something, being very competent and capable at something, and contributing to something larger than themselves.

And in our society, unfortunately, what has started to happen is this very pervasive narrative that men are not wanted, they're not needed, they're dangerous, they should step back, they should step out of the way, what they do only seems to cause problems. And so because of this, a lot of men have a deep sense that what they want to build and contribute to the world is deeply problematic or

or that it's actually not wanted. So for a lot of men, they've started to check out from the risks, from the pursuit of finding a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. And they've actually been incentivized to become complacent. When you look at some of the

some of the ways in which a lot of men have grown up, they're in education systems that do not support them, right? So the system doesn't support them because most young boys, again, this is statistically proven, this is research proven, most young boys, they don't want to sit at a desk

for eight hours a day. And not only do they not want to, it's almost impossible for them to do so. And then you listen to a whole bunch of other factors, like they develop slower, their prefrontal cortex develops slower. And what you have is a recipe for the systems in which we are raising boys and trying to build men are not supportive of boys and men being built. But then on top of that, you have

society and culture actively telling men what you want to develop and contribute is largely not welcome. So there's not really any real incentive any longer for boys, for men to pursue the really hard work

work that it takes to find deeper meaning, the hard effort that is required to find a sense of purpose. You have to venture into the unknown. You have to be willing to take risks. You have to be willing to fail and get it wrong and fall on your face. But if you are actively being told every step of the way, it doesn't matter what you do because society and culture doesn't really want you to do that anyway. Or society and culture says, this

that you as a man are the fundamental problem, then you're going to start to check out of the pursuit of meaning and purpose in the first place. So a lot of guys fall into this trap. The second thing that I've seen a lot of men dealing with is what I call identity fracturing or a loss of archetypal clarity. And in many ways, you can boil this down to one simple thing. Men now in today's society and young boys

lack an aspirational direction of who they could become as a man.

And instead, men are being told who not to be. So there's no real image of here's who you could become as a man. Here's how you could develop your identity, how you could develop your sense of character, how you could develop your personality as a man. Here are great role models for you to look up to and aspire to. Because just like any human being, men want to climb a mountain. There is something about being able to face hardship

and press through it and persevere through it that develops that man's character, that develops a sense of self and identity. But when what you're given instead is just don't become like this, here's

an almanac of all the men that you should not be like. And here's all the characteristics. Here's all the traits. Here's all the things you shouldn't say. Here's all the things you shouldn't do. Don't open your legs too wide on a bus or a train. Don't try and explain anything. It's just a constant soup that men are immersed in of all the ways that they should not be.

This does not develop a sense of identity. This does not help to form a positive, grounded, healthy psyche.

What this does is fractures a sense of identity, roots in a very deep level of shame and a sense of being problematic, but it also roots in a very deep quality of lostness. I don't know who I really am because the truth is that every human being needs someone

something or someone to aspire to. We are aspirational in our psychological development. As you develop, you go through a bunch of challenges. You go through a lot of trials and a lot of setbacks.

And part of that development, part of those setbacks and trials that you go through is to have some type of aspiration to move towards. Otherwise, we fall back into a sense of disliking who we are, not feeling like we belong or are sort of necessary within culture and society.

And so many men's identities and sense of self have not been fully formed, and they're struggling because there is a tension of...

constantly being told, here's who you should not be. Do not be like any of these men. Do not embody any of these characteristics. Do not embody anything near or close to any of these traits. And the problem is that some of these traits are actually necessary and foundational for a man to develop into a healthy, contributive,

grounded sense of a human being in society, right? A lot of men feel more confident when they have done the work to develop some semblance of assertiveness. But if you're a man and you're constantly hearing and seeing online that you need to be this very soft, very vulnerable, sort of very meek type of man, you'll never actually develop

the sense of identity and personality that has any type of assertiveness or backbone. And then because of that, your life as a man is going to be exponentially harder. If you are a man that doesn't have a

a sense of backbone, that doesn't have a sense of assertiveness, that can't stand up for himself, your life is going to be brutal. And this is the type of man that we are churning out in spades. We are producing generation after generation of men who really lack a sense of

backbone, a sense of spine, and a sense of assertiveness to the point where so many men are unwilling to, and this is young men and old men, face hardship, face rejection, face any type of risk. And so it fractures a sense of identity. I can't do those things. I'm not able to do those things. I don't know who I am enough to even face the risk because if I take the risk and I fail, it will crush the last

semblance of who I think I am. So that's number two, this identity fracturing and the loss of archetypal clarity. And the archetypal clarity is the direction that there is an archetype of the whatever it is, the king, the warrior, the magician, the lover, the person that's going to contribute to society and culture, that you're moving towards embodying something that is larger than who you currently are.

That is aspirational, positive momentum and direction that we have taken out of our culture and our society. There are no longer, it's almost like we're not even allowed to have any men who are role models for other men. That is almost taboo in our culture. And because of that, there's no aspiration for men to work towards, to move towards. And when that's how you raise men, what you get

is men who step in and embody things that most people don't want. And it's usually out of a place of control, out of a place of power, because it is standing in the face of, well, if you're not going to allow us to have an aspiration of what we could work towards, then we're just going to take that for ourselves.

The last piece that is really harming men, and again, there's other pieces, so I'd love to hear your thoughts, but the last piece is isolation and communal collapse.

We have really, to the detriment of men, broken down the community spaces and places where men could congregate, where boys could receive the transmission of what it looks like to be a man, receive the transmission of the steps and the journey and the process, the wisdom of men that have come before them. We have taken a lot of this out of our culture and our society.

And so we no longer have spaces and places where a young boy or young man can go and learn about some of the tactical ways to become a man, what it looks like to be a healthy man, to be around men who can transmit what it looks like to be a good man. I mean, you look at some of the stats.

In education, it's like 80 plus percent of teachers are female. So there's a vacancy of men within the education system. You look at the therapeutic industry, it has become dominated by women. 75% of therapists are women, right? We want more men to go to therapy, but...

But how you work with men has become sort of taboo and villainized. And men, even in therapy, I think oftentimes feel like they are the problem. And so we've broken down a lot of these spaces and places where men could grow, they could learn. I mean, Boy Scouts isn't just for boys any longer. You can't just even have a group of, and maybe that's a, God, I don't know, maybe that's a

a hostile thing to say, right? It's taboo. I shouldn't even be saying that. But the truth is, one of the most formative parts of my childhood was going to Boy Scouts with other boys and learning how to interact with them and learning how to resolve conflict with them and struggle without girls around. It was a very important part. Boys need to learn how to interact with each other without girls around

because men are often the ones that keep one another in check.

And so if you are a man that feels very uncomfortable with being around other men, you've actually never spent time alone with men, or it's very few and far between, you prefer just being with women, it's very likely that you're the type of man who's going to get walked over by other men. You're going to be afraid of confrontation with other men and other guys that are more direct, more assertive.

they give less of a crap, they're probably going to walk all over you or they're not going to respect you. Or when it comes time for you to stand up for yourself, you're not going to know how to do it effectively.

So we actually need spaces where boys can work out, how do I maintain friendship with another guy? And here's the thing that's different, usually what I've found between female friendships and male friendships is that men can resolve conflict and challenges quite quickly, but it requires those men to be very direct and

And it requires them to be a little bit comfortable with psychological and emotional confrontation. And we have stopped teaching young men how to do that. We've stopped teaching young men the art of taking a risk, of saying the thing to their buddy of like, listen, I didn't like that. I didn't like what you said to me. That was not cool. I didn't like what you did. I didn't like that you're talking to my girl this way, or whatever it is.

And so it's creating this imbalance where men don't know how to interact with each other. And because of that, their social circles are suffering. The amount of men, I mean, right? 15% of men can't identify a close friend, right? 15% can't identify a close friend at all. And it's something like one in six men

only have one close male friend, right? So you have a ton of guys that don't have any friends. Then you have another ton of guys that maybe they have one guy in their life that they can chat with. And that doesn't mean that they're meeting up with their friends. I remember seeing this thing online of this piece of research that was showing that men need two times a week of hanging out with other male friends for optimal

mental health. And you, like the comment section on that thing was ridiculous. People just like, you know, a lot of women hating on men for needing that social time. But the truth is that men are more isolated than ever. Men are more alone than ever.

And I think there's lots of things contributing to this, online gaming, not getting together, being a little bit more recluse and antisocial. A lot of guys are just like that. We are just less social oftentimes. But the men that are going to succeed in the future are going to be the men who are able to do the hard work of maintaining a network.

that are able to maintain healthy relationships between men, that are willing to have some uncomfortable conversations. And so this isolation that so many men are experiencing and this social collapse

This communal collapse that so many men are experiencing, I think, is going to be one of the major challenges that the up and coming generations are going to face. And so if you're raising a young man, honestly, one of the best things that you can do is incentivize him to have a lot of other male friends.

to put him into Brazilian jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai or hockey or football or something where he has to figure out, how do I be a man? Because in those spaces, he's going to see a wide range of men. He's going to see the guys that don't stand up for themselves and have lots of shame and

and they self-deprecate and they have no confidence and no self-worth and they don't have any male role models in their life. And they're going to see the other end of the spectrum, the guys that are bullying other people and arrogant and crappy human beings. They're going to see the full spectrum. And hopefully in that space, they will get glimpses of men that are mature.

right? Coaches, assistant coaches, guys that are other parents that are a part of it, right? Maybe some of your friends are helping to raise your son. But one of the best things that we can do is to get around other men because other men help to support our psychological development.

And when we collapse male community, whether it's at the bars, whether it's in the military, whether it's in sports, whether it's in a boy's development, when we collapse those spaces and you take on some of these other things that I've been talking about, men do not know how to develop. Boys do not know

and have any pathway to possibly have a chance of developing into a mature man because there's just a kind of vacancy of men within a lot of these spaces. There's a vacancy because culture and society have said, men, you're the problem. You are the problem. And when people feel and hear like they're the problem enough, they start to check out, right? Imagine, some of you have probably, this is the last thing I'll say and then I'll close it out.

Some of you have probably experienced this in your family system, right? Or maybe you saw it. Maybe you didn't experience it firsthand. The person that is constantly being blamed for the family dysfunction starts to check out of the family. They don't want to be a part of it. And I think one of the plagues on our Western culture is that we have changed it from men have problems that we need to support them with to men are the problem and they need to figure it out.

And we need to move back into the space of saying, men are having some challenges. And we as a culture and a society need to honor those things and actually support them with those challenges. So those are my thoughts on this. I'm very curious to hear yours. Comment below on whatever platform you're listening to and make sure that you man it forward. Share this episode. Don't forget to like and subscribe. See you next time.

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