0:01

Why are men in such decline? Why

0:03

are so many young men checking out

0:06

of work, more men living at

0:08

home than ever before, you know,

0:10

less young men are having sex

0:12

than ever before, like less young

0:14

men are going to college and

0:16

before? Why is this happening? I

0:18

think there's many reasons. I've talked

0:20

about a few of them before,

0:23

but the one that I don't

0:25

think has gotten enough attention

0:27

is the decades-long campaign.

0:29

of demonizing men. And speaking to men

0:32

and about men as the fundamental problem

0:34

with every issue in existence, basically. And

0:36

I'm gonna use a relationship analogy.

0:38

Okay, imagine that you're dating somebody and

0:40

that person starts to tell you that

0:42

you are a problem, that you're causing

0:44

them harm, that you're damaging them, that

0:46

you're a problem in the relationship, that

0:49

any type of dysfunction that happens in

0:51

the relationship in the relationship in the

0:53

relationship in the relationship, in the relationship,

0:56

in the relationship, in the relationship is

0:58

your fault. And then it gets worse,

1:00

right? They start to say they don't

1:02

need you, they don't want you, they

1:04

actually would be better off without you,

1:06

the world at large would be better

1:09

off without you, that your piece of

1:11

garbage, that, you know, that so many

1:13

of the issues that they face in

1:15

life are because of you, you would

1:17

either move into a very

1:19

defensive and attack oriented stance

1:22

and position. Or you would

1:24

just start to slink out

1:26

of that relationship. Like you'd

1:29

either, hopefully you'd exit that

1:31

relationship entirely, you'd be like,

1:33

why the hell am I here? Or

1:36

you would just, you would check out,

1:38

right? You would literally just check out

1:40

of that relationship and

1:42

be like, why in the hell am I in

1:44

this relationship with you? But

1:46

we have made it

1:49

commonplace. to make blanket

1:51

statements about men as

1:53

being the fundamental systemic

1:55

problem with society. I mean,

1:57

imagine the lack of ingenuity.

1:59

an intellectual honesty that you'd

2:01

have to deploy in order

2:03

to just blame an entire

2:06

sex for all of the

2:08

problems and completely remove any

2:10

type of personal responsibility for

2:12

your part in the equation,

2:14

right? Telling men that they're

2:16

not needed, they're not wanted,

2:18

that they're all rapists, that

2:20

they're pieces of garbage, that,

2:23

you know, they're all narcissists, that

2:25

they're all, you know, violent... that

2:27

they're all terrible, that the

2:30

society would be better off

2:32

without you. What we're experiencing

2:34

now in this mass checkout

2:36

within our society and this

2:39

massive shift, I mean, I've

2:41

been watching post-election in America

2:43

as this whole conversation around

2:45

how men, you know, determined

2:48

this election and how it

2:50

was misogynistic and all of

2:53

this sort of intellectual... rigmarole

2:55

that has unfolded in so

2:58

many political commentators and just

3:00

individuals. Again, blaming men for

3:03

what happened. And I think what

3:05

you're seeing is the consequences of

3:07

blaming men for absolutely

3:09

everything, demonizing men for

3:11

absolutely everything for decades.

3:14

And when you do that, there

3:16

will be consequences. Men will check

3:18

out, men will start to go into

3:20

decline. as they have, they'll stop

3:22

showing up into college spaces because,

3:24

I mean, let's face it, I

3:26

probably wouldn't want to go to

3:28

college if I was a 19-year-old kid in

3:30

today's world, especially if I was a

3:32

19-year-old conservative kid. I would not want

3:34

to go to a college space. You

3:37

know, and even if I was, and

3:39

I mean, I was very liberal as

3:41

an early, I got a music degree,

3:43

you know, but if I was 19 or

3:45

20 again and I was looking at going

3:48

back to college, I mean, I'd have some

3:50

real reservations about whether or not I was

3:52

welcome on that college campus, whether I

3:54

would be wanted in that space. And

3:57

we as human beings are creatures

3:59

of belonging. And we don't generally

4:01

want to go into spaces and

4:03

places where we do not feel

4:06

like we belong or that we

4:08

have to fight for a sense

4:10

of belonging. And, you know, places

4:13

like college campuses have always meant

4:15

to be, they've always been a

4:17

little bit more liberal leading, but

4:20

they've always meant to be

4:22

a place for discourse of difference.

4:24

And we've lost any type of

4:27

capacity to say, you know what? I

4:29

don't agree with what you're saying,

4:31

but that doesn't mean that I'm

4:34

going to try and annihilate you

4:36

and deperson you online and get

4:38

you completely canceled. But this has

4:40

been the modality that

4:43

we've taken. And so many

4:45

men have been inundated with

4:47

the conversation that you're the

4:49

problem, you're contributing to the

4:51

issue, society would be better

4:53

off without you, if you

4:55

just acted more like a

4:57

woman. then you would be, you know,

4:59

then you'd be accepted. And then men in

5:02

relationships hear the same thing, right? I don't

5:04

need you. I don't need you around. I'm

5:06

better off without you or I'm, you know,

5:08

whatever it is, I'm a strong independent woman,

5:11

I don't need you. And then that man

5:13

ends up checking out of that relationship

5:16

in some capacity because relationships

5:18

are reciprocal, right? Relationships

5:20

are meant to be a reciprocal

5:22

thing. But if you show up in

5:25

a relationship with somebody and they're saying,

5:27

then the question starts to manifest

5:29

of, well, then why am I

5:32

in relationship with you? Because I

5:34

thought we were contributing to one

5:36

another for one another's betterment.

5:38

So obviously, there's many different

5:40

reasons that we could give

5:42

why men are struggling, right?

5:44

I mean, you give men

5:46

access to pornography, oftentimes way

5:49

earlier than they can handle.

5:51

I mean, the fact that

5:53

there's no age restrictions. on

5:55

pornography and any 12 year

5:57

old boy can go online

5:59

and why. and see more

6:01

naked women than literally any man

6:03

in the span of human

6:05

history pre -internet saw in

6:07

his entire life is just insane.

6:09

You know, that has a

6:11

very damaging detrimental effect to

6:13

a young man's psyche, to

6:15

a young boy's psyche, because

6:17

it skews his sense of

6:19

what should be accessible. And

6:22

porn is low risk, right? Something

6:24

like pornography is low risk. There's

6:26

no real risk of rejection. But

6:28

in the real world, the stakes

6:30

are very, very high. And so

6:32

we've created conditions for young men

6:34

where everything's kind of anti -risk, right?

6:36

We have helicopter parenting, we've got

6:38

very low risk sexual gratification acquisition.

6:40

So you can just go online

6:42

and watch a whole bunch of

6:45

porn and get sexually gratified, but

6:47

you don't actually have to work

6:49

for it at all. Whereas in

6:51

the real world, you have to go

6:53

and work. You have to go get rejected. There

6:55

is a high level of risk to approaching

6:57

a woman, talking to her and asking for

7:00

her phone number. There's a very high risk

7:02

that she's going to say, no, or I'm

7:04

in a relationship or some form of rejection

7:06

will happen. So when

7:08

you couple telling men for a

7:10

very long time, you're the

7:12

fundamental problem with pretty much everything

7:14

in existence right now, and you're

7:16

not needed. And you couple

7:18

that with giving them environments

7:21

that are not conducive for

7:23

sharpening and helping to develop

7:25

certain masculine qualities, like being

7:27

risk smart, being able to

7:29

take risk, having the resiliency

7:31

to take risk, those are

7:33

generally speaking things that men

7:35

thrive off of. There's a period

7:38

of time in a man's life where he

7:40

will take a tremendous amount of risks. And some

7:42

of them are stupid. Some of

7:44

the risks that I took when I was

7:46

a young man were absolutely, I mean, just dumb.

7:48

They were just plain dumb. But

7:50

those stupid risks

7:52

that I took helped

7:54

to inform and

7:56

helped to rein in

7:58

my risk taking ability

8:00

or a skill, right? Taking a risk

8:03

is a skill set. And if you

8:05

as a young man haven't had the

8:07

opportunity to take real risks, to develop

8:10

that skill, then you're gonna feel less

8:12

capable within the world and within society.

8:14

But the main piece here that I

8:16

really wanna drive home is we are

8:19

creating a narrative where it's become socially

8:21

acceptable to hate on men in a

8:23

way that we would never allow with

8:26

women. We would never, ever allow. individuals

8:28

on any side of the political spectrum

8:30

to just point blank say women are

8:33

the fundamental problem and to spew hatred

8:35

around women. I mean misandry has become

8:37

so commonplace and so socially acceptable that

8:40

I literally have young men reaching out

8:42

to me saying things like I grew

8:44

up in a household where my mom

8:47

just hated men and she told me

8:49

how bad men were and she told

8:51

me how I she hoped I I

8:54

never became like my father or any

8:56

of the men that I was around.

8:58

And so I never really had any

9:01

kind of role model or idea of

9:03

what type of manic should be because

9:05

it just seemed like she just hated

9:08

men all the time. And so this

9:10

type of blatant misandry has become so

9:12

commonplace that a lot of men don't

9:14

even, it's not even that they don't

9:17

even know how to become a good

9:19

man. It's that they don't even want

9:21

to take the risk to do that

9:24

because it seems like there's no... winning.

9:26

There's no possibility that you could ever

9:28

develop yourself into a man that society

9:31

and culture is going to approve of.

9:33

And that's problematic, right? That's problematic. I

9:35

mean, on the one hand with women,

9:38

what we're saying right now is you

9:40

do whatever it is that you want.

9:42

We're sort of giving women a, again,

9:45

this sort of like blank check of

9:47

go be whoever and whatever you want.

9:49

We're not going to put any labels

9:52

on it. We're going to define anything.

9:54

If you never want to have kids

9:56

and stay single and work... job for

9:59

the rest of your life and have

10:01

five cats like cool power to you.

10:03

There's some hate around the quote unquote

10:06

trad wife, right? If you want to

10:08

be a traditional wife and stay at

10:10

home and raise kids, there seems to

10:12

be some commentary around that. But for

10:15

the most part, it's like ladies go

10:17

off and do whatever you want. But

10:19

for men, there is this huge movement

10:21

constantly telling men, you need to do

10:23

this, you need to act like this,

10:26

you can't do these things, you can't

10:28

say that things. to the point where

10:30

if you're a man who cares about

10:32

being in shape you're a misogynist somehow

10:34

because you want to keep your body in

10:37

shape. I mean it's gotten to the point

10:39

where it's so ridiculous that I

10:41

think the average man looks out

10:43

on social media and looks out

10:45

on the content and the conversation

10:47

around masculinity and just kind of

10:50

throws his hands up and is

10:52

like I'll be back. when y'all are

10:54

done with this bullshit. I'll check back

10:56

into society when you start to like

10:58

end this nonsense because this is crazy.

11:00

And so I think to wrap this

11:02

up, what I really want to drive

11:04

home is that we need a more

11:07

positive vision for men and masculinity. You

11:09

know, if you're somebody out there, if

11:11

you're a man that's trying to work

11:13

on himself, or if you're a single

11:15

mom trying to raise a son, you

11:18

need to have a positive vision for

11:20

men and masculinity. And we need

11:22

to eradicate this absolute bullshit

11:24

garbage notion that we can tell

11:27

men that the world is better off

11:29

without them. Men already kill themselves way

11:31

more than women do. And they do

11:34

that in part, if you look into

11:36

the data in their research, which Richard

11:38

Reeves has talked about a lot, they

11:41

do that in part because they feel

11:43

useless, right? A man's ability to

11:45

contribute to family, to society,

11:48

to society, to culture. is

11:50

incredibly important to him. And when

11:52

we take that away and we say you're

11:54

not wanted, you're not needed, I'm going

11:56

to reject the opportunities for you to

11:58

develop the skills to contribute. to provide

12:00

to add value for your life

12:02

and the people around you, then

12:05

men will fundamentally suffer. And we

12:07

see this happening. And so we

12:09

need to create more positive

12:11

visions, role models, opportunities for

12:13

men to step into. Second,

12:15

guys, if you are somebody

12:18

that is struggling personally

12:20

and you've got caught up in

12:22

this rhetoric of all men bad, all

12:24

men the problem, you know, world would

12:26

be better off without men. and you're

12:29

not really too sure where

12:31

to start, start to pursue

12:33

some type of adventure, IRL,

12:35

in real life, get off

12:38

of online forums, get off

12:40

of the online conversations, pursue

12:43

adventure in real life, like

12:45

go hike in the woods, go

12:47

camp, go touch grass, go

12:49

sleep under the stars, plan

12:51

a solo trip somewhere that,

12:54

you know, seems wild, like you know.

12:56

Motorcycle through Thailand, backpack through Italy. I

12:58

don't know what it is for you.

13:00

Go pursue some adventure in real life. Maybe

13:02

that just means that you go to the

13:05

local bar and you talk to a woman.

13:07

You know, and like that's that's the adventure

13:09

that you pursue just to see what

13:11

happens, just to see how it goes.

13:13

Start to pursue some real adventure in

13:15

your life so that you have some

13:17

aliveness. I mean, I read through a

13:19

lot of the comments of men that

13:21

are struggling, whether they're young or they're

13:23

old. And my gosh, does it sound

13:25

bleak? You know, I think for a

13:27

lot of the men that are out

13:29

there, it just feels and sounds bleak.

13:32

And how you combat when you

13:34

feel bleak and hopeless in life

13:36

is by saying yes to adventure.

13:38

I mean, this is the whole point

13:40

of most of what Homer wrote about

13:43

in the Odyssey and the Iliad, right?

13:45

It's like we have to say yes

13:47

to adventure. Otherwise, stagnation and

13:49

mediocrity and a kind

13:51

of bleak mundane... You know

13:53

cover just starts to come over our

13:56

psyche and our hearts and our soul.

13:58

So say yes to adventure. And then

14:00

lastly, as I was talking about

14:02

before, start to take risks.

14:04

We need to encourage young men

14:07

and men in general to take

14:09

some risks, to start to fail,

14:11

and to start to develop

14:13

the ability to know how to

14:15

take risks, to get better at

14:17

saying, yes, this is a smart

14:19

risk that I can take. But

14:21

if we don't allow them to

14:23

fail and stumble and get things

14:25

wrong, if you never allow yourself

14:27

as a man to develop the

14:29

skill of being able to take

14:31

risks because risks take you on

14:33

a very specific adventure. You will

14:35

suffer as a man because there

14:37

is some type of correlation, and

14:40

maybe I should do another video

14:42

on this, there's some type

14:44

of correlation between you having a

14:46

very deep level of self-respect as

14:48

a man and your ability and

14:51

your competency in being able to

14:53

take risks because risks take you

14:55

on a very specific adventure. So

14:58

take some risks today, tomorrow, this

15:00

week, let that be your mission

15:02

for a little while, and for

15:04

the love of all that is

15:07

holy, can we all stop feeding

15:09

into this narrative that men are

15:11

just point blank the problem to

15:13

everything that the world would be

15:16

better off without men. The world

15:18

would literally collapse in a matter

15:20

of hours if men just disappeared.

15:23

Everything would fall apart immediately

15:25

because men are necessary and

15:27

so are women. Anyway, I'd love

15:29

to hear why you think

15:32

men are in decline. I'd

15:34

love to hear your take

15:36

and your thoughts on this

15:38

conversation, specifically about the demonization

15:40

of men over the last

15:42

few decades. And don't forget

15:45

to man it forward. Don't

15:47

forget to subscribe to the

15:49

channel. Until next week, Connor

15:52

Beaton, signing off.