The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Unwanted and Unloved: Younger Americans Are Facing a Lonely Future

Posted on | September 15, 2023 | Comments Off on Unwanted and Unloved: Younger Americans Are Facing a Lonely Future

When my children were little, I quickly discovered a cause for concern that most people never seem to notice: What was the point of raising my children properly, if everybody else was raising their children wrong?

Eventually, you see, my sons and daughters would grow up and find spouses, and what were the chances they could find a decent spouse who shared the values with which we tried to imbue our children? Could it be that, in striving to raise our kids properly, we were at risk of making them misfits, who couldn’t relate to their peers? Perhaps it was from consideration of such factors that I first became interested in what is known as “The Culture War.” Sarah Hoyt at Instanpundit recently linked to an article by Tom Knighton, in which he contemplates what he calls “a fraught landscape for young men,” the root cause of which is the so-called “empowerment” of women in our society. Knighton first cites further evidence (as if more evidence were needed) that “our educational system actually favors women in many ways,” creating “a situation where young men are disfavored and operating at a disadvantage from day one,” so that “it’s not surprising that women graduate college at a much higher rate than men.” Knighton then references an article by Olivia Reingold in the Free Press about “a growing number of young men who are withdrawing from the dating pool”:

More than six in ten men aged 18 to 29 are now single, up from about five in ten in 2019, according to data from Pew Research Center. Respondents give a range of reasons for their singlehood, including having “more important priorities,” the fact they “just like being single,” or that they’ve gotten “too old” to keep trying. . . .
“The traditional markers of adulthood like buying a home, completing college, and getting married, are all becoming far harder to achieve,” [sociologist Jess] Carbino said. “Many men perceive themselves to be far less marriageable. And in turn, many women perceive them to be less marriageable, too.”
She says it’s never been easy to be Joe Average on the dating market but things are rougher now that the average man’s salary, which hovers just above $61,000 in the U.S., is hardly enough to afford rent in most major American cities. Yet still, many women hold out for men who make not just as much or more than they do, but are also wildly attractive.
While the sexual revolution freed women from depending on men for income or stability, it also means they can privilege more “frivolous” qualities in a mate, says Rob Henderson, a psychology PhD with a Substack on social mores.
“People used to care a bit more deeply about moral character and hard work, and whether the person was an ethical and upstanding citizen,” he tells me. “And now, you don’t have to worry about that quite as much. And you can sort of focus on things that are just, like, more immediate, like attraction.”
The result? Men at the tip-top of the dating pool get everything. And the men who don’t have it all get nothing.

This is a blunt assessment of the real-life impact of women’s “empowerment.” Perceiving themselves to hold all the cards — to possess every advantage in life, compared to men — college-educated women feel that male companionship, per se, is without value. Such women are, therefore, only interested in high-status men who are wealthy and/or extraordinarily attractive. This is the toxic stew of contemporary dating culture that so-called “red pill” analysts like Rollo Tomassi describe.

Most parents of my generation are clueless about the problems facing their children in the world of 21st-century relationships — and their kids know it, so that most young people never listen to parental advice on such matters. Why should they? All the moral and cultural norms that existed 30 or 40 years ago have been destroyed by the subversive forces of “progress,” to say nothing of how technology has altered the dating world in the era of Instagram, Tinder, etc. Adults who came of age in the 1980s or ’90s generally cannot understand or relate to the problems affecting young people, and if I have any greater understanding of these problems than most of my generational peers, it’s simply because (a) it’s part of my job, as a journalist, to pay attention to cultural trends, and (b) having raised six kids, I’ve had an unusually large opportunity to observe changes in the way young people view relationships.

Remember the case of Mackenzie Lueck, the University of Utah sorority sister who was murdered by a guy she met via “sugar daddy” dating sites? That a college girl from a respectable middle-class background should have been engaged in such behavior was shocking, but her friends refused to condemn her behavior, saying that criticism was “hurtful.”

Hey, kids, you know what’s more hurtful than criticism? Getting murdered because you were whoring around. But these “empowered” young women, like Mackenzie Lueck’s Alpha Chi Omega sorority sisters, have been raised with the attitude that they should be exempt from criticism, no matter what they do. Feminism has become a sort of carte blanche, an license to do as they please, with the assurance that any negative consequences of their behavior are not their fault.

Women are always blame-free, not responsible for (entirely predictable) outcomes of their ill-advised decisions. Remember Ella Dawson, the young feminist who made her name a synonym for herpes?

“The fact is the ‘respectable girl from a nice family in Connecticut’ ship has already sailed.”
— Ella Dawson, July 2014

Why would a woman deliberately publicize the fact that she’s infected with an incurable sexually transmitted disease? To reduce “stigma,” was the defense offered by Dawson and her feminist comrades, as if there were no reason why herpes should be stigmatized. The syllogism of “empowerment” tells such women that anything they want to do is OK, including whoring around until you catch herpes, and therefore the predictable consequences should never be viewed negatively.

Being a “respectable girl from a nice family” is wrong, Ella Dawson is saying. Young women should never even think about trying to be “respectable” or “nice,” because this would prevent them from becoming “empowered” (and herpes-infected) like her. It is not enough that she is free to be a self-proclaimed “slut.” Everyone else must be slutty, too.

How mainstream is this sort of feminism? Ella Dawson’s immoral message was endorsed in 2016 by none other than Hillary Clinton:

When leading public figures are encouraging and praising such behavior by young women, what are the chances that your son can find a “respectable girl from a nice family” to marry? Even if your son is the kind of high-status male who doesn’t have a problem attracting female companionship — tall, handsome, athletic, extroverted, etc. — there simply are not many young women nowadays who have anything like good moral values. Young women are encouraged to be selfish, materialistic pleasure-seekers, the type of immature hedonists that no intelligent parent would want their son to marry. Just look at Susanna Gibson, the Democrat running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates who whored herself out in “HotWifeExperience” videos.

In a world where women are encouraged in such behavior — Gibson is endorsed by Virginia’s former governor, Richmond’s mayor and U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, among others — is anyone really surprised to learn that “a growing number of young men . . . are withdrawing from the dating pool”? Love becomes impossible, when people become unlovable. Doesn’t love require respect and admiration? How could any man respect or admire Mrs. “HotWifeExperience”? Clearly her husband (who participated in those videos with her) has no respect for her.

When people cease even to try behaving in such a manner as to deserve respect — when they not only act immorally, but openly encourage and celebrate immorality — what are the ultimate consequences? An increase in loneliness is certainly among these consequences.

In this degenerate age, simply being a good person is an act of rebellion. Fortunately for my kids, they come from a long line of rebels. And, strange to say, all my kids are quite popular. Weird how that works.



 

Category: Culture, Feminism, Sex

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