Un- and Under-employed Men: Chickens Are Roosting

An original essay by me. :)

---

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/us/what-is-antifa-trnd/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/13/us/white-nationalism-explainer-trnd/index.html

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know about Charlottesville, the white nationalist protesters and the fatal incident that took place there recently, and the counter-protesters that massed in protest.

Indeed, the white nationalists represent a direct challenge to American democracy.  Their numbers are growing.  This is not good.  Counter-protesters predictably appear, and that is good.  If groups proclaiming racial supremacy along with extremist nationalist positions went unchallenged by counter-protests, I'd be very worried for America.  Well, not that I'm not anyway.  But I'd be worried even more.

At this point in US history the biggest threat to American democracy is us-them thinking.  More generally, you're either with "us" or you're against "us".  Extreme positions and attitudes give rise to the same in an effort to counter them.  This leaves modes of thought that are willing and able to entertain multiple POVs and respond to non-reason with reason with little quarter, at least among those who could most benefit from them.

One can argue that the antifa bloc is less anti-fascist and more pro-Marxist.  Yes, Marxists are still among us.  Perhaps one reason Marxists and fascists fight so much against each other is because the net results of their philosophies are quite similar: loss of human and political rights, extreme responses to violations of law (political "offenses" such as membership, even informally, in some group or other, are capital crimes, for example), uncompromising demands for conformity, the merger of political and industrial interests, etc.  The justifications may be very different but the outcomes are the same.

Today's antifa people are not quite the same ideologically as the antifa people in Germany in the 1930s.  Nor are America's white nationalists cut from quite the same cloth as the Nazis of the time.  Still, close enough.  The antifa bloc now violently represents the concerns of various types of extremist so-called progressives.  Antifa demonstrators are fine with shutting up opposition to their ideas via violence.  So too it seems are a fair number of SJW types on college campuses.  Goes without needing to say that white nationalists agree that violence and threats are also warranted in silencing opposition.  And both groups of people are seeing a growth in numbers.

Violent political groups, or groups that accept violence as a means of influencing domestic political outcomes, have always been with us and probably always will be.  Their presence is worrisome perhaps but so long as their numbers are small, their presence is at least bearable.  And in the name of free speech and the right of a free people to form associations, their presence must be borne.  But what happens when their numbers start to grow and they start to become active?  When they begin to hold rallies, conventions, etc.?  And when inevitably, "the other side" shows up to counter-protest?  Violence is inevitable.

So it'd seem this state of affairs is unavoidable.  At least, the existence of such groups seems inevitable in a free republic.  But is the expansion of either such group inevitable?  No.  But when is the expansion likely?

I have a question.  Who makes up the ranks of these groups?  Are they made up of men, women, and children?  Do those who attend these rallies or gatherings take time off work to go?  "Hi boss, can I have this Friday and next Monday off?  I need to go to the XYZ rally to support _________ (white nationalism, anti-fascism, etc.)."

No.  They are made up *principally* of young men.  Needless to say, the white nationalist members are young white men.  As for the antifa groups, they are made up largely of young men, indeed most of them also white.  It should come as no surprise given American demographics.  But it is the nature of the tactics and approach combined with the sex of the members that is telling.  History it seems is bent on repeating itself, again.  And the cast of characters is the same, generally speaking.  The communists and Nazis in Weimar Germany look a lot like the white nationalists and antifa protesters do today: young white men.  What else do they have in common?  Un- and under-employment.

How many young Amish men can you count among the white nationalists and antifa people?  Answer: None.  Is that because there are none who have sympathies with either side?  Hmmm, I bet there are some who could be counted on to have sympathies with one or another side.  After all, there are a fair number of Amish in America, having a diverse opinion on many matters.

You may laugh and quickly point out that the Amish are anabaptists, characterized by pacifism as a response to violence.  Additionally, anabaptists tend to live in a state of general apartness from the modern world, interacting with it only as required, preferring pre-industrialized farming as a lifestyle.   So how likely is it that Amish men could be found among the white nationalists or the antifa protesters?  Pretty thin.  But why?

The answer is: Work. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, indeed.  Having a job to do, to focus on, and responsibilities to tend to, keeps many people away from activities that are not constructive, good for them, or good for others.  When it comes to men, I have noticed, nothing could be more true.

There may be a number of reasons why you won't catch anabaptist men marching in white nationalist groups, or with groups of antifa protesters wearing black hoods and face-coverings, running around throwing bricks, burning cars, etc.  But let me assert that there is a PRIMARY reason why you are very unlikely to find them there: there's work to be done.  Animals need feeding and tending.  Fields need plowing.  Children need teaching and minding.  And to be apart from the women-folk too long would be bad for both men-folk and the ladies.  So Amish men stick close to farm and family.

Do these mostly-young-men in the white nationalist movement and among the antifa groups have steady jobs?  Do they have responsibilities that require their presence at home?  In some cases, yes.  But I will speculate that in most cases, no.  Exactly how they are getting by, I couldn't say.  Perhaps some live with their parents.  Perhaps some make ends meet with part-time or under-the-table jobs.  But how many of these young men work 40-hour/week jobs and/or have a wife and children?  I will speculate very few.

The one thing, I speculate, that the members of both groups have in common is that they are un- or under-employed.  I don't know if anyone has tried studying them but I bet there are commonalities among them, with the biggest differences perhaps being their ideologies.  The software is different running in their heads.  But the hardware is the same: Male minds, male bodies.  Only a very small percentage of American men are white nationalists or antifa members, smaller still the number ready to go out and rally or protest violently.  If only a total of 5,000 people are willing to act violently in either camp, this comes to 0.000015% of the US population.  Not what I'd call a big representation.  But they get headlines.  And what do they have in common?  Nearly ALL of them are young men with little in the way of employment.

Governments fear men.  Men, after all, are much more likely to overthrow governments than are women.  Men are also their primary source of power.  Without men at arms, they have no means of policy enforcement.  They have no armies, nor a police force to speak of.  They cannot maintain civilization without men.  Most people who make up the government itself are men.

But men are increasingly more idle, generally, as time goes on.  Automation is making men working in production facilities economically undesirable when compared to the cost of automation.  Thus, men of limited education are more idle or under-employed than ever.  Even men with college or better educations are more idle/unemployable than ever.

The male spirit seems to crave challenges, causes, reasons and ways to express itself.  Not to say the female spirit doesn't.  I will assert most politically incorrectly however that the two kinds of spirits seek expression, in general, in different ways.  Left with little route to express itself, the frustrated male spirit may seek ways to find expression that when combined with wrong-headed ideas lead to destructive forms of expression.

Back to the software analogy.  Men's bodies and brains are capable of doing extraordinary things indeed.  Our entire civilization has men to thank for what it has and is.  It is the product of men whose brains had the right software running in them.  Arguably, this programming evolved in them as a consequence of nurture and being put to work.  From these influences, we enjoy the fruits of men's minds throughout the centuries.  But what do we get when the hardware that is men's bodies and minds gets programmed by wrong-headed ideas and a lack of work?  Most times, the result is wasted lives, wasted talents, lost opportunities.  But sometimes, it results in what we see today in some places at some times.

As men are increasingly unemployable generally, with misandry colonizing colleges and male enrollment in higher education continuing to decline, the numbers of unemployable men in our society will continue to grow.  Not all men are members of white nationalist or antifa groups.  Far from it.  But most members thereof are indeed men: unemployable or under-employed men.  Men with male spirits, men's bodies, men's minds, men's abilities, and a certain set of ideas that do not typically seek peacable solutions to problems.

Would it be reasonable to suspect that as the number of unemployable or under-employed, under-educated men continues to grow, the ranks of both the white nationalists and antifa groups will continue to grow?

Correlation does not imply causation.  I get that.  But I speculate that we will indeed see the numbers of both groups continue to grow as the percentage of men with "too much time on their hands" keeps growing.

Weimar Germany had large numbers of unemployed young men in it.  We saw where that went.

In contrast, how many agrarian societies with few or no cities in them have created fascist or otherwise ideologically extremist governments?  I do not believe history has once seen this, unless you count monarchical gov't as an extremist form.  Nor do I believe this is just happenstance.  I believe the men in those societies were simply far too busy with work and family duties to even entertain extremism, much less pursue it.

Both myself and others have suggested that as men become increasingly idle and/or without a sense of necessary place in the society their forefathers made possible to exist, there would be an inevitable increase in bad-things-happening, social unrest and political violence being among the biggest.

The chickens are only just beginning to come home to roost.  More chickens are on the way.  Question is, how big is the roost and just how many chickens can it hold?  Eventually, the roost will collapse.

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

I received a good comment via email re my essay. He suggested the issue is more that they feel they lack a place in society. Indeed, we've seen this before. Minus the politicization or organization generally, excepting the Black Panthers, et al., we've seen rates of violence among young black men skyrocket as their jobs have been replaced by automation and fatherlessness took hold in the wake of US gov't policies that effectively encouraged it. Idleness leads to trouble.

Also, in Japanese history, shortly after the end of the Warring States era, thousands of masterless samurai ("ronin" as they were called, meaning "wave-people" because they wandered around homeless and unemployed) dotted the countryside. Shogun (lit.: "First Soldier", in essence the actual leader of Japan, ranked only by the Emperor who was at the time and still is a figurehead) Tokugawa Ieyasu realized these men represented a danger to the fragile stability he had imposed on the politics of the nation, so he financed the building of hundreds of monasteries and shrines all over Japan and offered the ronin a deal: Put up your swords and go be warriors for Buddha, and the state will take care of you. This gave the ronin an honorable way to exit the sword-carrying business and have a place in society that was respectable.

It worked like gang-busters. In a few short years nearly all the ronin had either become Buddhist monks or priests, or found other ways to get by that didn't include sword-fencing, though some established kendo schools to keep the traditions alive.

Really, these men just needed a place in society that was acceptable to themselves and others. Being a Buddhist monk entails working, too, to sustain the monastery with food, etc. There are to this day still monasteries operating in Japan that were founded in the 17th century when it all started.

Can the western world do something like this? It already did. During the Depression, the WPA employed 10s of 1,000s of under-occupied teenage boys and men doing necessary things to build out infrastructure in the western states. Not the same as establishing monasteries (a clear church-state violation if done in the US) but it gave them stuff to do. Roman legions likewise when h@ving no battles to fight were put to work on doing things like building roads, dams, bridges, etc., which in some cases are still in use today in Europe.

I feel the gov'ts of the West can either start applying these kinds of imaginitive remedies or face ever-increasing problems of civil unrest with disenfranchised younger men continuing to lead the charge. It's up to them.

Like0 Dislike0

Man stabbed after haircut gets him mistaken for a neo-Nazi

'This Colorado man is avowedly not a neo-Nazi.

But he believes his long-on-top, buzzed-on-the-sides haircut got him mistaken for one — and nearly stabbed to death by a confused anti-fascist.

Joshua Witt, 26, escaped his brush with hairdo-doom with a defensive slice to the hand and three stitches.

“Apparently, my haircut is considered a neo-Nazi statement,” he told The Post Saturday, as his account on Facebook garnered 20,000 shares.

Witt says he’d just pulled in to the parking lot of the Steak ’n Shake in Sheridan, Colo., and was opening his car door.

“All I hear is, ‘Are you one of them neo-Nazis?’ as this dude is swinging a knife up over my car door at me,” he said.

“I threw my hands up and once the knife kind of hit, I dived back into my car and shut the door and watched him run off west, behind my car.

“The dude was actually aiming for my head,” he added.

“I was more in shock because I was just getting a milkshake.”

Witt says he has no tattoos or regalia that would finger him for a fascist. His pals are messaging him on Facebook with the only rationale they can come up with: “They say it’s my haircut.”

He’s thinking of changing his look, he says.'

May I further suggest that aside from a steady job and a sense of place in society, more than a few of these fellows could use a good shrink and the right meds. Yeah. Tack that onto it.

Like0 Dislike0

I really enjoy reading what you write. It's always very insightful and logical. Indeed, it is a breath of fresh air from the typical insanity of modern-day life.

It certainly raises a valid concern regarding where society is headed when the unemployment of men is such a widespread problem. Methinks that the governments of the world are finally starting to realize the Pandora's box they opened by letting feminism destroy the family unit and the employment of many men via affirmative action and college misandry.

Like0 Dislike0

Glad someone is enjoying it. I don't write about topics that I can't get jazzed about. I have tried creative writing and it's not bad. Just I get bored with it. Writing about what's happening in reality -- that, I get jazzed about. But non-fiction is typically a bit too history text-ish generally, though I suppose that is to some degree to be expected.

Ideas get my engine going. I like humans just fine. And I can see why some people like writing about them; biogs, etc. I get it. But I am fired up by what's happening in the present and what is fueling it.

I should probably become a plumber or something like that. :)

Like0 Dislike0