I agree with this, though I think the problem lies as much with these “men’s groups” as it does with the surrounding cultural atmosphere. I’ve seen multiple groups form on the web around work like Farrell’s, and, using David Deida’s stages, the ones that tend to get the most traction appear to be either expressions of stage 1 masculinity (e.g. incel culture, PUA culture, and many aspects of “red pill” culture) or, less commonly, stage 2 masculinity (e.g. groups that focus on their own victimization — however, I think many men’s groups are reacting to the “feminization” of men that we commonly see at stage 2, which has been held as ideal masculinity by the green altitude for decades now.) Either way, most of these groups I’ve seen have largely been reactive, and almost totally anti-feminist in orientation.

I think that in order to succeed and actually rise to the challenges of our time, we need to see groups that are organized around more integrated stage-3 masculine principles — which can better integrate masculine and feminine polarities, transclude the fruits of the feminism project, and blaze a new path that speaks more directly to men’s dignity and helps them better align their strength, their vulnerability, and their capacity to execute their vision.

Very well said, and totally congruent with how I see things, which is that “patriarchy” has come to be commonly defined as the “hitherto male-dominated public sphere” (as opposed to the traditionally female-dominated private sphere) — the result of a once-consensual and necessary division of labor, but one that has since become largely outmoded and made obsolete by the continued unfolding of culture and technology. I think that “patriarchy” in modern terms has come to describe the inertial resistance and residue as our modern self-organizing systems were disrupted and forcefully re-organized by women moving en masse into the public sphere for the first time. Social autopoiesis is a bitch, especially in rapidly changing times.

Thus “patriarchy” is not a historic oppression of victimized women by sociopathic men, it’s the Zone-7 inertia of our public-sphere systems being forced to transform at a rapidly accelerating force. Which means that “patriarchy” as we know it today is actually a very recent phenomenon, and emerged right alongside women’s suffrage. And there have been very real and often injurious patterns of resistance that have taken generations to identify and overcome as women began to occupy the public sphere, and I imagine will continue for generations to come.

And here’s the thing — men are encountering very similar resistances and inertias when it comes to their relationship with the “private sphere”. The major differences being, men have no organizing force telling them they should value the private sphere as much as the public, as compared to women who have spent the past century trying to master both. However, much of this comes down to transformations in the LR quadrant — in America, the combination of industrial mass production technologies, and the need for women to labor in factories during WWII, created a cultural tipping point and irrevocably altered the social fabric, bringing women into an entirely new relationship with the public sphere.

Men have not yet encountered an equivalent LR-quadrant push out of the public sphere and into the private sphere, and therefore the “men’s movement” is still a full century behind the feminist project. However, my sense is that the “automation age” that will emerge over the next two decades will begin this process, as men are suddenly forced to cultivate an identity that is not so dependent upon work, money, and social status.

I often use myself as an example — because of the new freedoms our technology allows us, I am able to do the vast majority of my work from home with my laptop, and thus have the opportunity to be far more directly involved with raising my daughter and being present for her — an opportunity I know the vast majority of men throughout history have not had. I have the freedom to find my own balance between the private and public spheres, and to craft an identity and a sense of personal meaning that includes both. (Not that I hold myself as a paragon of fully integrated stage-3 masculinity, but at least I have the time, space, and energy to do the work.)

So the opportunities for men to take this next step and to form a worthwhile men’s movement that is aligned and integrated with healthy feminism are increasing. My only question is, will it be able to successfully coalesce and gain traction in this culture of social-media-induced aperspectival madness? I am somewhat less confident of that — and in fact, I would say that many/most of the regressive stage-1 masculine cultures I described above are themselves the inevitable expressions of this madness. We shall see…

My life experience is similar, but with some differences. I had certain problems beginning in early childhood.

According to social norms, I had a learning disability which meant I didn’t learn like other people, although I always had a curious mind and measured high on fluid intelligence. Specifically, my learning dsability is a “word finding” issue. It has to do with word and fact recall, even when I knew the info. For example, as a child, I might not have been able to give the name of a close friend when asked.

This involved to learning things in webs of relationships, rather than as isolated factoids. Or rather this chunking of info was a compensatry skill that I learned from a learning disability therapist, an ability often picked up by high-functioning autistics. That period in the '80s was the beginning of the research on word finding and I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to benefit from it.

Nonetheless, it didn’t make my childhood all that easier. I still hated school and struggled. A contributing factor is I’ve also had social and personality issues, but this aspect was never fully diagnosed. There was depression early on, although even the diagnosis for that only came after a suicide attempt during college.

I’m of an old enough age to have grown up before they handed out lots of diagnoses. This was a point of frustration. Even my depression had no real explanation, as my childhood was relatively comfortable and non-traumatic. It felt like I had no good reason and, according to hyper-indivdualism, the fault must be some kind of character flaw and failing of moral essence.

A factor might’ve been lead toxicity, as I spent my earliest years in a factory town that did pump out air pollution with lead in it. My generation, GenX, did have the highest lead toxicity rates in recent history. But no one was talking about that much in the past and it still barely gets passing mention in the corporate media.

Along with depression, I vaguely recall the psychiatrist speaking of something along the lines of a “thought disorder”. I was put on Risperdal which is an anti-psychotic but also used for depression. But having self-diagnosed myself as an adult, it seems I’m either what used to be called Aspsergers’ or the more common but less well known specific language impairment, both of which can impair social behavior.

Here is the thing. I’m certain my issues were largely social and environmental, not merely personal as would be explained by genetic determinists (and social Darwinists), but that isn’t to say genetics along with epigenetics wouldn’t have been part of it. That sense of an unfair and unjust society that blames the individual has caused me a lot of anger and despair over the decades and part of me is surprised I’ve lived this long.

I somehow made it to middle age, just having turned 45. Recent changes in diet, variations of low-carb, finally made the worst aspects of chronic depression to disappear. Yet a lifetime of depressive habits of mind and relating remain in place. I’m trying to relearn how to not be depressed at a late stage in life.

For all that I’ve been through, it’s never occurred to me to frame my own issues as part of a “boy crisis”. I’m not sure why that it is. I guess I don’t feel convinced that our society is easier on girls than boys. Sure, girls do relatively better in education, but then they do relatively worse outside of education. Plenty of prejudice remains against women.

Life can be shitty for both sexes, if in different ways. I tend to see race and class being far more significant. And on that level, I’ve always acknowledged that I have relative privilege. If I was an inner city black boy or poor white girl, life would be a thousand times harder than what I’ve had to deal with. I’ve always had a strong sense of how much worse things are for most people in the world. Simply to be born in a Western country puts even poor minorities at an advantage as compared to most other countries.

Struggle and suffering is always relative. Anyway, it’s pointless to participate in the oppression Olympics in aguing that one’s suffering is greater and more important than everyone else’s. My sense is that there is a real crisis going on and it’s negatively affecting most people across demographic divides.

In a sense, there is a boy crisis, particularly for disadvantaged boys. But that might not be the best way to frame it, as it turns a shared crisis into a competition of identity politics. In becoming divided, we are incapable of facing our shared crisis and responding well. It becomes yet another point of demagogic manipulation and reactionary politics.

Part of my attitude is that I grew up in a Green environment. My parents, although conservative Republicans, were going through a socially liberal phase as a young married couple. They raised my brothers and I in hyper-liberal and New Agey churches (Science of Mind and Unity). I internalized feminism and the ideal of the sensitive male before I could understand such things.

Even so, I’ve never reacted to that early upbringing. My childhood remains a happy time of life in many ways. That idealistic upbringing of progressive faith has saved me from fully and permanently falling into cynicism. It has never occurred to me that any of my problems had anything to do with me being male, per se.

My sense of crisis, even from a young age, always focused on larger issues of the entire society. Having grown up in the late Cold War, I was bottlefed on visions of post-apocalyptic dystopias. Overpopulation, pollution, environmental destruction, etc also was heavy on my mind. It seemed to me that this society in general was harmful to pretty much everyone.

That has become ever more clear to me as I’ve aged. In studying history, I’ve come to realize that the sense of mass crisis and moral panic goes back centuries and, in some ways, millennia. All of the main fears that keep popping up first emerged during the Axial Age, the first period of civilization as we know it based on imperialism and individualism.

There are many possible reasons behind this ongoing crisis. There is the increasing hierarchy, authoritarianism, and inequality. Also, there is the individualism that has become hyper-individualism, as opposed to the bundled mind of Buddhism and many tribal societies, which relates to the WEIRD bias we modern Westerners are trapped in. Language plays a big role in this, specifically as shown in linguistic relativity. But I suspect that changes in diet might be among the most key factors.

Whatever it is, much has fundamentally changed about humanity and society. And it’s experienced as fearful and threatening. We focus on narrow issues like the “boy crisis” probably because the larger sense of anxiety and distress is too overwhelming.