So we're quickly reaching the limits of private ownership. Think about it, there's finite material, finite land and resources on this planet. If you say people get to own it, all of it, you leave this problem for generations to come in which there is a diminishing pool of property for them to possess. This is assuming we allow dynasty building in which property is concentrated into fewer hands, which has been the most recent historical trend. The result is fewer owners and more renters, which is in effect to take people out of the game and put them on the sidelines and people on the sidelines tend to get drunk and fuck about while the games going on. The engine of capitalism is the right to own property, because it entails an obligation to be responsible for that property. When you remove this opportunity you take away a major incentive to act in socially productive ways because you're reduced to always paying tribute to someone else.
This economic disempowerment is increasing as the world settles into a neofuedalism. Not only does one often not get to own their dwelling, but also their car, their education which looms over them further delaying or preventing home ownership, they don't get to own major appliances because they have no home to furnish. They don't own their culture e.g. the books they read, the music they hear, the movies they see, and even the video games they play. I mean this in a very visceral way because of the controversy over copying and intellectual property. The things they do get to own are of decreasing quality, which is what makes them cheap enough to be owned. This has been offset in television and computers which are fairly affordable considering their recent advancements. Video games also have a lot more replay value than movies, plus they can be selectively social outlets, again referencing this temporality of interactions and investments. So you're two best quality items are technology that suit using the internet and playing video games. Everything else is cheap crap intended to be disposable so you'll just buy another. We're a buy short, fuck the long term culture. It's amusing because as the quality of what's peddled to us decreases the quality of satire, parody and our disposition towards it increases. So we've moved into this age in which people trade in culture by deoconstructing it e.g. Mystery Science Theater, The Onion, Angry Video Game Nerd, The Daily show etc, all things that appeal to the young male video game playing pornography addict.
You don't have job prospects, those you do have posses all the power to set the terms of your employment, which is expected to be temporary. No longer does one settle into a one company or even one industry. You're expected to always be running, even if you're not getting anywhere. You don't have healthcare, or you pay out the ass on premiums and deductibles and hope to never use it. Needless to say people's social lives suffer for this. When going out costs money or time you don't have or confidence you've lost from all the failures you seem to face day to day. There's been moral panic after moral panic so now dating and marriage which has always been institutionalized as a merger of business interests and social rank now has moral hazard. A man pursing a woman isn't clearly the default and when that's not in question we have to live in this fear based society of date rape, stranger danger, kidnapping, public perverts, etc. Sex is simultaneously publicly everywhere, glamorized and air brushed but ignorant, embarrassing and scary when experienced on the personal level. This hypervigilance to relatively improbable events raises the expectations for social interactions being as "normal" as possible because we allow for such volatile ostracization of those who deviate from social norms. This is where it's important to point out there's an underlying assumption about the sample of young men we're talking about. What this article is most probably addressing in my opinion is white young professional age males from social climber families. Basically middle class backgrounds. I don't think this is really concerned too much with working class or minority males, even though they face the same issues and I'm sure the same problems presented by freely available porn and games not to mention a lack of empowerment.
These are people who were told they are great and because of this failure is not acceptable. They had potential but so feared the stigma of failure they avoid adversity and don't fully appreciate their own abilities. It's like an abusive relationship, the person is capable of making the choice to leave but have psychological blinders that limit their apparent options for remedy. This especially difficult because what is needed is a change in cultural disposition, essentially the overthrow of their parents. You have to stand up to everyone who came before you and say, "The system of life you've known is no longer adequate; the clothes that fit the body politic as a child are too small for how it's grown." We need new norms and archetypes and right now we're in that painful period of transition were there is no comforting conventional wisdom and we realize just how far we are from the familiar past that had always been the status quo.
We have what George Carlin called the "illusion of choice" so we were free to make all the trivial decisions we want but anything important was monopolized and limited. This is particularly relevant in our political choices. People are disaffected and feel that their votes don't matter and even if they did it would be to choose one of two people, neither of whom they liked. We're brought up to believe in this schizophrenic world view in which this is the land of the free but you have to pay to play and so "No" is all one hears. This is positive freedom, the ability to meaningfully engage the options one supposedly is unfettered in pursuing. I remember as a kid being blown away when I first went to an amusement park at the absurdity of it all. Here is a place that markets itself as the funnest fucking place on earth, and you can't do anything. Anything that's actually a decent prize or a good time costs too much. My parents, being sensible spend thrift people, just limited themselves to the cheap thrills, but even you have the added cost of time spent waiting with everyone else who had the same idea. And that really describes america as you would experience it today, there are great, shiny, wonderful things but most people aren't going to have the money to partake, regardless of their freedom to pursue it. It's very disheartening.
At the same the time the identity of the american male has gone from threatened to complete disarray. I think this process started during the end of the cold war with the advances feminism was making. The result to group identities when threatened it to flee to ideological purity. You're seeing now with the republican party and you're seeing it today with american men. Or rather you've seen it. I think the 80s and 90s were really the height of male gender identity hysteria and since then we've settled into an unhappy acceptance. Which is why you see action movies today like the reboot of Casino Royale where bond isn't just tortured he's emasculated. It's why you see movies like Hurt Locker, or even Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in which the male, Daniel Craig again, is the effete victim and the punk rock chick is the balls to the wall heroine. Contrast with the legacy of Rambo, Die Hard, Commando, etc. We still have action movies, but I think the loss of the cold war really took the blinders off as to the sociopathic, one dimensional, and really damaged people that were being idealized to young men.
We are overpopulated, that should be a less and less controversial view and the question arises, with all these excess people, particularly men, why is there no war? I mean, my understanding historically is that a population would best make use of an excess supply of males to wage war and that's not exactly happening. It is in Iraq and Afghanistan, but think about all the men who spend their time killing each other online. Essentially a constant, mass virtual war.
TL;DR So basically life as a modern male is like being stuck on a layover at the airport and there's nothing to do but play games and sneak off to the bathrooms to spank it.
