A Crisis In Masculinity

In the News(The Telegraph): “There is a crisis in modern masculinity, with men struggling to deal with pressures in their personal and professional lives, according to a report by the mental health charity CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably). …

“Suicide is now the single biggest cause of death in men aged 20-49 in England and Wales, with males accounting for 78 per cent of all suicides in the UK. Female suicide rates, in comparison, are declining. …

“Roughly half of all the 1,000 men and women surveyed said they had experienced some form of depression, yet women were much more likely to seek help or confide in a friend. 74pc of women who had suffered depression said they had spoken to someone about it, while only 53pc of males had done so. 69pc of men who had suffered depression said they preferred to deal with the problem themselves.

“When it came to work, 42pc of men said they felt pressure to be the main breadwinner in the family, compared to just 13pc of females. Of those surveyed, men were much more likely to have lost their jobs previously (54pc compared to 35pc of females) and to have lost their job more than once (25 pc compared to 10pc of women). 29pc of men believed their partner would think they were ‘less of a man’ if they lost their job.

“When asked about relationships, around three in 10 men felt that they personally lacked qualities and abilities that sexual or romantic partners look for in a man. …

“Men also felt additional pressure to remain strong during times of crisis. Around 42pc of male respondants said they believe a man is ‘mostly responsible’ for being emotionally strong and taking charge in a crisis, compared to around 17pc of women.

“Speaking of the findings, CALM’s chief executive Jane Powell said: ‘The research underlines that so often their own worst enemies, men need new rules for survival. Outmoded, incorrect and misplaced male self-beliefs are proving lethal and the traditional strong, silent response to adversity is increasingly failing to protect men from themselves.”

In the News (The Guardian): “Philip Zimbardo is a superstar mainstay of introductory undergraduate courses in psychology – well, a lot of them. He’s the man behind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, which provided insights into the psychological impact of being placed in either a position of power, or powerlessness in a confined prison setting. But in a new book out this last week, Zimbardo’s focus has shifted to – in his view – something much more concerning. Zimbardo thinks that there is a crisis in menfolk going on, and it’s all the fault of video games and porn.

“One of the main concerns that Zimbardo and Coulombe seem to have is that young men are playing video games to excess, and that they are using games as a form of extreme escapism from the worries and responsibilities of real life.”

My Comment: It is possible to detach from the screen only through an enticing of life that the screen cannot provide. When a man discovers that there is an exit to the next level of consciousness and existence, he will detach his attention from the screen, from the games and so on, and enter into contact with people like him to attain an exit to a higher dimension.
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