Excellent stuff. Entering into what are supposed to be my retirement years against backdrop has me screaming “this isn’t what I signed up for.” But maybe I just didn’t read the fine print.
Spot on. As soon as you mentioned feeling displaced, I mumbled "Marx's alienation" and kept reading. Thanks for getting to the point, which is always the point, which is capitalism has to go if the species is going to survive. That's it, that's the message.
Yes, people think capitalism is just the freedom to buy and sell stuff. Nope. It comes with all kinds of destructive attitudes about the value of humans and the planet, chief among them being that everything exists as potential profit, and has no value until it's converted into some kind of product or asset. How horrible is that?
One of the most hopeful developments of the past few years for me has been seeing a more widespread recognition of the disastrous nature of capitalism as a system. As recently as 2015, it would have been a bit shocking to hear someone publicly blame the ills of western society on capitalism and not just electing the wrong person or party. People are waking up.
I love all your articles and you are correct, it all matters. My ex used to call me a bleeding heart because I cared about world issues. I would rather be a bleeding heart than an incel or a right wing fool. Keep it coming. I love hearing your opinions on important matters.
For at least a century, women have been told, in advertising, that if they bought this or that product, they will become sexually irresistible. We were and are told that we must look, smell, and dress a certain way to be considered desirable. We must be married and, if married, must have children in order to be considered complete. Anyone who did not follow this path was called a freak (I speak from personal experience). Yet there don't appear to be a lot of angry women going around behaving like male 'incels' becuase they did not get what they wanted, or what they were told to want.
I'm not sure that capitalism is entirely to blame. There has been a sea change, socially.
The USA is very sick, socially. and Canada is marching in lockstep. (The term 'incel' was originally coined by a marginalized woman in an article about her 'involuntary celibacy'; a victimizer in Toronto who mowed down 20 women with a panel truck because he could not get a girlfriend claimed that he was the actual victim because he was 'an incel' and the term is now used to describe immature, violent young men.)
There is a general lack of committment, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibility for actions, and a feeling of victimhood that blames all personal problems on 'the other'. The gun worship and political extremism is linked to this because it gives weak men a feeling of power. This attitude has been increasing for at least two generations. Here is an interesting article that describes the possible causes.
Women 'who just want the same thing (the men) want' are considered threats by insecure men. It has little to do with their desire for sex. To some people sex is a way of keeping women subordinate, 'in their place'. Look at the full scale attack on women's rights, at the troglodyte 'representatives' seeking to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1919, the ones who want pregnant women to stay pregnant, to not even have access to contraception. No penalties for men who got them that way.
Yes, it's capitalism. And it's bound up with patriarchy. Capitalism tells women to direct all their rage back inward, so they starve or cut themselves or inject themselves with poison to conform to whatever standards. Women are conditioned to self-harm. Capitalism tells men to buy guns and send all their misery outward. Capitalism makes everyone miserable and then tells them to deal with it in different ways, to maximize profit streams.
I see in this discussion the important recurring question of whether capitalism is intrinsically exploitative and destructive or whether a system that is based on capitalist principles and works for everyone is possible.
When it comes to the question of which change is possible, I like to look at history.
A relevant history book on this question is William Dalrymple. The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire.
It starts in 1600 with the founding of the East India Company, before capitalism and the industrial revolution. The EIC was the first modern corporation traded at a stock exchange. But the EIC did not only innovate trade, markets and economics, it also invented new methods of exploitation of men, women, children and nature. The EIC made profit by trade, yes, but also by maintaining a private army that colonized India and externalized costs from Europe to Asia.
I think the key thing is the sustainable and steady state economies, not economies that depend on unending growth--because that's impossible without causing destruction and resource depletion.
Just so you know, the term incel far predates the Toronto van attack.
It’s been used in its current meaning for over a decade, but was originally coined by a woman of colour who wasn’t angry or entitled, but sad and lonely and talking about the specific experience of people who want to have sex and relationships but who are devalued by society because of their race, weight, etc.
I have updated and rewritten the comment. I've been single for my entire life, and never thought of myself as particuarly victimized in that respect. Solitude is better than a bad relationship. I'm not fond of labeling people as if they were supermarket products. It's another depressing trend in a sick world (and not unique to capitalist societies)
You are correct, and I remember reading that woman's article, and feeling very sorry for her. I'll update my comment to reflect this. The Toronto 'incel' was the first example of a victimizer using this terminology and rendering the original meaning uselss.
I recommend Laura Bates’ book Men Who Hate Women to understand how incel
Culture and its brand of misogyny are not niche at all. Within these allied internet movements including Men Going Their own Way and Pick Up Artists, are lots of overlaps and lots of incubation of ideas that are white supremacist, anti-Semitic, islamophobic, anti-tax, homophobic, transphobic etc. In other words these disaffected communities of men are spaces where white supremacist and fascist - as well as pre-modern thinking is being actively incubated. These are spaces where men are advocating that women deserve abuse and men are entitled to rape them. And we’re in real trouble because when a young man starts to research how to make himself more attractive to girls, a natural insecure question, he’s at risk of going down their indoctrination rabbit hole - esp if his early efforts are unsuccessful.
A friend of mine is a teacher (UK) who says in recent years teen boys have been defending Andrew Tate and arguing that ‘tax is theft.’
Yes, it is Divide and Rule. What happens to a society where so many of its men have been brainwashed into ultra-patriarchal, entitled and misogynistic thinking? It’s a fascist time bomb waiting to go off.
I'll definitely be checking out that book. I agree that we have a huge problem with hopeless young people (men in particular) being radicalized into extremely violent ideologies, and for the mere purpose of making a few dudes rich and powerful. Our government doesn't help; when they take our tax money and then act like clean water or cleaning up toxic spills isn't their job, they only make it easier for men to glom onto guys like Tate. Of course, these men should be protesting for clean water and air, not listening do some dude who is 100 percent complicit in the problems.
Wrt to "tax is theft", as a teacher, one could pivot to the question what money actually is. Following this question, it becomes clear that money has value only in a community. (A simple thought experiment shows that a "private currency" is no currency at all.)
A single dollar can be mine. But the dollar as a currency belongs to the people. Thus, while a particular tax, such as maybe a poll tax, could be considered theft in specific circumstances, a tax that helps to better the community cannot be considered theft in any meaningful way.
"What happens to a society where so many of its men have been brainwashed into ultra-patriarchal, entitled and misogynistic thinking? "
Women get repulsed and refuse to mate with them. Hence "incels". Those rejected jerks then die off with no offspring and the whole lot gets weeded out of the gene pool and humanity improves in general. Why do you think so many conservatives are now whining about divorce, the lack of the desire to marry and have kids amongst young people, etc? Women don't have to depend on jerks anymore for their livelihood. Gone are the days of tolerating neglect, abuse, or an incompatible marriage because of no other option or societal shaming of divorce. Women have choices now and are making them. That's why these guys are mad. Anyway, as long as women keep depriving them of mating opportunities the future looks bright. They will die out as a group and that will be the end of that. Then the decent people left can steer civilization in the right direction.
Here is another pivot one could take as a teacher, reacting to "tax is theft". One of the important political philosophers of the 19th century is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1809-1865. He famously made the apparently two contradictory statements: "Property is theft" and "Property is liberty". What a great start to a riveting history lesson ...
Very. There's been quite a few pieces in the newspapers over the last couple of years about the growing number of men with no clear direction or ambitions in their lives--easy targets for extremism.
Modern capitalism values depend on idealizing 'capital growth', and then only 'more capital growth'. That's about it. The idea that say a community has value is not a socially reinforced idea. Therefore people do not look at their own communities as having any social value.
Yes, unending growth in scientific terms is a cancer, a parasite, or an otherwise destructive force that has to be stopped. Somehow that became our economic model?
Thanks. Yes, I'd say the way in which capitalism has taught us to view our inherent value and the value of others is the foundation of our problems. It's sort of the bad core belief that spins outward.
No lies detected. Capitalism, run by the current human form, is just as crap as any other system. However, I will admit i maintain I don't think there's a better base system to keep billions of people who have absolutely no sense of social/cultural responsibility and keep having kids at alarming rates, worsening overpopulation. WIth a population of 1/2 or 1/3 what we have now on Earth, you can create more balanced economic/environmental systems that prevent this sort of rot that we have now in capitalism. But the problem is, humanity wants to endlessly grow it's numbers and consume. It's really a chicken/egg issue as to which is driving which, probably a bit of both. Everything you say is correct in this piece. I'm just not sure with our endless narcissistic need to produce more than 2 kids each, if any other system can maintain us any better as we slog towards ruin on multiple fronts.
I think part of the problem is that we still think capitalism=markets=democracy. This was plausible during the cold war. But now this equation has come apart, where ever one looks. We just didn't figure out yet how to deal with this.
thanks ... it is very personal ... I lived in Germany in 1989/1990 and have seen the Berlin Wall come down. I remember well the optimism, the happiness of the people on both sides, the incredible amount of good will to make a better future. But I also remember well the ugly triumph of those in power, "see, we told you so, socialism just doesnt work".
In the ugliness of the triumph of our corporate and political leaders was no good will to make it work for everybody.
Very quickly, the ruling class started to take the equation "capitalism=markets=democracy" apart. Some have characterized the new world order as "markets for the poor, socialism for the rich". That is a bit gross, but I think it sloganizes well the direction our economic and political system has taken since 1990.
I just found this article https://robertreich.substack.com/p/jimmy-carters-democratic-capitalism on the end of democratic capitalism. My perspective is ratherr differrent than the one from Robert Reich but some of the long terrm trends underlying the shift from democratic power to corporate power may well be the same.
Some may consider this cold, but I find a weird solace in the idea that the laws of nature will take care of our global overpopulation problem. My main sadness is around all the living animals and plants that will be lost before that happens.
We don't really have an overpopulation problem. We have a problem with the top 10 percent consuming 10X more resources than everyone else. The population problem could work itself out over time, but not when Bill Gates is flying around on a private jet telling poor people to eat bugs.
There are some interesting history books on how economic thinking became increasingly influential in the 20th century. This certainly plays an important role in explaining where we are now.
Binyamin Appelbaum. The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society
Nicholas Lemann. Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream
Mariana Mazzucato. The Value of Everything: Makers and Takers in the Global Economy
Mazzucato is brilliant, more scholarly, and takes a wider perspective (it is rare to read books by scholars who are equally at home in history, philosophy and economy). The other two are more specific about US history since 1900, have more personal interest stories, are more entertaining. I think they complement each other.
Fathers Have Been Older Than Mothers For 250,000 Years, Study Finds.
Dads older than mums since dawn of humanity, study suggests.
Fathers consistently older than mothers throughout human history.
Study reveals average age at conception for men versus women over past 250,000 years
Evolutionary biologists at IU found that fathers are consistently older than mothers throughout human evolutionary history, but that age gap has shrunk.
Now, here's the disquieting thing about this paper. It states that based on the evidence in our genome.
The average age of motherhood for women is 23.
The average age of fatherhood for men is 30.
For the last 250,000 years of our species existence that's been the "average" social pattern.
Now, if you are an anthropologist this isn't that surprising. Overwhelmingly in human societies younger women tend to marry older men. Men who have established themselves materially. Stable established men who have demonstrated they can provide for a wife and children.
This "idea" that as a MAN you are ENTITLED to a "sex life" in your 20's. Is a completely modern construct of the 20th century.
Traditionally societies find something constructive "to do" with young men in their teens and twenties. Ritualized warfare, spirit quests, wanderjahr, APPRENTICESHIP, going viking, etc., etc. you get the idea. Societies usually have a life-path for young men that channels their energy, desires, and dangerous aggressiveness into constructive pursuits.
Interesting ... btw, a recurring thought I am having over the last half decade or so is that whatever the topic it is often anthropologists who make the most interesting comments.
Thanks for reading. Yes, it's continually perplexing to watch people reject larger truths in order to maintain the lies of their small existence, especially when we're only asking them to do the smallest things (wear a mask, get a new shower head, stop obsessing over your lawn---really simple stuff...)
This is one of the best, fairest takes on incels I've ever read - the analogy of pyramid scheme is so apt and heartbreakingly clear.
Yes, it all matters, it's all linked and selective vision won't get us to a better place.
I so appreciate how you consistently mix ferocious insight with broad empathy - that is a heck of a tightrope but it feels like the right spot for us all to start.
Excellent stuff. Entering into what are supposed to be my retirement years against backdrop has me screaming “this isn’t what I signed up for.” But maybe I just didn’t read the fine print.
I have no idea what the world is going to look like by the time I reach retirement age. If nothing else, I'm really curious to find out...
Spot on. As soon as you mentioned feeling displaced, I mumbled "Marx's alienation" and kept reading. Thanks for getting to the point, which is always the point, which is capitalism has to go if the species is going to survive. That's it, that's the message.
Yes, people think capitalism is just the freedom to buy and sell stuff. Nope. It comes with all kinds of destructive attitudes about the value of humans and the planet, chief among them being that everything exists as potential profit, and has no value until it's converted into some kind of product or asset. How horrible is that?
We all need to get rid of Crapitalizm 💩 and get rid of the p profiteering off of another person’s misery because of a Fiat of horseshit -ism
One of the most hopeful developments of the past few years for me has been seeing a more widespread recognition of the disastrous nature of capitalism as a system. As recently as 2015, it would have been a bit shocking to hear someone publicly blame the ills of western society on capitalism and not just electing the wrong person or party. People are waking up.
I love all your articles and you are correct, it all matters. My ex used to call me a bleeding heart because I cared about world issues. I would rather be a bleeding heart than an incel or a right wing fool. Keep it coming. I love hearing your opinions on important matters.
Thanks! I've found slowing down a little helps me clarify even further what really needs to be said.
Yes, I also wonder how it's bad to care about important things!
Yeah, I saw someone refer to the standard "ignore it" advice as The Voldemort approach to problems, and that clearly didn't help.
For at least a century, women have been told, in advertising, that if they bought this or that product, they will become sexually irresistible. We were and are told that we must look, smell, and dress a certain way to be considered desirable. We must be married and, if married, must have children in order to be considered complete. Anyone who did not follow this path was called a freak (I speak from personal experience). Yet there don't appear to be a lot of angry women going around behaving like male 'incels' becuase they did not get what they wanted, or what they were told to want.
I'm not sure that capitalism is entirely to blame. There has been a sea change, socially.
The USA is very sick, socially. and Canada is marching in lockstep. (The term 'incel' was originally coined by a marginalized woman in an article about her 'involuntary celibacy'; a victimizer in Toronto who mowed down 20 women with a panel truck because he could not get a girlfriend claimed that he was the actual victim because he was 'an incel' and the term is now used to describe immature, violent young men.)
There is a general lack of committment, an unwillingness to accept personal responsibility for actions, and a feeling of victimhood that blames all personal problems on 'the other'. The gun worship and political extremism is linked to this because it gives weak men a feeling of power. This attitude has been increasing for at least two generations. Here is an interesting article that describes the possible causes.
https://exploringyourmind.com/the-infantilization-of-society/
Women 'who just want the same thing (the men) want' are considered threats by insecure men. It has little to do with their desire for sex. To some people sex is a way of keeping women subordinate, 'in their place'. Look at the full scale attack on women's rights, at the troglodyte 'representatives' seeking to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1919, the ones who want pregnant women to stay pregnant, to not even have access to contraception. No penalties for men who got them that way.
Yes, it's capitalism. And it's bound up with patriarchy. Capitalism tells women to direct all their rage back inward, so they starve or cut themselves or inject themselves with poison to conform to whatever standards. Women are conditioned to self-harm. Capitalism tells men to buy guns and send all their misery outward. Capitalism makes everyone miserable and then tells them to deal with it in different ways, to maximize profit streams.
I see in this discussion the important recurring question of whether capitalism is intrinsically exploitative and destructive or whether a system that is based on capitalist principles and works for everyone is possible.
When it comes to the question of which change is possible, I like to look at history.
A relevant history book on this question is William Dalrymple. The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire.
It starts in 1600 with the founding of the East India Company, before capitalism and the industrial revolution. The EIC was the first modern corporation traded at a stock exchange. But the EIC did not only innovate trade, markets and economics, it also invented new methods of exploitation of men, women, children and nature. The EIC made profit by trade, yes, but also by maintaining a private army that colonized India and externalized costs from Europe to Asia.
I think the key thing is the sustainable and steady state economies, not economies that depend on unending growth--because that's impossible without causing destruction and resource depletion.
Just so you know, the term incel far predates the Toronto van attack.
It’s been used in its current meaning for over a decade, but was originally coined by a woman of colour who wasn’t angry or entitled, but sad and lonely and talking about the specific experience of people who want to have sex and relationships but who are devalued by society because of their race, weight, etc.
I have updated and rewritten the comment. I've been single for my entire life, and never thought of myself as particuarly victimized in that respect. Solitude is better than a bad relationship. I'm not fond of labeling people as if they were supermarket products. It's another depressing trend in a sick world (and not unique to capitalist societies)
You are correct, and I remember reading that woman's article, and feeling very sorry for her. I'll update my comment to reflect this. The Toronto 'incel' was the first example of a victimizer using this terminology and rendering the original meaning uselss.
What was this woman's name?
Look up the word 'incel' on wikipedia.
I recommend Laura Bates’ book Men Who Hate Women to understand how incel
Culture and its brand of misogyny are not niche at all. Within these allied internet movements including Men Going Their own Way and Pick Up Artists, are lots of overlaps and lots of incubation of ideas that are white supremacist, anti-Semitic, islamophobic, anti-tax, homophobic, transphobic etc. In other words these disaffected communities of men are spaces where white supremacist and fascist - as well as pre-modern thinking is being actively incubated. These are spaces where men are advocating that women deserve abuse and men are entitled to rape them. And we’re in real trouble because when a young man starts to research how to make himself more attractive to girls, a natural insecure question, he’s at risk of going down their indoctrination rabbit hole - esp if his early efforts are unsuccessful.
A friend of mine is a teacher (UK) who says in recent years teen boys have been defending Andrew Tate and arguing that ‘tax is theft.’
Yes, it is Divide and Rule. What happens to a society where so many of its men have been brainwashed into ultra-patriarchal, entitled and misogynistic thinking? It’s a fascist time bomb waiting to go off.
I'll definitely be checking out that book. I agree that we have a huge problem with hopeless young people (men in particular) being radicalized into extremely violent ideologies, and for the mere purpose of making a few dudes rich and powerful. Our government doesn't help; when they take our tax money and then act like clean water or cleaning up toxic spills isn't their job, they only make it easier for men to glom onto guys like Tate. Of course, these men should be protesting for clean water and air, not listening do some dude who is 100 percent complicit in the problems.
Wrt to "tax is theft", as a teacher, one could pivot to the question what money actually is. Following this question, it becomes clear that money has value only in a community. (A simple thought experiment shows that a "private currency" is no currency at all.)
A single dollar can be mine. But the dollar as a currency belongs to the people. Thus, while a particular tax, such as maybe a poll tax, could be considered theft in specific circumstances, a tax that helps to better the community cannot be considered theft in any meaningful way.
"What happens to a society where so many of its men have been brainwashed into ultra-patriarchal, entitled and misogynistic thinking? "
Women get repulsed and refuse to mate with them. Hence "incels". Those rejected jerks then die off with no offspring and the whole lot gets weeded out of the gene pool and humanity improves in general. Why do you think so many conservatives are now whining about divorce, the lack of the desire to marry and have kids amongst young people, etc? Women don't have to depend on jerks anymore for their livelihood. Gone are the days of tolerating neglect, abuse, or an incompatible marriage because of no other option or societal shaming of divorce. Women have choices now and are making them. That's why these guys are mad. Anyway, as long as women keep depriving them of mating opportunities the future looks bright. They will die out as a group and that will be the end of that. Then the decent people left can steer civilization in the right direction.
Here is another pivot one could take as a teacher, reacting to "tax is theft". One of the important political philosophers of the 19th century is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1809-1865. He famously made the apparently two contradictory statements: "Property is theft" and "Property is liberty". What a great start to a riveting history lesson ...
Interesting ... could you find the reference again and post it here?
Concerning ....
Very. There's been quite a few pieces in the newspapers over the last couple of years about the growing number of men with no clear direction or ambitions in their lives--easy targets for extremism.
"Wanting is not the same as having," Spock. "Amok Time."
Basically something all little kids should be taught, as I was.
Another scorching piece.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading. :)
Thanks for helping me think about topics in fresh ways. Appreciate your articles.
Thanks for reading!
Modern capitalism values depend on idealizing 'capital growth', and then only 'more capital growth'. That's about it. The idea that say a community has value is not a socially reinforced idea. Therefore people do not look at their own communities as having any social value.
Yes, unending growth in scientific terms is a cancer, a parasite, or an otherwise destructive force that has to be stopped. Somehow that became our economic model?
This is one of your most insightful articles to date. Thank you!
agreed!
Thanks. Yes, I'd say the way in which capitalism has taught us to view our inherent value and the value of others is the foundation of our problems. It's sort of the bad core belief that spins outward.
This article is an excellent analysis of the world we find ourselves in now. Thanks for articulating the problem so explicitly.
No lies detected. Capitalism, run by the current human form, is just as crap as any other system. However, I will admit i maintain I don't think there's a better base system to keep billions of people who have absolutely no sense of social/cultural responsibility and keep having kids at alarming rates, worsening overpopulation. WIth a population of 1/2 or 1/3 what we have now on Earth, you can create more balanced economic/environmental systems that prevent this sort of rot that we have now in capitalism. But the problem is, humanity wants to endlessly grow it's numbers and consume. It's really a chicken/egg issue as to which is driving which, probably a bit of both. Everything you say is correct in this piece. I'm just not sure with our endless narcissistic need to produce more than 2 kids each, if any other system can maintain us any better as we slog towards ruin on multiple fronts.
I think part of the problem is that we still think capitalism=markets=democracy. This was plausible during the cold war. But now this equation has come apart, where ever one looks. We just didn't figure out yet how to deal with this.
Well put! I think we're in the middle of figuring this out.
good insight. triggers thought ...
thanks ... it is very personal ... I lived in Germany in 1989/1990 and have seen the Berlin Wall come down. I remember well the optimism, the happiness of the people on both sides, the incredible amount of good will to make a better future. But I also remember well the ugly triumph of those in power, "see, we told you so, socialism just doesnt work".
In the ugliness of the triumph of our corporate and political leaders was no good will to make it work for everybody.
Very quickly, the ruling class started to take the equation "capitalism=markets=democracy" apart. Some have characterized the new world order as "markets for the poor, socialism for the rich". That is a bit gross, but I think it sloganizes well the direction our economic and political system has taken since 1990.
sadly, that slogan, "markets for the poor, socialism for the rich", seems to ring true for much of the world we currently inhabit.
I just found this article https://robertreich.substack.com/p/jimmy-carters-democratic-capitalism on the end of democratic capitalism. My perspective is ratherr differrent than the one from Robert Reich but some of the long terrm trends underlying the shift from democratic power to corporate power may well be the same.
I'll have to check that one out. Robert Reich is usually pretty spot on.
Some may consider this cold, but I find a weird solace in the idea that the laws of nature will take care of our global overpopulation problem. My main sadness is around all the living animals and plants that will be lost before that happens.
We don't really have an overpopulation problem. We have a problem with the top 10 percent consuming 10X more resources than everyone else. The population problem could work itself out over time, but not when Bill Gates is flying around on a private jet telling poor people to eat bugs.
I recently talked to an economist about how to save the Amazon rain forest. And he said, "a tree is a tree is a tree".
Which of course isn’t true. The pitfalls of specialist and silo thinking!
There are some interesting history books on how economic thinking became increasingly influential in the 20th century. This certainly plays an important role in explaining where we are now.
Binyamin Appelbaum. The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society
Nicholas Lemann. Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream
Mariana Mazzucato. The Value of Everything: Makers and Takers in the Global Economy
Thank you! Going to screenshot and share those titles ... and take a note for myself. I’ve heard of Mazzucato but not the others.
Mazzucato is brilliant, more scholarly, and takes a wider perspective (it is rare to read books by scholars who are equally at home in history, philosophy and economy). The other two are more specific about US history since 1900, have more personal interest stories, are more entertaining. I think they complement each other.
Appreciated!
In a weird bit of synchronicity I recently read a paper that relates to this topic.
EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY - Human generation times across the past 250,000 years.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm7047
Or, as reported in the popular press.
Fathers Have Been Older Than Mothers For 250,000 Years, Study Finds.
Dads older than mums since dawn of humanity, study suggests.
Fathers consistently older than mothers throughout human history.
Study reveals average age at conception for men versus women over past 250,000 years
Evolutionary biologists at IU found that fathers are consistently older than mothers throughout human evolutionary history, but that age gap has shrunk.
Now, here's the disquieting thing about this paper. It states that based on the evidence in our genome.
The average age of motherhood for women is 23.
The average age of fatherhood for men is 30.
For the last 250,000 years of our species existence that's been the "average" social pattern.
Now, if you are an anthropologist this isn't that surprising. Overwhelmingly in human societies younger women tend to marry older men. Men who have established themselves materially. Stable established men who have demonstrated they can provide for a wife and children.
This "idea" that as a MAN you are ENTITLED to a "sex life" in your 20's. Is a completely modern construct of the 20th century.
Traditionally societies find something constructive "to do" with young men in their teens and twenties. Ritualized warfare, spirit quests, wanderjahr, APPRENTICESHIP, going viking, etc., etc. you get the idea. Societies usually have a life-path for young men that channels their energy, desires, and dangerous aggressiveness into constructive pursuits.
Interesting ... btw, a recurring thought I am having over the last half decade or so is that whatever the topic it is often anthropologists who make the most interesting comments.
The lack of most people’s ability to galaxy brain when it comes to all this stuff is stunning on a near daily basis.
I always love how you connect the dots, thanks Jess. 🙌
Thanks for reading. Yes, it's continually perplexing to watch people reject larger truths in order to maintain the lies of their small existence, especially when we're only asking them to do the smallest things (wear a mask, get a new shower head, stop obsessing over your lawn---really simple stuff...)
This is one of the best, fairest takes on incels I've ever read - the analogy of pyramid scheme is so apt and heartbreakingly clear.
Yes, it all matters, it's all linked and selective vision won't get us to a better place.
I so appreciate how you consistently mix ferocious insight with broad empathy - that is a heck of a tightrope but it feels like the right spot for us all to start.