I desperately wish this were true, I really do, but in my experience, it gives aggrieved men the justification for acting like assholes.
It might be describing men out there, but for every one it describes, it enables ninety-nine others to act a little less compassionate, a little less kind, and a little less human. That's why despite good intentions, its existence is a net negative in terms of the utility of the idea.
The irony of discussing this in a thread about Ted Kaczynski cannot be lost on either of us.
> Kaczynski’s experiences at Harvard — his studies, overlapping with his roughly three-year participation in Murray’s experiment — helped create the Unabomber.
"That stress, that struggle, and that suffering [him] changed as a person," certainly rings true. And rather than these hard times creating a stronger Ted, it changed Ted into the Unibomber.
Undoubtedly true. There was nothing and no one strong to guide Ted through his pain and suffering — and so he became antisocial. This is no different to many other men, who suffer less, but do not adapt to it in a way that is virtuous.
The same can be seen with fatherless boys and men in inner cities. No one is there to guide them through the suffering (sometimes a strong, “masculine” mother will be enough, at the cost of the nurturing element), and they turn to gangs to find guidance.
There are no strong men to guide the suffering. No men that have been brutalized by life, but have learned to move forward without becoming brutalizers themselves.
Maybe; hard times brutalize men. Those that can learn to prosper, even a little, will pass it down to the younger ones. And so the younger ones will still suffer, but less so, and learn to prosper more — and pass it down, and so on. And then through generations of this cycle we will reach good times once again. At which point, there will be no suffering to learn from, at the peak of prosperity, and it will be squandered — repeating the cycle.
It might be describing men out there, but for every one it describes, it enables ninety-nine others to act a little less compassionate, a little less kind, and a little less human. That's why despite good intentions, its existence is a net negative in terms of the utility of the idea.
The irony of discussing this in a thread about Ted Kaczynski cannot be lost on either of us.
> Kaczynski’s experiences at Harvard — his studies, overlapping with his roughly three-year participation in Murray’s experiment — helped create the Unabomber.
"That stress, that struggle, and that suffering [him] changed as a person," certainly rings true. And rather than these hard times creating a stronger Ted, it changed Ted into the Unibomber.