Our World
There will never be another Norm Macdonald
The new Norm Macdonald documentary, Norm: The Tale of Norm Macdonald, directed by Judd Apatow, is excellent. That is partly because Macdonald, the Canadian comedian and actor, was such an extraordinary talent: a man with a distinctly novelistic personality, full of hidden depths, profundity, moral courage, pathos and wit. But also because the Nineties and early 2000s, when he was culturally prominent, were simply richer than today’s America. They were more fun, less paranoid, freer and, somehow, more human.
Not the new doc …
Western civilisation at risk of ‘atrophy, servitude and decline’, Rubio says
Standing before the Acropolis in Athens, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio swept through the history of ancient Greece to the rise of American industry in a speech on Wednesday that portrayed western civilisation at risk of decline.
Rubio said the world was at an “inflection point”. Nations, particularly in Europe, should return to ancient Greek values and “rebuild our institutions and our alliances to face these threats together”.
“We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was here millennia ago,” he said.
The Way To Defeat The West: Turn Us Against Ourselves
The West possesses extraordinary military, economic, and technological power that our adversaries increasingly realize they can’t confront directly. Paradoxically, we live in a moment when we are forced to choose which of our principles matter most, pitting ourselves against one another instead of focusing with laser precision on our threats, playing our opponents’ game rather than our own.
Lost in the Wilderness: The True Roots of Male Demoralization
Nowadays, young men are treated as either victims of intense sociological anxiety or the objects of thinly veiled ideological derision. To their critics on the progressive left, young men are creatures of “fragile masculinity,” clinging to (and failing to live up to) arbitrary, patriarchal norms that must be therapeutically deconstructed if we are to achieve a more equitable future. To secular cultural commentators, they are caricatures of apathy; stalled adolescents lingering in their childhood bedrooms, checked out of the labor force, alienated from civic life and hopelessly anesthetized by the digital world.
The diagnosis from both camps is remarkably similar: the modern young man suffers from a fundamental failure of character. A refusal or inability to grow up is merely the predictable effect.
Twice As Many Men Are Single Than Married Today. Are Women To Blame?
There are now roughly 30.4 million unmarried American men between the ages of 20 and 39, nearly twice the number of married men in the same cohort. The predictable explanation is that men are to blame. Pornography, gaming, delayed adulthood, declining ambition, fear of commitment, social awkwardness, the manosphere, and economic stagnation all make the list of reasons. But after years of dissecting so-called “toxic masculinity,” perhaps it is time to ask what has toxic femininity done to the modern woman? Have women today become poor prospects for marriage?
Mother charged after 5-year-old walks to pond alone, stirring parenting debate
The summer day started normal for Karyann Parkinson.
As the mother of four tells it, she was weeks away from giving birth to her fifth child when she took a walk with her son, Sam, through their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia. They passed by a couple ponds and crossed the street about six times, she said. Sam, 5, zoomed ahead of her and back on his bike, with the goose feathers he likes to collect from the ponds’ edges sticking out of his backpack.
In kindergarten after a relatively brief and resentful period of escort by my older brothers I began to walk to and from school myself or with friends.
There was a creek we crossed along the way but no pond.
In grade 4 we brought to school a snapping turtle big as a garbage can lid after a lunch break adventure on the Humber river.
Now kids and parents have to worry about Drag Queen groomers.
Saving Masculinity From the Left and the Manosphere
There is no longer any serious dispute that our boys and men are in crisis. It’s an undeniable empirical reality, from plummeting male labor force participation and lagging educational achievement to disproportionate rates of suicide, homicide, and social isolation. What remains in dispute is how we got to this place and what to do about it.