From the Wall Street Journal - The disturbing trend of young men falling behind

An article from the Wall Street Journal entitled, "America’s Young Men Are Falling Even Further Behind"
(https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/young-american-men-lost-c1d799f7) examines the trend of young men in their 20s and 30s who have failed to launch.  Or, as the authors point out, have failed to achieve what in Spanish is called "encaminado."

Unfortunately, the article begins with an anecdotal story about parents who somehow permit their adult children to live at home and do next to nothing. These individual stories, of course, prove nothing, for the children would assuredly find something to do with their lives and a place to live on their own if their parents were, for example, suddenly kidnapped by aliens. 

But when the article leaves the example of specific children and delves into statistical and societal trends, it finds evidence of a shocking phenomenon, namely, that the percentage of men who are "NEETS" is much higher than it is for women:

Among noncaregivers who aren’t disabled, men are more likely to be neither employed, in school nor in workforce training, what economists refer to as NEET. Around 260,000 more 16- to 29-year-old men than women fell into this category as of the first half of 2024, according to think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research, representing 8.6% of young men and 7.8% of young women. Rates are up for both groups since 2019, but down from a Covid high. 

As the article notes, a few years ago educators began warning us that fewer and fewer boys of high school age were applying for and planning to go to college.  The results from this trend are multi-faceted, but here is one result, the number of young men living at home vis a vis women:

Further, young men on average spend an additional one hour a day "alone" than do women:

The article does discuss how the "pandemic" (by which they mean the decision to close society in response to the pandemic) has played a role in delaying the maturation of young men.  Your author, however, prefers more prosaic explanations and notes the article fails to discuss the amount of time men, vis a vis women, spend online and, in particular, playing video games.

Opinion: Disrupting a University is an attack on our civilization

In his masterpiece Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark, a 13-part television series, Mr. Clark stands in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral and says, essentially, that if even one cannot define civilization, one knows it when one sees it.  He could have easily stood in front of the Imperial Palace in Japan, the Opera House in Sydney, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, or Corcovado in Rio — for when we see something that mankind has built, something which requires both creativity, struggle, and, indeed, human genius, we know that it represents civilization in all its flaws and grandeur.

In the past few days, we have all seen students and others assaulted and even tasered, windows broken, classes and graduations canceled, and sheer hate against fellow humans based simply upon their religion and/or race.  These actions are in violation of not only University Codes of Conduct but also state and Federal laws, and, of course, the Constitutional rights of the persons against whom these “protesters” seek to bar from University campuses.

At a minimum, these spoiled and ignorant undergraduates should be arrested and, indeed, expelled and not merely suspended.  Faculty who have joined them in their hate and the accompanying attempts to shut down learning should similarly be arrested if they have violated the law and then fired.  This should occur after a public and televised hearing, not only to preserve the right to due process but also so that we may see what each individual has done to set back civilization and take us back in time to a more brutal, selfish, and hate-filled past.

No University can survive as a University with students who call for the genocide of the Jewish people, support Hamas and its rape of women and murder of children in front of their parents (and vice versa), and, indeed, who seem oblivious to the fact that their fellow Americans are still being held hostage by Hamas.

Indeed, no civilization can withstand such actions unless they are condemned in the strongest terms.

The rejoinder, of course, is that within the hate and fascist attempts to shut down other people’s points of view, there is some sort of “point” being made — a claim belied by the fact that no one should listen to anyone who attempts to occupy the public square to the exclusion of other voices.  In our common law tradition, the concept of forfeiture is relevant to both the relinquishment of rights and the concept of equity. Anyone attacking civilization forfeits any chance to change our mind.

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