Unpacking the Cultural Phenomenon of the Nihilistic Man Child
- dustincathro
- Feb 5
- 30 min read
Updated: Feb 8
Prologue
First, we must establish what I mean by ‘The Rise of the Nihilistic Man Child.’ I define this as the modern man's inability to meet full maturation. In other words the avoidance or delay of the natural process in becoming a mature adult in civil society. The man child is as it sounds, a child's mind in a man's body. He may look like a man but his cognitive and civil responsibility is absent. He runs around in a meaningless world chasing hedonistic desires and fulfilling any whim that he deems worthy of fulfilling.
It is not hard to imagine a world where men pay no responsibility for their actions. It is also not hard to imagine a world where men are absent from traditional forms of self governance. This government that I am referencing is the governance of the family. We need not look hard around us to observe that families are broken. Divorce is a common and normalized procedure, and marriage is no longer taken as a long term commitment but something that can be annulled at any moment.
While I wont try to bore anyone with too many statistics, I will declare that I will use some rough numbers throughout this book. I by no means will be breaking down sophisticated data, but I will try and help folks understand that the rise of the man child comes down to a complexity of modern things that we have otherwise found common in this age. I would like to make clear that because something is common does not mean that it is normal, or that it has positive effects on society. In fact, I mean to express that there are things working against us, that are ‘normalized’ ideologies about a variety of things such as; divorce, family, addiction, pornography, education, atheism, politics and even as far as the human spirit.
Within this essay I will be only scraping the surface on these topics, briefly unpacking how each of these things are playing a role in the rise of the man child. But, before I go any further, I would also like to make note that the problem with a society that is built around the man child is that it is unstable and dangerous. That the man child is the result of a type of liberalism that has manifested itself because we haven't safe guarded our most sacred responsibilities.
If you don't know what those responsibilities are, you have come to the right place. Many folk in this age are lost, and nihilistic. A reflection of our purposeless culture and attitudes. Modern man has been searching in other places to fulfill themselves, but what may sound at the very least an agnostic view, it is our divine sense of humanity that we have lost. We have forgotten what foundations have built us, and in doing so we are starving the most basic human part of ourselves, the soul. The belief in the incomprehensible.
Now while the topic of the soul might not be something many fancy to read about, I assure you that this lack of curiosity may be a reflection of our ‘scientific’ approach to everything that is human. There is nothing scientific about being human, the very probability that we exist dances with the impossible, and that alone should tell us how little we know of the universe and of ourselves. Though I will not be making too many metaphysical claims of the being of humanity, or revealing the secrets to life's biggest questions, I will tackle here why the rise of the man child is a sign of our cultural collapse. One that can be explained quite linearly and with logic.
The Rise of Weak Men
Though it seems redundant and pointless to define such a basic principle of human identity. I cannot stress the importance of defending one of the oldest ideas to ever exist. What is a man? To describe not just the physical properties of a man, but to capture a man in his masculine spirit is not a small undertaking. A man is not a socially constructed character or just something you can choose to be, a man is a protector and provider of women and children. He has been since time immemorial. To be a man is to hold not only yourself but others accountable, in a way that promotes civil society and discourse, but also, one that holds the conviction to the things that actually matter.
Not all men are born equal, it is the gift of individuality that has granted men different strengths and weaknesses. Men are not made, they are born but it's not quite so simple. There are those that pretend to be mature adult men. They live amongst us, I am sure you know them and they are not bad people, but they could be better. There are weak men, and weak men are the ones who cause the greatest troubles in our society.
Though it is not my intention to make this story political, I can't help but point out the most obvious reasons why liberalism is at the heart of the rise of the man child. I will say first and foremost I consider myself a classic liberal, which by today's standards falls more to the right than to the left. Though my own political perspective has some part in the undertaking of this essay, it is with good intentions that I write this.
It is easy to blame political factions for complex social issues, but what's difficult is to determine what percentage of fault they have played. The point is, is that the man child is here, and is in his heart, a narcissist. One who believes that whatever desire calls, he must satisfy it. It is why the common theme in this essay is that the man child takes the expedient route in life. The fastest, easiest and most pleasurable.
Strangely, I find myself at cross roads with much of the content I am about to cover. I can relate to many things that I am mentioning. This is because I have felt the pull towards the life of the man child in my own existence. It is not uncommon to find oneself baptised in a sedimentary life of drugs, booze and sex. I have taken the lowly road too many times, but only to feel what I have always felt, a depressing and meaningless life that has no direction, or purpose. This essay is more accurately speaking about how modern man must overcome the nihilism of our times. That is why I have written it. Because I too have felt lost and desperate. It took years of work to piece together what I believe is the problem and solution.
If I was any less of the man I am today, it is because I was afraid to face myself. In the darkest hours and lowest moments in my life I have felt a great shame in much of what I have done. That in the coming of my age, I have regretted a lot of actions. Though it feels not so long ago that people were touting the horns of, “Live with no regrets” or other silly epigrams. I will ensure any young man now, that you will regret many things you do in life. You will make many mistakes and you will feel shame. But these are not bad things, they are things that can help us learn and improve ourselves from.
The man child is a reflection of the nihilistic wave that has washed out much of our youth and societal structures. The famous line of Nietzche, “The death of god.” has happened, and with this the death of meaning and reason. It is truly at the heart of it all, a spiritual matter really. Man has lost his way, he wanders in the desert staring at mariages, but he does not know that he is in the desert. He is thirsty but he does not know what would hydrate him. I don't mean to speak in such imagery, but truly this is the frightening thing that has happened.
Before I began my journey I have always considered myself an agnostic person. In saying this, I too am an indecisive feeble creature of liberalism. I dare not say a god does not exist, it is close minded to believe that it's not possible. But as I have come to realize over the years, God does exist. In the most frightening way. It is why the man child at his core, is at war with the spirit of his own humanity. He is riddled with troubles that any man of god could tell you is destroying him.
I am not talking about a god as a magic man in the sky. I mean something much deeper, much more meaningful and honest. God is the sense that you are doing something wrong, the voice in your head. God is the essence of not meeting your potential. We all know we can be better, and it is this, that is god. We know we can do better, because we are comparing ourselves to something so divine, so perfect that we live with shame when we so clearly are destroying ourselves.
Therefore, the man child knows exactly all the things that are ravaging him. All he must do is first reflect on what is holding him back. But instead, he is encouraged, addicted and justified by being given the easy way out of the hardships of life. He has taken the ‘Hall pass,’ and cannot realise why he feels unsatisfied and numb. It is here in this essay that I will talk about the most obvious things that you already know. The things that are holding men back from living fulfilling lives.
The Destruction of Family Values
I cannot help but point out the most obvious failures in these early sections on how we can understand how the man child rose from the ashes. Growing up in a troubled household can be a debilitating experience and can create an environment that is difficult to mature from. To blame one's family for one's own shortcomings is exactly what the man child does. “I am a failure because of my family,” is not a valid reason to prolong maturation. The man child must transcend these small ideas that society is to blame. That someone else is at fault for the way I am.
These are ideas that share a common conception that I am not responsible for myself. That somehow as a collective, society and the environment is to blame. The Marxist indoctrination is strong in folk who believe all can be fixed by government and policy. It is the way of the man child to not take it upon themselves to be better. It is why the idea of family values is of utmost importance. Any sociologist or traditionalist can tell you, the family has the most influence on the individual, and that the family is the greatest and most profound form of self governance in society. Nonetheless it still is on individual people to overcome any challenges. But having a functional healthy family is a good start.
Less than 30 years ago writing that the family is the most important unit of society would have appeared only to be stating the obvious. As if the sky was blue or that the sun would rise tomorrow. This is the most basic and common knowledge that we know and have known since the birth of civil society. We can see the result of fractured families everywhere, and we see men and women alike who are overcome with cultural nihilism.
I will first point out only the most obvious facts that are ignored by common people, especially liberals who are quick to toot the horns of racism and mistreatment of minorities. Let us first look at the incarceration rate of black men in the United States. A black man is 5.5x more likely to be imprisoned than a white man. This is because black American children are more likely to live in single parent homes. Over 50% of black children live in single parent homes comparably to less than 20% of whites. When children do not have the support of both parents in a married and committed relationship they are more likely to be influenced by others. Such as friends, gangs or anyone that's outside their single parent family. This is best expressed by the work of Gabor Mate and Gordon Neufield in their book ‘Hold onto your kids’ that expresses how peer influence is driving our youth, not the parents.
It is not the point of this essay to speak about race, but it is the point to express how men are failing their children and families. It is not in my interest to explore why black families do not take marriage and children as seriously as whites or asian families, but it does say something about the effect of male role models and the importance of family stability to help create a more stable society.
Since the legalisation of divorce one can't help but wonder what the United States and Canada would look like today if it remained illegal. That's not to say that men and women should stay in abusive relationships, but there is something vitally important that so many of us are missing in our lives. Being committed to one person for life provides stability like none other. Knowing that this person will be with you no matter what happens. Through thick and thin, success and failure. Knowing someone has your back is beyond valuable. Husbands and wives have been having successful unions for some time, one that can foster growth and insight into one's own self development. In this context, marriage is at its least, the most unifying thing people can do together, and in a healthy marriage it can foster growth for both people.
The problem with the current day is that the man child stays single, he plays the field and sleeps with as many women as he possibly can. None of these women offer him any growth or insight into himself. He simply uses them as a vehicle of pleasure, and she to him. Sex with strangers and one night stands are not usually enjoyable, or satisfying in the long term. They are simply a distraction and they do not make either person better, in fact they could very well be making them worse.
Marriage often enough leads to children. When two people decide to have children together a transformation begins. One that brings about a common thing to live for. To care for another human being from birth is no easy task, but there is no greater reward than raising children. Children require endless amounts of attention and stability. The man child opts out of this kind of responsibility. You may hear him say, “There are too many people on the planet.” or that, “Children are bad for the environment!” or maybe even a more honest answer, “I am too selfish to have children. Even though I know it would help me grow up.”
No matter what you hear, the man child will make excuses to not move on from their childish behavior and into maturation. But there is more to it than just that. Women too are taking the easy way out. Not so long ago before the flags of feminism rose into the sky, a woman's main duty was to her family. To her husband, children and to the home. This of course was taken from her. The most sacred of all duties, the homemaker. A movement of a kind had happened, women were expected to work and join the labour force or they would no longer be considered “modern women.” I can't imagine anything less feminine than women working. Women have always been sacred, and protected from modern work. Not only now are they expected to show up even on their menstrual cycle, but they are expected to be better than men.
This is the greatest trick of all, the liberal governments tooted the horns of equality only to take the position of the homemaker and turn her into another taxpayer. Women went to work, and the government schools finally had leverage to raise the future generations of children. The family had become broken. No longer did the sacred duty of the mother play such a pivotal role in the life of the family. Others began to raise people's children, including teachers and caregivers. Meanwhile women were sent off to work.
Though I won't dive into the economic consequences too deeply, a single man's income 50 years ago could easily support a wife and family with a life that was far better than our present day. Meaning, two working people raising a family today cannot meet the standard of living that existed before women started working. Double the tax, mandated government schooling, broken families and more unsatisfied women. The feminist movements have come at a great cost, this being that women work like men, but also still try to raise a family. You can do both, but not very well. Especially when you depend on the government mandated school system.
This break in the family, in part, is how the man child sprung from the ashes. Raised by strangers and friends, spending countless hours in school and extracurricular activities. Mostly learning things that are irrelevant or unrelated to anything that's practical. Hardly for a moment have children in our modern day had time for themselves. They are zipped around to practices and events as if they must spend every free minute doing something. What children need is down time. Time to reflect and be creative. Children are being raised by children, in school, in sport and during their free time. Children need to spend more time with adults in order to mature. It's really rather quite simple.
It is a natural state as a human being to nurture our young, for reasons that are beyond simple reproduction we rather enjoy or at least feel a deep calling to extend our love beyond ourselves and invest in our children as a long term commitment. We can find this long term commitment manifest itself in the modern peoples adoption of household pets. These include; Dogs, cats, horses and a variety of other domesticated animals that folks have adopted to nurture.
This is an interesting phenomenon not only because pets require nurturing, but because human beings require something to nurture. While I could dive into the pet obsession, I will only point out the most obvious of the entire phenomenon around pets. The pet types have adopted a type of identity around them, choosing animals over children. Such as; “Dog mom,” or “Cat lady,” and even the cringe worthy “Doggy daddy.” Yes people will opt out of parenthood for a lot of reasons. Somewhere around 10-15% of women have fertility troubles and men can have weak sperm that the female body may reject. This of course is a more complicated issue that I will not explore in this essay, but it's worth noting that there are some health and diet related reasons why fertility troubles are on the rise.
There is also a type of freedom in being married. A freedom to pursue other means, that you would not have the time to pursue because you are too busy pursuing other women. This of all realizations has struck me as the most impactful. The man child tells himself he has more freedom pursuing his life and goals as a single man, but really it's not true. Though being single and not in a committed relationship certainly provides one with a type of freedom, I am willing to argue that wives play an important role in the success of men. A good wife knows how to motivate and push their husband, and I think that we can see this in some of the world's most conventionally successful men.
Men that are accountable for their actions and have a reason to succeed are more likely to succeed. Especially when family is on the line. When the stakes are higher men will answer the call to evolve and adapt. The man child does not need to adapt. If he fails, he only has himself to worry about. In this I mean that innovation and creativity may be better harnessed when the stakes are high and when you have someone like a supportive wife in your corner. I am convinced that a man cannot meet his potential alone. Women and wives play important roles in making a man better. Or at the least hold them to a higher standard.
How the School System is Failing
The government mandated school system is a curious beast in itself. It is just another part of further perpetuating dependency for the man child. Boys are cooped up like animals as they are forced to sit still and “behave themselves” in classes of 30 or more students. Boys dont need to be sitting all day, they need to move and run around. Testosterone is flying through these young veins, they need a place to expel energy and be rough. There is a time and place to teach boys about practical things, but sitting them in classrooms is actually causing more issues.
Girls on average mature faster and do better in school. It's because they are built differently than boys. School is more suitable for girls, because they have a disposition that is better suited for the modern school environment. That's not to say that school is good for girls, it's just the fact that this environment is more challenging for young boys to succeed in. While many will make claims that the public education system does more good than harm, I will take the unpopular route and be bold. The education system is dumbing our modern children down. Since its implementation it has statistically done more harm than good. It is a system that rewards obedience, it always has been and always will be.
Like most things in life the man child lacks direction, this makes him not good at anything. The education system is built this way. Too many subjects, not enough time. Learning too many things makes everyone good at nothing. There is no specialization. Elementary school is essentially glorified babysitting. Highschool is essentially the place where students are taught to be slaves to an employer and not encouraged to be creative and work for themselves.
The simplest way to maturation is that the man child must challenge himself. He must not be stagnant and do the bare minimum. He must exceed what is expected, and I don't mean exceed in school, but to exceed in doing what he actually wants. In other words, the man child must, on his own, discover what he is to do with his life. That's not to say that a job or company will define a man. But choosing a direction to go and be willing to fail is the first step in becoming a man.
The man child would never take the risk of getting out of his comfort zone. He will remain as his teachers and peers affirmed to him. The man child must throw away his security of what he learned in school, and set off on an adventure of his own. One that challenges and refines him. I don't mean to say that you must do something irresponsible, but I mean to say that with some rationale and grace, you should challenge yourself. Bit by bit, piece by piece. As the saying goes, “Rome wasn't built in a day,” and neither were men. They are built by good habits, responsibility and a great deal of conviction.
School teaches us that we are to play nice, to be a team player, that feelings are more important than facts and a variety of other foolish things that have helped prolong the man childs delay of maturation. I see out there smart intelligent men who so willingly do work that is beneath them. They are spiritless, their eyes are glazed as they help another customer at a dollar store, or at some fast food joint. Now something we should consider is that not everyone can achieve their “dreams” but a child can become a man. I assure any man that he can do something great, that beneath the flesh of us we all have a touch of some divine calling to do something with talent and grace.
May your dollar store job be a stepping stone, I hope. The man child is comfortable, but never has a man excelled by staying comfortable. It is what so many boys are conditioned to do in their primary years. They are made to be comfortable and unchallenged. That no matter what they do they will pass as long as they show up and listen to their teachers. This is wrong, because it teaches boys that the bare minimum is enough. That doing what you're told is enough. No. You must exceed, you must willingly go beyond what is asked. That is where freedom can begin. Slaves only do the bare minimum. Free men create empires.
While showing up in life is important, it does not make a child into a man. Showing up is a skill-less and talentless trait that is rewarded to the mediocre masses that work for large corporations and get promoted when they are 40. They are not lives to live but husks to die in. The man child as I have said over and over must transcend these ideas of normality that they have been conditioned to believe. The education system does not foster creative and insightful human beings, it regurgitates ideologies and thoughts that only serve itself. I don't mean to sound a pessimist, but to make this clear, to be free from this apparatus, the man child needs to find something he truly is passionate about and pour his soul into it. The man child must align with his interests and passions if he is to be free.
I don't mean a shallow definition of what one desires. I mean a comprehensive look into one's motives and reasons behind one's passion. Once you know what motivates your passion, may it be security, free time, desire to help or an infinite amount of possibilities. Knowing what drives your ambitions is just as important as knowing what it is you need to do with your life. In fact, it's much easier to be inspired to do what you love when you know why you want to do it.
Private Life Vs Public Life
A reminder that I have had recently is that private life is more important than public life. This I have found is related to the manifestation of the man child. That somewhere between the destruction of the family and the government mandated education, the man child has become obsessed with the public life, and a failure of the private life. The man child has become too caught up in, “keeping up with the joneses.” or too focused on job titles and arbitrary raises in the workplace. Too concerned about what others think and not about improving themselves.
At last, the mightiest of all domains and the factor that determines what a man's life is, is not much to do with his public reputation, but more to do with his private life. This has struck me as perhaps the most profound of all my findings. That the man child may have a job, or a career even. But he does not have a home life. He rather spends it at the local watering holes, playing on sports teams or watching netflix and porn. Much like I mentioned before, in regards to the school system as perpetuating no free or creative time for children to learn, the man child takes this a step further and continues down the path of no reflection or creativity. Busy for busy sake.
Let us not confuse that just because the man child is busy does not mean he is productive. It is no secret that talent and success are formed in private. The man child lacks this environment. He is perhaps surrounded by his own filth, or imprisoned by his own faults and shortcomings. The home or private life is not a sanctuary to him, it is a place he goes to do the things that hold him in his state of boyhood. A place where he further perpetuates all that created him. It is his personal Neverland.
It is in his freedom to do as he pleases, but I would argue that the man child does not know what he wants. It is why he is stuck in his place of apathy and numbness. He longs to live and it is private life that would give him this satisfaction. Though I do not mean to sound patronizing, addicts and fools do not know what is good for them. They are beyond knowing what they need. They are but children who cannot fathom what would make their lives better. It is why the private life of men is so important in their success. To have a loving wife and family, and the freedom to pursue one's passions is what the man child needs to succeed. But it is easier said than done.
Women have a sacred role in the life of men. So sacred is what they do, that the loss of them in the private life to work and to modern expectations has, in part, been a piece of the man child great up and coming. Women are not what they used to be, they don't demand greatness from men as they once did. They have dropped the bar and the man child has replaced what was once conventional and good men with weak and child-like men.
Sex is no longer withheld until marriage, and with the invention of the birth prevention pill and other various forms of birth prevention, we can find that women and men can have promiscuous sex with little to no risk of pregnancy. This of course comes at a cost that many modern folk cannot entirely fathom. While on one hand this is a tool that can be used to not reproduce, but it comes at another cost. Ones less obvious but still costly nonetheless.
Birth prevention as I like to call it (iIs not birth control), is in fact to some degree encouraging casual sex. Now this at first sounds like a good thing, but when sex becomes readily available and without instant serious consequences such as pregnancy, we begin to see how men and women's relationships have changed drastically.
It wasn't so long ago that the courting of a desirable woman was a popular practice of men who wished to marry and love this one woman forever. Though this may sound prudish, it is an important part that has otherwise been set to the wayside in modern society. Men and women do not often wait for marriage to have sex, and this leads to behaviour that has otherwise been uncommon up until the 1960s.
It's not to say that sex out of wedlock has not happened, but it certainly now is normal opposed to the opposite. The question I would like to ask is simple, does meaningless sex cost anything? The clear answer is yes. It costs something. Some liberal folk may claim that experience is important, but if it means the degradation of moral society, and the fulfilling of our immediate desires I think that it may be too costly.
It is better to love a single woman and build a strong relationship and family than to have sex with 100 women. Civil society is stronger and more orderly with men who are loving husbands, and women who are loving wives. Now where the man child fits in in all this, is that he has chosen to have sex with the 100 women, opposed to building a life with one. This has some serious effects on society and himself. These costs include; wasted time, lack of meaning and purpose, delayed maturation, and an overall lack of wellbeing.
The man child for various reasons has taken the easy way out, while the other is difficult but more satisfying, he chooses what is easy and accessible. Perhaps my logic is flawed, but the man child is simply delaying what he inevitably desires. That is, he lies to himself by being with as many women as possible, when truly he only wants one woman. The right woman. But he is daft of his own self. He does what is opposite of his interest, because he dares to think that at woman number 100 he will be complete. That the game will be over and he can finally settle.
The man child chases the carrot. Vigorously he tries to get what is always just out of his reach. But he is not hopeless. He has tools and potential still kindling beneath him. He may have got off on the wrong foot, but he can still go back, but it will not be pretty, nor easy. In fact, growing up never is. It is why the private life of the man child must first change. The things that are done in secret are the things that most affect us. We must safeguard what is valuable, we must act in accordance to how one ought to act. It is why taking responsibility and building one's will to resist the urges of the common addictions that undermine ourselves and society is of utmost importance.
Pornography & Addiction
A topic that some people may be uncomfortable talking about is pornography. Pornography makes up a large portion of internet traffic, somewhere in the 10-25% range. This is a serious addiction, and as some of you may have guessed, it's a comforting corner to stay in for the man child. Men use pornography daily, and though some folks may say the use of such content is mostly harmless, I would like to think that they don't know what they are talking about.
Surges of dopamine from pornography are like any other addiction, they damage your brain and can cause a variety of effects from; depression, erectile dysfunction, marital quality and relationship troubles. Though a lot of folk will toot the horn about how people should have the freedom to view porn, they don't know the full consequences of what that means.
Porn erodes the prefrontal cortex of the brain keeping the brain in a juvenile state. Affecting things such as; willpower, morality, and controlling one's impulses become less developed. Child like you could say. Not only does porn have all these negative impacts, but studies have shown that folks that do not consume pornography have better lives. What this means is that porn does not serve any rational purpose, it is something that only feeds an addiction that perpetually makes one's life more miserable.
Naturally the man child is drawn to pornography for a variety of reasons, some which I have mentioned, but addiction is a big part of it. Weak willed, impulsive men are not men, they are children in men's bodies. That is why porn is the perfect medium to further enslave the man child. Though this might sound highly conservative in this new age of politics and opinion, but porn is a serious problem. One that is delaying the maturation of men.
This leads us to another stop on the dopamine train, the new world of online dating. Let's make it clear that not all online dating is troublesome, but there are a percentage of people who use these apps in predatory ways. What I mean by this is that consumers are using apps like tinder for expedient pleasure. Meaningless sex and hookup culture are common enough amongst young people. Men and women alike are both open to having multiple partners and are bringing a whole new meaning to ‘dating’.
Now I feel like I am starting to sound old, but the young people of today are so lost that they are looking for meaning in all the wrong places. One does not have to look far to see that whatever people are doing in their private lives is not working. I see young teens living on the streets and addicted to drugs and trouble. But you don't need to read this to know that there are troubled folks in our world, more than ever, addiction has touched nearly everyone's lives in the United states and Canada.
This leads me into my next point about addiction. Drugs, alcohol, porn, technology, and social media have transformed us in ways that are not for the better. Before touching on this, I need to return to something I said earlier about the man child blaming society for his shortcomings. This is by no stretch me saying this is society's fault. It is me saying that the man child did not safeguard himself from these things.
When I say safeguard, I mean to say that he is not thinking about the future, he's not thinking about what can happen when he consumes products or things that are easily available. The man child has not put his guard up, he is too open, he is more than too willing to try the newest flavour or gadget. Now this is where liberalism has made its most extraordinary flaw. Now the man child by most standards will be liberal. Now, I don't want to pick on the ‘liberals’ as some vague group of people who are too flexible and go with the flow types, but this is what has happened. Most importantly the man child is a narcissist thru and thru. He cares only for himself, it is why he chooses the expedient way. He dares not make something meaningful at the centre of his universe. Something like a wife or child, or even as simple as a job. He is totally consumed with himself. An egoist in the most sublime sense. He is not interested in nurturing anything. Only his desires.
I would wager that the man child in some sense is open to new ideas and new things. That in itself is a fine and honourable thing, open minded one could even say. But to be open minded does not mean you throw yourself into the fire when you know it will burn you. It means that because you are open minded you must still proceed with caution. Liberalism at its extremes is dangerous, too much change quickly will certainly end poorly, especially when you don't know what will happen. One does not simply have a crystal ball to know the consequences of one's actions.
This in essence is how many of these societal inventions have come about to muck the man child into his mess. He has so willingly accepted his commercial product of porn, social media, drugs and alcohol and without much of a second thought. He has basked himself in these things and it is slowly eroding his soul. I don't mean to sound poetic, but it literally is tearing apart his psychological development in the name of some hedonistic desires. Or perhaps hedonistic addiction should be best called.
The consequence? Well it's rather simple, marriage, career, relationships, money, god, and some deep passion for something or another is missing. All of it replaced by foolish endeavors that lack much substance or self improvement. This isn't a self help essay, it's a please help yourself essay. The man child can drive the real men mad, but what's worse is some of them do actually have some success. Some are highly entrepreneurial and even talented, it does not mean they can't be better.
The man child is living in a shadow of himself, he's living a life full of addiction and no responsibility. There is only one way out. That's to stop doing all the things that are making him weak. He must first reflect on himself. Perhaps a question. “What are some things that I'm doing that are making my life worse?” Sometimes the answers are obvious. Such as; spend less money, stop watching porn, drink less alcohol, stop eating bad food. There are endless answers to endless problems. The man child must first begin by asking himself what he can do to stop himself from spiraling down into a nihilistic existence. It's a place to start from, and perhaps from there folks can improve their lives by eliminating the things that are obviously bad for them. This leads to my next and final point. God and the spiritual renaissance.
God and the Spiritual Renaissance
There has always been a part of me that has thought that human life is sacred, that the experience we have here is something special and not something we should carelessly squander. The man child is in part a godless and spiritless creature. He has no authority that holds him accountable. It is why he cannot transcend his current state of affairs, he does not believe in the most fundamental things of human life. The belief in a higher power.
I have grappled with the idea of God for sometime. Though it may only be an illusion in my mind, I generally have an intuitive feeling that God is making a comeback. Things have gotten crazy and people of the west are desperate to cling back onto the culture that made them. Regular folks do not believe in god anymore, in fact many westerners live godless and secular lives. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 34% of Canadians do not assign themselves to a religion. Though surely these folks live happy lives and enjoy such things as skiing or luxurious vacations etc. But happiness is not a destination, it is rather a fragile state that is not sustainable. It is why having a meaningful life is more important than a happy one.
The man child in some sense can live a happy life. He can go about his business in a narcissistic and childish way. Enjoying the appetitive desires and whims he so chooses to fulfill. Though I could use some easy examples, it seems almost useless to point out the obvious types of folks who have suffered by taking the easy way out. Just look at the music and film industry if you want to know what it looks like to get everything you want and how it can end for you.
It is not easy to withhold oneself when opportunities arise. May this be sex, drugs or pornography, but freedom comes from restraint. A strange paradox that there is something profoundly freeing to be free from the things our society sensationalizes and normalizes. God, or Christianity rather as a faith gives us an obvious path to how one ought to behave and conduct themselves. It has successfully helped millions of people with drug and alcohol addiction, and as I have stated earlier, people who believe in God are more satisfied in their lives and relationships. God or spiritual belief in itself can transcend the things that are holding us back, because they are bigger than our human understanding.
There are few heroin addicts that have recovered without the help of God. It is because the human will has its limitations. To overcome an impossible thing, one must believe what is seemingly impossible. I say this only because the man child may have no other way out, except by spiritual revolution. He may have to find himself with the help of something bigger. Something enigmatic and mysterious. It is not to say that the man child cannot recover himself without God, but that it might come to a point where God is necessary. That God is what the man child must compare himself with. He must strive, in a willing fashion, to shape himself into a man that is worthy of honour and morality.
It is not my purpose in this book to bring the nihilistic man child to God. It is only that the importance of God cannot be ignored. To leave out the role of what could be the creator of the universe would be a catastrophic ignorance on my part. God is necessary if one has jumped into the void of nihilism and is ready to return. It is the only way to come back from a personal hell that is beyond reason and the human will.
I know that there are those who believe strongly that a god does not exist. That evolution is the trump of all things that are human. That we are mere coincidences that have meaningless lives. That human beings have evolved from other humanoid types and so this disproves God. But something I cannot ignore is that the spiritual nature of humanity would have no point to develop. Why would we evolve the necessity of spirituality or mysticism? Is it only in vain?
I have begun to wonder if God is actually so incomprehensible to our limited minds, that to think because other primates similar to us existed, disproves god, is in itself seemingly preposterous. What we understand as god is perhaps not even within our realm of understanding. These are the things we cannot entirely explain. It is the idea of a miracle, the impossible. There are amazing things that happen every day that cannot be explained by the laws of science.
People live through incredible circumstances, denying death and all logic and reason. Science calls this thing that it can't explain an anomaly. A mere irregularity. It discounts what it can't explain as irrelevant. Dismissing miracles as strange coincidences that don't mean anything. This is exactly the kind of close mindedness that won't get science anywhere. It is the unexplainable, the thing that is beyond our understanding that is God. At least to me it is.
As I have said before, it is not my purpose to draw the man child to God. It is only in my observation that the universe and all of reality is organised and governed by rules and laws that are far beyond us. However this place was created, it was created by something we can't understand. Even with our god-like technology we still don't have definitive answers.
Needless to say, the man child must draw on all the tools that are available if he wishes to overcome himself. If the narcissist could only look at himself in the mirror, perhaps he would see the empty husk of a man that he has become. I think now upon Oscar Wilde's novel, A Picture of Dorian Gray, and how the libertine way is an ugly and horrible way to live. Soulless as it were. As Dorian Gray learned. There is more to life than fulfilling our appetitive desires. The man child must first confront himself, he must break free from not only his physical addictions but also his ideological addictions.
It is in my opinion that to overcome the rise of the man child and the nihilism of our times is by creating a meaningful life. It is in our nature to be creative and productive beings. So many of us live lives that are not our own, we settle for things that are easy and unfulfilling. It is easy to be average, but it comes at a cost. The cost of a soulless nihilism. A world that is numb from both pain and love. A world that does not feel. It is the most inhumane of all things to not even let yourself be human in the name of some apathetic ideology. The man child must first help himself. No one is coming to save him.
References
Gatto- Dumbing us down
Comentários