Men in America: Lonely, Ashamed and Deprived of Play

[Riggerjack]

Which places foster loneliness more? Social isolation.

Being fairly introverted, I don't know. I can say that living in the sticks has been at least as social as living in the burbs. But folks out here get along better. By that, I mean on my road, I have hung out around a fire with several neighbors. The back to the land hippies, the full on commune hippies, the independent contractor, the religious nutcase, the heavy equipment operator/conspiracy theorist, the retired real estate agent. We all get along, sometimes more, sometimes less, but in the sticks, you get to know your neighbors. In the burbs, you may know your nieghbors, or not. But the overabundance of people means you select for the ones who are similar, until everyone lives in a bubble of similar people.

Population pressure forces people to choose people to befriend, and ignore the rest. I think this, more than anything leads to the political radicalism that seems to be a theme across the last decade. People virtually and physically separating themselves from differing opinions. And the nasty shock that goes along with finding out that not everyone agrees with everything I believe. In the sticks, this disagreement is obvious, and easily overcome. In the burbs, not so much.

I have never lived in the city as an adult, so I can't compare. But since nothing else seems to work there, I can't see why this would be different.

[Farm_or]

Having lived in similar circumstances, I have seen the same thing. In the burbs, people come home tired from work, open the auto garage door and disappear inside until the last possible moment of getting back into the rat race. Weekends are spent recovering from the Friday night bar binge or at the soccer field. Few opportunities for neighbors to know each other.

Things are slightly better in the country. But unfortunately it is not a Polly Anna world like I had hoped. There is an aspect of country society that is isolated from civilization for good reason. There is the familiar presence of people too busy paying bills as well.

Having the good fortune of world travel gives me the impression that the isolation is an American culture trait. "Rugged individualism" is not a badge of honor any where else that I have visited. Just the opposite.

One of my favorite memories was of my last visit to the Basque country when I was a teenager. We stayed in a country village for a short time. The people were so socially connected, the line between neighbors and family was transparent.

[Ego]

Having the good fortune of world travel gives me the impression that the isolation is an American culture trait. "Rugged individualism" is not a badge of honor any where else that I have visited. Just the opposite.

Interesting observation. I wonder why that is.

One of my favorite memories was of my last visit to the Basque country when I was a teenager. We stayed in a country village for a short time. The people were so socially connected, the line between neighbors and family was transparent.

I grew up in a row house and that's what we experienced as well. As kids we would wander in and out of neighbor's homes as if they were our own. To this day we think of some of our neighbors in the same way we think of cousins and aunts/uncles. Some of the older neighbors were like grandparents. My little brother still lives in the neighborhood. It hasn't changed much, though I think the doors are not as porous because there are fewer children.

[Riggerjack]

Well, I think you just answered your own question.

America has had "frontier" for most of it's history, and as mike_bos and the animal have shown, there is still some adventure left.

Americans move far more than other cultures. Often to places where rugged individuals are the standard, or were within living memory.

Which kinda makes this a self solving problem, as we fence in the last corners of the nation...

[CS]

Bonus PS: People have actually researched whether it pays to switch lane if you're backed up and notice that the one next to you seems to be moving faster. IIRC, it doesn't (complete with mathematical proof), but I forget the argument.

This is what I miss the most about CA drivers - at least those in LA. Maybe they've done so much driving, they know this empirically. They (generally) don't wildly thrash from lane to lane, and more importantly, they don't get hyped up (read - road rage) if you have to switch lanes - because frankly, the lane switcher isn't going anywhere anyhow. Contrast that to the yahoo I ran into in Denver that had a full blown melt-down episode as we rolled up to a RED LIGHT (i.e., no one's going anywhere for at least a minute), but that's a whole other story.

I found that keeping the appropriate distance ahead of me in freeway traffic had two different outcomes - some motorists would pass as quickly as possible, only to tail gate the next person down the road, and some would choose to stay doggedly on my tail as they realized that they rarely had to put the brakes following me. This was in opposition to the waves of brake lights in the lanes over. We would sail smoothly along, until some tailgater would interfere - but it happened less that you might think.

But all in all, I don't miss driving that much.

One element I have found missing from this discussion is the fact that most of these men would have acted out with guns also have a past history of abusing women. It is not a huge surprise who they are. It is also, sadly, not a huge surprise that this correlation is not looked at by anyone except feminist groups. Yes, this is a 'the horse is already out of the barn argument' in a thread based on keeping the horse in the barn. But as a woman, I find I have little sympathy for these men. When women stop having men in their life as the number one risk for death, perhaps I'll be more compassionate. Until then, no guns for abusers, and lock them up as long as possible.

[Riggerjack]

One element I have found missing from this discussion is the fact that most of these men would have acted out with guns also have a past history of abusing women.

Wait. What?

I admit, I never spent much time worrying about these mass shooters. They were caught, job done, so I looked elsewhere.

But Adam Luzon, the kids from Columbine, the orange haired Batman fanboy, those are the guys that come to mind when I think mass shooters. Abusing women isn't high on the list of my expectations of these guys. Do you know something about them I don't, or are you thinking of someone else, or are you just tying the storylines of groups you don't like together, to form a more perfect outgroup?

[jacob]

@Riggerjack - See
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/6 ... c-violence
and many others ...

In terms of single homicides, a history of domestic violence makes it 10x+ times more likely that the husband eventually shoots the wife compared to not having a history. Other than shooting yourself, getting murdered by a family-member is the most common gun death. It's usually always the husband murdering the wife; but the other combinations do happen. Third most common is gang-related. People rarely get shot by anyone they don't know.

[Seppia]

Having the good fortune of world travel gives me the impression that the isolation is an American culture trait. "Rugged individualism" is not a badge of honor any where else that I have visited. Just the opposite.

I haven't been to Asia a lot, but I know fairly well most of western Europe, France in particular (lived there a total of 10 years). Paris is BY FAR the place I have lived in where people are the most lonely.
Never seen anything like that anywhere in the US in my 6 years there.
The most depressing moment I had was when, early one morning going to meet a customer with a colleague of mine who listened to the radio, I came to know of this program where people would call in and leave a quick message giving out a brief description of themselves, asking to meet people.
It was dedicated to Paris.
I was amazed
a) that such a thing existed
b) that most of the people calling in were women in their late 20s - early 30s
I was expecting mostly older people and perverts (or a combination of the two).

This and what you write after:

One of my favorite memories was of my last visit to the Basque country when I was a teenager. We stayed in a country village for a short time. The people were so socially connected, the line between neighbors and family was transparent.

make me think that maybe your impression is based more on the type of places you visited:
In mediterranean countries people are much more socially connected, in part because of tradition and in part because they tend to move around much, much less often than americans

[Riggerjack]

@ Jacob
Yes! Exactly that! A better example of tying the storylines of people you don't like into a better outgroup could not be asked for!

But it's vox, so a pro gun control hit piece is to be expected.

I was just asking if it were CS's intent, or if there was something I wasn't aware of about mass shooters.

Yes, I expect that DV is likely to increase the odds that the murdered wife was killed by her husband with a DV history. Yes, I expect higher gun ownership to correlate strongly with fewer gun restrictions, as ineffective gun control laws are far more popular among non gun owners. Yes, I expect gungrabbers to conflate suicide with gun deaths. Yes, most murder victims are killed by someone they know, and yes, this holds true, regardless of the tool used.

And by conflating all these independent ideas together with Republicans, "traditional attitudes about marriage, about male/female relations. ", And domestic violence, we can more directly define our outgroup.

Nicely done, but I noticed she missed the opportunity to tie in environmental issues. She asked leading and bizarre questions like "As women have gained more rights, have mass shootings or domestic violence incidents increased?" But didn't ask the real, probing questions like "orca numbers have increased as the number of whale hunters has dropped. Orcas are also known as "killer whales". So as the murder rate has plummeted, we have more killer whales, and fewer whale killers, how long until these displaced whale killers start killing helpless women, and how can we stop them with more gun control?" Or the financial angle, "in 2009, the unemployment rate was over nine percent, today, it is below five percent. At the same time, we have lost over 15 percent to inflation. How long until we finally just inflate away the dollar and solve unemployment forever? Since unemployment increases rates of DV, wouldn't it be fair to say the Fed has engaged in a war on women? Why is the chairman of the Fed still allowed to buy guns?"

Maybe, the variety of ways that propaganda piece was meant to decieve aren't obvious to people who have no skin in the gun control game, and are thus less familiar with the stats from each side. In which case, it would make a great study of deceitful tactics, handy for spotting misinformation elsewhere.

[jacob]

@Riggerjack -

and many others ...

Numbers are tracked by the CDC and the FBI, so instead of using the "fake news" argument on a random article to dismiss the correlation, you can draw your own Venn diagrams. They will show the same. I did it last year. It takes a few hours though, since they're buried in 100+ page reports, so I'm not going to do it again.

Whether correlation is causation(*) is a debate that's not really necessary. If you don't believe in it or it doesn't apply to you, you can just ignore it. If you do believe in it, statistics say that given that there's a gun in the house, then your mortality is somewhat elevated if you have psychological issues (of the suicidal variety); if you're a woman in an abusive relationship; or if you're a black male aged 18-24 in a gang. These are the top risk factors and all of these are within your personal control. Insofar those do not apply to you or you do not have a gun at home, your statistical odds of death-by-gun falls to European rates (meaning effectively non-existent)---even if you do have a gun in the house. Assuming this risk is therefore pretty much voluntary.

(*) Doing the actual experiment would obviously cross a few lines of ethics.

[CS]

Lol, Riggerjack, the only thing missing from your attempted takedown on the author of the posted article (or was the takedown directed at me?) was a dig on her looks and/or age. I find that as a woman, getting attacked or a professional or personal level is par for the course for having an opinion and stating it, whether said opinion based in fact or not. Which is why I so like Wonkette and her give no F's attitude. More please.

Jacob did a wonderful job responding. I'll not try to best it. Frankly, I find I would never be a politician because I don't have the tact, nor the patience. Know thyself, eh?

[classical_Liberal]

...

[Riggerjack]

I seem to be unclear. Jacob's linked article is a hit piece. I don't know another name for it. It's purpose is to help people radicalize on the issue of gun control.

One way to do this is with statistics. They didn't use that much, rather, they used unsupported statements, leading questions, and carefully worded answers.

I have zero problems with this. Their goal is to help people decide this issue, using their loyalty to other issues. They did it well.

I have been digging into gun stats for a few decades now, and in my experience, gun grabbers use accurate statistics, but usually don't do a decent job of explaining how they got them, or what is actually included in the stats they choose.

I am very familiar with the CDC dataset. Lots of fun, that's where is went to show lawnmowers are far deadlier than terrorists in the Charlottesville nazi thread.

Apparently, I didn't make my thoughts as clear as I wanted to.

CS, you posted that mass shooters are generally DV abusers. This surprised me. As I said, my image of these guys is that they are weak, supressed, and explode, using guns. I could be wrong about this, as mass shooters are almost always immediately caught, or dead, so I quickly lose interest in them.

I have no tie or loyalty to mass shooters, and no need to defend them. I just questioned new information.

As for the article, I was trying to talk about the way the information is presented, not attacking the (little) substance of the article, if that makes sense.

For what it's worth, I have been spending time at slate star codex, and was viewing this thru his lens of ingroup/outgroup. More at http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i- ... -outgroup/.

My interest is more in how people are making up their minds, and presenting the other side if the argument, than the argument itself, if that makes sense.

[Campitor]

If were going to bring in gun statistics into this conversation.... https://crimeresearch.org/2014/03/compa ... countries/

And if we're talking gun control, gun control advocates have to be accurate and honest with their intentions. Gun control advocates really don't want to eliminate all guns - they want the "state" to have a monopoly on guns. They believe that any person who becomes an agent of the state is automagically programmed to follow their better angels and never ever abuse power, commit a crime, or use their gun recklessly.

Agents of the state don't get angry, don't get depressed, don't commit domestic violence, don't commit suicide; they are complete paragons of virtue. So now we have the answer to all our problems - we all need to become agents of the state to eliminate all crime and abuse.

The way homicide rates are tallied in the US, it doesn't separate out justifiable homicide nor does it incorporate the homicides commited by the state (aka the # of foreign people killed by US). If you compare those two numbers - deaths per citizen (justified or not) and deaths by military (justified or not) the numbers clearly show that the state is way more violent than the average citizen - but I don't think the gun control advocates will be asking our Armed Forces to ban their guns, bombs, tanks, bombers, jets, missiles, artillery, nukes, or disband the military industrial complex... at least not the gun control advocates who make a living on Capitol Hill.

[Riggerjack]

Well, mass shooters are typically 4 or more victims. This, BTW is how they have measured success of the gun grab in Australia. They have still had gun murders, but no mass shootings since the confiscation.

I recently heard a good term for the LV/Sandy Hook style shooter, spectacular suicide. I doubt the term will catch on, but it nicely sums these guys and their goal up.

As to guns and DV, here in WA, a DV conviction will cause a automatic revokation of a concealed pistol permit, and will cause automatic denial of permit application. It is typical for the judge to order the sale of guns when the defendant is sentenced. This is why the kid who shot up the local school, then himself, with his father's gun, resulted in the father doing time. The judge ordered the father's guns sold at the DV conviction, then he bought another, then his kid used it to shoot at school.

I haven't looked to see how this trends against the nation.

But still, talking about guns is a distraction from the thread. I didn't mean to derail this one.

[Riggerjack]

Lol, Riggerjack, the only thing missing from your attempted takedown on the author of the posted article (or was the takedown directed at me?) was a dig on her looks and/or age. I find that as a woman, getting attacked or a professional or personal level is par for the course for having an opinion and stating it, whether said opinion based in fact or not. Which is why I so like Wonkette and her give no F's attitude. More please.

I'm sorry. I wasn't trying for a takedown, attack or to belittle your opinion or experience. I was trying to talk about communication styles, and goals. But I can see I wasn't clear.

Your experience and mine don't seem to match. This shouldn't surprise me as often as it does. My wife's experience in public is very different when I stand a dozen feet away. Please read this post, as a way of helping us resolve the difference in our experience:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/02/different-worlds/
It's not short, nor simple, but it is the best summary I have ever read for helping to bridge different experiences.

Again, sorry for any offense, none was meant.

[BRUTE]

Of the 160 incidents studied, 64 (40.0%) would have met the criteria to fall under the federal statute passed in 2012 which defines mass killing as three or more killed in a single incident.

(source: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/act ... 2013-1.pdf)

64 incidents of "3+ humans killed" over 13 years. that's slightly under 5 deaths per year. in a country of 350 million humans.

there is no problem.

[Riggerjack]

Well, no. That's 486 deaths in 16 years. That is clearly a problem. Just not as deadly a problem as lawnmowers.

But lawnmowers are familiar. Familiarity breeds contempt. Plus, if you kill yourself with a lawnmower, you pretty much signed up for that.

Lawnmowers are not controversial enough to get an organized lobby trying to score points at every lawnmower related incident.

And finally, lawnmower deaths don't sell news programs. We just don't fear a random crazy guy with a lawnmower, spontaneously mowing down Innocents at country music festivals. Although, given the overlap of interests (you know the average country music fan has an above average interest in his yard), and the number of people involved, maybe we should be.

[BRUTE]

spontaneously mowing down Innocents at country music festivals

gives a whole new meaning to grass root movements doesn't it. but those country fans probably own lawnmowers themselves, so they had it coming. brute feels no sympathy!

[fiby41]

Jacob's linked article is a hit piece. I don't know another name for it.

Hatchet job