Tuesday, October 11, 2022



The Rise of Lonely, Single Men

The article below has been much reproduced and much commented on since it first appeared a few months ago so I thought I might say a few words about it.

For a start, I think it is accurate as far as it goes but it fails to get to the bottom of what is going on. The basic problem is that traditional sex roles have altered. And a large part of the blame for that goes back to the schools.

Education has become very feminized and that tends to be uncongenial to men. As a result they tend to drop out before women do. But educational qualifications are still the highroad to many good jobs. So women tend to have more prestigious jobs and, to some extent, better pay.

So men have lost the occupational, educational and financial advantage they once had. They have, in other words, lost a lot of what used to be attractive to women. And women are therefore less likely to take an interest in them. So women look for other things in a man. And a major one is compatible values. But values tend to be influenced by your sex. There are intrinsic differences between male and female values. So when values become of over-riding significance for women, their own female values will be part of that. They will hope for some sign of female values in a man.

But that is an uphill requirement. Men will often be poor at providing such a value match, which will be bad for both parties. Neither the men nor the women will be able to find that they want. Neither the men nor the women are to blame. It is an educational and economic imbalance that has driven them apart.

What is to be done? I am afraid all I have to offer is that great old British solution: Compromise. Women have to stop expecting the impossible from men and men have to learn more respect for female values. It will not be easy for either party but to the extent it happens, both men and women will be happier.

The sad thing about it all is that the more desirable people will do OK anyway. It is the less desirable men and women who will need to change in order to find partners. And for some that will be really uphill. A major factor in interpersonal attraction is appearance and the factors there can be of stark importance. Good-looking men and women will find one another and be happy in a union but others will not. And, to be blunt about it, fat women and short men will fail to attract. Those are not the only factors in appearance but they are a big part of it.

Fortunately, appearance can be supplemented in other ways. The classic is short men who drive big cars and who are dapper in dress. They tend to be amusing to other men but women are sometimes impressed.

A less obvious example of a compensatory characteristic is a high IQ. I benefited from that. I have only ever been average in looks but my high IQ has been very attractive to one class of women: High IQ women. Women LOATHE being partnered with a man who is dumber than they are. So my arrival in the life of a high IQ woman tends to be very welcome. And I am not blowing smoke in saying that. I married fine women 4 times and, although I am now in my 80th year, I have recently acquired a very bright new girlfriend. And life is not fair. High IQ women tend also to be better looking. Terman and Oden noted that way back in the 20s. And my girlfriend is unusually good-looking for her age (in the 70s).

But both looks and IQ cannot be changed by wishing it. So other factors will have to be attended to in partnering. And there are a few of those. A dominant but polite personality is attractive to many women, for instance. But best of all is simply listening. Both men and women vary greatly in what they are and what they want so listening to the other party, finding out what they value, and trying to provide that will always be a leading way to satisfactory relationships.


Younger and middle-aged men are the loneliest they’ve been in generations, and it’s probably going to get worse.

This is not my typical rosy view of relationships but a reality nonetheless. Over the last 30 years, men have become a larger portion of that growing group of long-term single people. And while you don’t actually need to be in a relationship to be happy, men typically are happier and healthier when partnered.

Here are three broad trends in the relationship landscape that suggest heterosexual men are in for a rough road ahead:

Dating Apps. Whether you’re just starting to date or you’re recently divorced and dating again, dating apps are a huge driver of new romantic connections in the United States. The only problem is that upwards of 62% of users are men and many women are overwhelmed by the number of options they have. Competition in online dating is fierce, and lucky in-person chance encounters with dreamy partners are rarer than ever.

Relationship Standards. With so many options, it’s not surprising that women are increasingly selective. I do a live TikTok show (@abetterloveproject) and speak with hundreds of audience members every week; I hear recurring dating themes from women between the ages of 25 and 45: They prefer men who are emotionally available, who are good communicators, and who share their values.

Skills Deficits. For men, this means a relationship skills gap that, if not addressed, will likely lead to fewer dating opportunities and longer periods of being single. There's less patience for poor communication skills today. The problem for men is that emotional connection is the lifeblood of healthy, long-term love and it requires all the skills that families still are not consistently teaching young boys.
While there’s probably no chance of stemming the rising tide of unintentional single men, there is some good news.

The algorithms are becoming increasingly more complex on dating apps and other online platforms. One result is that great matches are on the rise. One dating app, Hinge, found through beta trials that 90% of users rated their first date positively, with 72% indicating that they wanted a second date.

How can men reap the benefit of the algorithms? Level up your mental health game. That means getting into some individual therapy to address your skills gap. It means valuing your own internal world and respecting your ideas enough to communicate them effectively. It means seeing intimacy, romance, and emotional connection as worthy of your time and effort.

Ultimately, we have an opportunity to revolutionize romantic relationships and establish new, healthier norms starting with the first date. It’s likely that some of these romances will be transformative and healing, disrupting generational trauma and establishing a fresh culture of admiration and validation.

Men have a key role in this transformation but only if they go all-in. It’s going to take that kind of commitment to themselves, to their mental health, and to the kind of love they want to generate in the world. Will we step up?

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The Truth About Columbus

Is this the last time we can celebrate Columbus Day? A wave of cities have decided to remove the holiday from the calendar and replace it with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer credited with discovering America, and his legacy are under attack figuratively and, increasingly, literally.

Several Columbus monuments have been attacked and vandalized around the country. The towering Columbus statue at Columbus Circle in New York City now needs 24-hour guards after Mayor Bill de Blasio put it on the list of a commission to review “offensive” memorials.

And according to Far Left Watch, a watchdog organization, Antifa and other left-wing groups plan to deface and attack Columbus statues across the country on Columbus Day.

It is unfortunate to see what was once a uniting figure—who represented American courage, optimism, and even immigrants—is suddenly in the crosshairs for destruction. We owe it to Columbus and ourselves to be more respectful of the man who made the existence of our country possible.

Once Revered, Now Maligned

A few historians and activists began to attack Columbus’ legacy in the late 20th century. They concocted a new narrative of Columbus as a rapacious pillager and a genocidal maniac.

Far-left historian Howard Zinn, in particular, had a huge impact on changing the minds of a generation of Americans about the Columbus legacy. Zinn not only maligned Columbus, but attacked the larger migration from the Old World to the new that he ushered in.

It wasn’t just Columbus who was a monster, according to Zinn, it was the driving ethos of the civilization that ultimately developed in the wake of his discovery: the United States.

“Behind the English invasion of North America,” Zinn wrote, “behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private profit.”

The truth is that Columbus set out for the New World thinking he would spread Christianity to regions where it didn’t exist. While Columbus, and certainly his Spanish benefactors, had an interest in the goods and gold he could return from what they thought would be Asia, the explorer’s primary motivation was religious.

“This conviction that God destined him to be an instrument for spreading the faith was far more potent than the desire to win glory, wealth, and worldly honors,” wrote historian Samuel Eliot Morison over a half-century ago.

In fact, as contemporary historian Carol Delaney noted, even the money Columbus sought was primarily dedicated to religious purposes. Delaney said in an interview with the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus:

Everybody knows that Columbus was trying to find gold, but they don’t know what the gold was for: to fund a crusade to take Jerusalem back from the Muslims before the end of the world. A lot of people at the time thought that the apocalypse was coming because of all the signs: the plague, famine, earthquakes, and so forth. And it was believed that before the end, Jerusalem had to be back in Christian hands so that Christ could return in judgment.

Columbus critics don’t just stop at accusing him of greed. One of the biggest allegations against him is that he waged a genocidal war and engaged in acts of cruelty against indigenous people in the Americas.

But historians like Delaney have debunked these claims.

Rather than cruel, Columbus was mostly benign in his interaction with native populations. While deprivations did occur, Columbus was quick to punish those under his command who committed unjust acts against local populations.

“Columbus strictly told the crew not to do things like maraud, or rape, and instead to treat the native people with respect,” Delaney said. “There are many examples in his writings where he gave instructions to this effect. Most of the time when injustices occurred, Columbus wasn’t even there. There were terrible diseases that got communicated to the natives, but he can’t be blamed for that.”

Columbus certainly wasn’t a man without flaws or attitudes that would be unacceptable today.

But even as a man of an earlier age in which violence and cruelty were often the norm between different cultures and people, Columbus did not engage in the savage acts that have been pinned on him.

How Americans Once Viewed Columbus

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, most Americans were taught about Columbus’ discovery of the New World in school.

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue … ” went a popular poem about the Italian explorer who flew under the Spanish flag. At one time, Americans marveled at what seemed like an unbelievably courageous voyage across unknown waters with the limited tools and maps of the 15th century.

It is difficult in the 21st century to imagine what Columbus faced as he crossed the Atlantic in search of what he thought was a route to Asia. The hardship and danger was immense. If things went awry, there would be nothing to save his little flotilla besides hope, prayer, and a little courage.

Most people, even in the 1490s, knew that the Earth was round. However, Columbus made a nevertheless history-altering discovery.

The world was a much bigger place than most had imagined, and though Columbus never personally realized the scope of his discovery, he opened up a new world that would one day become a forefront of human civilization.

This is the man and the history that earlier generations of Americans came to respect and admire.

Unfortunately, Zinn and others’ caricature of Columbus and American civilization has stuck and in an era in which radicals and activists search the country for problematic statues to destroy, Columbus is a prime target.

Ku Klux Klan Pushed Anti-Columbus Rhetoric

Much of the modern rhetoric about Columbus mirrors attacks lobbed at him in the 19th century by anti-Catholic and anti-Italian groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

In fact, Columbus Day became a nationally celebrated holiday following a mass lynching of Italians in New Orleans—the largest incident of lynching in American history.

In 1892—the 400th anniversary of the Columbus voyage—President Benjamin Harrison called for a national celebration of Columbus and his achievements. Americans patriotically celebrated Columbus and erected numerous statues in his honor as the country embraced him.

Though American appreciation of Columbus deepened, some groups weren’t pleased.

As the pro-Columbus website The Truth About Columbus points out, the Ku Klux Klan worked to stop Columbus Day celebrations, smash statues, and reverse his growing influence on American culture.

According to The Truth About Columbus, in the 1920s, the Klan “attempted to remove Columbus Day as a state holiday in Oregon,” burned a cross “to disturb a Columbus Day celebration in Pennsylvania,” and successfully “opposed the erection of a statue of Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, only to see the decision to reject the statue reversed.”

Attempts to quash Columbus failed, but they have re-emerged in our own time through the actions of far-left groups who want to see his legacy buried and diminished forever.

This would be a tragic loss for our generation and those of the future.

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Woke Ideology Has Metastasized in U.S. Military. It Will Take Time to Remove Its Divisive Influence

Efforts to uncover the prevalence of woke, divisive critical race theory-based equity training and policies in the military are bringing to light an extensive problem.

The latest revelation is the Air Force Academy promoting gender-based “inclusivity” indoctrination while advertising for a fellowship that excludes cadets based on sexual orientation.

Those are only the latest tips of the critical race theory and gender ideology icebergs.

The divisiveness of critical race theory’s and gender ideology’s influence on the military is pervasive, infecting military academies, operational units, and—incredibly—even military medical care.

This scourge was introduced into the military with President Barack Obama’s well-intentioned-sounding diversity and inclusion Executive Order 13583 of Aug. 18, 2011. It was quickly followed by a Government-Wide Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan that directed all agencies to establish diversity and inclusion councils with visible leadership involvement.

These councils and their associated diversity, equity, and inclusion advisers have created a nomenklatura enforcing political preferences that Nadia Schadlow has correctly equated with Soviet political commissars.

One of these diversity apparatchiks was recently uncovered and is under investigation for racist and derogatory public statements. This person is the Department of Defense’s education activity chief diversity officer. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as this agency has been pushing these divisive ideas for some time.

But this is only a reflection of deeper rot, which also has seemingly infected the military medical community’s thinking.

The Uniformed Service University trains uniformed medical care providers, and in its strategic plan, it aims to institutionalize similar critical race theory-sounding efforts for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Ostensibly a mission for its associate dean, an Army colonel is heading up the institution’s School of Medicine diversity, equity, and inclusion office.

Meanwhile, the Navy’s own medical command’s culture of excellence prioritizes support for diversity and inclusion, albeit dropping the equity part. Understanding how these efforts affect medical guidance, approval for grants, and selection of applicants merits closer scrutiny, especially given the vice president’s recent remarks on equity in allocation of disaster-recovery assistance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s past guidance on equity in COVID-19 vaccination distribution.

A critical race theory whistleblower hotline created by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, has helped bring a lot of this sort of thing to light, but must be sustained and awareness increased among service members. Already it is credited with exposing the Navy’s “pronoun” training focused on creating safe spaces, and so too could it uncover malfeasance of military medical training and policies.

The nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch also has been active in uncovering critical race theory prevalence in the military, and it has outstanding lawsuits against the Navy seeking information on Naval Academy training records. It recently was credited with uncovering critical race theory ideology in the training at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, despite the Army’s protestations to the contrary.

Overall, the effect has been to subordinate operational readiness in defense of the nation to social shibboleths such as diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That’s something that retired Gen. Thomas Spoehr, now the director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, detailed in a recent speech. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Spoehr rightly points out that this has already led to unwise medical decisions, such as waiving prohibitions on HIV-positive personnel from serving in combat zones. Given that soldiers, sailors, and Marines bleed together in combat, this operationally uninformed policy change makes little medical sense.

To be clear, HIV is now a chronic disease, requiring lifelong medical treatment, whereas COVID-19 fatality rates are very low with rare long-term consequences requiring sustained medication.

So, where will all of this lead? The revolutionary French navy of the 1790s provides a good case study. It was a fleet that years earlier was victorious over the British navy at the Battle of the Capes, the 1781 battle that helped us win independence at Yorktown. Revolutionary France undid its fleet’s readiness by prioritizing political reliability as the principal qualification for command at sea.

As a result, three years later, France was unable to muster an effective naval response to British blockades and interdiction of its shipping during war with Britain. As such, the revolutionary French navy suffered a string of naval defeats for 26 years, eventually leading to Napoleon’s defeat in 1815.

Hopefully, our nation will heed such lessons and reverse the caustic influence of critical race theory on military good order and discipline. Then-President Donald Trump’s September 2020 executive order banning related training in the federal government came too late in his administration to markedly change the trajectory in the military.

So deeply ingrained is critical race theory that even a commander in chief’s efforts can be stymied. While Trump was still president, the Navy was so enraptured by the tenets of diversity, equity, and inclusion that in July 2020, it launched Task Force One Navy, a deep look into the prevalence of racism and extremism in the ranks.

The Task Force’s final report, released in January 2021, revealed a Navy that’s still remarkably egalitarian, despite anecodotal claims of racism and extremism. That report was followed shortly by an unfortunate embrace of problematic books such as Ibram Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist” on naval professional reading lists.

When it comes to proponents of critical race theory, facts and unbiased research are in short supply. Moreover, despite the military political leadership’s protestations to the contrary, no statistically relevant data has been provided. Little evidence validates the time and energy devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion indoctrination, or claims of rampant racism and extremism in the military.

It has in fact been a straw man to instill political compliance among the rank and file, sowing discord where little existed before in the military.

In the immediate future, efforts such as the critical race theory whistleblower hotline and legal requests for information must continue apace, and new vigor must be directed at uncovering critical race theory’s influence in the military medical community.

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Australia: Indigenous leaders, Greens unite against pro-Aboriginal referendum

Amusing. This ensures that the referendum will fail. Referenda in Australia succeed only if there is no significant opposition to them

Conservative Aboriginal leaders and Greens have held talks over their common opposition to a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, as Anthony Albanese leans toward starving both the Yes and No campaigns of ­public funds.

A diverse range of Indigenous leaders and politicians is coalescing against the voice, ­demanding the government halt the referendum, or at least ensure public funding for an Aboriginal-led No campaign.

The Australian can reveal Indigenous businessman Warren Mundine met Greens senator Lidia Thorpe last Wednesday and discussed ramping up a No campaign, on the sidelines of wider talks with crossbench senators about Indigenous affairs.

The meeting – between Mr Mundine, a former federal Liberal Party candidate, and Senator Thorpe, who says a voice is not radical enough and a treaty between Indigenous Australians and the federal government is needed – was the first informal step to bringing conservatives and ­radicals in the Aboriginal community together to support a No campaign.

“These blokes (supporters of the voice) are better than Jesus Christ,” said a source who was at the meeting. “They have brought all these people with different politics together.”

Mr Mundine also plans a ­national talking tour with Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in coming months to promote the No cause.

Veteran Aboriginal leaders across the country, including Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Michael Mansell and former North Queensland Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire mayor Percy Neal, are also rallying colleagues to help halt the referendum.

Mr Mansell is campaigning for designated Indigenous senators from each state as an alternative to the voice, while others such as Mr Neal want to move immediately to a broader treaty.

A spokeswoman for the federal Greens confirmed the meeting between Senator Thorpe and Mr Mundine took place, and did not deny they discussed their mutual opposition to the Albanese government’s referendum.

“As you would expect, Senator Thorpe meets with a range of First Nations stakeholders,” she said.

“Senator Thorpe and Greens leader Adam Bandt are currently working with the government to ensure all elements of the Uluru statement including truth, treaty and voice are delivered.”

Senator Thorpe has repeatedly attacked the voice referendum despite saying she does not oppose it in theory.

The Victorian Greens senator has called a referendum a waste of money and claimed that a campaign could be harmful to Aboriginal Australians.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said the government was yet to make a decision on funding for the Yes and No campaigns. “It’s one of a number of issues that government will be consulting on … in the months ahead,” a spokesman said.

However, The Australian understands there is an influential view within government that it will not fund either campaign.

This would significantly advantage the “yes” camp, which corporate Australia is lining up to bankroll. “People have to make an ­informed decision on constitutional change and you can’t have an informed opinion if you’re only getting one side of the story,” Mr Mansell said. “They’ve given nothing to the Aboriginal voice that says ‘Hang on, we’ve got a different viewpoint and we want to raise some issues’.”

First Nations people, rather than the non-Indigenous, should receive any funding for the No case, given the subject matter, he said. “Those who wish to express themselves must have an ­opportunity to do so – most Aboriginal people are just completely shut out of this process. They don’t have the resources.”

This was backed by Mr Mundine. “I am sitting down and talking to people because we have got no money,” Mr Mundine said.

“We are up against a 50,000-tonne dragon. I think the general public will say ‘if they (Aboriginal people) are all split, why should we vote for it’. I predict the debate will get angrier as we get closer to this referendum because the ­voices of everyday working Aboriginal Australians have been totally snuffed out.”

Supporters of the voice are increasingly concerned opposition from such influential Indigenous figures threatens the Yes vote.

There is particular concern the Yes vote will struggle in Tasmania and Queensland, leaving it vulnerable to failure, given referendums require a national majority and a majority in at least four of the six states.

Mr Neal said like-minded Indigenous figures from across the country hoped to meet soon to plan a united approach to government to halt the referendum.

“We want to speak to government about where we’re going,” Mr Neal said. “There is still time. The Prime Minister has to seriously consider this. Now is the time to try to get something really good out of all this talk.”

If the referendum proceeded, he would reluctantly have to advocate a No vote. He believed the focus should be on treaty now.

“The Uluru Statement (from the Heart, which elevated voice as an initial step) was when we had a conservative government,” he said. “But now with Albanese there, we should all get together again and put that energy and money into seriously considering treaty.

“If (Mr) Albanese could show the same enthusiasm for treaty as for the voice to parliament, I think he’d be able to pull it off.

“Treaty is the only thing that everyone understands. People on the ground want something meaningful.”

He said he believed the cost of a voice would be better spent on improving the day-to-day lives of Indigenous communities.

At the 1999 republic referendum, the Howard government allocated equal funding to the two campaign committees. Campaigns by both sides in the 2017 same sex marriage plebiscite were also government-funded.

However, at the 1967 referendum (to count Aborigines in the census and allow federal laws for their betterment), only a Yes campaign was government-backed, given a lack of advocacy for a No vote.

Pauline Hanson is preparing to work on a No campaign alongside Mr Mundine and anyone else with shared concerns.

Her office said it was in ongoing discussions with Mr Mundine about a shared opposition to an Indigenous voice to parliament. “It has to be a collective effort. A divided No campaign will fail,” she said via a spokesman.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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