Male Trouble
By Arlie Russell Hochschild
New York Review of Books
OCTOBER 11, 2018 ISSUE

A review of:

The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It
by Warren Farrell and John Gray
BenBella, 493 pp., $25.95

Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent Extremism
by Michael Kimmel
University of California Press, 263 pp., $29.95

White American Youth: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement—and How I Got Out
by Christian Picciolini
Hachette, 275 pp., $15.99 (paper)

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My letter:

Dear Arlie

I very much appreciate your important and insightful “Male Trouble” in the New York Review of Books.

In addition to the “roots” you address in the section on solutions, I recommend more attention to cultural changes. Beyond making it “heroic to be a great dad,”  a new paradigm of modern humanity could replace Faludi’s “paradigm of modern masculinity.” The biological differences between men and women are relatively insignificant, so far as I can tell. Our shared humanity is key.

Moreover, we need to redefine the American Dream, or perhaps return to its original definition, which assumed a gradual accumulation of wealth. Widespread, rabid greed is a relatively new phenomenon. The drive to climb social ladders and look down on and dominate those below is deadly.

“Americans for Humanity: A Declaration” aims to contribute to that kind of transformation. If you will, please consider signing it. (BTW, the other day, I sent you an email about it with a bad link. Sorry about that if you tried it.)

Carry it on,
Wade Lee Hudson