The Deep Malignancy of American Manhood
Rising suicide rates and growing opioid drug abuse are symptoms of our deeply damaging culture of masculinity
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A study by Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton and Anne Case, both professors at Princeton University, is showing a rise in deaths among poorly educated middle aged white people during a time when mortality rates for blacks and Latinos continue to decline.
These deaths are attributed, not to the big killers heart disease and diabetes, but to suicide, drug abuse and alcoholic liver disease as well as overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids. The population, poorly educated middle aged white persons are dying at such high rates this it is skewing the averages for all middle aged whites.
The Guardian reports:
The alarming trend, overlooked until now, has hit less-educated 45- to 54-year-olds the hardest, with no other groups in the US as affected and no similar declines seen in other rich countries.
The rise in death rates among middle-aged white Americans means half a million more people have died in the US since 1998 than if the previous trend had continued. The death toll is comparable to the 650,000 Americans who lost their lives during the Aids epidemic from 1981 to the middle of this year, the researchers said.
These alarming numbers are evidence of the brutal impact of economic downturns over the last two decades on whites with a high school degree or less. They also reflect the increasing availability of powerful opioids, but the impact of economic downturns and growing drug abuse are symptoms of a much deeper malignancy in American culture.
In 2010 the American Association of Retired Persons conducted a survey in which revealed that 1 in 3 adults over the age of 45 are chronically lonely. That is 44 million people. And this number is growing at a dramatic pace, up from 1 in 5 just ten years before.
The New Republic published an article titled, “The Lethality of Loneliness.” Here is a quote from that article:
Emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as smoking. Diseases thought to be caused by or exacerbated by loneliness would include Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and even cancer — tumors can metastasize faster in lonely people.
In a meta review conducted in 2013, researchers reviewed 148 studies involving over 308,000 participants. The study titled Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review concluded:
The quality and quantity of individuals’ social relationships has been linked not only to mental health but also to both morbidity and mortality…indicating a 50% increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships.
Given the importance of social connection to overall health and well being, the lack of robust social networks during economic crises can be overwhelming for men. Which begs the question. Why aren’t mortality numbers trending upward in African American or Latino communities who have logically been hit even harder by economic factors? And why are mortality statistics for similar white populations in other countries trending down?
Clearly there is something specific to American culture that is proving lethal to under educated whites above and beyond the economic hardships they face.
The explanation may prove to be this. If our culture exclusively privileges self reliance and economic independence as central to the identity of white Americans, than failing to achieve these metrics leave American whites nothing to fall back on in a crisis.
For decades, America’s “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” ethos has been promoted over creating community and connecting across differences. Much of this ‘promotion’ has been part of the coded language of white politicians and media against non-white racial groups. A devastating side effect is, that whatever men achieve, we believe we must achieve it our own, without help. Otherwise, we are weak.
The cult of independence has taught American men never to ask for help. We are never to admit self doubt or that we are lonely. The result is epidemic levels of social isoation and all its attendent health impacts. Mortality rates for white men are rising, while mortality rates for people of color are in decline, because white men bought into the isolating cult of independence hook, line and sinker. They have done so in great part because this racially charged message has always been aimed primarily at them. Its a toxic message driven by a toxic agenda.
A culture that values the individual to the exclusion of community, especially community across difference, results in social and emotional insolation. Our sons are trained by the Man Box and our American culture of emotional toughness to suppress the kind of emotional expression that is central to creating connection and community. It is in community that we find the central source of human healing and resiliency. It is a lack of community that is contributing to chronic loneliness for 44 million middle aged Americans.
The cult of emotional toughness and the constant drumbeat of bootstrap thinking among whites has unleashed an epidemic of social isolation, undercutting our collective capacity to create the kind of vibrant communities that can save us in times of hardship.
Massive media conglomerates in America have grown fat driving deep and ugly divisions along racial and political lines, encouraging isolation and distrust as a core American value. In the land of the free, love your brother has become stand your ground.
Meanwhile, our elected officials continue to chip away at our remaining social safety nets while, at the same time, deregulating huge corporate interests leading to catastrophic economic events like the banking scandals of the last decade. We are told, “greed is good. I got mine, now you get yours.
The result is epidemic levels of illness, depression and suicide. Whites raised in America’s cult of independence, are now confronting the limitations of our frayed social safety net and the shame we heap on those who are forced to turn to it.
We have been trained to have contempt for our collective responsibility to each other. We have lost our capacity to create community. We are all expected to go forward on our own. And if we fail to do so, it is clearly own fault. And even if we succeed economically, ensconced in the drab safety of our gated communities, we are all the lonelier and less joyous for it. And just as at risk.
Psychiatrist and PTSD researcher Bessel van der Kolk writes, “Everything about us — our brains, minds, and our bodies — is geared toward collaboration in social systems. This is our most powerful survival strategy, the key to our success as a species, and it is precisely this that breaks down in most forms of mental suffering.”
This startling mortality data is a clear and unambiguous warning that America’s politically driven cult of independence is fully and terribly upon us. We must make the choice to go forward together; all of us, gay, straight, men, women, black, white, brown, poor, rich, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists. We go forward together, or we will continue to die alone, victims of the false divisions intentionally sown between us to keep us in conflict.
Without community and connection, human beings die.
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Photo by: Alex Krasavtsev
Want to start a powerful conversation about masculinity with someone you live or work with? Give them a copy of Mark Greene’s The Little #MeToo Book for Men.
