I feel like this article muddies so much of what is cause and what is effect. It pushes the idea that there is an "age-old male quest for a paying job", whereas I don't think men or women or animals or anything has ever had that as their primary objective. The pressure has been to meet basic needs, meet societal obligations and expectations, meet peer pressure and similar outside forces that lead someone to take up a 9-to-5 job.

I think it's natural as those forces have weakened for this to be the consequence. It's become easier to meet basic needs, gender roles have become less rigid and there's not the same expectation of a male breadwinner, and society no longer demands everyone has children.

"One manifestation of regression, Donald Trump, is perhaps perverse evidence that some of his army of angry men are at least healthily unhappy about the loss of meaning, self-esteem and masculinity that is a consequence of chosen and protracted idleness."

Maybe they are, but just taking up a "pointless" job isn't going to change that. Without the sense that there's something bigger that they're working towards, being a Gap Factory Store employee in itself (as per the header image) isn't going to give any kind of meaning. People don't work bad jobs for themselves, they work it for something bigger. Family, society, some kind of grand purpose. Can just look at that Congo cobalt mining piece by the WaPo to see what motivates people to endure horrific work.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c...