“The throughline is that nearly every structure that gave boys meaning, community, accountability, and identity has either collapsed or is being actively dismantled by buildings full of PhDs.”

I think this is under appreciated, in part because it’s incredibly hard to fix. There’s a void where the US cultural image of masculinity used to be. As an adult man, I couldn’t really describe what a prototypically masculine person looks like or does or thinks anymore.

There’s a loss of identity there that we haven’t really rebuilt.

I wouldn’t point entirely at the PhDs, though. There were some real issues that were called out (inability to communicate, over reliance on anger as an emotional outlet, etc), but the identity could have stayed largely intact.

The killing blows were from segments of men who doubled down on the most negative aspects of masculinity, and made the rest of the men flee from that image of masculinity to avoid any association. I would rather drop masculinity from my self-perception than be associated with Andrew Tate or Logan Paul or whoever else.

I don’t think I know any men that have “modern masculinity” (whatever that would mean) as part of their core identity. They’re either clinging onto a Chuck Norris kind of masculinity, or just don’t have a strong gender component of their self-identity. They’re not feminine, they just don’t do anything to be “manly”. Being “manly” matters to them about as much as whether they’re a Coke or Pepsi person.