Michael J. Totten watches this YouTube video and makes an important point:
I don’t know much about demography, but Martin Kramer makes a strong case in just a few short minutes for the idea that a surplus of military-aged males is a big part of the Middle East’s problem right now and that it will eventually correct itself.
Men have an innate need to be a part of something larger than themselves. They want to belong. They want to lead something. They want to take charge. They have all this pent-up energy to make a difference, and in too many parts of the world, they do not have an outlet to do so. They want to feel important. They want to be a provider, in some capacity.
This reality — or lack thereof — plays itself out in different ways in different parts of the world. In inner-city America, young men join gangs when they have little education and even fewer job prospects. In the Middle East, they join extremist groups that offer a purpose in a part the world that currently has few job prospects. In suburban America, they live in “Guyland” — they sleep around, prey on women, work dead-end jobs, and play video-games in which they can exert some control a the virtual world that they have created because they have no control over the real one. For example, several friends of mine have said that they love the “Civilization” computer-game series because it allows them to be the “master of their domain” when they are currently powerless in the current economy.
The biggest question-mark in this context is China. The country has millions of men who will never have wives because of a population-imbalance resulting from a one-child policy that led to parents killing female children through abortion or other means because a male child was culturally viewed as more important than a female one. What will these men do? Exert their inner rage against the government? Join the military and fight an enemy, whoever it may be?
I also wonder how this will affect Western society, which is seeing men outnumbered at universities over women as well as men beginning to earn less on average than female professionals. Men are increasingly angry and agitated, and I fear where it may lead. These feeling that men have will need an outlet.
