Social Suicide: The Growing Plight of Middle-Aged White Men

[crazyjames1233]

I think it has a lot to with society having much higher expectations of men (you will NEVER hear a woman described as a "failure" or "loser")
But I don't think that is always bad. After all it drives men to be more successful and can make their lives and people around them better. The problem is when they are pushed to hard and cant succeed. I lived in Korea for 2 years and saw how much was expected of boys there, it was FAR more than the west. And the suicide rate there was extremely high! It's really tough to find a balance between pushing someone enough for success but not too hard into despair.

 

[Roll The Dice]

Ive never read so much bull shit in my life.

Stop crying your life is fine and hasn't chsnged at all.

You should be careful, your level of hate for White people will crush you. Your narrow mind is a cauldron of unhappiness. You may think that you are some kind of White Knight fighting for freedom and social justice, but actually you are delusional.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

I shared my feelings once. Didn't like it. Went back to bottling it up.

I'm not big on sharing feeling either. I only bitch on Sherdog.

 

[Roll The Dice]

Listen you sit at home all day while your wife works.

You're as privileged as it gets. And you have the audacity to sit here like your life sucks.

You literally don't do anything and whine how your life is being stripped away by the black man.


You need a therapist in the worst way possible.

Do you have any friends? Does anyone love you. I am serious. Reading the constant stream of hate you produce, makes me wonder what kind of person are you. What is your race, gender. Are you gay?

I can't image the horror of being you.

We are not having a real discussion with you, we are enabling unhappiness.

 

[elmo_1968]

I'm not big on sharing feeling either. I only bitch on Sherdog.

.. and he hasn't killed himself, so Sherdog > counselling.

 

[irish_thug]

I'm not big on sharing feeling either. I only bitch on Sherdog.

I use motorcycles as counselling. Highly recommended.

 

[Roll The Dice]

Hopefully in your case, nothing terrible happens to you, a loved one, or a valuable asset of some sort, that ruins your life and turns you so miserable that you can't bear the horror that happened. Causing you to blow your brains out so that we can just bury your body and move on.

If I were to take my own life, I wouldn't do with a gun, as you suggest.

It would be ritualistic, but not seppuku. If the time comes, I will know it. The decision will be cold and rational, after which I would enjoy the journey. I would invite the best people I know to be with me in a place like Death Valley, where I would find joy at the end. I would expect my friends to bury my body and move on with their lives.

What would trigger such a decision?

Health issue like near the end Stage 4 cancer. Maybe if I did something that I would find unforgivable. Nonetheless, taking one's life is not a tragedy, it is a choice.

I don't expect I ever will take my own life, given I feel compelled to see what happens, what is next. I love my life. I love its pain, its sorry, it love, its joy.

 

[Roll The Dice]

Question: If the answer for lowering suicide rates for white men involves some sort of gun control, are we at an impasse?

Yes, we are.

If some White guy wants to take his own life, so what. It is his choice and how he accomplishes the task is his business. Taking away other people's rights to stop someone from carrying out a personal decision, is not ever remotely rational.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

.. and he hasn't killed himself, so Sherdog > counselling.

I take it like a man.




Take it like a man, steady and strong
Not a lot of fuss and carrying on
True to a promise I can ride in a storm
Take it like a man who knows about love
And every little things that a girl dreams of
Someone wise enough to understand
If you want this woman's heart
Take it like a man
Take it like a man
Well honey if you want my heart
You gotta take it like a man
Take it like a man

 

[Roll The Dice]

White men like me face the stigma of being the best, having the most, and also be straight up killing it all the time.

And that stigma is correct.

I love a positive attitude.

 

[Dalarna3]

It kind of sucks when everyone is told that you rule the world and that others have a right to hate and resent you, but you, personally, do not rule the world and have not given a real reason for others to hate and resent you.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

It kind of sucks when everyone is told that you rule the world and that others have a right to hate and resent you, but you, personally, do not rule the world and have not given a real reason for others to hate and resent you.

It has never been the majority of whites who have caused problems. It is a small number of people in power who happen to have white skin. During atrocities like American slavery, there were white people protesting and helping slaves escape slavery and many whites were far too poor to own a slave.

Women like to constantly bring up the tragic fact that they could not vote, but throughout history, most males could not vote either. It was reserved for the wealthiest, land owning individuals.

Even for myself, I grew up poor in a broken home. My mother worked two jobs, but one day she was in a bad accident and could not work anymore. We were so poor that we had to move in with my grandparents. If it were not for them we would have been homeless. It was not until I met my wife relatively recently, that things changed for me. I went from being so poor we had to live with my grandparents to not having to worry so much about money. My wife is Korean.

Whites are constantly told not to generalize people by the color of their skin and gender, but apparently, it is acceptable for anyone who is not white to generalize about whites and anyone who is not male to generalize about males.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I hear this a lot, but is it real for adult men? I know little boys get told to man up a lot about trivial things, but the few times I've had serious talks (like, serious life talks) with my brothers or dad or male friends, they've always been extremely supportive. I've seen this same brotherly support in sports, the military, every aspect of society. Who are these men telling other grown men to not talk about their feelings?

My friends and I are fairly open with one another with our issues. I tend to open up the least actually, I don't think complaining about issues that are obvious is helpful but I try to be there for my friends

This is kind of a tangent, and it might even be consistent with your distinction between human "beings" and human "doings," but you could say that the easiest way for a woman have her sexualized self-concept ruined is simply to age past her reproductive years (assuming she wasn't fat or ugly through those years, god forbid). Granted they have plenty of tools to artificially lengthen the sexualized period, but those who choose not to fall into a strange place on the gender map.

There are certainly two sides to every story, but you could say that at least men have the ability in principle to earn their status back through their own activity, even if the burden of doing so is heavy sometimes.

Only if she's single and childless. Otherwise she can maintain her self concept as a woman as a mother and/or wife

I may sound like Ripskater, but i think that the "white man" needs some Jesus so it can check its privilege.

I can see it in my family, my dadwas never religious, he grew up in wealth, a wealth that went away with economic crisis, bad management and family issues but still my father family has always had enough wealth to be above average middle class (at least in mexican terms). My mom was born in a working man middle class family, very religious, not Ned Flanders levels of religion, more like Marge Simpson (early seasons) level of religious.

Its like day and night at how they face adversity, they divorced and my mom in general has always faced the short-end of the stick, both have suffered in life, but my mother's faith to deal with shit is amazing, i used to mock her beliefs in jest and told her the reasons god is dead etc, etc. Trying to shake her beliefs, and while she heared my inputs she always had a story of how god helped her through adversity that one time.

And God doesnt exists, but religion does, religion can be an amazing tool to deal with adversity. The reason is most likely because christianity at least is about checking our privilege.

We are healthy, praise god. We have food praise god. We are not dead, praise god, eventually christianity tells you that no matter the adversity you are a rich man, because you have a lot of things others lack and because you have jesus.

And fuck it i dont believe in god or any supernatural entity, and i believe we are just bags of flesh destined to oblivion in space.

But i started using again some prayers, when something good happens i do the sign of the cross and say thank you, when something bad happens ill do it and say give me strength, when things are normal and after a while i do it and say thanks for being alive. My wife sometimes is present and get confused since she knows i am an atheist.

I guess life is about appreciation of what we have not angst for what we dont have.

I agree with you. In secular societies we've sort of thrown the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to religion. I don't think that means we need to turn to conventional religion but clearly there's something positive there.

Sam Harris' book on the matter is interesting, he does a good job at divorcing some of the benefits of religion from it by focusing on the spiritual side of things. I also think that there's value beyond the spiritual and in the mythology, community, and tradition. If we could divorce the dogma from these things I think religion could become a positive force in people's lives without some of the negatives.

Except that the increasing power of capitalism, and its mechanisms of social restructuring, are not only predictable but tiresomely so. Before, during, and after the fact.

It's not Nostradamus material, and it requires no lizard man at the helm, to watch the democratic society get its ass systematically kicked and marginalized over the past 4 decades across the Western world, relative to capital interests. It just requires basic attention skills, basic data analysis.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9354310

It's great you think that modern America is a triumph of free democracy or some such, but I think you'll find not quite so many agree with you these days. And in Europe, it's even worse. That shit is breaking down, and no amount of hoping for a return to postwar halcyon days is going to put the genie back in the bottle and return to how things were 30 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/o...a-growing-disillusionment-with-democracy.html

So basically there's no hope and I should just jump off the nearest bridge. Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Only if she's single and childless. Otherwise she can maintain her self concept as a woman as a mother and/or wife.

Fair point, but I did specify "sexualized" self-concept, and it's not uncommon for a woman to lose that after having kids. Not that I want to draw that argument out now, but maybe in a future thread.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Interesting tho that Asians are p4p champs when it comes to suicides at the global level, with South Korea tragically on top of the list. I'd suggest that any analysis of the relation between suicides and economic/social success should take into account the global data, and the global data indicates that intensely collectivist nations are even worse in their suicide rates.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes...uth-korea-suicide-nation-150827070904874.html

I really think economic suicides seem to come from a feeling of complete hopelessness regarding your economic plight, an inability to *better* it. In nations with a brutal meritocratic competition, this makes for a huge class of people who feel branded as the losers. Ironically if you have a narrative that explains why you are on the wrong side of life (black female, for example), you can internally fare better than just feeling like a flat-out failure.

In the US, Asians tend to perform so well on meritocratic measures that they are able to escape the horrors of the East Asian system.

Yeah, Korea being up there is a real head scratcher. Looking at the global rankings, it's hard to pick out many trends.

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/suicide/by-country/

It's not a perfect mish-mash, but it doesn't follow a development or wealth trend, and only some cultural or regional ones.

Eastern Europe, Russia and a few former Soviet states are on the high end. The rich, Western countries are mostly in the high part of the middle. Latin America is spread out mostly in the middle. Sub-Saharan Africa is everywhere, a few in the top 15, several in the 120s and 130s.

The Muslim countries being on the low end is probably the strongest of all.

Maybe the collectivism theory only applies to the US context. Globally, it's all over the place.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

This is a christian talk, but it's an excellent talk on manhood and worth listening to.

 

[Rod1]

Yeah, Korea being up there is a real head scratcher. Looking at the global rankings, it's hard to pick out many trends.

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/suicide/by-country/

It's not a perfect mish-mash, but it doesn't follow a development or wealth trend, and only some cultural or regional ones.

Eastern Europe, Russia and a few former Soviet states are on the high end. The rich, Western countries are mostly in the high part of the middle. Latin America is spread out mostly in the middle. Sub-Saharan Africa is everywhere, a few in the top 15, several in the 120s and 130s.

The Muslim countries being on the low end is probably the strongest of all.

Maybe the collectivism theory only applies to the US context. Globally, it's all over the place.

I think you can tie it to 2 things family cohesion and substance abuse.

Muslims never leave their families they are still highly patriarchal and they have little substance abuse due to religion clamping down on it.

Koreans have small families in their own country, they are not as cohesive as they are in America

 

[Harmonica]

Yes im hateful to white cry babies. Like you. And that's ironic coming from one of the more hateful people on here. Go to any feminist thread youre no jeuss Christ in them...

This is gonna be my new stance on it.. Im white so who better than me to talk about other white people..

Im so sick of you constantly crying..

You don't even work. You sit home and post on Sherdog while your wife works all day long...

Youre a caricature. And you have the audacity to sit here and cry about white men having nothing...

Go get a job.

I like you.

 

[SakuMemories]

This is a self-inflicted plight. I don't mean it in a literal sense; obviously suicide is self-inflicted, I mean the anguish that leads white men to kill their fucking selves is generated by their own retarded brain. It is not rooted in external conditions.

In the first world "society" does not really exist. Therefore there are no expectations this "society" places on you. This isn't the 50s. Nobody gives a fuck anymore. You can live your life ignoring those imaginary expectations and you will be just fine. Nothing will change.

Who cares if you are branded a "loser" or "beta" or a "racist"? Who brands you as such? The answers are: Nobody and nobody.

This shit only applies to an extreme minority of public personalities. Even in those cases it doesn't matter, like so what they called you a "racist" and you lost your TV show. Boo fucking hoo, wipe your tears with the millions of dollars you still get to have.

So yeah this is an utterly embarrassing and humiliating social phenomenon that will be studied by psychologists and sociologists in the future: The phenomenon where the dominant group of the population (white straight males) collapsed because it could not meet the unrealistically high expectations it set on its self.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

This is a self-inflicted plight. I don't mean it in a literal sense; obviously suicide is self-inflicted, I mean the anguish that leads white men to kill their fucking selves is generated by their own retarded brain. It is not rooted in external conditions.

In the first world "society" does not really exist. Therefore there are no expectations this "society" places on you. This isn't the 50s. Nobody gives a fuck anymore. You can live your life ignoring those imaginary expectations and you will be just fine. Nothing will change.

Who cares if you are branded a "loser" or "beta" or a "racist"? Who brands you as such? The answers are: Nobody and nobody.

This shit only applies to an extreme minority of public personalities. Even in those cases it doesn't matter, like so what they called you a "racist" and you lost your TV show. Boo fucking hoo, wipe your tears with the millions of dollars you still get to have.

So yeah this is an utterly embarrassing and humiliating social phenomenon that will be studied by psychologists and sociologists in the future: The phenomenon where the dominant group of the population (white straight males) collapsed because it could not meet the unrealistically high expectations it set on its self.

I think there is a lot of truth to what you say. It seems like the whites, particularly in Britain and North America, are one of the few groups that willingly and enthusiastically destroyed every value and tradition that allowed them to thrive in the first place. Things like family, religion, strong work ethic, discipline, character and modesty have been replaced by hollow liberal social values that promote selfishness, laziness, "self-esteem," victimhood, weakness and unreasonable material and financial gain.