The Crisis of Modern Masculinity | Scott Galloway & Dr. Andrew Huberman
Huberman Lab Clips
0:00 there's the this idea that there're good men
0:02 and there're bad men and there're really bad men.
0:05 Totally agree.
0:07 I you know, I'm I've got the optics of a you know,
0:10 macaque monkey blindfolded on LSD when it
0:12 comes to certain thing members of our species,
0:15 but when it comes to men, I grew up in a big group of boys etc.
0:18 big group of men.
0:19 I get it.
0:19 That statement is true.
0:20 There're great ones, there're ones and then there're like really bad dudes.
0:25 So when you talk about manosphere, you know,
0:27 the I would say it the if I had my way,
0:32 manosphere would apply to just the really bad ones
0:34 because that name has become synonymous with really bad men.
0:37 Okay, we can come back to that perhaps, but there is this issue that no
0:41 one is allowed to say there's wonderful femininity,
0:45 there's women with issues, right?
0:48 And then there's bad women.
0:49 You're not allowed to say it.
0:50 The only women that I can have that conversation with are lesbians.
0:54 They were the ones who explained to me there are truly bad women.
0:57 And I said, "Well, how come no one talks
0:58 about that except lesbians?" Cuz and they said, "Ah,
1:02 because we are living in a time now where men talking about women
1:06 or having things they wish for women to do differently itself is seen as toxic.
1:12 That they've that women feel this is what I was told,
1:14 so I'm regurgitating that they've suffered so much at the hands of men that we
1:18 need like a good 20 or 30 years before we're ready to get to that conversation.
1:22 Which of course for young men growing up
1:24 just pull like makes them feel like, "Okay,
1:26 it's all it's all on us." And that's good
1:29 like agency advocacy for one's own life is important.
1:32 Stay out of the really bad men category
1:34 and ideally the not so good men category, too.
1:37 But this the the polarization I think is set
1:40 by the fact that sure we can talk about toxic max masculinity,
1:43 we can talk about the male crisis,
1:45 but why aren't we talking about the suicide rate?
1:47 Well, because women's issues were I think
1:50 at a in a good way we're still thinking that we need to protect and provide
1:54 for the women and the children in our society.
1:56 We're holding that as in the highest regard.
1:57 Like those they get the lifeboats on the Titanic uh when the Titanic goes down.
2:01 So, you know, it's it's it's complicated and there's
2:05 a lot of off-limits terms and I'm glad that they're coming
2:07 up today just organically because those off-limits terms I think
2:12 are the potential bridges between the where we sit now,
2:16 where we look at men and we go, "Shit, they're a mess.
2:19 There's some of them are just like downright
2:21 awful." And we're here and we go, "Man,
2:23 they're really dissatisfied." The assumption is if a woman is
2:26 dissatisfied or somehow not doing well, that a man failed.
2:30 That's a presumption that a lot of people make.
2:32 I don't make that presumption.
2:34 And I can look back to the times
2:35 in my youth where 90s narrative probably fed that a bit,
2:39 but now I think we we need to really like pull back the veil and go like,
2:43 "Who are like take a real hard look at ourselves and try and you know,
2:47 do this mesh that we're talking about." only way you get there is with data.
2:50 So, from 1945 to 2000,
2:52 America registered a third of the world's economic growth,
2:55 a third of its prosperity with only 5% of the population.
2:58 So, we had 6x the growth of the rest of the world, right?
3:02 And within that 6x, the majority of that prosperity was
3:06 sequestered to the 1/3 of the population that were white,
3:08 male, and heterosexual.
3:10 It was just a lot harder to participate
3:12 in that uplift if you weren't in that group.
3:15 So, men of my generation born with my sexual orientation, skin color,
3:20 and gender arguably had 15 to 18x the wins in their sails.
3:25 The question is should a young man now pay the price for my privilege?
3:29 And I understand the gag reflex when I start talking
3:32 or advocating for men cuz they look at me and they said,
3:34 "You had an unfair advantage." 100% guilty as charged.
3:38 But now a young man who is four times as likely to kill himself,
3:41 three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated,
3:45 and men of my generation aren't stepping up and providing
3:47 the mentorship or voting for the programs that might
3:50 take a little bit of money away from my generation
3:52 to support all young people and bring them up.
3:55 And most of the programs and policies I
3:56 advocate for would would advocate for all young people.
4:00 The average 7-year-old is 72% wealthier than the 7-year-old 40 years ago.
4:05 The 25-year-old is 24% less wealthy.
4:07 And then every day it's speedballed
4:09 with 110 notifications telling them that they're failing.
4:12 And what do you know?
4:13 They're the most obese, depressed,
4:15 and anxious generation we've had in a long time.
4:18 And there really isn't an honest conversation and I've
4:21 said this on stage and it gets some pushback.
4:24 I'll say I think women make better managers.
4:27 I think that they are more emotionally in touch with other people.
4:30 They have higher EQ.
4:31 I think they'll probably make better doctors and lawyers.
4:33 I think their attention to detail genetically or or anthropologically,
4:36 whatever you want to call it,
4:38 their bedside manner,
4:39 and there's more women in both law school and medical school now,
4:42 especially medical school.
4:45 If I say that women are better managers will make better doctors, nodding.
4:49 Everyone everyone the women agree and the guys
4:51 will look around and go nod, right?
4:53 If I say men on average make better entrepreneurs,
4:57 and that's not to say that women shouldn't be
4:59 offered the same opportunities and they haven't been, right?
5:02 95% of the capital has been not only allocated to men,
5:05 but the majority of it has been allocated by men who went to one or two schools,
5:08 Harvard and Stanford.
5:10 There's a I don't feel safe around you.
5:11 Who doesn't feel safe around you?
5:13 It's fine to say women are make better X, Y, and Z.
5:16 To say men are better at anything Well,
5:19 if you said it on combat soldiers, I mean, let's be honest, if you said it on X,
5:22 everyone would be like, "Cool." Males make better entrepreneurs.
5:25 If you said it in a room I mean, I again,
5:29 I don't want to make this political, but we can't you know, we can't avoid this.
5:33 You know, if you said it among a more right center to right-leaning crowd,
5:37 I think you'd probably get less pushback also from women.
5:40 I think that's fair.
5:41 it's who you're hanging out with, you know, uh I barely hang out with anybody.
5:45 So, I've got a very small world, but
5:47 Well, but to your point, if you go to the Democratic National website, dnc.org,
5:51 and they changed this, but I talked about this a lot on CNN,
5:56 left-leaning website.
5:57 They they said they have a page saying who
5:59 we serve and they outlined 16 special interest groups,
6:03 veterans, the disabled, black Americans, Native Americans, seniors.
6:07 And I added it up and it was 74% of the population.
6:10 And when you say you're advocating for 74% of the population,
6:13 you're not advocating for 74%, you're discriminating against 26%.
6:17 And basically, the only people they didn't mention were young men.
6:21 So, I understand the notion that men have had so
6:25 much disproportionate advantage that there needs to be a catch-up period,
6:29 but I would argue it's gone a little bit overboard.
6:31 Our school system K through 12, I would argue is biased against boys.
6:35 A boy is twice as likely to be suspended on a behavior-adjusted basis as a girl.
6:40 A black boy five times as likely.
6:41 70 to 80% of K through 12 teachers are women.
6:45 Who do people naturally advocate for?
6:47 The people who remind them of themselves at that age.
6:49 Seven in 10 high school valedictorians are girls.
6:52 It's now 60/40 female/male in college.
6:55 And so, the bottom line is we leveled the playing field and there's
6:57 a little bit of bias and women have totally blown by men.
7:00 Fine, more power to them, but what do we do now that young men just
7:04 quite frankly don't have obvious paths to prosperity and young
7:08 people aren't as economically prosperous relative as they used
7:11 to be and young men are disproportionately evaluated in society,
7:15 especially in the mating market, on their economic viability.
7:18 And I get a ton of pushback saying, "No,
7:20 I'm just looking for an emotionally in touch male." I think that is such total
7:24 There's still economic hypergamy.
7:27 Educational hypergamy has leveled out.
7:29 There's a lot of people who women who will marry a guy
7:32 who didn't go to college or the educational hypergamy has vastly reduced.
7:38 But in cities where women make make as much as men, so there's an equality,
7:42 if you find a couple, twice as many couples,
7:45 the male earns more money than the woman.
7:48 Economic hypergamy is still an absolutely full full force.
7:52 So, if we don't figure out a way to level up all young people economically,
7:57 set them where there's more paths for economic viability for young men,
8:01 I think it's just going to tear at our society.
8:03 We're going to have a lower birth rates,
8:04 fewer people to support the very expensive programs which make up 40%
8:07 of our government spending now on people over the age of 65.
8:11 And we're going to have real issues.
8:12 And people say, "Well, that's repackaged violence.
8:13 The men are more violent." I'm like, "No, it's just the reality.
8:17 If you look at every unstable violent society in history,
8:20 it always has one thing at the core of it and that is
8:22 a group of young men with a lack of economic or romantic opportunities.
8:26 I don't care if it's Weimar Germany or some
8:28 of the most unstable places in the Middle East or Africa.
8:31 When you have the most dangerous person in the world
8:33 is a young man who is lonely and broke.
8:36 And we are producing way too many of them.
8:38 And by the way, I don't think the remedy here is affirmative action for men.
8:41 I just think that's too politicized,
8:43 but we have to stop transferring wealth from people their age to people my age.
8:48 Why the hell are we transferring every year $1.3
8:51 trillion from a generation that is the most anxious,
8:54 depressed, and obese in American history to the wealthiest
8:57 generation in the history of the planet called Social Security?
9:00 That's a third rail in politics.
9:01 I'm not suggesting anyone should die in poverty.
9:04 Should you and I get Social Security?
9:06 No, we don't need it.
9:07 No, I don't need it.
9:08 I don't need it.
9:09 probably a third a third of seniors really don't need Social Security,
9:13 but you get near that, you can't get elected, right?
9:16 40% of all government spending is going to people over the age of 65.
9:21 It's going to be 50% within 10 years.
9:23 We spend more money on ice than we spend on children.
9:26 I mean, it's just there's my generation,
9:29 I don't even think of us I'm I'm on the edge of Gen X baby boomer.
9:33 The best way to describe my generation would be the vampire generation.
9:36 We were never drafted into war.
9:38 We never really had to serve.
9:40 And what is my economic complexion been in America?
9:43 Unprecedented prosperity, but the lowest taxes in in modern history.
9:48 So, a lot of these solutions I just think are common sense.
9:51 We need to do away Social Security tax, right?
9:54 6% up to 160,000.
9:56 So, a kid working for me making 150 or 160k, good living, they pay $9,000.
10:01 I make a lot more than that, I pay $9,000.
10:04 Because it tops out at 160 grand.
10:06 Why does that make any sense?
10:08 Who Two biggest tax deductions, mortgage interest rate and capital gains.
10:11 Who owns homes and stocks?
10:12 People our age.
10:14 Who rents and makes their money from current income?
10:16 All the dudes in this office, the young kids, right?
10:19 We are literally transferring trillions of dollars
10:21 from young people to old people.
10:23 And we wonder why young men feel anxious when they are disparate.
10:26 But 75% of women say economic viability is key to a mate.
10:29 It's only 25% of men.
10:31 Women still look at men as economic providers.
10:34 And so, you have this entire generation of young
10:36 men who feel like they have no purpose, no on-ramps to the middle class,
10:40 and are being evaluated on a set of criteria
10:43 that get harder and harder for them each year.
10:45 And then this like unbelievable set
10:48 of expectations that they're taught they should
10:50 have cuz it seems like everyone else is making a million dollars selling ETH,
10:55 or is in amazing shape, or has a ridiculously hot boyfriend or girlfriend,
10:58 and has artist passes to Coachella.
11:01 So, it'd be shocking if they weren't depressed and obese.
11:11 [music]