I think there are fucked up attitudes, and certainly no small truckloads of stupidity on this planet, but what else is new? Despite much hand wringing about decline and decay and the inevitable falling of the sky, truth is things are better, getting better, looking better. Okay, atmospheric CO2 levels, not so much. But in terms of human, relational progress? Violence is down worldwide. Certainly the US is experiencing income disparity and the like, but globally the past few decades have seen the unprecedented emergence of a planetary middle class. Hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
Socially, attitudes in this country are way better than they used to be. A whole generation has come of age that feel LGBT equality is a natural progression of fairness and human rights. 100 years ago lynchings were commonplace.
Things are getting better.
Still, we hear an awful lot of words like "our ill culture". Interestingly enough, a lot of folks over in the group you mention, are fond of exactly that same sort of hyperbole.
Going back to your prior post- do you feel that all m/f relationships are inherently 'transactional'? That's a fairly bleak outlook.
As for the male experience, I agree with the OP- I think there are some elements of initiation ritual or culturally encouraged personal development which are missing from the Leave it to beaver 1950s nuclear family school-college-job cookie cutter mold. But the fact is, in the past not very many generations, the human race has undergone MASSIVE change and dislocation in terms of how we work, how we live, etc. It is a testament to our innate flexibility that we have adapted and changed as well as we have. Of course our institutions or cultural practices haven't caught up.
But as I alluded to upthread, I think there ARE those sorts of experiences for those who go look for them, or make them themselves. And that will continue, and grow.
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