The Vulnerability of Young Men

1. During the night I vaguely heard a segment on cable news about how men go around recruiting for the Islamic State among young men in all sorts of places, not least among young Muslim men in Europe. I thought of gangs of young men in urban cities in the US. I thought of the Hitler youth. I thought of violent video games and the thirst of some young men for the military.

In their late teens and early twenties, a lot of young men want to fight something. If their social circumstances are bad, they have plenty of opportunities at hand. They only need presented with a cause and they are ready to go, ready to fight. It can manifest itself in ideas--ideas to fight for. Or it can manifest itself in real violence, as in gangs and terror.

We're seeing a layer of violence in Indy right now, and a little even in Marion. In Marion, some of the recent violence has been young males of high school age.

What are we to do?

2. Sports are an easy option. Sports give young men a chance to express their built-in lust for fighting in their late teens. I don't know if video games are ultimately good or not, but they're better than going out and beating someone up for real. As a nerd, comic books partially fed my thirst to fight something in my late teens. More idea-oriented young men might fight for ideas. Republican, Democrat, creationism, scientism--the underlying fervor is the same basic male dynamic. Guys tend to want to fight something.

The church is often ill-equipped to satisfy the young male thirst to punch something. The true church preaches love of one's enemies, which works against the impulses of a male in his late teens, even though it is the most noble cause to fight for of all. Churches that give a young man a cause to fight for, so to speak, scratch at the itch. Churches that just talk to youth about ideas that don't involve a fight are not likely to attract many from this segment.

3. It is a great worry. The desire to fight, if it is coupled with an anger from one's social circumstances, becomes violent. Think of the Boston bombers or the young men that shoot up movie theaters or schools. Think of inner city gang violence. Think of the recent French violence. The Islamic State is currently selling a vision to fight for a world in which the whole Middle East is Islamic as in the days of old. What's scary is that it has all the marks of a vision that will sell to an 18 year old male.

On one level these phenomena seem predictable. Young men don't tend to think straight. They are prone to anger, an anger all too easy to manipulate or degenerate on its own. Left to their own devices, a certain subset are going to do stupid things of a violent sort. Some get in over their head and suddenly they're stuck in a very bad situation, following the lead of someone else.

4. Cities have to provide other options. Incentivized sports and competitions? Venues to express frustration? Good ideas provided to fight for? Young men can't be left to their own devices. They have to be shepherded.

There are smart people out there. It seems like we could come up with something. Public schools are again crucial as all males have to pass through. Vocational training can play a role. Some churches are very effective in this area but most aren't. That's a matter for some consideration!

Social Justice?

a) I don't mind whether you call it that.
b) Also, how we implement Christian values is a different question from what those values are.
c) Finally, cultural differences need to be taken into account...

... but just to give some sense of what the Bible actually has to say on this recently and notoriously mentioned topic by a certain television personality:

Leviticus 19:10: "And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God."

Leviticus 25:35: “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you."

Deuteronomy 15:7: “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother."

Proverbs 21:13: "Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered"

Proverbs 22:16: "Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty."

Proverbs 28:27: "Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse."

Isaiah 1:16-17: "remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause."

Amos 2:6-7: "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the ... needy for a pair of sandals—those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth...

Matthew 25:41-43: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink... naked and you did not clothe me..."

Mark 10:21: “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor."

Luke 4:18: " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor..."

Luke 6:24-25: "But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry."

Luke 18:24: "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"

Acts 2:44-45: "And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need."

Galatians 2:8-9: "when James and Cephas and John... perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me... Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

James 1:9-10: "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away"

James 1:27: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

James 2:15-17: "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

James 4:13-5:5: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes...

"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days... You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter."

Never confuse political conservatism with Christian conservatism! They overlap at some points... and at others diverge wildly.

Berger/Luckman Quotes

Was researching with Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality today. Here are some quotes:

"All human activity is subject to habilitualization" (53).

"Institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habilitualized actions by types of actors" (54).

"... the institutionalizing process of reciprocal typification would occur even if two individuals began to interact de novo" (55).

If two strangers were to encounter each other for the first time in some somewhat isolated situation, "typifications will be produced quite quickly" (56)... "a social world will be in process of construction, containing within it the roots of an expanding institutional order" (57).

If they have children, these habituations and routines take on objectivity. "'There we go again' becomes 'This is how these things are done'" (59).

Externalization leads to objectivation to internalization. "only with the appearance of a new generation can one properly speak of a social world" (61) (would be interesting to pursue this in relation to early Christianity).

"The ediface of legitimations is built on language" (64). "... every institution has a body of transmitted recipe knowledge, that is, knowledge that supplies the institutionally appropriate rules of conduct" (65).

Experiences retained in consciousness need to congeal in recollection (sedimentation). This needs to be objectivated in a sign system, usually language (67).

"The past history of the society can be reinterpreted without necessarily upsetting the institutional order as a result" (69).

"... since human beings are frequently stupid, institutional meanings tend to become simplified in the process of transmission, so that the given collection of institutional 'formulae' can be readily learned and memorable by successive generations" (70).

Bread and Circuses

This quote from the Roman satirist Juvenal has been on my mind lately. He meant it as a slam against the Roman "rabble." It may just be, however, that it is the secret to a content society.

"... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Juvenal, Satire X