Men Are Online And Looking For Sources Of Authority
(ANALYSIS) It’s a good thing when academics and pundits start writing about hot-button issues linked to screen culture.
That’s how things get done in the marketplace of ideas.
It’s a good thing when journalists start noticing the research produced by public intellectuals (Hello Jonathan “Anxious Generation” Haidt), because that leads to ongoing debates that are noticed by politicians, corporate leaders and others involved in reform efforts.
Yes, it really helps if these trends are somehow linked to politics, the ultimate religion among the professionals who run newsrooms.
But what if you are trying to reach parents, pastors, teachers, counselors and the leaders of core institutions in religious life? What will it take, for example, to awaken seminary leaders? What kinds of bylines earn their respect?
Remember this Rational Sheep mantra: Nothing enters the life of religious congregations without the support, or at least permission, of the pulpit (in churches that still have pulpits).
This leads me to the weekend think piece, which is a First Things essay by Mary Eberstadt, the author of many books on culture and theology, including “How the West Really Lost God.” She holds the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center in Washington DC and is Senior Research Fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute.
Most of the public discussions of screen culture have focused on the soaring anxiety, depression and gender confusion statistics among girls and young women.
All of that has helped create a trend that is dominating press coverage in the final days of this bitter national election — the growing gap between male and female voters, especially between men and the growing number of women who are single, divorced or in nonmarital relationships.
This Eberstadt essay focuses on older trends among males that have been building for decades. The headline: “The Boys in the Bandwidth.” It’s no surprise that, while discussing political realities, many of the hooks in this piece are linked to the wider world of (wait for it) screen culture.
To read the rest of the post, please visit Terry Mattingly’s Substack.
Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.