It’s No Secret: The Cause of the World’s Problems is Bored Young Men?

Today's world, like past times, is beset by crime, violence, poverty, and injustice. It is a complex task to establish the causes for violence in different parts of the world. Historians, sociologists, and geographers grapple with these issues. Politicians, world organizations, and non-governmental organizations try to do something about them. Although it is a tough sell to claim to identify a unifying cause, the manpower for violence in the world is found in one factor. In today's world, as in the past, the combination of hard times and disillusioned young men make for a violent mix.

The common denominator for violence in the world is the lack of opportunities for young men. This is true in the inner cities of the United States and it is the main cause of high crime rates. This is the case in violence-prone trouble spots around the world. It has also been true in crises throughout modern history. Unproductive lives of young men lead to violence.

In the inner cities of the U.S., the main cause of high crime rates is underemployment of young men. The unemployment rates in poor urban areas of the U.S. tend to be two or three times that of the national average. For young men, it is even worse. In Southeast D.C., the unemployment rate for young men is around 40%. When men do not have jobs, they cannot support a family, and both men and women do not see the advantage in marriage. Therefore, children tend to be raised by single women, with little support from the men. A startling fact is that the poverty rate in America for children whose mothers wait until they're married to have children, wait until they are 20 year old to have children, and obtain a high school degree is seven percent. For all others, it is 85%!

When men do not have to get up for work, and do not have family responsibilities after work, what will they be doing late at night? With little at stake, they take on risky behaviors that are violent or lead to violence.

It might be argued that the women have an equal role in the pathologies of the ghettos. Even though the crime rate for girls has climbed, and even though irresponsible behavior among girls adds to the degradation of inner-city life, the violence is particularly a male domain.

In poor nations, violence is caused by under-productive young men. Besides the crime situation, similar to that of inner-city America, there is the political violence that destroys societies in many places around the world. In Haiti the unemployment rate for young men exceeds 50%. Available jobs are government jobs obtained by the party that wins an election. So elections are not peaceful civic affairs like we know them. They are matters of providing productive livelihoods. Young men intimidate voters, and if their party loses, use violence to try to change the results.

Many countries do not have working democracies, so that young men do not have any outlets for their frustrations. In places like Palestine, with unemployment hovering at 60%, young men are easily led to radical politics. The manpower for terrorism comes from the refugee camps and jail cells. Young, largely-uneducated men are easy marks for political demagogues; they follow these radical leaders thinking it is a way to be important when the society around them indicates that they are not.

Besides the examples in modern-day America and around the world, history holds examples of great trouble being caused by unproductive young males. In the 1930s, with severe, world-wide unemployment, young men were on the city streets, panhandling or looking for work or merely hanging out. The political radicals of the time such as Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy were able to motivate these men into being the instruments of terror for fascist governments. In Germany, the SA (Storm Troups) and SS (Shield Squadron) were young men given a mission and a purpose. In Italy, the Blackshirts (CCNN) manned Mussolini's police state. Earlier, in czarist Russia, young idealistic men with no discernible options for changing Russia, turned to the Bolsheviks and other radicals. They, along with disillusioned young soldiers, provided the manpower for the first communist revolution. Modern history is replete with examples of men being motivated toward violence by the lack of economic opportunity and political voice.

Some might argue that young men could not have succeeded if they acted alone. For example, Hitler’s ascension to power depended on older people and women voting power to the Nazi party. That is true, but the Nazis would never have been in a position to be voted in if it were not for young men and their tendency to be duped by radical nationalist politicians. One might argue also that once Hitler took power and unemployment fell to seven percent, that the young men would no longer be motivated to extreme politics. But by this time, the police state was in place, the propaganda was flowing, and the damage was done. In fact, many Germans were grateful for Hitler raising German pride after the defeat of World War I and the Great Depression.

A common thread runs through the problems of the world: the feeling by young men in difficult times that they are not worthy. In American inner cities, unemployed men seek quick gains through gangs and violence because their view of their own futures is not bright. In poor nations around the world, political violence appears in places where young men are increasingly frustrated by economics and politics. But it is not a new phenomenon; there are historical examples demonstrating this to be a long-running problem. In looking at trouble spots in our nation, throughout the world, and throughout history, a common denominator is populations of bored, unproductive young men.

A Necessary Wart

From Iraq to Afghanistan, Will History See It Any Differently?

Victorious English general Oliver Cromwell, Britain's Lord Protector, leader of the New Model Army and victor in England's Civil War once told a portrait painter, who assumed he would be covering over anything unsightly, to paint him "warts and all." And so Cromwell has come down through the years full of warts - physical imperfections, yes, but also more long-lasting ugliness: brutal treatment of Ireland, unforgiven by the Irish still; the execution of a king (who, as monarchs of the time go, wasn't so bad); and an oppressive Puritan reign. No dancing, no colorful art, no fun.

Fast forward to our place and time, we find an American leader faced with a decision regarding Afghanistan. President Obama had promised to get the troops out of Mr. Bush’s war in Iraq, and send them to Afghanistan where we join other NATO forces in fighting one of the unquestionable evil forces in the world, the Taliban. Of course, Mr. Bush sent our troops to topple another unquestionably evil force, Saddam Hussein. Which they did. All that got the then-president was about a 26 percent approval rating and a legacy-loss for John McCain in 2008.

The current presidential portrait of Barack Obama is a pretty one. Some luster has come off the President's image by way of a nasty health care debate, but forces seem to be rallying toward some sort of health care reform. But for Americans, war tends to un-do presidencies. President Johnson had his Great Society social programs unravel at the feet of Vietnam. President Carter was done in by a failed military mission over Iran. The senior President Bush’s successful campaign leading an international coalition to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait left him with soaring popularity ratings, but the glory was too short-lived for a second term. The junior Bush’s adventurism in Iraq turned into a long-lasting insurgency; Iraq is a foreign policy wart that will endure for a long time.

Even as Obama acknowledges his Nobel Peace Prize, he is pursuing what he calls "a necessary war." Which is to say, a necessary wart. Losing American lives in the faraway Hindu Kush, over a long struggle, with little chance of a democratic Afghanistan, will not be what wins a second term for Obama. How can he minimize the blemish? He can keep NATO involved to take some of the heat, and win some big ones at home - on health care; on energy; and on economic recovery - using his domestic victories to mask the wart that will be Afghanistan.