One of the San Bernardino shooters was a woman and extremism has attracted its brides, sure, but statistics show that violence (mass shootings included) is largely a male problem in the United States–and everywhere else. 

Religion may have informed the self-loathing behind the horrific Orlando massacre, but the downward spiral of too many American men transcends faith. It’s a masculinity issue, a deep insecurity, ignited by mental illness or extremist politics or any other gas can laying around. A scary number of us have brains that just aren’t operating properly.

The actual crime statistics nationally aren’t at all bad, at least not when compared to past eras, but the unstable among us are really unstable, with large-scale violent acts now mind-numbingly common. 

Were men on the fringes of the country always like this, with the easy access to automatic weapons the only difference? Or is there some fundamental shift in the world that some are unable to assimilate or accept, whether it be rooted in economics or patriarchy or otherwise? 

Even before Orlando, economist Tyler Cowen worried about this new abnormal, the aspects expressed in violence and in in myriad other ways, thinking it may be a rebellion by “brutes” against cultures becoming nicer and more feminized. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

The opening of last month’s Marginal Revolution post “What in the Hell Is Going On?“:

Donald Trump may get the nuclear suitcase, a cranky “park bench” socialist took Hillary Clinton to the wire, many countries are becoming less free, and the neo-Nazi party came very close to assuming power in Austria.  I could list more such events.

Haven’t you, like I, wondered what is up?  What the hell is going on?

I don’t know, but let me tell you my (highly uncertain) default hypothesis.  I don’t see decisive evidence for it, but it is a kind of “first blast” attempt to fit the basic facts while remaining within the realm of reason.

The contemporary world is not very well built for a large chunk of males.  The nature of current service jobs, coddled class time and homework-intensive schooling, a feminized culture allergic to most forms of violence, post-feminist gender relations, and egalitarian semi-cosmopolitanism just don’t sit well with many…what shall I call them?  Brutes?

Quite simply, there are many people who don’t like it when the world becomes nicer.  They do less well with nice.  And they respond by in turn behaving less nicely, if only in their voting behavior and perhaps their internet harassment as well.•