Enlist Young Men |
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Young Men - Promoters, Supporters, and Defenders of the Peace
Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves. J. B. Priestley
Young men join into groups for bonding and aggressive actions—mild ones like egging homes on Halloween to violent ones like gang fights. It's part of their nature, an inherited, genetic tendency that will not fade away. Culture can modify this predilection and some cultures even successfully suppress it, but it will always be with us. (1,7,8)
This tendency is not itself the cause of wars. War is caused by leaders who focus and motivate the willingness of soldiers to kill outside their group or community.
Restless young males, however, do challenge the stability of all cultures. They are the single most disruptive elements in any society, (2,3,4,5) and they are particularly prone to create social turmoil (and crime) when they are unmarried or unemployed and before they have children of their own. (6)
One traditional solution to "the problem of young men" across many cultures has been to put them into military service or to send them off (out of the community) to war. This keeps them occupied during the most volatile stage of their lives. Training under the discipline of older men has an additional advantage: it shapes youthful excesses into behavior acceptable for adult men
The Romans, for example, required all male citizens to serve in the military. These soldiers often spent little or no time fighting. Rome used her soldiers to build fabulous aqueducts, astounding roads, and monumental and imposing buildings, performing their labors in the conquered territories and in the homeland. The Romans understood that people need to work and that young males, in particular, must be kept occupied or there will be trouble.
What will happen when we make war obsolete? Might we lose the maturing benefits of military life? For some time into our future, some military force may be needed for nations to feel secure. Some military force, even in a warless future, will be needed for "policing" or "backing up" treaties and other agreements. Some young men will be drawn naturally toward these policing, peacemaking and peacekeeping services.
The military training they would receive, however, would have a different orientation than the training given to an army being primed for conquest; the emphasis would be on discouraging insurgencies, separating combatants, stopping any outbreak of violence, and enforcing and modeling good behavior. At the same time, their time spent in service would provide the valuable socialization benefits that a tour of duty in the military can today.
In the future, resolution of conflicts using violent force should become a baffling, even quaint, memory from humanity's primitive past. But into the foreseeable future, if we stop waging wars, what are we to do with massive numbers of young men not subject to draft or service?
We can't simply ignore them. Planning for their needs must be a cornerstone of any better world we wish to build. Young men in all countries must have positive outlets. Doing something about young men everywhere is a facet of everyone's defense and freedom from war.
So what do we do with turbulent young men? How do we meet their personal wellbeing needs, and also lead them to become protectors and defenders of peace? The United States has embraced an all-volunteer military. But few young men go into one of the military services. The nation suffers, pehaps in part as a result, a higher crime rate than other developed countries. To many American young men stumble from their teens into gangs and crime with no means of making a living and no vision for their future. We could expect crime to decrease dramatically if we required all young men to give some years following high school to public service under the guidance of adults. During those years they could mature and emerge with useful skills, pride, and positive goals.
Even if compulsory public service is unacceptable to independence-loving Americans, there is an alternative. We can make voluntary public service during those formative years extremely attractive, something to which young men and their parents will be powerfully drawn because of its obvious benefits (for example, scholarships or loans for school, or guaranteed work placement for a year or more afterward). Perhaps just as important, voluntary service could be something enticing that teens choose to do "because it's cool." Serving their country in this way can be made into a matter of pride and honor, something "my father did, and his father before him."
It can be done. What we require is the will to do it and the funding necessary to:
A word concerning young women and voluntary service is necessary. Empowered women are both catalyst and stabilizers for a war-free future (see The Secret Ingredient and Empower Women). Both experience and education are critical to empowering young women as well as young men. In preparation for careers, leadership roles, and roles as good mothers, young women must be given the same opportunity to mature and broaden their outlook under the guidance of caring and skilled adults. They should also enjoy the benefits, honor, and satisfaction of contributing to the common good by voluntary service.
In the past, organizations that worked to end young male violence have primarily thought of themselves as working to prevent crime, not wars. Yet there is an intimate connection, as the events of September 11th, 2001 made clear. America woke up to the reality of terrorism. In that same year the same kind of violence happened in places like Spain, London, Bali, and Baghdad. The solution to "the crime problem" (primarily a young male phenomenon) must become part of the campaign to end wars. Crime and terrorism share a common basis in young male social disaffection, and young men are the cannon fodder from which the majority of criminals, terrorists, and warriors are drawn.
[Examples of projects or organizations that have worked on or now work on some aspect of this cornerstone can be found here.
This tendency is not itself the cause of wars. War is caused by leaders who focus and motivate the willingness of soldiers to kill outside their group or community.
Restless young males, however, do challenge the stability of all cultures. They are the single most disruptive elements in any society, (2,3,4,5) and they are particularly prone to create social turmoil (and crime) when they are unmarried or unemployed and before they have children of their own. (6)
One traditional solution to "the problem of young men" across many cultures has been to put them into military service or to send them off (out of the community) to war. This keeps them occupied during the most volatile stage of their lives. Training under the discipline of older men has an additional advantage: it shapes youthful excesses into behavior acceptable for adult men
The Romans, for example, required all male citizens to serve in the military. These soldiers often spent little or no time fighting. Rome used her soldiers to build fabulous aqueducts, astounding roads, and monumental and imposing buildings, performing their labors in the conquered territories and in the homeland. The Romans understood that people need to work and that young males, in particular, must be kept occupied or there will be trouble.
What will happen when we make war obsolete? Might we lose the maturing benefits of military life? For some time into our future, some military force may be needed for nations to feel secure. Some military force, even in a warless future, will be needed for "policing" or "backing up" treaties and other agreements. Some young men will be drawn naturally toward these policing, peacemaking and peacekeeping services.
The military training they would receive, however, would have a different orientation than the training given to an army being primed for conquest; the emphasis would be on discouraging insurgencies, separating combatants, stopping any outbreak of violence, and enforcing and modeling good behavior. At the same time, their time spent in service would provide the valuable socialization benefits that a tour of duty in the military can today.
In the future, resolution of conflicts using violent force should become a baffling, even quaint, memory from humanity's primitive past. But into the foreseeable future, if we stop waging wars, what are we to do with massive numbers of young men not subject to draft or service?
We can't simply ignore them. Planning for their needs must be a cornerstone of any better world we wish to build. Young men in all countries must have positive outlets. Doing something about young men everywhere is a facet of everyone's defense and freedom from war.
So what do we do with turbulent young men? How do we meet their personal wellbeing needs, and also lead them to become protectors and defenders of peace? The United States has embraced an all-volunteer military. But few young men go into one of the military services. The nation suffers, pehaps in part as a result, a higher crime rate than other developed countries. To many American young men stumble from their teens into gangs and crime with no means of making a living and no vision for their future. We could expect crime to decrease dramatically if we required all young men to give some years following high school to public service under the guidance of adults. During those years they could mature and emerge with useful skills, pride, and positive goals.
Even if compulsory public service is unacceptable to independence-loving Americans, there is an alternative. We can make voluntary public service during those formative years extremely attractive, something to which young men and their parents will be powerfully drawn because of its obvious benefits (for example, scholarships or loans for school, or guaranteed work placement for a year or more afterward). Perhaps just as important, voluntary service could be something enticing that teens choose to do "because it's cool." Serving their country in this way can be made into a matter of pride and honor, something "my father did, and his father before him."
It can be done. What we require is the will to do it and the funding necessary to:
- Set up programs and expand those we already have in place. These are numerous, from AmeriCorps ( AmeriCorps) to the thousands of local programs sponsored by states and municipalities throughout the country
- Recruit young men vigorously and creatively to "national service with honor." We can dedicate to this new national program, "Be All That You Can Be," the financial resources used today to promote military service. (see Shift our Economies)
- Take note when the children of rock stars, movie stars, and sports heroes—the people teens emulate—participate in voluntary national service, and make sure that their service is given high profile as an example of patriotism at its best
A word concerning young women and voluntary service is necessary. Empowered women are both catalyst and stabilizers for a war-free future (see The Secret Ingredient and Empower Women). Both experience and education are critical to empowering young women as well as young men. In preparation for careers, leadership roles, and roles as good mothers, young women must be given the same opportunity to mature and broaden their outlook under the guidance of caring and skilled adults. They should also enjoy the benefits, honor, and satisfaction of contributing to the common good by voluntary service.
In the past, organizations that worked to end young male violence have primarily thought of themselves as working to prevent crime, not wars. Yet there is an intimate connection, as the events of September 11th, 2001 made clear. America woke up to the reality of terrorism. In that same year the same kind of violence happened in places like Spain, London, Bali, and Baghdad. The solution to "the crime problem" (primarily a young male phenomenon) must become part of the campaign to end wars. Crime and terrorism share a common basis in young male social disaffection, and young men are the cannon fodder from which the majority of criminals, terrorists, and warriors are drawn.
[Examples of projects or organizations that have worked on or now work on some aspect of this cornerstone can be found here.
- Hand, Judith L. 2003. Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace. San Diego, CA: Questpath Publishing. Also available as a FREE download.
- Daly, Martin & Margo Wilson. 1988. Homicide. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
- Tiger, Lionel. 2001. "Osama Bin Ladin's Man Trouble."
- Zakaria, Fareed. 2001. "Why do they hate us?" Newsweek: Oct. 15th.
- Wilson, M. & Daly, M. 1985. "Competitiveness, risk-taking, and violence: The young male syndrome." Ethology and Sociobiology 6:59-73.
- Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, Mariko. 2005. "Homicide by men in Japan, and its relationship to age, resources and risk taking." Evolution and Human Behavior 26:332-343.
- Fry, Douglas P. 2006. The Human Potential For Peace. An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions About War and Violence. NY: Oxford University Press.
- Hand, Judith L. 2018. War and Sex and Human Destiny. San Diego, CA: Questpath Publishing. The full text is FREE on Dr. Hand's personal website.