Guess which book this comes from:
Our society no longer offers us a real community or a functional living system. It is instead a fragmented and exploitative machine for concentrating money in the hands of a few, a kind of feedlot for humans, which kills the spirit of its occupants while it pollutes and strip-mines the Third World to support its habit for just a few decades more.
Give up? It's from the opening chapter of
Manhood by Steve Biddulph.
In my work I have now met over 100 000 people in talks and presentations, in many corners of the globe, and the message is loud and clear. There's something wrong with the whole box and dice. There is a need for more than just 'adjusting' men to fit into life as it is. We need major changes in the whole life circumstance of boys and men.
Biddulph suggests that the "seismic build-up of frustration in men" might be a revolutionary social force, like the Women's Movement was in the 20th Century:
Linked with the other great liberation movements - environmentalism, Third World justice, indigenous survival - it may be our only hope. Masculine energies and talents that are currently diverted into greed, commerce, militarism and just plain making a living are needed for more urgent tasks. We need nothing so much as we need more good men.
That's me right there - "just plain making a living". It shouldn't be this hard.
