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The episode opens with course and training announcements, then introduces host Patricia Martin and guest Robert Tamsky. They frame the conversation around the crisis facing men and boys in American culture.
hi everyone before we get started I just want to let you know that registration is open for the in-person course astrology our Ally on the road to individuation with Steven Forest author of the inner sky and Boris Matthewsyian analyst on Friday December 13th in downtown Chicago the course will be recorded and available on our website for purchase also we are accepting applications for the analyst training program if you are interested in becoming a yian analystlearn more at our website Yung chicago.org
thanks hello this is Patricia Martin and I'm your host for young in the world joining us today is Robert timinsky a psychologist and yian analyst who's here to talk about his work with men and boys that he describesin his book male alienation at the crossroads of identity culture and cyberspace Robert tamsky is a clinical professor in the department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco and the author of several books which we'll linkto in the program notes Robert we are so honored to have you on the show today to talk about what I guess is fair to say is a crisis of men and boys in the American culture yeah well
Tamsky explains how his clinical work led him to notice recurring patterns of disruption, breakage, and boys describing themselves as broken. He connects these experiences to rigid masculine norms and an archetypal heroic code that discourages vulnerability.
well thank you Patricia I I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to chat with you today and look forward to our having a really engaging conversation and it it is an interesting thing because you know when Itrained there was which was over 30 years ago now there was this idea that um you know especially girls and and young women tend to internalize so their their experiences and their pain goes inside them whereas um youknow boys and young men tend to act out and externalize and put it out in the environment and um I don't think that that's quite gone away but but but it has changed I mean I think uh withsocial media and just the all the screens that are present in our lives that that there's really some different phenomena that are happening now than than when I trained so look forward U to get digging in a little
bit more with you well I wondered about that I you know coming up and uh raising two boys myself I I can't say that we have overcorrected for the problem of of girls in the so Society but itdoes seem like by giving the focus to girls and their adolescen and how they come into womenhood uh has somehow left the boy side of the equation out and it seems as I Was preparing for this the Internetis just gyrating with new studies and data about the problem of boys becoming men and I it it led me to wonder uh when did you as you have done so much work with men and boys was therea moment when the light bulb went on and you said attention must be paid to this I need to write a book could you take me back to that moment yeah well that again wonderful question and I I
have to use the metaphor of a a like a light fixture or a candleabra there were several light bulbs along the way and um before I became an analyst and did my training I I ran a school uhhere in San Francisco and it was a a private but publicly funded school for uh children who had a variety of severe behavioral and emotional problems and over probably 80 80 85% of our boys in their families ourCH our clients were boys along with their families and so it was really uh kind of a a bit of a baptism by fire seeing their problems and why they couldn't uh really operate or navigate a more whatwe call Mainstream environment and as I was doing my um training and then after I became an analyst i u my practice evolved in such a way that I see a fair number of um boys I used to
see younger younger boys now it's mostly teenage boys and again this this issue of like um being very disruptive in the environment kept coming up over and over again and I uh had a series of cases it's actuallyin in the in the book and I think it's in the chapter called breaking it and um these were teenage boys um ranging in age from 15 to 19 I would say so mid to late adolescence and whatthey were doing was they they kept breaking things and physically breaking furniture and break yes hand through the wall um um you know breaking you know car windows um there's an interesting case about a broken condom and soso I just started thinking what is going on here with all this breakage and that that really was when I I started to think well there's there's probably a lot of material in this and interestingly enough the breakage
paralleled the breakage that I was seeing and and you know for lack of a better word let's say the symptoms that that were coming in often paralleled what they would say about themselves I started hearing I'm broken overand over again from different young men different teenage boys and I thought what a concept to feel that you're broken so there's some sense of wholeness that the person understands they'd like to have be there or some strivingtoward greater wholeness but they feel so far from that that that what they see is really something quite different so that would be a very yungan concept to integrate the pieces toward wholeness and as I read that partof your book you know I couldn't help thinking that the Paradigm of masculinity itself seems to be broken you you say and this is a I'm extrapolating on on a direct quote uh men are trying to conform to
an unhelpful model of masculinity that is somewhat rigid and not growth oriented and you you quote research that men who tried to fit into masculine Norms have higher negative mental health outcomes and tend not to seek help whichis a double whammy you're you're probably feeling more broken and yet part of what you've bought into as what is masculine is keeping you from asking for help so uh you know that's a tall order when you thinkwell if the system of masculinity is somehow broken itself Where Do We Begin how how do you see it yeah no that that is a that is a complicated issue because of course it's a psychological one but it'sAl also a social and cultural one and and so it it goes beyond any you know one one boy or young man psyche and and I think what you know what's very interesting is is that despite all the
progress let's say in the last 30 years towards discussing gender and trying to be more aware of uh non-traditional families and and so many things the women's rights and and um there still is uh this almost archetypal dimensionof masculinity that comes through and and it's this traditional masculinity that really is based on not expressing feelings not looking inside yourself trying to do something adventuresome or risky and um not not tolerating any experiences of Shame andof course as a yian analyst when I thought about those things I realized that's the heroic code that's really what what we read in Greek tragedies in The Iliad and the Odyssey um those men were living that waythat that those are all characteristics so that's an archetypal almost Timeless piece of this masculine problem that's perpetuated itself and hasn't gone away so if I go back to this idea we were talking about the Adolescent roots of
The discussion turns to adolescent development, especially how boys may lag socially and emotionally and struggle with interiority. Tamsky describes alienation as both social isolation and disconnection from one’s own psyche.
some of these problems you make a great case in in the chapter on identity you borrow from Eric Ericson's work on identity formation and you locate adolescence as a pivotal juncture when things can go very wrong for boysand I I wondered if you could talk about how the are the psychological Stakes different for adolescent boys yeah so we're we'd be talking about of course a Continuum so so it's not um I don't want to makeit sound like it's dramatically different than with adolescent girls but there is something I mean we've you know those of us who work in the field have not noted this for years we're in development um both in termsof um let's just say social emotional development that boys tend to lag um chronologically a bit be behind their female peers and this actually starts pretty early I I mean there are all kinds of arguments out there about
for example that boys should probably not start school until age six um and that that would help them have a little bit more of this catch-up time social in terms of their social and emotional skills but you seethis in adolescence and the difference in adolesence really from a younger child is that um interiority starts to develop so there's a sense of Inner Space a sense of what's going on inside me who am I in thereand what do other people see of me and so again the these kind of questions um we all have to answer them during adolescence and early adulthood but I think for boys there can be a sense of umuh you know for many boys almost like a tear of looking inside themselves and this has to do with that heroic code that I was talking about that interiority can become associated with femininity and so the idea of
going inside can have a little bit of a of a feminine Trope to it and a lot of boys don't like that it's interesting that you then describe men as having this inner world that is really one youyou would describe as alienated they're they suffer from a great deal of alienation and you know alienation is one of those Concepts where it's kind of like the word uncertainty it's it you know it's a morphus and soI wondered if we could talk a little bit about how you see male alienation well it's twofold some of it has to do with the origin of course of that word and I I I think uh if ifI'm remembering correctly and I I might be misremembering it it comes from um French um alien um and this was a a term that meant you know being cut off and some some sense and so the um doctors
who worked in asylums uh for the mentally ill in the 19th century were termed alienists and and this was because they were working with people who had this condition that we might you know of course you could segmentdiagnosis but in in a broader bucket we'd say they were alienated um and so so the word has a very interesting background and I think that the issue with um male alienation is this two-fold piece so there's arisk of social isolation and that would be the external piece of of it that there's uh uh kind of an anxiety we might think again this is along a Continuum but uh a general anxiety about how are otherpeople going to see me how are they going to think about about me um do they think I'm man enough or boy enough and um so so depending on how high that anxiety gets of course it could escalate
to panic that would be a situation in which a a boy would be at risk for isolating for withdrawing for retreating from social contacts from interacting with peers or family um you know whatever kind of community groups involvedin so that's often the the evident risk factor that people see right teachers see that parents see that and when they see that that's when they start might start to think uhoh something's off track here my son needssome help so so that's this external piece the piece that I think is much more Salient is the internal piece and so to be alien at from your own psyche think about that that's really a almost unfathomable situationof trying to completely live outside and and of course that's going to be doomed because we're all drawn inside ourselves that's that's just inevitable that's a part of of being a human being and so so this this sense
of like oh I don't want to look too carefully about what's in there there because I'm afraid of what I might find that's this internal alienation and I think we can sense that you know when someone is livingonly from the external there's a lack of comfort in in their own skin and and it has a there's an energy to it so I I kind of wondered if you ever witnessed how that makes boys more vulnerablebecause there there's no inner core that they're cultivating and being able to draw stimuli in process understand it's all external right right the sense of self yeah yeah no I I think that leads to all kinds of issuesbecause you know if you don't look inside to make meaning then you're going to start to feel empty and the emptiness will grow and and again that's a piece of this alienation and and the depleting effects of that
on the psyche of course affect a person's motivation um their capacity to learn their desire to socialize or be intimately involved with people so it it kind of spreads outward um but it definitely has this internal piece andagain I think it goes back to the Brokenness that when a a boy or young man says I feel broken I I sometimes will say well can you look inside yourself and tell me what do you see what
Martin and Tamsky explore how therapy can help boys visualize inner experience and recover language for emotion. They discuss alexithymia, feeling charts, and ways to help boys identify what they sense inside themselves.
do you see there what a great question and and do you find that over time when as you're working with a a boy who might be troubled because they're troubled or they wouldn't show up at your doorstep ismy thought and so when you are you able to see the growth in that that over time yeah yeah I I would say so I I mean I I think in again in the book I it's it's easyfor analysts and and I think psychotherapists to to write about all the problems we see and so in the book I intentionally tried to include a couple of cases where things went well and where things did work outand and so so that that openness to a process I think is really important and even in some of the the more dramatic um situations that I write about I I would say that um a fair number of
those those boys and young men improved um partly as a continuing dialogue about like what you know when you look inside and you see a bunch of holes what where do you think that comes from what do youthink those holes mean what is that a new feeling is that something you've noticed for a long time and and having those kind of conversations I think can be helpful because there's a way in which you're helping themto visualize their internal experience and I I think that can be very helpful rather than feeling on the the spot about will tell me how you feel about it um it's it's a it's a slightly different approach it'sit's like well what do you see there and I I have found personally that this kind of approach or different emphasis is often quite helpful well you're engaging their imagination as well so they're describing an inner landscape to
you rather than just having to name a feeling and you talk in the book uh about the loss of language the loss for words this was so profound and you know I write myself and uh the effect offeeling so alienated to the point where you lose your you lose words you lose your ability to articulate you your your ability to describe I would love to talk a little bit more about the loss of words umand you even say that sometimes uh some youth required speech therapy that they had to kind of re claim their words and they struggle to name their feelings so tell us how this Dynamic works it's uh um Imean that's a very uh tricky question because there there I I can tell you what it looks like how it works inside of course is multivalent there are many causes to it but what it looks like is um
when you say to somebody how do you feel and um one thing that I've I've heard like in the last five years quite a bit is meh that's me me that's right I heard I heard that word fromson me uhuh and me is a is I started to think about it it's really a workaround it's a way to try and show indifference so that you don't have to think about something that might be a littlebit dicier that's going on inside yourself could be anxiety could be sadness could be anger so me um to me has a bit of a a nice defensive function and um I have in my office a feeling chartand um I keep it out I I actually keep it um on a table in the the middle of my office that's between my my my seat and a chair and the couch and um you'd be surprised the
number of times that um somebody picks that up and is looking at it and is fascinated there are about 30 feelings on it and they're fascinated by this and um so so it's it's really that's also helpful seeit's a visual thing and so seeing those faces like what does an angry face look like what does a happy face look like so again these are the the kind of things with with language that it's really somethingabout how we connect with others and how we make make meaning and how we um you know how how we have a dialogue right a conversation like you and I are having now I will say there's been alot of res Arch on something uh called Alexia and Alexia I I don't know you're nodding so I I'm imagining that you probably have heard of this term is an inability to really read what your feelings are what's
going on inside yourself and this started out as research very interestingly in the 70s in the 1970s where people were looking at at patients who had severe psychosomatic uh complaints and often would need to be hospitalized and soPsychiatry would get involved and the psychiatrists were often finding that these patients couldn't talk about their feelings and so this this concept sort of evolved as as something about not wanting to look inside and you can think aboutthis the way in which it would tie in with a psychosomatic symptom would be to bring it to the surface and to show it that way rather than to use words and to explore the feelings now I'm makingit sound tidier than it actually is and um but what has happened is is that there's a researcher um he was actually president I believe of the American Psychological Association and uh at the University of akan and his
name is Ron lavant and he began to look into this idea of something called normative male alathia nma and the idea there which I think is a fascinating one is that that there's something about um again this interiorFocus that a lot of boys struggle with because it can often feel threatening to their gender identity and so they they then start to struggle with expressing emotions and start to struggle with with saying what the feeling isor even being able to identify it and so so this this normative malale Alexia is something that that you know I've seen repeatedly that that often you have to start with where a boy or young man is andif they can't name a feeling that's when that question about well can you tell me like what it feels like in your body what are you sensing if you look inside yourself what what do you see there and
uh is there any movie or any film or any story that you can think of where you've seen this and and so you you think of different ways um to make connections well you know when I encountered that
The conversation shifts to digital culture and how screens, shorthand communication, and algorithmic intensification can deepen emotional flattening. Tamsky warns that online influencers can steer boys toward harder, more toxic versions of masculinity.
term Alex Alex I always stumble with it Alexa thyia there you go I actually picked that up in my own research Arch on digital culture because it's from everything I've read it seems to have escalated and that thatthe internet is playing a role in this and and the use of screens is playing a role somehow in this do you have anything any insight on that I I think that's a really um like wonderful idea thatyou're bringing in I I mean yes I would endorse that that that that does seem to be a part of the the downside to being so involved with screens that people start using shorthand and you see this intexting a lot and and this shorthand then conveys something but it leaves so much out and it's leaving out a kind of emotional complexity and and if you think about like part of what the internet is based on
it's based on computer code which is binary it's ones and zeros and and so so the idea that that you are forced into a kind of oppositional choice either or leaves out room for depth everything kind of collapsesand I think this is true of emotional life as well so as we think about young boys growing into adolescence and then manhood you know questions get raised especially by parents as to what kind of role the internetis playing in in raising boys is it you know is it entering into their lives at a moment where it's shutting down things that actually need to be developed do you have a thought on that I I'm whatI'm doing here is condensing lots of theories that I've read you're doing a fantastic job at that I love your question question s i i I think uh again I think that's that's really quite a good observation because
uh what this idea of that that we were talking about a few minutes back about being um aversive to looking inside yourself because it could be associated with femininity well where where is that urge psychically going to goand the internet offer offers quite a workaround um and so a lot of boys and young men go to YouTube and they'll watch these videos um that are given by a whole cast of characters uh that tell themor profess to tell them this is how you show your a boy or a man and and it's often this very hardcore um I would say it's it goes beyond even the traditional masculinity that we talked about atthe beginning into something that's a little bit more toxic masculinity about hardness about uh domination uh about fighting um about showing your aggression and so so these these kind of videos there there are just thousands of them and
as I said there are I guess they're called influencers but they they will post these videos and boys will often turn to them and that's sometimes where things go wrong because they'll hear something in the video and they'llthink oh I can do that I can make that happen and when they make it happen something goes wrong at school something goes wrong in their social life something goes wrong in the family and so so it's it'sreally quite uh quite a problem I I mean I think it could be a whole other conversation we could have about these platforms because to my mind what they do and and they keep they keep uh it doesn'tmatter if you're a a boy or a girl or a man or a woman there these these platforms are kind of programmed with intermittent reinforcement to keep to hook a person intermittent reinforcement is what's used in casinos right
with slot machines and so these platforms are copying that and what they're trying to do is hook people so that they will spend more and more of their time watching or engaging with whatever the platform is offering theother problem with YouTube is something called intensification and I've had this happen many times where a boy will often you know be interested in the US Constitution and so they'll like look up history professors and listen to somelectures well then there'll be a suggestion do you want to hear a conservative viewpoint on the Constitution they'll click on that and it'll keep happening like taking it further and further it could be in a leftward direction I'mI'm not going to Discount that possibility but in my experience it's often in this rightward direction and so you have these uh you know far right you know often very misogynistic racist homophobic xenophobic uh uh di tribes that
they're listening to and they're listening to that in a context where they don't have anyone to process it with right they're they're they're just watching it they're just watching it they're isolated so I want to talk with you
Tamsky discusses the role of fathers, especially those who are physically present but emotionally absent once sons reach puberty. He describes what it means to be a good enough father through attentive feedback, delight, and emotional presence.
about the role of fathers and you have some case studies in the book as well about how some fathers were able to like learn from their sons how to Father differently mhm yeah yeah th that's the the hopefulParadigm is that when a a boy is able to demonstrate something or Express something to a father that the father can hear and then take in as in in a way that you know like what could I dodifferently to be able to have that question occur to a father is so important you know that there was uh again in early in in a lot of This research about fathers the focus I think was on absentfathers so fathers who disappeared and then abusive fathers so fathers who you know physically emotionally and sexually abuse their children and it's true that those fathers are out there what I have noticed though is I I was looking
for the right metaphor and at first I thought of a scarecrow and then I realized oh I'm talking about a straw man and it's these fathers who are present but not there and there are a lot of thosefathers and often what happens is they they they like having a boy sometimes and they like the fun of you know having a five-year-old or an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old but once the Boy Hits puberty and becomes youknow bit snarky and just starts to go through his own development often these fathers withdraw and that they'll act as if they're there they'll act as if they're curious but the boy can sense oh you know he reallyisn't and so so again that's those situations are quite challenging and often involve you know having to think about well would the parents want to get some help for them for themselves so that they can be thinking about
how to support one another and being more present with their their son um and and so so you can see that these things are are quite are quite complicated but this straw man idea um which is what Ikind of settled on is again this feeling of something substantial missing and and and a lot of of what I hear is about those kind of fathers well I also want to bring up the idea of wot's goodenough mother because you Riff on that a little bit in the book and you talk about what it would mean to be a good enough father so what is it what tell tell us you know what is yourtake on what it means to be a good enough father I I think I think it's a father who who's willing you know to put in the time and effort with their children and and by that I don't
mean just like clock time or work I'm thinking about feedback emotional feedback and talking with them about the things that they see in their kids that Delight them and and and a father who can do that is isreally being good enough that that's such a an asset in parenting on both sides so with mothers and and with fathers to be able to give your your children feedback about you know I love it when you dothat or I love it that you're interested in that or yeah that's a bit silly but you're goofiness is so so much fun those kind of things well it's what is more heartwarming for anyone than to be seenyes by someone you love especially by someone who is there to take care of you that's that's a feeling of wholeness in and of itself it's a it's kind of a cure all isn't it to be seen yes
yeah yeah yeah because you you feel there's a resonance right you feel like there's something about oh I'm in that person's mind in a way that that's very meaningful and they're letting me know that and and th thoseare the you know the gems of human connection so um so I I think when you again it's not particular to fathers it's also true of mothers but to be able to do that with your children is uhand it's not a given uh I mean a lot of parents now um feel amazing levels of stress partly because of the pandemic and and so um so so to put in the time and effort and those emotionalways that you and I are talking about that that that's a it's not a simple ask you know but I I I can't help but think back on my own mothering as I listen to you how many times
I thought of my kids but didn't necessarily give voice to it you know to say oh when you dance around the house your movements are very fluid I'm noticing that you're enjoying that uh I it's such a simple
The interview explores soul death, trauma, and the fear that one’s life has no meaning or substance. Tamsky explains how therapy can reveal the hurt boy within and how that process resembles Jung’s own recovery through creative reflection.
thing to do so I I want to go to the other end into the Spectrum now because there were places in your book where I thought um especially when you get to the topic of Soul death it wasvery profound this idea that certain kinds of trauma can crush a boy's will and leave him with a murderous rage and I took this to really mean emotional abuse um and and I'll quote you you say if aman or boy Is alienated I believe he will question at some point whether he has a soul unquote that seems to be a deeply painful State how did this come to you in your work it it is apainful state right I I mean I think um we we we all have been through phases of that I think again it's part of the psyche to to sort of um you know have dark places in it and
to uh when we venture into those dark places to wonder does it is there meaning is there uh something of substance that speaks to me is there something I want to do that's worth doing and those those kindof questions are in that dark territory and I I think you know the psyche to me is is very fluid and it is somewhat fragmented they're are different pieces they kind of come together Sometimes They Come Together inways that were feel more whole but often they're not very together and we're just sort of like okay this is the best I can do and I think with with this Soul death it would be a kind ofa question of of like what's getting the upper hand inside and if these dark places are are really kind of looming and have kind of taken up too much space then I think uh um any person might might
question um the value of of their life the value of what they're doing the value of any contribution they can make raising questions like why am I here does this does any of this matter do I matter thethose are all questions that are indicative of a certain amount of Soul death is what I hear you saying yes but then but then you redeem the moment so by talking about revealing the boy within and you knowmany jungians talk about the time that Carl Yung spent after he and Freud uh parted on not so good terms and he retreated Yung retreated and spent time on the beach and balling in and and and reflected backhad had these moments of clarity about being a boy and and that was restorative to him he there was something in that and in fact I I think it's fair to say that some of what he took from
that uh fed into what he describes in the red book as encountering his own soul it's like he fed himself with the boy within how does that work revealing the boy within in in in the analysis you knowin the consultation room how how does how does one reveal that to a patient what's the peeling away that happens can you share that well it's a lot of peeling away I I think you know again like itwould depend somewhat on the person I I mean I think like you were talking about young and that made me think that like what he he was able to do and of course he had a um a kindof a neglectful upbringing I mean he his mother was quite troubled and he he didn't have a a great relationship with his father and um and so I think what he discovered was is that there was this other
place he could go to which of course was an archetypal level of the psyche and that that had healing potential for him and so in that period of disorientation after his uh uh breakup with Freud he he wasable to discover that and make good use of it I mean you know he not only wrote but he painted and Drew and became very creative in trying to express those things and so the the the method Ithink of expression is is one thing that's quite helpful in the in the book I I think I give a couple of cases where um with these patients I came to a point of talking about well the thehurt uh the very hurt boy inside them and they're being able to flush that out to describe it to be able to see it to be able then to think about what might he need when he's trying to
sabotage me nowadays th those are you know that's a journey and and and it takes it takes a while it's it's not uh not like a workbook kind of therapy where where you're going to get there in infour months it's really a journey because the person has to be open to you know recognizing how hurt some part of themselves feels and what kind of suffering that part is holding on to I can only think though
They consider whether the shortage of male therapists affects men’s willingness to seek help and how gender can shape therapeutic safety. Tamsky closes by arguing that screens often substitute for missing real-world experiences and create a kind of psychic pollution.
that with that with time and with care and I I do have to say your case studies reveal someone who is deeply committed to their work and I read these statistics recently that men account for only 18% ofsocial workers and 20% of psychologists and I wondered if you think the lack of male psychotherapist plays a role in keeping more men from seeking help do you think that that there's there's a a factor there yeah menwant to talk to other men about it right yeah I I think there there definitely is because issues that come up again you you know not to reduce everything to this um idea that looking inside is a kindof more feminine tone sort of way of exploring yourself but I think a lot of men and boys do get that somehow in them and if they're able to do that um with with a male therapist um or
a male analyst I I I think there is a factor of um something about safety and about um you know understanding that that is important that makes it a bit smoother now that's not to say that a skilledum you know female uh analyst or female therapist couldn't do the same um but but I would I would think there there would be some issues that would come up inevitably around gender that could be tricky and aslong as you're open to talking about them I think that's fine um I I often I think in the the book I use this analogy of a house and that um the male psyche to me often is thesedifferent kinds of houses and um and and the trick is is to figure out like well what kind of house might I be working with like what what is the person's psychic space how open is it and where
where my there be some entry and often I think about side doors and side doors seem to work a bit better they're oblique they they tend to allow for um some level of um not feeling threatened and foraccessibility whereas the front door right that's like whoa what are you doing and the back door is a whole other set of problems so um uh so you know these side doors I I think can be if youcan find them um they can be quite uh you know Rich to open up and and see what's inside well I would imagine that that's helpful for a parent as well to think about entering the child's reality througha side door because the front door it's it's the first of all it's likely to be guarded that's right that's right let's be honest and and um if if part of the struggle is finding words for how you're
feeling then the side door is easier I uh I have one last question that I I as a youngi I I wonder if you see this Health crisis this Mental Health crisis of masculinity for men and boys isas something that can help the collective grow meaning there's so the more and more research is being done and coming to the four about just what's happening and not happening for boys and do you see a future formen and boys in if we were to go 10 years out and if you could what what's your most optimistic take and I'm not asking for Happy Talk but you've you've really studied this issue what's the future ofmen that's a such a a tricky thing right because um I I'm I'm not particularly uh Adept at predicting things so I I feel like I'm going out on a limb here with you but I I think I
I I think the issue the issue for me is to think about like why why is it that there are so many boys and young men who are isolated and then drawn into cyberspace and I think they're substitutingfor some experience they're not getting in the real world now that that experience could be so varied right it it it could be art it could be you know working with animals it could be you know music itcould be Sports it could you know there's so many different ways that to think about about like what the missing pieces might be and I think the issue with being drawn into cyers space is that then they enterthis environment where there is what I'm I'm really thinking of is psychic pollution and there you know like we in the uh 60s and 70s we became aware of how you know big coal Big Oil big agriculture big
plastic we're polluting our environment and ruining our the external World well I think a lot of the social media companies and platforms including video gaming is doing something similar and these are often I think uh economists use thisfunny word externalities which are basically hidden costs that aren't accounted for and by what a company's products do to the public and so I think we have to think more about what's going on with the screens and andI'm not I'm not advocating that we you know regulate in a strict way screens but I I do think there are are some sensible things that could be done to help um not just boys but but girls andand you know to be able to to separate more from the risk of being consumed by by what's happening on their screens well at least to raise the Consciousness that it is a substitution and that there are tactile
The host summarizes the value of tactile, embodied experiences for boys and thanks Tamsky for the conversation. The episode ends with closing remarks, donor acknowledgments, and a donation appeal.
experiences that are really beneficial to boys uh you know learning to ride a horse you know climbing a tree all of these things are nourishing to a boy and uh I think you've done a great job today inmaking us aware of some of the issues and and what we can do as good human beings to help raise better boys thank you Robert tominski it has been such a pleasure to talk with you today I willlink to your books below and we look forward to having you back sometime well thank you Patricia you are a wonderful interviewer and I I have to say what a a really a gift it is to have somebodyhave read as closely as you've read what I've written so thank you it was my
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