E562 Richard Reeves

Richard Reeves is a British-American writer, speaker and social scientist. He is also President of the American Institute for Boys and Men Richard Reeves joins Theo to talk about why he thinks many men are struggling to find purpose in today’s world, how becoming a role model or mentor can change your life forever, and the key difference in how men and women communicate. Richard Reeves: https://x.com/RichardvReeves ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at https://valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at [email protected] Blue Cube: Head over to BlueCubeBaths.com and get $1,000 off when you mention Theo’s name. Symmetry Sauna: https://www.symmetrysauna.com/theo ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Theo Von?

  Today's guest is a writer and a social scientist. He's also a dual citizen. He's the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. I'm grateful that he's here today. Today's guest is Richard Reeves.

• 0:31Theo Von?

  Richard Reeves, thanks for joining us today, brother.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm really thrilled to be here.

• 0:35Theo Von?

  Yeah, we appreciate it, man. You want to move that in a little bit for me?

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 0:39Theo Von?

  And you're, um, you are British?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  By birth, I'm American now.

• 0:45Theo Von?

  Okay, you're American now.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I became a US citizen in 2016, so I'm very, very proud of this country.

• 0:50Theo Von?

  Oh, welcome.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 0:52Theo Von?

  And you're the president for the American Institute for Boys and Men?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Yep, new think tank. Like, God knows, we need more think tanks, right? That's what America's really clamoring for. It's like more scholars sitting in think tanks, producing charts.

• 1:03Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Honestly, I was in another think tank for 10 years before that, the Brookings Institution. Huge think tank in Washington DC, great job. And I got to tell you, it was not in my life plan.

• 1:14Theo Von?

  To be in a think tank?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  To create another one. No, actually, being in a think tank is great. Yeah. What that means is you basically just get paid good money to write stuff and say stuff that you're interested in.

• 1:24Theo Von?

  And what happens to a lot of that information from think tanks?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Well, that depends who you ask. If you ask the critics, they say it just gathers dust on people's shelves.

• 1:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Right, maybe like two people in Congress read it, one New York Times journalist reads it. And so there is this whole thing now that think tanks used to like produce policy papers and then grateful legislators, members of Congress, would say, "Thank you. We'll go and turn that into a law." And ta-da, right? That's not how it works anymore. And so the whole question of how do you influence law? Like, how do you influence policy? I think is a really big question now. And so there's a big question mark against this whole idea about, quote, "think tank." I certainly didn't plan to start a new one, but...

• 2:07Theo Von?

  But it seems like this one is important. That's one of the reasons, yeah, that I wanted to get to talk to you today because, you know, a lot of our listeners are men and boys. Um, I know Scott Galloway was on and he had mentioned that you were kind of his, um, godfather of information or somebody that he really looked up to, you know? Um, and I, I did also see you're born on the 4th of July. Is that right?

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 2:26Theo Von?

  Do they kick you out of Britain if you're on the?

• 2:28Speaker 01

  That would be great. I think it should just have a rule, right? Everyone who's born on 4th of July gets automatic US citizenship, but then gets deported from, from the UK, right? Uh, but it's so, it's kind of weird that because I've always had that. And then I actually came to the US in the nineties to, for the Guardian newspaper. I was a journalist for quite a few years. Uh, I just always loved America, ended up marrying an American.

• 2:50Theo Von?

  Do you think it was because of your birthday at all or no?

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Uh, you know.

• 2:53Theo Von?

  Because it's just interesting.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  It would sound weird to say yes, wouldn't it? But I, if you think there's no such thing as a coincidence, I've always loved the fact that I was born on the 4th of July. And now I'm here. It's great. Everyone has a big party for my birthday. Um, and actually one of the things that I've really thought about as, as an immigrant, right? And I don't, when you say immigrant, you probably don't think of someone like me, but I'm, I'm a proud immigrant. Is that people who are born here don't actually appreciate what it means sometimes to be a citizen. And my citizenship ceremony, which I did in a hurry actually, because I wanted to be able to vote and wanted to get into the, you know, get into the whole civic life. I was surrounded by people in tears.

• 3:34Theo Von?

  Really?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's people from Iran, there's people from Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever, refugees, a whole bunch of different people, some people from Mexico, and they're waving their flags, saying the pledge of allegiance, you're welcomed by the president. And there was, there wasn't really a dry eye laugh by the end of it. And so I actually now think that every high schooler in the US should go to a citizenship ceremony.

• 3:58Theo Von?

  That's a great idea.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Just experience it because I don't think if you're like, if you're born here, like you can take it a bit for granted, what it means to be a citizen, but to go and experience what it's like for people to become a citizen. I expected it to be more, I had a green card and I thought, yeah, but I need, I want to be a citizen as well. I actually was incredibly moved by the whole experience.

• 4:17Theo Von?

  Yeah, you don't think about the gift of your own citizenship, right? And you don't think about what others go through to get it.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:24Theo Von?

  And that, yeah, they used to have, I know whenever I was growing up, you had the pledge of allegiance. There was definitely a lot more, even though the pledge of allegiance was like a small thing. It's one of the like those traditional things that made you feel like a part of something, right? It was like a traditional practice that, that created a commonality between, you know, between kids. We kind of thought it was lame sometimes, but sometimes you didn't, you know, like at certain points of the year, if certain things were going on in the culture, um, it meant more to you. But yeah, that's.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  And it's also just a ritual.

• 4:52Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  And, and I, we've come to undervalue ritual.

• 4:55Theo Von?

  Oh, we're starting, they erode from our society.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  The point of a ritual, right? It's not just like you can overthink what the words mean. You can overthink exactly what it means, but there's something about just the ritual of it. So, um, my, my son is at the University of Tennessee and he, he explains.

• 5:10Theo Von?

  Maybe.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, but actually when his friends come down to a Tennessee game, what's, and they're say a northeastern college, a small liberal arts college, what really strikes them is less the game. And it's more the fact that there's the pledge of allegiance, that there's a prayer, that the jets go over, that there's fireworks, that they come out through the T, that there's a whole bunch of ritual around it, which is actually really beautiful. Uh, and I think sometimes we overthink the content of the ritual and don't actually just recognize it's the fact of the ritual that really, really matters.

• 5:39Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's like, yeah, people start looking at, well, what are the words of the pledge of allegiance? It didn't matter. It was just that we got.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Do I mean every word of this, right?

• 5:46Theo Von?

  We got up and we did it together. And I don't think there's anything wrong. If you live in a country and you're a member of it, to pledge allegiance to that country, I feel like, um.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, correct.

• 5:55Theo Von?

  You know, like, cause otherwise then what are you? You're just, you're just a passerby or you like working for another country? Like what's your real modus operandi then, I guess, um.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  I have one friend actually who's from Israel and when he came, he gave up his Israeli citizenship because he believes that you cannot have more than one citizenship. You cannot have dual citizenship is a contradiction because you can only be pledging your allegiance to one sovereign nation.

• 6:24Theo Von?

  I love that.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I love that too. And I will confess that I have kept my British passport.

• 6:28Theo Von?

  Oh, you have?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, my kids.

• 6:29Theo Von?

  So if you had to choose, what do you do then?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Oh, US, no question.

• 6:32Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 6:34Theo Von?

  Yeah, I get it.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  I mean, there's a reason why everybody wants to come here.

• 6:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, dude, The Rock lives here.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:40Theo Von?

  You know?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:41Theo Von?

  I mean, that's.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Is that the main reason people come here?

• 6:43Theo Von?

  No, I don't think so. But that would be a great idea if every class had to go watch that, had to go watch that ceremony.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  They always need volunteers of them as well to like help out with the paperwork and stuff like that. And so you could just have like some going like every time. Like, I just think it'd be really nice.

• 6:57Theo Von?

  Oh, I think it's a great idea.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  High school like, and I would just say anyone who's listening, right? If you're thinking about a good, cool thing to do, like volunteer at your local citizenship center and watch the people go through the process of becoming a US citizen. And that might make you appreciate it a bit more.

• 7:10Theo Von?

  I can't believe that it's not mandatory, um, like in classes or in school that you have to go see that. Maybe that's something that one of these think tanks could change, you know?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Well, I proposed it, but let's see if it'll change. But, but we can do it ourselves as well.

• 7:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, we could.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  There's nothing stopping us.

• 7:25Theo Von?

  Um, you're the president for the American Institute for Men and Boys. So what is that institute?

• 7:30Speaker 01

  So it's a research and advocacy organization. So what we're trying to do is the basic premise here is there are a lot of ways in which boys and men are struggling in our country right now. And there are no institutions, there's no organizations whose job it is to basically wake up every, every day and draw attention to that.

• 7:49Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  With data, like with facts, you know, in a way that'll hopefully raise awareness of it. It's this, this huge asymmetry. I, I, I really noticed it in the pandemic. So when the pandemic hit, there were a lot of reports about how it was going to affect women and girls. There was a lot of concern about employment, domestic violence, a whole bunch of real, real concerns.

• 8:10Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  So there's, and a lot of press coverage for that. And those were perfectly legitimate, coming from women's think tanks, from the UN, from the White House, et cetera. But I noticed that actually the college enrollment for men had dropped seven times more than for women in the first year of the pandemic. Seven times difference in the drop, just crazy.

• 8:30Theo Von?

  Is that true?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  It is true. Then the numbers got a little bit revised and it's partly because the men were more likely to be going to like trade school and stuff, which you just couldn't do online. But it wasn't just that. It was just, it just, it hit male education harder than female education. Number one. Number two, men were dying a lot more from COVID.

• 8:51Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  COVID was killing a lot more men.

• 8:53Theo Von?

  You mean the actual disease or just the like the loneliness or the disconnection?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Oh, the disease. Men, men were much more vulnerable to COVID. Uh, we last time I checked, we'd lost at least a hundred thousand more men than women. And that's not to be expected because actually it affected older people, right? COVID killed older people a lot more and there are more older women. So if anything, you just think it'd go the other way, right? But it didn't because actually men were much, much more vulnerable to the disease. And no one was really researching that. No one was producing reports on that. No one was writing articles about that. And it really occurred to me that that was because it was no one's job.

• 9:31Theo Von?

  Right.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Right? Right? There wasn't an American Institute for Boys and Men, but I can assure you that if we'd existed then, we'd have been pushing out lots of information about how COVID was affecting boys' education and men's education and also killing men in massively higher numbers.

• 9:47Theo Von?

  Well, for sure, because I think also you, you, um, I don't know if ever in my life, there's been like a, like a lot of organizations where it's like, hey, men need help, you know?

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:58Theo Von?

  It's like everything is that women need help with this, children, you know, and it certainly that makes sense. Um, I always think back to like women and children first, like when the Titanic was sinking or something, you know, when something like that, it's like women and children first, right? And that's probably what most men would want as well. But at a certain point, you're like, hey, uh, we exist. What are we doing here? You know?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:18Theo Von?

  Um, what was your like, what was your first relationship like, like with your dad or something? Like when you were like, how did you like, just so we have some personal, uh, attachment to this conversation as well. What was it like with your dad when you were a kid? Cause that's usually your people's first male role model. Yeah?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. My dad was amazing.

• 10:37Theo Von?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Just amazing. Uh, and is an amazing granddad to my sons as well. Uh, and so I just, I was, I was given the greatest gift that I think anybody can ever get, which is two parents who both loved me. Still together, still loving us. And that sense of somebody wants, this sounds like a bit of a.

• 11:02Theo Von?

  It's crazy that I'm shocked, you know, that it's, it's crazy that it's becoming this world that that's a shocking thing.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not like, not like they were perfect.

• 11:09Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  To be clear, but, but it's like, like parenting is never going to be about perfection. It's, it's always going to be about the arc, right? It's like a, I think you almost get like a parental grade point average, right? Across the whole decades it takes to raise a kid, right? You're going to have bad days and good days and you're going to get some days where you get a really bad grade, doesn't right? That dad got, dad got an F today.

• 11:30Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Right? He like said some stuff he shouldn't have said, did some stuff he shouldn't have done to me. But then like you got a B the next day and an A, like what's my overall? And, and they were, they were genuinely like amazing. And I've come to realize that that is the most extraordinary gift. I was going to say, it sounds like a bit of a brag, but I remember someone coming, someone come up to me once after I'd done a talk or something like that. And.

• 11:53Theo Von?

  There's your dad right there, did a gander at him.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  And they just.

• 11:55Theo Von?

  What's his name? Phil?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  David.

• 11:56Theo Von?

  David, yeah. It's a proper British name as well.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  They said like, this guy's dad loved him. You can tell his dad loved him. And I was like, oh, so I loved you, right? I was like, that's so weird. And I was like, I don't know that you can just, there's something in people, men, who were loved by their dads. And I don't, you could never quantify that, right? There's no chart you could ever make about that, but I have, I've never doubted my father's love for me.

• 12:22Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  And he was a coach for us. He taught us to swim, he taught us to drive, but he was also the breadwinner. And I had this moment with my dad that made a huge impression on me where like his, of his generation, he had to be the breadwinner. Married very young and he lost his job. He became unemployed a couple of times. He worked in manufacturing during the eighties, which was a tough time, you know, in the UK and the US. And there was a time he was unemployed for quite a long time, but every morning he got up and he shaved and he put on a shirt and a tie. His concession was he didn't put a jacket on, right? He didn't fully dress up, right? Cause he was trying to get a white collar job and he had breakfast with us.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  And I asked him one day, I said, Dad, you're going into the spare room to type out like resumes to try and get a job. Why, why are you shaving? Why are you still putting a shirt on? You don't have a job. And he looked at me and he said, I do have a job. My job is to get another job so that I can take care of you. And he worked as hard at getting a job as he ever had at his job because he knew that we needed him.

• 13:29Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  And although I think that fatherhood has really changed, it's been different for me. Right. Cause the economic relationship between men and women has changed so dramatically, which is a huge liberation, I think. I was able to be a stay at home dad for a few years in a way that he would never have been able to do.

• 13:44Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Right. So it's a different world now, but that basic idea that like, okay, you have this purpose in life now, which is I have to take care of you. It just changes you and I had that directly from my dad.

• 13:58Theo Von?

  Yeah. And just seeing that example, like, okay, what does a man do every day? He gets up, he takes care of himself.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:03Theo Von?

  He clothes himself and he moves forward in the world.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:07Theo Von?

  In some process, you know, like, yeah, no, I think that that's.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  It took him months to find a job and I've, I've never been prouder of him. And I really realized that in retrospect.

• 14:16Theo Von?

  Oh, wow. And he passed away now?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:19Theo Von?

  Oh, good.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  My parents are in their eighties now. I live in Wales. I'm half Welsh.

• 14:23Theo Von?

  Oh, you are?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:24Theo Von?

  And is that the bad one or what's the bad one?

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Bad in what way?

• 14:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, I don't know. That's a good point.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  I think you'd have to specify.

• 14:30Theo Von?

  Yeah, I gotta look it up.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  I mean, some people would say that the Welsh are bad.

• 14:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  But I'm not going to say that.

• 14:35Theo Von?

  Okay, yeah. Okay.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  The Scottish, the Irish.

• 14:38Theo Von?

  Well, the Scottish is the easy. Yeah, everybody's like, the Scottish are over there eating their own teeth, you know? But that's.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  We can agree on that.

• 14:44Theo Von?

  But it's also, yeah, okay. No, I love the UK because everybody just, just rips on the other group, you know?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:51Theo Von?

  Rips on the other part of it.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  It's true of like almost everywhere. It's like everything. It's like college football. It's like states.

• 14:57Theo Von?

  But nowhere stronger than in the UK.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  No, no. It goes deeper.

• 15:00Theo Von?

  Yeah. You go on stage in Ireland, you're like, fuck England. And they just, they will cheer for the.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right. They cheer for the other side, right? So like if you're in rugby or soccer or something like, everybody will, it's like if, if England's playing Germany. The Welsh will support the Germans.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  And we have a history with the Germans, but it's like even then, they any, it's basically anybody but England.

• 15:22Theo Von?

  Oh, so the English and the Welsh are against each other even. Oh, crikey.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 15:26Theo Von?

  I didn't know that.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, not quite as much as the Scots, probably.

• 15:29Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  But it's, I mean, and also of course, these, they have deep histories. I mean, it is.

• 15:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  It's the United Kingdom. It is, it is four nations.

• 15:36Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Uh, and so there is always going to be that difference.

• 15:40Theo Von?

  Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, that's, it always just seems so much fun over there. It's how passionate they are about it.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  That's great. I mean, it's a kind of tribalism can be good or bad, but, but the issue of, I know you're interested in fatherhood.

• 15:51Theo Von?

  Yeah, for sure. And I was gonna talk, yeah, and just so, and, and just, um, so I can, just so I'll relate my own. Yeah, my dad, my dad was older when I was born. My dad was 70 when I was born, so he was an older guy. So I think I had this like,

• 16:05Theo Von?

  this almost like fear all the time that my dad was gonna be hurt or die maybe, you know? Cause it was always just kind of scary, you know, like, um, you know, like he would drive and he would ask us where we're going or if we could turn. And I was just a kid, I'd be standing on it, on the passenger seat and we're standing up and like getting up and like looking at the lights and I'd be like, it's good. You know, it's green or, or bad or something. And I remember one time I got it wrong and he just drove right out.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  You were literally having to be his eyes while he was driving?

• 16:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, I was helping out, you know, cause sometimes he would park too close under the lights or whatever, you know? He'd wait at an intersection in the middle of the intersect, you know, he's just old, you know, he was just, you know, he was like 80 something at that point and, so it was just bizarre, you know, I think it was a very bizarre kind of like probably fatherhood connection. And then my parents got divorced. And so then at that point, yeah, you kind of start to, and then my dad didn't live with us. And so my mom didn't want him to live with us. And so. You know, then you're kind of like in this, you don't even realize it as a kid, you're just a kid. But you're in this starvation space for where do you get, um, probably role models.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:15Theo Von?

  And where do you, who do you look to, you know?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:18Theo Von?

  Um, and I had my brother around for a couple of years and then I was like a huge wrestling fan. Like I really idolized a lot of those guys.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Did you do it? Were you a wrestler?

• 17:28Theo Von?

  No, I got into steroids, but I never did the wrestling.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  You did the steroid bit, but yeah.

• 17:35Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:35Theo Von?

  So I did, yes, I guess. You know, but yeah, I mean, I remember collecting all the figurines and we would watch it. I had a neighbor and his dad was a, his dad was, um, like kind of dialed in. And so that was helpful.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  What, he was almost like a dad to you as well? Like, cause you can share it around, I think that's part of the.

• 17:53Theo Von?

  Oh, for sure. I think you can get your father, you can get your father little pieces from different men, right? You can, I believe that, like, um, you had a basketball coach that, you know, showed me like care and affection and, um, included me in things that his family was doing. And then I ended up moving out and living with a different family when I was like 14 and that family had a stable father in the home. And so that, uh, that helped a lot, but yeah, not trying to like make it about me. I'm just trying to like, um, put both of our stories out there.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think it's important people know, but my, like, one of the things my dad also did, he was a coach. Like he was, he coached rugby and, and stuff.

• 18:26Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  I've, I think particularly in the U S, I've become really interested in the role of coaches. So my basic view is that coaches, especially for boys, we're actually seeing like sports, uh, is going down for boys in the U S now. Boys are less likely to play sports than in the past.

• 18:42Theo Von?

  Is that true? Bring that up.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  It's going up. Yeah. The Aspen Institute, uh, has a really good project called Project Play, where they, they actually track the data. It's going up for girls and down for boys. Now, it's always been higher for boys, but sports participation is going down for boys. One reason for that is coaches, like you need coaches to do that. And, uh, and we can maybe get into male teachers, cause actually one of the things that male teachers do, and my son has just become a teacher.

• 19:08Theo Von?

  Oh, wonderful.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, uh, he's teaching fifth grade in Baltimore. And it like within a day of starting, someone heard his accent, cause he's still got a British accent, heard his accent. He's a soccer coach now. And he actually is a good soccer player, but the point is he's immediately a coach, right? And I think that coaches are basically mental health professionals in disguise, right? I think they're doing a lot of the work that you'd otherwise do in terms of mental health. And you can kind of see like there's, there'll be a line from, from the Aspen.

• 19:39Theo Von?

  Okay, here we go. Here it says, oh, we have fewer boys are playing sports in 2013. Half of boys aged six to 17 participated regularly in sports, according to SFIA data. Only 41% of boys did in 2023.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:54Theo Von?

  Girls aged six to 12 had 34% and 13 to 17 age girls were 38% played at higher levels in 2023 than in any recent years. So girls is going up, like you said, boys is going down. Some of that could be attributed to, to also a lot more boys are like, they choose to become gamers and that sort of thing, but more sedentary things.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  It could be, which is not necessarily a good thing. Yeah. I mean, ideally you'd want to do a bit of both, but then the question is like, why are boys playing less sport than in the past?

• 20:21Theo Von?

  Right.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  And what is this coaching thing? And you can't get coaches. I, I'd love to see something like a Coach for America program. You know, there's this Teach for America program, which gets people into teaching, because I think there's a lot of men who are struggling to know how to kind of connect with their community or what they can do.

• 20:37Theo Von?

  For sure.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Right. Some of the older institutions, maybe they used to do that, whether like through church or the scouts or whatever have maybe declined. They have declined. And so if there was a way to kind of plug those men into a coaching role, I think that's important because when I, when you, when you, I mean, maybe this is maybe your experience, but like, I think if you look at the, the image of a coach sitting on a bench, like with a student, you know, a boy or a young man sitting next to him. And he's like, how you doing? Right? How are things at home? You know, how are things with your mom? You know, et cetera? As you kind of, that's counselling.

• 21:14Theo Von?

  Huge.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  That's therapy, but you're just not calling it that.

• 21:17Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  And the other thing is critically, you're doing it shoulder to shoulder. Do you know this thing about the difference in communication style between men and women and boys and girls? Like men, men go shoulder to shoulder, women go face to face. It's interesting how we're set up here. Um. Once you've seen this, you can't unsee it.

• 21:35Theo Von?

  Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, because guys don't usually look at each other when they're sharing information that much.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  No, because actually that's a little bit of a threatening, that's a threatening stance for men. Like if men go face to face, that's that might indicate something, some aggression or some like it's a bit like you're you're intimidating each other a little bit, right? There's a role for that, probably.

• 21:55Theo Von?

  Yeah, when you talk to someone, you rarely stand and look directly. There's always a little bit of an.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Not if you're male. So my, we learned this a hard way, like even before I had any of the data and God, I wish I'd had this data when we were raising our kids, right? But my wife would like, our kids would come home from school, all boys, uh, and the two that were in high school and middle school at the time, they'd come home and they'd like, sit across the breakfast bar from her, right? And she'd be feeding them stuff like she'd feeding them protein, have some protein and then she'd stare at them like this and be like, how was your day? How was your day? And they'd be like, well, I know, fine. They'd look down, fine. Did you learn anything? I don't know. Like, what did, nothing, like just nothing. And then later on, we'd be driving with them somewhere or watching a game or video game or just something, something like that, shoulder to shoulder.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  And they would say, uh, you know, this weird thing happened today, dad or mom, right? So this girl said this thing at school today. Huh? Interesting. And what we now know is that that's very, very common, that actually the communication style that men are most comfortable with is less face to face and it's more shoulder to shoulder. Now, think about this, fishing, road trips, watching sports, sitting on the bench, is that shoulder to shoulder? It's the only explanation I have for the existence of golf. What is golf about? Do you play golf?

• 23:14Theo Von?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 23:15Theo Von?

  I'd be willing to play it, but I just, I can't even calm down right now.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  But it's like, again, men have to be doing something else.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  And they have to be doing it like just so if you go to a party now, you you you will not not be able to unsee this. Watch how the men stand in relation to each other. And there are people who've done whole PhDs on measuring the angle. We always stand a little bit catty corner, like a little bit of an angle. Cause I thought cause to go face to face is threatening. Now, women on the other hand, very comfortable face to face. Walk into a coffee shop and count up how many people are sitting opposite each other, staring each other in the face. And then see what the gender is of them, much more likely to be women. Now, it's not like one is good or bad.

• 23:56Theo Von?

  Right.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  But what you don't want is a mental health profession, like psychology or whatever it is, based on the presumption that we're all supposed to sit like this. And so a lot of male therapists now, they're taking their male patients out for a walk.

• 24:08Theo Von?

  That's the thing to do.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Walk and talk.

• 24:09Theo Von?

  That's the best.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Walk with them. Don't sit and stare at them like.

• 24:12Theo Von?

  I've been saying that for years.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  As a man, it's like, we don't want that.

• 24:15Theo Von?

  Yeah, my ex-girlfriend's a therapist now and she I I went, she and I, whenever we really needed to discuss stuff, we go on a walk. Because you're in motion already, there's a part of you that feels like it's moving forward, even if you're sharing something that's troubling. Cause sometimes you get, you're sitting a sedentary, you're just sitting there in a room somewhere. It's like, oh, well, you you leave, you haven't really gone anywhere, nothing's happened, you know? But on a walk, you you you're making progress no matter what, even by just like staying in motion.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Same as a road trip.

• 24:44Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  But they've now got this physiological element to it too, which is that just how you're relating to each other physically, especially for men. It's just very important that we are.

• 24:53Theo Von?

  I'm gonna try that next time I'm with my therapist in a room. It's like, yeah, why don't, yeah, like, maybe it's easier if I'm just able to share and have somebody there, right? I remember one time I was talking to my brother and um, and I didn't know that this had been important in my life, but he said, he said, hey, man, I can just. I was having a tough day, man, I pulled over, I was like, just, I was kind of like falling apart a little bit. And um, he's like, hey, man, I can just sit here on the phone with you.

• 25:23Theo Von?

  We don't have to say anything, right? And I'd never, he's like, I have some time, right? I have an extra 10 minutes. I can just sit here with you. We don't have to say any, we don't have to say anything. And I can just be here with you, you know? And man, I just, I mean, it was like a dam inside of me broke, you know? It was like, literally, there was tears coming out of my toenails, you know? Like, it was just like, you didn't realize all the time you'd needed someone just to be there.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:51Theo Von?

  I didn't near, needed to hear him say anything. I didn't need to hear the, how they thought I felt.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:57Theo Von?

  I didn't need to hear a response to anything, no judgment, nothing. I just needed somebody there, you know? And it was like, I mean, it's, I mean, it like, I remember my hands vibrating. It shook me so much, you know?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Um, you're very lucky. That idea of being like with somebody, not necessarily for them. I think sometimes we think like, we've got to be for them. We've got to be telling them what to do. We've got to be advising them. We've got to be advocate, like somehow we've got to be doing something. And sometimes it's just being with. And for them to know that you're with, I'm with you, right? That I'm here. It's incredibly powerful statement. And one of the things that I has really motivated my work around boys and men, which I didn't ever expect really to be doing, was just this sense that I had that so many boys and men now don't have that feeling that we're with you, that we, we have your back.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  We've, we've noticed that you're struggling and we are, we're with you. And instead, there's sometimes been a sense a lot of men have felt, which is of being neglected or sometimes even blamed for their own problems.

• 27:07Theo Von?

  Is pornography causing a problem in your life? Do you find yourself watching porno for longer periods of time and having trouble stopping?

• 27:17Theo Von?

  Is porn affecting your relationship or dating life? Well, you're certainly not alone. Watching pornography has become so commonplace today and oftentimes men use porn to numb the pain of loneliness, boredom, anxiety, and depression. Shame and stigma prevent men from talking about these issues and getting help for them. I want to introduce you to my friend Steve. Steve is the founder of Valor Recovery, a program to help men overcome porn abuse and sexual compulsivity. Steve is a long-term sexual recovery member and has personally overcame the emotional and spiritual despair of abusing pornography and has dedicated his life to empowering men to do the same.

• 28:03Theo Von?

  Steve is an amazing person and he is a close friend of mine. I mean that. Valor Recovery helps men to develop the tools necessary to have a healthier sex life. Their coaches are in long-term recovery and will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide to transcend these problematic behaviors. To learn more about Valor Recovery, please visit them at www.valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at [email protected]. Thank you. You all know I like to keep things cool, even in the winter, and nothing is cooler than

• 28:47Theo Von?

  a Blue Cube Cold Plunge. I'm fortunate enough to have one at home and let me tell you, it's like baptizing your soul by getting that little crispy bucket, baby. It gets rid of them demons we all have and makes you feel great for seven or eight hours afterwards. It's good. My buddy, Thomas Schiffer, the genius behind Blue Cube, and I go way back, and he just launched a pre-sale for their new stand-up cold plunges. Wow. These things are the Cadillacs of cold plunge therapy. American made, full immersion, weatherproof frames and built like a Sherman tank. I'll say this, they are built well. And because you're listening to me, you can get a sweet discount. When you mention my name, that's right.

• 29:32Theo Von?

  Just tell them Theo sent you and they'll knock a good bit off the price. So if you're ready to boost your metabolism, eliminate inflation and blast away your anxiety, give them a call. Head over to their website, bluecubebaths.com and dive into the details. Opt in on their website or give them a call.

• 29:56Theo Von?

  I am grateful for the one that I have and I feel honestly thankful to be able to have one. I know they're not in everybody's price range and that's understandable. But at the same time, I want to support my friend and his amazing company.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  So I think there are these real problems, right? So I know you talked to Scott Galloway about some of these issues. Scott's been amazing on this, but the suicide rate among men under the age of 30 has risen by 40% since 2010, just since 2010 by 40%.

• 30:26Theo Von?

  Is that true? Bring that up.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, yeah. The American Institute for Boys and Men did a suicide trends analysis. And if you go down, you can then see the shift in, so up until 2010, it was much more older men. Who were, there you go, you got it. So if you go down, like there's a.

• 30:50Theo Von?

  Let me see, if male suicide rates had been the same as women's from 1999 to 2023, we would have lost 546,000 fewer men.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:59Theo Von?

  So men are, since 2010, suicide rates have risen by 30%.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  For 25 to 34, but we've updated that since and for under 20s, it's 40%.

• 31:08Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  So what's really interesting about the suicide.

• 31:11Theo Von?

  And where do you get this information from?

• 31:13Speaker 01

  From CDC, from the Centers of Disease Control. This is official, so.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Uh, we lose forty thousand men a year to suicide and since twenty ten, it's all shifted to being younger men. Right. So the rise up until twenty ten, the rise was middle aged men, really. And that was about deaths of despair. You can see it was partly about the economy. But since twenty ten, the rise has been among younger men. And so that's a very different thing. That's not about the recession. That's that's something different going on. I think that's more cultural. I think it's more just a lot of these young men feeling lost, feeling unseen.

• 31:51Theo Von?

  Yeah, what am I a part of? Yeah, because you have to have purpose, right? And I think um, you have to have purpose. We've talked a lot about that on this, on this podcast and learned a lot about it. But yeah, we have to have something to feel a part of. Man, I remember there was a guy I went skydiving with. And he'd listen to this podcast when it first started out and we, he and I kind of connected and um, and we connected on like, kind of like some emotional levels, talking about life and stuff. And then there were a couple of times he'd messaged me and I didn't get back to him over like, uh, it was like six months or something. I mean, life, you know.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  You're busy.

• 32:27Theo Von?

  Life, yeah. And then he took his own life. Not that I had, you know, nothing I probably could have done. But just like, man, it's just like, oh, I just like, sometimes that's that, just all that stuff kind of haunts you. It's like.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  But you don't, you don't know it's coming. And one of the things I, that stopped me in my tracks, you know how sometimes, so I, for a living, like I'm reading research reports and looking at data and stuff, but I've also been racing, you know, three boys, but even in the research, sometimes you get a finding that just like stops you and affects you emotionally. And there's one study that looked at men who'd taken their own lives. And then looked at the words they'd used to describe themselves before they'd taken their lives. And the two most commonly used words that men were using about themselves before they took their own lives was I'm useless. And I'm worthless.

• 33:22Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  And I think that sense of worthlessness of genuinely feeling like maybe my family, my community will be better off without me than with me is what leads to that tragic outcome. And of course, that's just the tip of the, I think that's the tip of the iceberg. If you then look at drugs, you look at substance abuse, you look at what's happening in the employment market, I think that sense that a lot of men have is that there isn't really a script anymore to follow, to like, to manhood, right, to mature masculinity. And I think that that's, in one way, that's for a good reason, but the way I think about this is if you think about like, the script that my dad had, right, about being a breadwinner.

• 34:03Theo Von?

  Yeah, so I was gonna say, let's look at some previous scripts so we can examine those, right?

• 34:06Speaker 01

  So like, my, like, my parents are a good example, born, you know, born in the 40s, had the kids in the, in the 1960s. And then it was like, my mom knew that she was mostly gonna be the homemaker and the mom. She worked as well, she was a nurse, but my dad knew that he was gonna be the breadwinner, right, the provider. There was not a discussion about that. There was no question about that. So they had pretty clear roles. Now, the problem with that, of course, was that the roles depended on the woman, in this case, my mom, being economically dependent on my dad.

• 34:38Theo Von?

  Right, right.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  That's the problem. And that's what the problem that the women's movement successfully, to a large extent, set out to solve, right? But my dad was also quite emotionally dependent on my mom, right? And vice versa. But I do think it was like, it's a two-way street that was missing from the analysis. Anyway, we tore up these old scripts, right? And we said to women, you don't have to be a housewife and, and, and mother anymore, or at least that's not your only option.

• 35:04Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  You can be whatever you wanna be. You go, girl. Right? Be president, be an astronaut, be whatever, which is amazing. Totally amazing. That message of empowerment we sent to women. So we tore up the old female script, provided a new one about empowerment and independence and you go, girl. We tore up the old male script, which is you're gonna be the provider and the protector.

• 35:26Theo Von?

  We don't really have new one.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  We didn't replace it. And so we're all improvising now. So basically, we've gone from having some kind of script to improvisation. And that's really, that's incredibly difficult to do. And so it's hard because the good news here is what's happened to women, right? Like, nobody wants to roll back the economic gains of women. But I think it's incredibly irresponsible and naive of us to think that that doesn't have consequences for how we think about the role of men. We've got to be able to think both of those thoughts at once. It's good that women are gaining ground. It is bad that men feel lost and purposeless. And we have got to solve that problem as well.

• 36:03Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I think that's, that's really cool information. It's good to look at, it's good to like, and it's really, it makes perfect sense, right? And it's like, you wanna have a reason, right? And, and sometimes I think, I think women, yes, they didn't have the access to money. And in a capitalistic society, money is power, right? But also, I think there was a missing respect there, right? There wasn't, oh, I think if women had been, if it had been totally respected, the, the, sacrifices that they made and the, the just intrinsic value of who they are as mothers and as caretakers.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:41Theo Von?

  And as bridges of empathy and affection. And as homemakers, no matter where they are, whether they're in a home or whether they're in a conversation, you know, just being able to have that ability to create peace. I think if women had, if that had been more respected, then maybe they never would have felt as much of a movement, or as much of a desire to have so much of a movement.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Because they had the power.

• 37:05Theo Von?

  Right.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:05Theo Von?

  And the power, and the money is the power.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the, and that's what that, that the women's movement had a huge fight about that because there were some people in the women's movement saying, no, no, no, we, this, it's called the wages for housework movement, which was basically what we need to do is pay women to do the traditional women's role.

• 37:21Theo Von?

  Oh, that's a cool idea.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  And, and that lost out.

• 37:23Theo Von?

  That was a real idea?

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:25Theo Von?

  Bring that up, the wages for housework movement?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is, there's a big split in the women's movement between the ones who are saying, we need to value care and value care work.

• 37:32Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Like wages for housework. And then there's another movement, which is like, actually, you've got to be, yeah, nineteen seven, in the nineteen seventies.

• 37:39Theo Von?

  I never knew about this. The wages for housework campaign was a nineteen seventies international movement that demanded governments recognize the value of unpaid domestic labor primarily performed by women. Wow. The founders were Sylvia Federici, Selma James. Mariosa, Dayakasta and Brigitte Galtier. Their goals were to change the dependency of domestic workers, reverse power relations and redistribute wealth.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:06Theo Von?

  Dude, that's fascinating.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  That's another way we could have gone in theory at least, right?

• 38:10Theo Von?

  Right, right. And I'm not saying that women didn't deserve to have all the jobs and whatever they wanted to do. I'm just saying if there had been a different level of respect and some, yeah, and this makes perfect sense. And some financial equality, maybe they, they, they would have, uh, they wouldn't have wanted that. I have no idea. I'm just thinking.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  No, well, this is a really interesting question because I now think we're at a point where a lot of men and women are feeling like this isn't quite working. We're trying to raise kids. We're trying to form families. We want to raise our own kids.

• 38:42Theo Von?

  Right. Both parents are so stressed out that they can't even have a relationship anymore.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Right. We want to stay together and be married. We want to raise our own kids by and large, right? And we don't want to die of stress, right? So one of the ways to think about this is like you had this old family system where, which was breadwinner father, homemaker mother, uh, and it was unfair in many ways, but it was also pretty stable and very clear what everyone's role is. And it was pretty good for kids, right? Because of that stability, when it worked, right? We've replaced that with a different model now where we don't want that economic inequality. So we're gonna, both men and women are gonna work. That can create all kinds of stress and maybe that relationship is hard to sustain, which means it might end up separating, which is not good for kids.

• 39:26Theo Von?

  Right. And the rules aren't super clear. You don't know who's gonna be doing what. You don't know who's getting certain things done. You don't know.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  The division of labor is not clear anymore. And a division of labor, in other words, like being clear, like you do this, I do this.

• 39:38Theo Von?

  Like an organized business, really.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's like, everybody knows that it makes more sense, like you're in charge of X, I'm in charge of Y. So you get, you know, really good at X and I get really good at Y, right? Um, and the.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  The interesting path we took instead was like, okay, women need to get into the labour market and have labour market power. I think that was almost certainly, I mean, that's the right, I don't imagine a world where the wages for housework movement, like huge government subsidies to people who are staying at home was ever likely. And there's all kinds of problems with that idea. But it's an interesting idea, but thought behind it, which is, are we doing enough to support the people who want to raise their own kids? The whole point of the women's movement wasn't to turn women into their fathers. It was to give everybody more choice.

• 40:21Theo Von?

  Right.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  And we haven't achieved that yet because we haven't done the rest of it, which is to change the way the workplace works, to give more support to families. I know you had J D Vance on, right? And J D Vance has supported like a child tax credit to, which is seen as a left wing idea, to give more money to people who've got kids in the house.

• 40:38Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  And so that's, that's not wages for housework, but it's in the direction of, of actually valuing care through government subsidy. But that has not been an idea that's been popular for a pretty long time.

• 40:50Theo Von?

  Really?

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Well, since the seventies.

• 40:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, you're saying that. Yeah, that's interesting. Right. So it's a similar idea. It's not the same.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it wouldn't be framed as wages for housework anymore. And it certainly wouldn't be aimed just at women anymore.

• 41:00Theo Von?

  Right.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  It would be for families, et cetera. But the idea that another way to go is to actually provide financial support, like most European countries do, to parents who are at home and not just to parents who are in the workplace. That's an interesting discussion right now. And I think as long as it doesn't become a call to go back, right? We're going to help women stay in the home. And instead it should be to help parents figure out for themselves. And I'm a huge believer that actually fathers, fathers are doing so much more than they were in the past. So fathers are doing so much more in the home, so much more childcare. And dads are saying they want to do more. Interestingly now, men are more likely to say that having children is important to them than women are.

• 41:41Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Men are more likely to say that getting married is important to them than women are.

• 41:45Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Right. And so that's a really interesting moment in history where if you've got this stereotype that it's like women who are obsessed with like getting married and having kids. Not anymore. It's now men who are saying that's a higher priority for them.

• 41:58Theo Von?

  It's almost like men are coming to the to to bridge the gap there of like making because there always needs to be some one of the parties has to be until we can get both of the parties to be aligned has to be the one that wants to bring it back to let's have a family and move because I think you have to do it. It's like it's how we're built.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. How am I going to get that purpose that you were talking about? I think I've heard you say that you want to have kids at some point.

• 42:25Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, I would like to have some kids, man. I started this campaign. It's called 2020 wife. That means like 2025, but it's like the this is this is the year I get a wife.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 42:35Theo Von?

  So that is.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  You meant you were gonna get 25 wives.

• 42:39Theo Von?

  Oh, no. Now, look, I'd be willing to have more than one wife, but.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  We would need a change in the law for that, yeah.

• 42:45Theo Von?

  Hey, I could be a dual citizen.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  You'd have to be a dual citizen with, I think, Afghanistan.

• 42:51Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Maybe Iran.

• 42:53Theo Von?

  I'm willing. I could do it, man.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  You'd also have to convert to Islam.

• 42:57Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Well.

• 42:58Theo Von?

  How long does.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Christianity doesn't doesn't look kindly on multiple wives.

• 43:03Theo Von?

  Can you do? Can you convert to Islam online or not? Bring that up.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  I'm not the right person to ask that.

• 43:10Theo Von?

  How to convert to Islam? Oh, good. And there's a 1-800 number?

• 43:16Theo Von?

  There is. Scroll up.

• 43:19Theo Von?

  Scroll down. Oh, it's an 866 number. Damn, that's great.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Does that mean you have to pay for it?

• 43:24Theo Von?

  I'm sure they hit you with something, man. Converting Islam is very easy process and can be done online in privacy. Okay. Now, that makes it sound very suspect, the fact that it has to be.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  We could just tell someone, right? Oh, yeah, no one can know.

• 43:37Theo Von?

  Yeah. If it sounds like somebody is recruiting.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I think a better route for you, if I can offer some advice.

• 43:45Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  It is isn't is to just have one wife. I think that there's that stood the test of time as a way of doing things.

• 43:52Theo Von?

  Right.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  No, actually, I look, I should be very recent time. I think most human societies have been polygamous have actually had.

• 43:59Theo Von?

  Really?

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like 95% of known human societies have been polygamous and almost always. I don't, I'll get the word wrong. It's polygynous, I think, which means men are allowed to have multiple wives, but not the other way around.

• 44:14Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Right? Very rare to find it the other way around. And which is one of the reasons why I don't, this is a fact that like blew my mind. I'm gonna try on you.

• 44:23Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  See what you think. Um, we have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors.

• 44:33Theo Von?

  Okay, twice as many.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Twice as many females.

• 44:34Theo Von?

  Ancestors, and ancestor means what?

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Across human history.

• 44:38Theo Von?

  An ancestor means somebody that existed?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:40Theo Von?

  So twice as many females existed as men?

• 44:42Speaker 01

  There are twice as many women in human history as there are men. Twice as many.

• 44:47Theo Von?

  The modern, yes, modern humans have approximately twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. This is due to a number of factors.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  I love the fact that you're checking everything I say. This makes me feel much more confident about saying it because then you're gonna check.

• 44:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, good, because we, yeah, we're trying to do a little bit better job. That's one of my goals this year is just to have a better, because sometimes I just assume everything is true, right? And a lot of this stuff is just helpful information, but I don't understand though.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:12Theo Von?

  So how can you have twice as many females? You're just saying that two thirds of the people that have ever existed have been female.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:19Theo Von?

  Wow. But that, I guess it makes sense because, you know, there's mother earth, right? So obviously she's gonna want more kind of babes around hanging out on her. And then you're gonna have like, there's gonna be, um, and females are the producers. They have like a, they have the womb. And they're the makers. They're like the recipe. They're the chefs. So you need like more, you know, life is about creation. So I think it makes sense that you're gonna have more women around probably.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:52Theo Von?

  Does that make any sense, you think?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  No.

• 45:55Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Um.

• 45:57Theo Von?

  I just, I just think women are the ones who like keep things together.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 46:03Theo Von?

  So I think you're gonna need more of that probably to keep the world functioning.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Okay. Oh, I actually, the idea.

• 46:09Theo Von?

  Do you know why they have more though?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:11Theo Von?

  Oh, sorry, Jesus.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  No, I like, I don't, I mean, I don't hate your idea. As a certain, like the idea that mother earth, like wants more mothers around. That's, I think it's kind of beautiful idea.

• 46:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think it checks out to me.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Should we, why, why, why aren't we Googling this?

• 46:27Theo Von?

  That's a good question.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 46:28Theo Von?

  Who wants a bunch of dudes loitering around anyway? Someone's gonna call the police.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Every time I'm, I say something, you have this guy Googling it, right? Whereas you say stuff.

• 46:37Theo Von?

  Yeah, but they know.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Google his stuff like.

• 46:40Theo Von?

  There you go, right there. Look at that lady right there.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Like, are there more women because Mother Earth wants, likes women better?

• 46:47Theo Von?

  Oh, for sure. Well, she's obviously gonna have a problem, so like, definitely. I don't know, maybe Mother Earth is very jealous and she doesn't want women around.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Could be the other way around, yeah. Could be like, wouldn't Mother Earth want lots of men?

• 46:57Theo Von?

  That's what I would think too.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  If she was straight.

• 46:59Theo Von?

  But men are just, men are just, they're just loitering around. They're jerking off in the parking lot or whatever. You don't want that. I don't think that's it. That's not what you want. You want some babes around, I think.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Can I give you an alternative theory?

• 47:11Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Why, which is that you, cause you, societies are being polygamous, right? You don't need that many men.

• 47:20Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Uh, in order to have a lot of children.

• 47:23Theo Von?

  It's like the NBA, it's like NBA players, kinda thing.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 47:27Theo Von?

  Like, a lot of those guys have. Who has the most kids in the NBA? Bring that up. I think it's some.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Why, are they NBA players well known for having lots of children?

• 47:38Theo Von?

  I think they're promiscuous type of, you know, so it's like Calvin Murphy, there we go, 14 children. So I'm just saying, yeah, these guys can definitely.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Well, you see it on Tinder as well. You see on these apps, this, um, it's kinda like a winner takes all type thing. And in other words, like the guys at the top.

• 47:52Theo Von?

  That's what Scott Galloway was saying, that like, the top 1% of men.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Right, whatever, the numbers. But what's interesting about that is like, that's human, that's basically human history. I actually showed that Tinder data to an evolutionary psychologist, only studies that whole history of humanity. And he's like, yeah, that just looks like human history to me, which is high status men mating with multiple women. Um, and therefore we are kinda reproduced, but 50% of men across human history didn't have kids at all. They didn't reproduce. Now, what that meant was, there's all kinds of implications for that. Like, one is, first of all, um, I'm reading this book by Neil Stephenson now. It's called Seven Eves, and that we basically have to kind of send out a few people to survive. And there's this passing comment, because the Earth's gonna be destroyed.

• 48:37Theo Von?

  Seven Eves?

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Seven Eves, yeah.

• 48:38Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Um, uh, there's this passing comment there, which is like, most of the colonists will have to be female. All right. And the reason for that is the ones we're talking about, which is you need a lot of wombs to keep the human race going, but you don't need as many men.

• 48:52Theo Von?

  Right.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Right. There's this guy, actually, he's, I can quote him directly. This guy Roy Baumeister, who says, we have a penile surplus, which is a kind of brutal way of putting it.

• 49:01Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  We just don't need that many men. Right. Now, one consequence of that is, and this is going to get me back to your skydiving. I'm going to loop this. If I'm successful here, if, if I'm successful, I'm going to loop this back to skydiving.

• 49:12Theo Von?

  I have zero percent chance of looping things.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Okay, let me try.

• 49:15Theo Von?

  I believe in you. So, um, okay.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. So 50% of men have not reproduced in human history. So half the men have kids, half of them don't have kids. And it's the lower status men who are not going to have kids, right? Because the higher status men have multiple wives. They're actually, if you like, they're over consuming.

• 49:34Theo Von?

  And they can afford to do it.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Correct. And so if you're a low status man, there's a good chance that you're just not going to reproduce at all, right? You're going to be an evolutionary dead end. Your DNA is not going to go anywhere. And under those circumstances, you will risk almost anything to raise your status. Go to war, go exploring, turn to crime, do anything to try and get yourself up that hierarchy so that you have a chance of reproducing. If you stay down there, you ain't going to have kids.

• 50:02Theo Von?

  You're cooked.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Right. And so you've got to get up there. So you take risks.

• 50:05Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  You risk your life because actually, if you die.

• 50:08Theo Von?

  Who cares?

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Who cares? You've only got a 50 50 chance of having a kid anyway.

• 50:12Theo Von?

  Yeah, you don't have any kids already.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  And if you're down there, it's not 50 50. It's maybe like, you're almost certainly not going to have a kid. So, so you take crazy risks to raise up the hierarchy. And one consequence of that is men, on average, are more risk taking than women, even today, which is why they go skydiving. Like, what do you, what do you think about skydiving? Like, men are also twice as likely to drown.

• 50:37Theo Von?

  They're twice as likely to drown?

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's all kinds of ways, like risky behavior, both good and bad, is higher among men, right? Good could be like being entrepreneurial, whatever.

• 50:47Theo Von?

  I don't know any women that have drowned, and I know some men that have drowned.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Right. And so. Skydiving, ah, you know what, I'm gonna say something and I don't know if this is true. So you're gonna have to get your fact checker in the sky to check, but I bet you more men skydive. But I know for sure that smoke jumpers are almost entirely men. Do you know what a smoke jumper is?

• 51:06Theo Von?

  Mm hmm. I don't think so. It's not a Native American thing, is it?

• 51:08Speaker 01

  No, you're from the south, right? Where are you from?

• 51:11Theo Von?

  Yeah, I'm from Louisiana.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you'd know if you were from out, out kind of west, right? What does it say about men and women?

• 51:17Theo Von?

  Well, the number of men and women who try tandem skydiving is roughly equal the sport of skydiving is predominantly male. Professional skydivers, only about 14% of professional skydivers in the United States are women.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:28Theo Von?

  Some reasons for the disparity, women may be more risk averse than men, just like you're saying.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's number one.

• 51:34Theo Von?

  And women may be perceived as less interested in taking risks.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  If you, so just from an evolutionary perspective, or if you're a woman, you are highly incentivized to protect your own body. Right? Because you probably, this is just an evolutionary term.

• 51:49Theo Von?

  Yeah, you're the one who's got the future.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Yes, and you're gonna have a kid, probably. Most women have reproduced, right? You're quite likely to have a kid, whereas if you're a guy, actually, if you've only historically had like a 50 50 chance, right? And you've got to get more status and your body is kind of less, quotes, valuable.

• 52:05Theo Von?

  Right. So who cares if you're nuts, land out in the desert or whatever, because your shoe didn't open.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Or you throw yourself out of a plane. So, so these, these smoke jumpers.

• 52:14Theo Von?

  Smoke jumpers are highly trained firefighters who parachute from airplanes in a remote areas to fight wildfires. Wow. It's almost like, um, severe barbecue, like one of those TV shows or whatever.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Smoke jumpers are really interesting because these are people who have chosen for a job.

• 52:30Theo Von?

  Okay.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  That they will go up in an airplane, jump out of the airplane, even when there's nothing wrong with the airplane, which is what you do, apparently. Jump out of the airplane, but the difference is they jump out of the airplane into a blazing inferno in the middle of nowhere. And stay there for days on end, fighting that fire. That's a interesting job choice.

• 52:52Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  And it's almost all men. Now, there are some women, and of course, women should be encouraged to do that job. And that's great if they want to do that job.

• 53:01Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  But I'm just gonna go out, I said this to a female friend of mine. I said, you know, this profession, I explained to her what it was and she said, you can keep that one.

• 53:09Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Right, there is no big feminist movement to get more women into smoke jumping.

• 53:12Theo Von?

  Smoke is so bad for you anyway.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  I guess the point here is like, there's, there are ways in which on average, men and women are different. And one of them is that men have this different appetite for risk. And i- if that, do we think that that's good or bad is the wrong question. It's both good and bad. It depends how it's expressed, right? Cause there are times when you want people to be willing to take risks, to put themselves on the line.

• 53:36Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Uh, or to kind of try a new venture or something like that. And there are times when it's a really bad idea.

• 53:41Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Right, to try a new drug when it's not a good idea, or to jump too high off a, off a bridge or whatever it is. And so there's, there's ways in which those differences between men and women can either become good or bad. But we don't get anywhere by denying that they exist. What we do is we say, there are these differences. How do we channel them in productive ways? And so if young men, for example, are a bit more risk taking, and they're a lot more risk taking when they're young. If they're a bit more, more potential for physical aggression, which is absolutely clear, et cetera.

• 54:10Theo Von?

  For sure.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  If they're a bit more driven by sex, for example, which is also absolutely true. And we see that playing out in all kinds of ways around kind of pornography, et cetera. It doesn't do any good to just say that's not true, right? That those things aren't, they're all socialized. Actually, instead, what we're gonna say is they are true. So what do we do about that as a culture and as a society? How do we kind of take those differences responsibly and not fall into the trap of saying one is good or one is bad? We used to think that somehow the male attributes, to call them that, were better, right? That's a patriarchy. And the female ones, maybe more caring, more nurturing, et cetera. As you said a minute ago, right? We just, we value them less, right? We don't want a society like that. But we also don't want a society where the male, the more male leaning attributes are seen as intrinsically bad.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  It's one of the reasons why I hate the term toxic masculinity, by the way.

• 54:57Theo Von?

  Well, also, there's no toxic femininity either, which is interesting, you know? It's like, because you, you gotta have one and the other, no matter what. I feel like, um, getting your sweat on might seem like hard work, but with symmetry sauna, it's a work of art.

• 55:14Theo Von?

  Premium custom saunas for your home or business plus a series of sleek pre-built saunas. I just got myself a symmetry sauna and I'm sweating out bad decisions. Like the time I tried to just fill my own chipped tooth in. Why sauna? Well, it relieves sore joints and muscles, improves skin, boosts heart health and melts stress like hot butter. Hmm. And I'm finally sleeping like a baby, which is rare since I'm usually up at 3 a.m. wondering if penguins have knees. Pro athletes, fitness buffs, big folks getting small, small folks getting big, everybody's hot boxing.

• 55:58Theo Von?

  And symmetry saunas can help. Designed in the USA, made with aspen wood from ancient Estonian forests. Ooh. Yep, fancy trees. Symmetry sauna, the perfect balance of form and function. Learn more about how to get your own premium home sauna from Symmetry Sauna at symmetry sauna.com slash T H E O. Just to kind of circle back to where we were, so there's a lot of men that are suffering, right? There's that's kind of improved, there's a lot more suicide. There's uncertainty is what it means to be a man, masculinity, this kind of masculinity with this new femininity kind of being defined now. The new masculinity is kind of undefined.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

• 56:44Theo Von?

  And a lot of men are looking for their place. What do you feel like is causing that these days? Because it's not women causing it. It's not this, this equality of women.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  No, no, it's not. And I think that's really important thing to say because that sometimes is what feels like might be the case and what some people are saying, including kind of online, which is what they do is they take two facts, which is women have risen significantly economically in terms of education now massively overtaken men, et cetera. Men are struggling and suffering.

• 57:13Theo Von?

  And there's cul-de-sac of sorts.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, so maybe that's because of that, right? Maybe the, maybe the struggles of men are the result of the rise of women. That's completely untrue. They're for different reasons. So the economy's changed, right? So a lot of the jobs that men used to be able to do, especially without maybe that much education in manufacturing and steelworks and mining and stuff, they've largely gone, right?

• 57:37Theo Von?

  Now, are they gone for good, or they've just gone away from, um, America?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  They've gone away from America.

• 57:43Theo Von?

  They've gone away from America.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's no serious prospect of those male jobs that required like strong physical labor.

• 57:51Theo Von?

  Like Bruce Springsteen type stuff.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  It's not coming back. I mean, we can be nostalgic for them, uh, by and large. I mean, I'm not saying there's none, no, none of that.

• 57:59Theo Von?

  Right.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Um, but that's a huge shock, right? It's a massive change in, in the workplace. It's just those jobs that men used to be able to do that their dad maybe did. Just, they're just not there.

• 58:09Theo Von?

  Yeah. I mean, that was a lot of the commercials when I was a kid. It was like, I was born in a small town. You know what I'm saying? There was that commercial, like, somebody made something. And I remember my grandfather worked at the, um, plant in his town and they made elevators and stuff. They made parts for elevators and it was a small town, but he worked there and my grandma would take him lunch over there at the weekend, uh, during lunchtime and they had a lunch whistle in town and there was just these little things, you know, and, and, and you, whenever we drove past there, you know, like grandpa works there, you know, it was like, so there was, um, it added purpose to everybody's existence.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there was a real structure to it. I mean, just think about my own family. I took my three sons to North Wales, to a town called Bliner Fystenyog in North Wales. That all, that all.

• 58:49Theo Von?

  Bliner Fystenyog's a disease as, as well, I think. Oh, in, in a few minutes, it'll be a new, uh, drug available in, in America.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Okay, that's, this will fool your fact checker. They will not be able to even spell Bliner Fystenyog. Uh, but it's this, he was the biggest producer of slate for a long time and generations of my family have worked in that slate mine.

• 59:08Theo Von?

  Oh, really?

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Went there and we found their great, great, great, great, great grandfather's grave.

• 59:13Theo Von?

  No way.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  And went down into the mine and spent some time there, had a big effect on them. And it's like, what did you do? You did what your dad did, go down the mine. What your granddad did, go down the mine, right? Go down the mine, go down the mine. And, and even when I was growing up and I grew up in Peterborough, an industrial town, my mom was a part-time industrial nurse for a while. And the hooter for the ends of the shift, we could hear it across the town. And so we knew when she was coming home because we would hear the factory hooter.

• 59:39Theo Von?

  Horn.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Horn, yeah.

• 59:40Theo Von?

  Sounder.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Sounder.

• 59:41Theo Von?

  Alarm.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 59:42Theo Von?

  Wow. Yeah. So it's almost like as men, we're out of the mines now.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  A little bit. Like we had that.

• 59:48Theo Von?

  Not everybody. Some people are still in there and that's good.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  It was such a weird, it was such a weird experience. So we went down to the bottom of the slate mine. And there are these little huts in the bottom of the mine. And they would go in there for like thirty minutes at lunchtime and they would sing. This is in Welsh, right? So they'd sing, they'd sing and they'd eat and they'd talk, maybe do a bit of politics, right? And then they'd go back up and start coming out the mine. Very dangerous, incredibly well paid for the time, but very dangerous work. And there was something about, I went into those huts and I sat in there like with my boys and we're kind of sitting there and thinking about like seven generations of our family being down there. And actually, this is going to sound a bit weird, but almost being a little bit envious of what it was like for those men to go down there and be in that little hut.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  And then of course you catch yourself and you think you're an idiot.

• 1:00:38Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Right. It was dangerous work. It was hard. What are you talking about, right? If you put me in there now, right, I probably wouldn't do great, right? But I think what it was catching for me and with my boys especially was this sense of like male solidarity. Right? Just a sense, that visceral sense of like, it did structure live, male lives in particular. And in that, in that town, when the men went down into the mines, all the, all the wives would come out and the kind of children and stand silently. It was bad luck for there to be any noise. So they stood silently while the men went down into the mine.

• 1:01:11Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  And hope they would come back. And so there's something very beautiful and nostalgic about that. And I get that nostalgia.

• 1:01:19Theo Von?

  Yeah, it was a tradition.

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Right, but.

• 1:01:20Theo Von?

  It was a ritual.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Ritual, tradition, purpose, space, clear script, right? What, what are you going to do? How about you do what your great, great, great, great grandfather did and your great grandfather and your grandfather? How about just doing that, right? And I don't think we, we couldn't, even if we wanted to reconstruct that kind of world. But I do think we should be honest about the fact that the collapse of that structure and those scripts has really left a lot of men incredibly uncertain about, am I going to be needed by my family? What am I going to do? What's my job going to be? So we've had this massive economic change. And then along it alongside it, we've had this huge social change, which has been the economic rise of women. Right? And so it's no longer the case that women are now like looking for a man.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Gloria Steinem is a very famous feminist, still alive from the 1970s. I actually had a really cool meeting with her.

• 1:02:14Theo Von?

  Really? Cool lady or not?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yes, totally cool.

• 1:02:17Theo Von?

  I gotta meet that lady.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  She's amazing. And she said famously, she said, the point of the women's movement is to make marriage a choice for women, not a necessity.

• 1:02:27Theo Von?

  Ah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Right? Because women needed to get married before to, you know.

• 1:02:34Theo Von?

  Right. It was your only way. Who's going to pay for dinner?

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:36Theo Von?

  And not, not enough. Yeah.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Not at a fancy restaurant.

• 1:02:38Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Right. And so the whole point is make it a choice so that women have enough economic power to choose marriage rather than being forced into it. She, she actually, this is a weird coder, but she actually just got married herself. I think she's in her nineties now. She's so cool. But she got married partly because same-sex marriage is legal now. And because she said, we've made enough progress that marriage, she used to describe marriage as this patriarchal citadel, et cetera. Here's the weird thing. She got married to Christian Bale's father.

• 1:03:07Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Which I just find a bit random.

• 1:03:10Theo Von?

  And he's British, isn't he?

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Interesting. No, is he?

• 1:03:13Theo Von?

  I don't know.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  I don't know either.

• 1:03:15Theo Von?

  David Bale, right there. In 2066, the long, single Steinem married for the first time in a Cherokee ceremony in Oklahoma.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  So that was a while ago. It was in 2000, right?

• 1:03:24Theo Von?

  Her husband, entrepreneur and activist, David Bale, sadly died of lymphoma four years later. Wow.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. But so even in the end, even Gloria Steinem felt like it was okay to get married, right? We've made enough progress.

• 1:03:36Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  So that actually the women, marriage was no longer this kind of trap for, for women economically.

• 1:03:42Theo Von?

  But it was a choice.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  It was a choice. And, and so, but of course, what that means is when it's a choice, there's a lot of women that might be like, I choose not to marry you. I might or might not have kids, your kids, but we're now in this world where there's a lot more freedom of choice. And of course, that is a great and wonderful thing.

• 1:04:00Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  But it's also created a huge amount of uncertainty, especially among men. Like they just, I think a lot of men feel now that they've been told a bunch of things that they know they shouldn't be, shouldn't be predator, shouldn't, you know, this.

• 1:04:13Theo Von?

  Right. Don't do this. You can't peep in Tom. You can't.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Quite, and quite right too, right? But there's no like, I sometimes think that we have a long list of don'ts for men.

• 1:04:22Theo Von?

  Right, right.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  But not very many do's.

• 1:04:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Where's the list of to do's for men now?

• 1:04:27Theo Von?

  For sure. And it used to be that, yeah, almost every man was, you weren't guaranteed a wife, but everybody's going to need to pair up because the way that the, the, the script was put together, you needed each other because you needed someone to be in the home, you needed someone to be the breadwinner.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:42Theo Von?

  The script was there.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Theo Von?

  You had to partner up. So figure it out and let's move on. Let's move forward in the world.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. And what I fear now is that there are some more reactionary forces, voices saying the way to, to actually for men to find purpose is to go back. Because it's very recently that there was a world where men felt purpose, which was the world we just escaped from where women were economically dependent on men. And so I could totally understand why this is happening where people are saying, well, we used to know what our role was when women were economically reliant on us. Well, first of all, we ain't going back. There's no switch you could turn out, even if you wanted to.

• 1:05:21Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  And we don't want to. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing more to help men move forward. And actually having a bit of empathy for the fact that this is a difficult moment, a difficult transition for men. And so rather than kind of pointing fingers at them, we should maybe offering them the occasional helping hand. And I think that lack of empathy and understanding and awareness of the genuine suffering of many of our men has created a huge vacuum in our culture and in our society, and we need to fill it fast. Otherwise, we're going to lose more and more of our men.

• 1:05:53Theo Von?

  And we'll be right back. Wow. Very true. So one thing you have to start to look at is then where do men start to? You know, or where do men continue to uh find these building blocks, right? To to create the worth inside of themselves. For me, one thing has been through other men, right? And and um and even like you're saying, shoulder to shoulder, like things that experiences that I've had that have been the the best. Like even when I used to go to uh Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and take classes there, it was really amazing because you're in this physical space. But also there's so much mutual respect in there. It's not people trying to beat each other up, it's trying to help, people trying to help each other.

• 1:06:36Theo Von?

  Physically uh learn how to take care of themselves, right? And but with with that, there's so much camaraderie and um and um love and compassion that comes along with having great instructors. And a lot of times it's just the guy next to you, he's your best instructor for the next moment. Recovery meetings, you know, I go to recovery meetings for um intimacy and um AA. And those meetings for me are really great. Especially the intimacy ones like where, you know, they call it like sex and love addiction and stuff. But it's really just like intimacy disorders or connection disorders or just it's almost just low self-worth, it's all it's all of that.

• 1:07:16Theo Von?

  And sometimes you base it off of your relationship with women, or you can look at your relationship with women to see how you're doing on your own.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  And are there men and women in those groups or is it just men?

• 1:07:26Theo Von?

  A lot of the ones I go to are just men. And it's not that I don't want women in them, it's just like I want a space where it's just men, I can be able to share openly if I'm struggling with a certain thing or how I'm feeling or and it just be other men, you know, it just feels and it and and then you're not trying to like uh slurp on any of the chicks that are in there either, you're not trying to flirt or anything, you know, you're just

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Which would seem bad, given the nature of the problems that many of the men have.

• 1:07:48Theo Von?

  Oh, and you'll be shocked, bro.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  It'd be like holding an AA meeting in a bar or something.

• 1:07:52Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  I understand that.

• 1:07:53Theo Von?

  Yeah, so it's, yeah, so.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  But you're getting male solidarity from both of those places.

• 1:07:57Theo Von?

  And that's one of the reasons I go, I go to hear other men share, I I go to share and sometimes they'll say something and like.

• 1:08:05Theo Von?

  My body will just go like that, right? It's like.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Just your shoulders drop, you breathe.

• 1:08:09Theo Von?

  It's an exhale that I didn't even know I needed to take.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Theo Von?

  It's an exhale that has just been running in the back of my subconscious for sometimes decades, sometimes hours, sometimes years, minutes, but it's something that I needed to hear. I needed to hear where everything was okay.

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Theo Von?

  And I needed to hear another man's voice say it.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Theo Von?

  And um, and it helps, it helps, uh, it helps.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. I, well, thank you for sharing that.

• 1:08:36Theo Von?

  Yeah, you're welcome. But yeah, what spaces are there for men? Like what?

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  It's something beautiful about that, I think. And I go back to my story about the heart, like in the bottom of the slate. Mine is like, there's something.

• 1:08:46Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah, there's something nice about it.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Beautiful. It's quite fragile. I think that male friendships take work. I think we sometimes don't pay enough attention to them. It's actually something like I go on road trips with my best friend. Also every year I get together with my male buddies and we go hiking so that we're shoulder to shoulder. And just talk and catch up. And that's, I, I think one of the, one of the damaging trends in recent years has been a suspicion of male spaces, right? Of like the boys weekend. Uh, or even some of the institutions. So if you actually go through the institutions now, like the Boy Scouts is not the Boy Scouts anymore. I'm actually a scout leader. I'm not doing as much now, but I used to run a scout group over in the UK and I was a scout, but it's coed now.

• 1:09:29Theo Von?

  Boy Scouts is coed?

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  It's scouting for America now.

• 1:09:32Theo Von?

  And what is Girl Scouts? Or they just joined forces?

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  No, Girl Scouts are still Girl Scouts.

• 1:09:35Theo Von?

  No.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Theo Von?

  And we can't go over there?

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  The, the Girl Scouts does not allow boys in.

• 1:09:42Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  But Boy Scouts has become scouting for America.

• 1:09:44Theo Von?

  Ladies, that's, that's not even.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  But there's a pattern here. Uh, you've got the YMCA is now coed. Right? Well, no one thinks, no one really thinks about the M in YMCA anymore.

• 1:09:55Theo Von?

  That's your point, huh?

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Right. Whereas the YWCA, still very kind of focused on women. Boys and girls clubs used to be boys' clubs. And I think there's one other one I'm thinking of, and it's not that it's not there's always bad for things to be coed. It's not that you also don't want institutions for girls and women. But what we've got now is a situation where we're actually really very often applauding having these spaces for girls and kind of women to have female solidarity, work together, grow together. But we're really suspicious if it's if it's men doing it. And I get why, right, because of our history. But I think that as a result, we've actually deconstructed a lot of these institutions where actually boys could learn from other boys and from men and so on, too.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  And so I, I think that turning the Boy Scouts into scouting for America and taking not for it being, I, I think we'll, I think we'll look back on that and just say, that was a bad decision.

• 1:10:48Theo Von?

  Kind of emasculating as a, in a way.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  It's just like, why can't, I mean, I just think about my own experience.

• 1:10:52Theo Von?

  Why can't we meet?

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  And it's like, I, I went to a coed high school, but actually the fact that I was able to go to scouts and it would be guys there and we could learn from each other. And I, weirdly, I actually think that male spaces are where you can help men to learn some of the not traditionally male attributes, like caring and nurturing and love and expressing that stuff. It's just easier, right? Or the male sports team, right? Like you're learning love, you're learning comradeship, you're learning solidarity, you're learning, exactly. And I just think that's a bit, and it probably is true for girls, too.

• 1:11:23Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  But kind of learning some of those skills that maybe go against the stereotype about girls, like learning to be more assertive, maybe, or competitive, et cetera. Like you, you generally don't have to encourage a bunch of boys to compete with each other.

• 1:11:35Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  That just tends to be a bit more baked in, right?

• 1:11:38Theo Von?

  It's in the nature.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:40Theo Von?

  Yeah, and there should be spaces where it's like, hey, men can meet up here tonight. And they used to have more of them. There was like more American legions, there was more like VFWs, but a lot of that was military base type stuff.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  It was.

• 1:11:49Theo Von?

  And since we haven't had that large of a war, you know, I know we have conflicts and we've had some smaller wars, but I know we haven't, since we haven't had such a huge conflict, there hasn't been that big band of brothers type of vibe that's, that's brought men together so much. And then Also, even if, and I'll go even as far to say if you're a white male, right? Like, there's, there's spaces for black males, Latinos, Middle Eastern clubs. There can be all types, but if you're a white guy, you just are fucking, you're looked at as, you're pointed at a lot of times, it feels like by the media as like a loser as part of the problem, as the creator of the problem. I don't think a lot of that energy is also good in our country when we do. We have white males in our country, you know?

• 1:12:33Theo Von?

  And it's, you can't like, you can't make also white males feel like they don't exist, you know? Because also a lot of white people didn't have a lot of like, yes, I know there's privilege, but if you grew up with nothing, you didn't fucking feel any privilege sometimes. In fact, being white and having nothing, I would get looked at personally as, why the fuck don't you have anything? How did you fuck this up so bad? You know, like you must, something really must be wrong with you. If you're not, you have the right color, but you, your family can't even get shit together enough? Wow, what a loser. And I'm not, I'm not speaking against any other group, but I'm just saying sometimes, you know, like,

• 1:13:12Theo Von?

  there's not a rep, there's no one, you're not allowed to speak up for your own group just because of history, and that doesn't feel super fair sometimes, you know? Does that seem crazy or not?

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  It feels, as a new American, I've learned a lot about the history of racism in this country, and particularly for black Americans, I feel very strongly.

• 1:13:30Theo Von?

  Yeah, if I start starting slavery shit, yeah, gun me down.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  But it's like civil rights.

• 1:13:34Theo Von?

  But if I'm just playing fantasy football and trying to take care of a family, fucking let me be somebody.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Again, I think the way I see this is that it's part of a more general problem, which is to be able to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time, which is, it is true that America has this history of racism, and that there are still some racial issues that we need to deal with.

• 1:13:53Theo Von?

  And Britain started it, yeah, we polished it up a little, I'll agree. But other people started it too, you know?

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:59Theo Von?

  And the first slave, I think, was, who was it? Who was the first slave ever in the history of time? It was in the Bible, wasn't it?

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Well, there's lots of slaves in the Bible.

• 1:14:08Theo Von?

  There you go. So.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  The US has a uniquely terrible history when it comes to slavery.

• 1:14:16Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  In modern history, right? That is true.

• 1:14:22Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  That is absolutely true and has an issue around race. Absolutely true. Still issues around race. Yes, still issues around gender equality. Yes. And if you're a white guy, particularly from a low income background right now, you're actually at the highest risk of suicide.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  And your economic prospects compared to your father have seen the biggest drop. So two things can be true at once. It can be simultaneously true that we've still got to deal with these issues and that we have this history and not throw anybody under the bus.

• 1:14:55Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Right? No one has to be left behind. We have to rise together. We have to think about a way in which like, and class is a big part of this, I think. Like what's very often missing, it's weird for me as a Brit coming to the US. One of the things I've really noticed is that the US has a class system, which I think is every bit as brutal as the British one. The difference is Americans, we pretend that we don't have a class system. The Brits don't hide it. We have a king now, always forget king. We have an aristocracy. We have knights. We have all kinds, we have all kinds of like, we're obsessed with class in the UK where I come from, right? It's one of the reasons I ran here, right? One is I loved America was it was less of it. But like the US has a class system too.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  And if you look at like trends for men, it's really working class men, right? It's men like you maybe didn't do so well in school, maybe haven't had a college degree from poorer parts of the country, et cetera. Those men are the ones who are suffering the most, right? From suicide, from substance problems, mental health problems, family problems, employment problems, right? Those men, like they're really struggling and that includes white men as well as black and Hispanic men. That's a class issue, not a race issue.

• 1:16:06Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  And I think that quite often in the US, people are more comfortable talking about. Racial inequalities than they are about the overlapping class inequalities. Cause most of the people talking about this are at the top of the class hierarchy.

• 1:16:19Theo Von?

  Oh yeah. Well, and a lot of it's to our media. Our media is usually very well off people and they're like, let me break out the racism drum and beat that when it's on. And of course those things need to be addressed, but if that stuff becomes the only sound you hear, then you guys are going to just, then everyone is going to continue to dance the same dance.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  That's the point.

• 1:16:36Theo Von?

  And so I think that that's where we're missing some of the evolution. But I think that that's starting to change. It's why people are sick of Hollywood and everything that they've created for a while.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Like that point you just made, if that's the only sound you hear.

• 1:16:50Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  I think that's the point. What I've discovered in my family, in my extended family, through my wife, et cetera. We have a lot of political diversity, right? And a lot of huge amount of class diversity. My wife is from a much more working class background than I am. Even in the, in the US on the Maryland, Pennsylvania borders where she grew up.

• 1:17:07Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:08Speaker 01

  Lot of diversity. And actually what I've kind of found in talking to a lot of them is that like, they actually are significantly more tolerant about a lot of these issues than probably the mainstream media would, would think. But they're becoming, but if that's all they hear, they, they need to hear the other bit as well.

• 1:17:24Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  And I think this is kind of, if we can move from or to and, right? So on gender, like all this stuff we have to do is still stuff to do for, I don't think there are enough women in politics in the US. I would love us to have a female president. I think we need to do more around kind of women in certain occupations. Sure. Yes. And we've got to tackle the male suicide crisis. And we've got to figure out why boys are doing so badly in schools. And we've got to figure out why male wages have been flatlining for decades. Right. It's an and, not an or.

• 1:17:55Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  But there are too many people out there who have a vested interest in making an or. So men are struggling. Why? Because of women, right? We're going to blame women and blame feminism, blame the progressives.

• 1:18:05Theo Von?

  No, that's not it.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  Or women are struggling and you know why? Because of the men, because of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, et cetera. Has to be or, and that's where the clicks are. That's where the, that's where the money is. That's where the speaking gigs come from. That's where your ratings come from is if you can position it, find a villain. Find someone to blame. That's where you get drawn, but it's almost never true.

• 1:18:28Theo Von?

  Right. A lot of times now the lens is the villain. That's the thing that I started to realize. The lens is the villain and we didn't realize that we were having, we've been forced to look through this lens for so long. Because our media has just been the same. It's been so commandeered, you know, and so now it's becoming freer. And, um, and I think that that's scaring kind of like the powers that be, you know, I think it's one of the reasons why they don't want Tik Tok taken over. You know, they want to force a sale of Tik Tok, you know, they're afraid, um, that it'll share truths that they can't hold, you know, anymore.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Right. But it's, I've been thinking a bit about this, the role of podcasts like this one and others, and I'd be interested to actually just ask you about this because one of the things I've been thinking about is the way in which these are very freewheeling conversations, right? They're very like, we're, we're talking. So there's a thought, you have a, we have a theme we're going to talk about, but what you've got is usually two people thinking out loud. And trying to learn from each other and trying to say stuff. And sometimes you try and fact check what you're saying, but like, this is a very different kind of environment to like a classical media interview, right? We've got your points, you've got your bullet points, you've got, it's much more, and I think a lot of people are really attracted to it, maybe especially young men.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  I think maybe they kind of like that sense of like, we're just trying to figure this out, right? We're having a conversation.

• 1:19:52Theo Von?

  And that feels that sort of, sort of vibe in a way.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  It does. It does. It feels more like his, and almost like they're overhearing, like we're, we're like, we're overhearing a conversation, right? So I know this is a little bit weird to be talking about our conversation, but, but, but I don't know what you do. It's not just like a different media outlet. It's like a different way of doing.

• 1:20:13Theo Von?

  Well, because at a certain point you can't hide. It's like, I think there has to be some bit of, there are enough of you will be revealed. It's like even sometimes I feel like if I don't fact check certain things and I'm learning how to have certain conversations, like people will get an idea of who I am or who you are by listening to us for a certain period of time. And then they can make a fair judgment for themselves and it doesn't even have to be, um. A good or bad judgment, you're not, we're not saying that either one of us is good or bad. Um, we're probably saying that we're both both. We're just trying

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Theo Von?

  To have a conversation together. And I think as a listener, you get that. You're like, okay. I don't maybe vibe with this guy. I'm glad I got to listen to him. You know, um, it gives you value for your time. Do I put my time in? I'm grateful I got to listen to that person. I agree with some of the things they say. Oh, I'd never thought about that. But you also get to see people as more, um, complete. And I think it goes back to what you're saying, like, um, that, you know, a lot of people can. We're not, they, people aren't as simple. Both things can be true all the time for a lot of people and they are.

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  Usually they are.

• 1:21:19Theo Von?

  Usually.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Usually two things are true.

• 1:21:21Theo Von?

  And I think that's what's, that's what's a lot happen with podcasts is it, it holds

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:26Theo Von?

  Two, three, four, seven things true at the same time while you're having a conversation.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:21:29Theo Von?

  Which is very normal as opposed to get this answer, get this clip, make it short. Let it, we want to get our, how we feel across and that's what matters, you know?

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  It's more like the fullness of it, right? You know, there's this slide, I've thought about this quite a bit in terms of truth. I mentioned earlier the difference between telling the truth and being truthful, like someone who's just trying, trying to call it as they see it, trying to be truthful. You know, when you, when you swear to do jury service or actually to kind of do testimony.

• 1:21:57Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Swear, what do you swear? You swear to tell the

• 1:21:59Theo Von?

  Truth.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  The whole truth. It's the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth.

• 1:22:05Theo Von?

  The truth, the whole truth and nothing.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  Sorry, nothing but the truth.

• 1:22:08Theo Von?

  They make you triple down on it.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Right. But think about that. Why don't they just say, I promise to tell the truth. Right. The truth, yes. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth, right? And actually the middle one is really interesting to me because of course what you could do is you could go to the stand and say the, say things that are kind of true, right? So you meet the first and the second, third, but like, yeah, but you're missing something out. And I think right now people are hungry for the whole truth. They're actually hungry for people to just, look, I'm saying it all. I don't agree, you know, you might disagree with three of the seven things I've said, but there's actually a kind of sense of which these conversations, I think are trying to get at something more like the whole truth. Which is more just a broader. Of it and you you have the opportunity in the space to maybe get stuff wrong to just think

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  out loud to kind of come back and that's completely at odds with the old media which is more about I'm going to take every word you say literally.

• 1:23:01Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Right. I'm going to take a clip of it and I'm going to fact check you and I'm getting like that's not how conversations work and this is a very different kind of environment for conversation. I agree with you that it means you have more authenticity, but the thing I've come to value more than almost anything else when I'm talking to someone is that this person is trying to be truthful. They are they're being on it. They're looking stuff up. They're trying to figure and if I say to them that's not right, it's this, they go, oh, interesting. I'm going to choose and same with me and I.

• 1:23:28Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  I'm just aspiring to try and be truthful in everything that I do. And if I get it wrong, I want to be told I'm getting it wrong, but I just want to try and be as honest as possible.

• 1:23:37Theo Von?

  Yeah. Yeah. And I think then it makes it not about you. It makes it about this greater presentation of like, um, of let's, uh, let's, yeah, let's just be, let's be as honest as we can.

• 1:23:48Speaker 01

  And learn from each other. So one of, one of my weird backstories is that I am a massive fan of John Stuart Mill, the 19th century British liberal philosopher, so much so that I end up writing his biography.

• 1:24:02Theo Von?

  John Stuart Mill? Let's bring up a JPEG of him.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  This is just making my day. I got to tell you.

• 1:24:08Theo Von?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Uh, he also was the first person to introduce a bill to give women the right to vote in the in the UK.

• 1:24:15Theo Von?

  Obviously, he was trying to get laid to undeniable.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  That in his case was almost certainly not true, although I spent a lot of time.

• 1:24:21Theo Von?

  Really enjoyed men?

• 1:24:22Speaker 01

  I spent a lot. No, no, he was just, well, he actually, the truth is that he had a woman who was in love with, who was married to somebody else.

• 1:24:30Theo Von?

  Oh.

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  And so it was an unrequited situation. And so I spent quite a bit of time around that, but he had this lovely idea, which is that we learn from each other, right? We share, we said we share the truth between us. And he said that when you're arguing with someone, disagreeing with someone, try to imagine that you're both trying to climb to the top of the same mountain just by different routes.

• 1:24:52Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  And I love that idea. And when I'm trying to debate with someone now, if I'm disagreeing with someone, I'm like, you know, I think I'm trying to get to this, they probably have got some truth that I don't have, and that's great. But also let's assume, let's start with the assumption that we're trying to get to the same place.

• 1:25:05Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Right. And you've got a different view about it. So if I'm arguing with a conservative who says it's all about marriage. Right. Got to get everyone back to marriage. And I'm a bit skeptical about that. I don't think that's because that person's a crazy right wing misogynist who wants to kind of entrap women again. I think, I think they want a better life. I think they want better families. I think want happier children, which is what I want.

• 1:25:23Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  So we're just arguing about the means.

• 1:25:25Theo Von?

  It is kind of interesting how you can have two people that want the exact same thing. They'll, one will say that they're this side, one will say that that side, and they cannot agree on shit. There, I don't understand, there's some minutia in there that I can't even figure out.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:38Theo Von?

  Because it's, they'll want the exact same things. They'd even, they could even write, these are the three things I want. And they, in the other side will write, these are the three things I want.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:46Theo Von?

  But if they don't each say that they're on the same side.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:49Theo Von?

  Then they will dis, find, they'll almost find a way to disagree.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  No, because they want to disagree, because at that point, that's become kind of a bad form of tribalism. There's this really interesting, that's one of the things that really has disturbed me about political trends recently is the clustering of ideas now. And so actually, now if you're on one side or the other, you have to like agree with.

• 1:26:09Theo Von?

  I agree.

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  Like, and so it used to be more possible to kind of like, well, I agree with that side on this and this side on this and whatever. And everyone was a kind of different mixture, right? The idea that anybody is going to subscribe to all the views on the left or all the views on the right.

• 1:26:22Theo Von?

  Crazy.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Dystopian, terrifying.

• 1:26:24Theo Von?

  And no one even knows all of them either.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:26Theo Von?

  And they're also distorted anyway.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then if you're, and then if they're told, by the way, that that policy idea is being proposed by your guy, then they suddenly support it.

• 1:26:34Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Right? And if it's being proposed, like, like, if it's being proposed by the other guy, you're suddenly against it. And so what's actually happening now is you're defining your position based as much on, well, what does he think? Cause I don't like him. And I'll take the other view, right? So you saw this massive swing towards being much more pro-immigration, for example, among Democrats after Donald Trump came to office in 2016.

• 1:26:57Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Because he was so anti-immigration. Right before that, Democrats were pretty moderate on immigration, but they suddenly became really, really pro-immigration. Why? The only explanation why is because he was so anti it. And you see it in both directions, right? You can see it like if they're for it.

• 1:27:11Theo Von?

  Well, some people say also, though, that they wanted to load states up so that they could create more voters in certain states, you know?

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  I've never understood that argument.

• 1:27:20Theo Von?

  Really?

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they can't vote.

• 1:27:22Theo Von?

  Right, but if you legalize them, if you just bring them in and then you find a quick path to legalization, then they would be able to vote.

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  Well, one thing I will say, I hope that if that idea is still out there, that the results of the last election kill it for good because we saw a massive swing to the Republicans among Hispanic Americans. And given that most of the immigrants that people are worried about are from Mexico and Southern America.

• 1:27:47Theo Von?

  I don't know if they are, though. I think a lot of the immigrants that we're getting are also from, like, they were getting, like, so many Haitians and stuff.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Right, but they're not reliable Democrat voters, is my point. Right? So any idea that, like, the Democrats are trying to do this because they think, well, if we bring them all in and then legalize them, yay, well, that's not true. Right? The idea that those groups are just going to reliably vote Democrat, that has gone out of the window.

• 1:28:11Theo Von?

  I don't know. I think if I come in and somebody's feeding me, the first hand that feeds me, that's probably the hand that I would think that I'm going to cater to. I don't know if that's a definite thing that they were doing, you know what I'm saying? It's hard to say if it is or isn't, but letting 21 million immigrants in, you know, we had two Border Patrol agents on and they said it was, it was a nightmare for them, you know? It was a nightmare for them and their families, the stress that they went through, the fact that they would just have to get an agreement from somebody, that they would come and meet the agent, like, a middle person, they would, like, have, like, a connection piece to America, and they'd have to sign an agreement that they would come back and meet that person at a certain time or place

• 1:28:54Theo Von?

  and never show up, and then there's no trail for them. It was a... The plan was not, there was no plan, it felt like.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  Right. That's a better explanation than that there was this secret plan to create millions of voters.

• 1:29:06Theo Von?

  Yeah, I don't know if there are or not.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  That's a bet, no plan is better. And again, it's an example of like the extremes winning, right? It's like, actually, most people have probably got pretty moderate views on immigration, or at least used to, which is we should control our borders, which is not a controversial idea in any other country in the world.

• 1:29:23Theo Von?

  Cause you can't know a business unless you know the inventory, right? How can you do anything?

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  It's not like, the idea in any European country that like people should only be there legally, like every European country thinks that, right? So it's not, of course, we've now had so many people come in that we've got a different problem, but we should scare our borders. We should actually have pretty good legal immigration systems. I'm biased. I'm biased. I'm an immigrant, but like, good, legal immigration has been great for this country.

• 1:29:49Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  Properly controlled, legal, good, right? And so the idea that you're either for or against immigration strikes me as completely dumb. You've got to be, what kind of immigration do we need and want?

• 1:29:59Theo Von?

  Yeah, you gotta think a little step further.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  But right, but the trouble is, the way that our politics works right now is that you've basically either got to be like anti-immigration and anti-immigrants, or you've got to be open border. I'm exaggerating a bit, but like, that's how it feels.

• 1:30:12Theo Von?

  Yeah, I agree. That's how it feels. That, well, that's another issue that we just have with this. We don't have enough parties. We don't have enough parties and there's not enough, um, and I think that it's also kept that way as, you know, capitalism is just, you know, there's only so much you can do, you know? It's like, you can't, you can only do so much. And then there's a lot of darker forces at play. I think that just care about finances on, no matter what side of things you're on. And then I don't even know if America still owns itself anymore, to be honest with you. I feel like we're just a LLC of the Middle East sometimes, but you know, different people think different things.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  I really, the thing that I. Worry most about is that we lose our sense of optimism.

• 1:30:54Theo Von?

  I agree. That's the next thing to go. And when that goes, it gets, it gets really bad.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  That's bad for any country, but I think it's virtually existential for America because one of the things that people always say about Americans are like, ah, they don't think about, they have no sense of history, you know, whereas like in Europe, like all we think about is history. Right. Like in the UK, one of the things I ran away from is just like, it's always Winston Churchill and World War Two and World War One and the War of the Roses. I have relatives who fought in those wars. I'm not like, they're important, but like, we're always looking, basically Europe feels like it kind of has been looking in the rearview mirror, right? For centuries, whereas Americans are like, yeah, that happened. That was interesting, but we're going there. We're going to the moon. We're going to wherever we're like, we're, we're going to build a better country.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  There's this, there is this thing about like looking forward, which I've always loved about America. It's one of the reasons I wanted to come here. I wanted to finish raising my kids here. It's like, that future orientation.

• 1:31:46Theo Von?

  Corvette.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  And I really, I worry about that on both sides now, right? I don't like, you have American carnage, you know, from the right and you have climate catastrophe from the left. Take your pick, but that catastrophizing, that sense. For the first time ever, we're seeing people now say that they are not confident their kids will be better off than them.

• 1:32:02Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  That's a huge problem in a country like America. And I think it's based on this problem we're just talking about, which is this kind of zero sum idea that like somehow there's only so much of something to go around, money or empathy or whatever. And so if group A is getting more of it, that means group B is getting less of it. Right? So.

• 1:32:25Theo Von?

  Right. It's the same with the male female thing.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like it's like, well, like we can't, if women are doing better, maybe that's why men are doing worse. And for women to rise, men have got to fall like crazy stuff, but people think that. Same on immigration, by the way, people think more immigrants, bad for America, et cetera. We're constantly thinking about zero sum, whereas America at its best has always been positive sum. In other words, we can grow.

• 1:32:48Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Grow the cake and argue less about how to divide it up. We can all be more. We can get better. We can get bigger and like all rise. And I think that's been lost, not least on gender.

• 1:32:57Theo Von?

  But let's talk about some. Escapes for men. Let's talk about how do men, you know, how do we combat like some of this illness? And because men are resilient, men are warriors. I believe in our hearts and um and in our spirits. And I believe that I've seen enough connectivity amongst men that we want um to move forward, right? And we want to do it together. What are ways that you recommend?

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Um, well, we've talked about male spaces and having like groups and spaces for men. I think.

• 1:33:27Theo Von?

  Right. So starting one of those is good.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if you're like, and you're seeing that there's this thing called the men's sheds movement. Have you heard of that? It's coming over from Australia. It's just guys who get into like a shed and start fixing stuff together.

• 1:33:38Theo Von?

  Really bring it on.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  Shoulder to shoulder, the men's sheds movement.

• 1:33:41Theo Von?

  Oh, I love it.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Basically about like guys and they get in a shed and they fix stuff, right? And it's very male because it's about fixing stuff.

• 1:33:48Theo Von?

  U S Men's Association has partnered with Grupper to offer eligible members age sixty five or older payments for staying healthy and socially active. Okay. So the men's sheds, can you do an image of it? Just U S men? Can we just do men's sheds movement? Images. Oh, there's some fellows right there building a little uh.

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  Like, cause like when men.

• 1:34:07Theo Von?

  What is that a birdhouse or something?

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  Men have to be doing something else while they're.

• 1:34:12Theo Von?

  Shift a robe right there.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  While they're being together, right? Not like.

• 1:34:15Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Right. It's just harder for us to just be together. Like, when was the last time a friend of yours said, let's just meet for a coffee and then sit down and stare at each other for two hours?

• 1:34:23Theo Von?

  Yeah, that guy is obviously trying to be like sexy buddies or whatever, I think. And I think, yeah, you got to find something to do together. Paint something, look for something. Let's go look for something.

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Be of service. Find service. I think that's hugely important.

• 1:34:38Theo Von?

  Boys and girls, like, uh, join your local Boys and Girls Club chapter. You can volunteer there. Um, what's another one?

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  Be a champion. Like, you can be, uh, you can be a big brother.

• 1:34:47Theo Von?

  Yeah, that was a good one.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  I'm just going through the process for that myself.

• 1:34:51Theo Von?

  Congrats.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  Signing up to do that.

• 1:34:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, I want to do that.

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  Being like just, I know you talked to Scott about this, but just being a presence, I think is hugely important. And like raising other people's kids, like there's this line, it takes a village to raise a child. That's true. But here's the thing. Some of the villagers need to be men. And like we're, we're in that village and we're helping to raise those kids, our neighbors' kids. You know, it does gen- that statement that it takes the village is right.

• 1:35:15Theo Von?

  Oh, you don't realize as a parent, if there's a kid hanging out of your house sometimes, one of your kids, friends or something. You have a ton of influence on that kid.

• 1:35:22Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:35:23Theo Von?

  I mean, I got so much influence from most of my influence.

• 1:35:27Speaker 01

  You, you realize how important, how many men there are out there who sometimes just kind of need to be asked. There was this example happened in a school, I think it was a predominantly black school. And they had this day where they were going to teach the boys how to tie a tie. And the dads were going to come in with their sons and kind of teach their sons how to tie a tie. But then they realized that half the dads were not there. Half the boys didn't have dad, didn't have fathers. Uh, or their fathers are in prison or they've gone away or whatever. And so they then really realized this was going to be a huge problem because they were going to, some of the boys were going to have their dad come in and do it. And the others were going to feel left out. So they just did a, a call out to the community. I think it just, I don't even know what it was, like a Facebook caller. Like, could, could we get some volunteers? We just need some men to kind of come in and help these boys kind of talk.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  They had something like five times as many men as they needed to. These guys just all came. It's really beautiful.

• 1:36:19Theo Von?

  So, so men are looking for it.

• 1:36:21Speaker 01

  Yes, just need to be somehow asked and, and called. And the other thing I'll say, because I haven't had a chance to talk about this yet, is that the, the fact that male teachers have become so much less common, I think is a real problem.

• 1:36:33Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  It's gone from thirty-three percent male in the eighties to twenty-three percent male now. And it continues to fall. And I think that's a problem for all kinds of reasons. I think that for boys to sort of see men in a classroom, to actually have them as role models, also to see that education is a thing that like men care about as well.

• 1:36:51Theo Von?

  Oh, it's a great point. Yeah. One of my greatest influences was this guy, Charles Alder. He was my teacher. He was missing a finger. And, um, but.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  How did he lose his finger?

• 1:36:59Theo Von?

  You know what happened to him? He was at a baseball game cheering on his son. He stood up, his wedding ring got caught on a piece of metal on the bleachers and pulled his finger right off.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  I do know, I wish I hadn't asked now, but God bless him.

• 1:37:11Theo Von?

  Pretty crazy. And my dad was missing a finger. And so I just related. I was like, oh, God wants these men without fingers to love me or whatever. You know, that's how I was thinking as a kid. It was just crazy. But that's how you think as a kid.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. So he was a huge influence on you.

• 1:37:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  Right. And I had.

• 1:37:25Theo Von?

  Oh, yeah. He was like.

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Same for me. I had this teacher, Mr. Wyatt, English teacher. And up until that point, we were all like, you know, words and poems.

• 1:37:32Theo Von?

  Yeah, Wyatt's a fucking, yeah.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  And a bunch of fifteen, sixteen year old boys. And then we had Mr. Wyatt. And Mr. Wyatt was a Korean War veteran. He was a bus driver in part time. He was total curmudgeon. And he had us reading.

• 1:37:47Theo Von?

  Korean bus drivers sounds very.

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. He's a Korean veteran. He'd fought in the Korean War. Sorry. So he'd fought in the Korean War. Yeah. And he was just like this curmudgeonly guy. But he had us reading this poetry. And he loved it so much that we ended up loving it and getting into it. And I was like, huh, maybe this whole writing words thing. I used to be in remedial English way back before that. But maybe it's, hey, maybe, maybe guys can do this too. And it was a huge change for me. And I, I mentioned before that, you know, my, my son is now, is teaching in Baltimore City. That's one. But we're like missing about a million men if we were to get close to, you know, gender equality. I'm not saying we'll get to that. But I think that the best answer to sort of some of the problems that a lot of boys have got is real

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  living, flesh and blood men in their lives, their dads, their neighbors, their uncles, but also their teachers. And the other thing, the other thing male teachers do, they coach. Between thirty and forty percent of male teachers are also coaches, much higher than for women. For all kinds of reasons we could go into. But the point is simply that for every male teacher, you get like half a coach, right? And so if we want more male coaches to be coaching our boys' sports teams, et cetera, we need more male teachers. And I can't believe that we're just letting the share of male teachers just go down and down and down and down. And no one's doing anything about it.

• 1:39:10Theo Von?

  Especially even, we had a great TV show here called Prince Vice Principals or whatever. And that shit, you'd think would have helped. It was with Dan, um. Danny McBride was in it.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  How long ago was that?

• 1:39:21Theo Von?

  It's a couple of years ago, so it might it might help a little bit. But definitely might have upped the vibes of some of these guys being teachers.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  And also like, do you know Abba Elementary?

• 1:39:29Theo Von?

  Yeah, people like that TV show.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  That's got a bunch of male teachers in it too, which is like.

• 1:39:33Theo Von?

  So maybe you need to see the influence that, like, I remember when I was a kid, they had Coach was on and stuff like that.

• 1:39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:38Theo Von?

  But I guess it didn't really resonate that much, but they had like, um, what was that TV art, uh, Dead Poets Society or whatever?

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, Robin Williams, yeah.

• 1:39:47Theo Von?

  But I guess we, or there was the one with, um, they said it would take a man, uh, who's that guy? Malcolm L. Jackson or whatever that guy's name was, uh, no, it's, uh, he looks like kind of, uh, older, but still. They said it would take a man six hundred years to get out of the CIA prison, you know what I'm talking about?

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  I do not, no.

• 1:40:07Theo Von?

  He's, um.

• 1:40:08Speaker 01

  That was a good accent, but I don't know.

• 1:40:10Theo Von?

  He's in Shawshank Redemption, you know what his name, his name is like, uh, Morgan Freeman. He played a school teacher.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:40:17Theo Von?

  Lean on me, it was called.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also this new one, there's this other one, The Holdovers, um, a couple, just like a couple of years ago, um, with Paul Giametti. So I'm saying his name right?

• 1:40:27Theo Von?

  Yes, I saw that.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and again, it's like, really good. And what those things have in common is there's this kind of relate, this relationship between this kind of older guy. This kind of younger man and they're gonna learn from each other and they go through some stuff together and it's like, it's really beautiful.

• 1:40:41Theo Von?

  Yes, it was, that's a cool point, that's a great movie.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  And it's just, and it's kind of, I was really pleased to see that, uh, cause it came up again with this thing. But one of the things that really frustrates me is that people will say, oh, boys need more, you know, we need more positive male role models. And I'm like, we do, it's actually, you can't create them out of thin air, right? You can't just like, add, add, add water and create male role model. But one thing we could do is make sure we have a lot more men in our schools, right? That's something we could do, we could have scholarships, we could have outreach programs, we could be incentivizing men. We could also be making it much easier to become a teacher as like a second career. Cause one of the things that we know is that men are much more likely to go into teaching later.

• 1:41:22Theo Von?

  Ah.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  They do something else first.

• 1:41:24Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:25Speaker 01

  And then go, but it's really hard to do that. Well, it shouldn't be that hard.

• 1:41:28Theo Von?

  No, I agree with that. That's a great point.

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  So we'll start instead of lamenting the lack of male role models.

• 1:41:32Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  How about, how about having more male teachers? And I would love it if more politicians, I actually was kept waiting for Tim Walz on the Democrat's side.

• 1:41:40Theo Von?

  We asked him to come on here. We asked him and Kamala to come on here, but I would have loved to have talked with Tim Walz.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  Tim Walz would have been a perfect person to kind of lead that campaign, wouldn't he?

• 1:41:47Theo Von?

  Oh, his whole interview, he's just, he seemed like this cheery kind of guy, you know?

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  But he's like high school, high school teacher.

• 1:41:53Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  So he was the first actually career public school teacher to run for such high office. He was also a coach. Imagine if he'd done a campaign around, like, we want to recruit more men to teaching. We want more men teaching, coaching, helping, like a really positive pro male campaign. I think he would have been an amazing spokesman for that, and I think could have been bipartisan.

• 1:42:12Theo Von?

  I agree.

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  Found some people on the right that would have agreed with that.

• 1:42:15Theo Von?

  Yeah, I think, I don't know if he, it felt like all the time, like he was making all of his own choices. That's the only thing about some of these parties, you start to wonder.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Too much control.

• 1:42:23Theo Von?

  If there's bigger powers that, and then you're like, and you can feel that sometimes it feels like, but I don't know, some of you can't.

• 1:42:29Speaker 01

  Well, it's back to this point about the different media environment now, right? Which is this freewheeling, be authentic, like just go with the flow.

• 1:42:36Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  Kind of environment now that I think people, people like watch the politicians in those environments. So they can make a judgment about what kind of person they are. It's not scripted.

• 1:42:44Theo Von?

  Right. They get a feel for them.

• 1:42:45Speaker 01

  They get a feel for them. Exactly.

• 1:42:46Theo Von?

  And some of them asked, like, can we, do we get edit or something? Like Timothy Chalamet came on, they didn't ask for one edit. They didn't ask to look at anything. They didn't ask. I was like, that's wild, you know? I mean, but they didn't, and then we've had other people come on and they're, you know, they're aging or whatever. We get all fucking nitpicky or whatever, some little fucking lizard and uh.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  Well, ask to edit stuff out.

• 1:43:07Theo Von?

  Or just like say certain things. Now.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  Wow, I didn't know that was an option.

• 1:43:10Theo Von?

  If something horrible happens, somebody dies or something, we'll edit it out. You know, it's like, we don't want something horrible or somebody turning blue. You don't want to talk about somebody can't breathe or whatever. Like, yeah, we're not going to fucking sit there and ask questions of somebody who doesn't have.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  But anything short of that. So if I, if I die.

• 1:43:25Theo Von?

  O two to their brain.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  You might, you might edit that out, but anything else I do, like.

• 1:43:30Theo Von?

  But it's just crazy that, that, you know.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  Control it. But actually, this is what happened. I think this is a great example, right? Before he was selected, like Walz, he was like famous for being, you know, he did the weird thing and he was quite, you know, he just

• 1:43:41Theo Von?

  Yeah, he was odd.

• 1:43:42Speaker 01

  He was like, but no, no, he described the Republicans as weird. That's what I mean. Like, he just had a certain, like, I think that's what. But actually, what happened was that then he was like told to be super careful. And you get these politicians, they sometimes remind me, like, they're like a guy carrying an incredibly precious vase across a polished floor. You know, they're so terrified they're gonna slip and say the wrong thing, right? And that kind of, everyone's like, be disciplined, don't say anything wrong. We don't want to screw up the news cycle. Don't have a gaffe. Don't like, don't, don't say something stupid. Exactly. Just stand still. Don't say anything.

• 1:44:14Theo Von?

  For the best, that's crazy.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  But I do think that was the old politics. I think it was all about message discipline. And I think that the waltz before the pick and the waltz after the pick, if you watch them.

• 1:44:22Theo Von?

  Totally different.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  They're totally different people.

• 1:44:24Theo Von?

  I know. I still wish he would come on and talk to us.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  Maybe he will now. Maybe he will now.

• 1:44:27Theo Von?

  That's a good point. I'm gonna reach out again. We even tried to get Kamala after to see if she would come on and talk to, because you, I, that's the only thing, I just felt like you don't know who some of these people are, you know? It's like, and not even that you do after a conversation, there's still a politician.

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:40Theo Von?

  But at a certain point, you just can get a feel for them. And also, people at home can just get a feel, you know, it's just, you, you want a little bit more feel these days.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  You had Bernie on recently, right?

• 1:44:48Theo Von?

  Yeah, it was great.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Have you had him on before?

• 1:44:50Theo Von?

  We had so much fun. No, I'd have him on again, though, dude. We had a blast. We just have so many things that, you know, we both care about, it seems like. Yes, so, so men, so places that men can get involved, it's like, yeah, Big Brother program. Like, do you know this about Big Brother program? If you're only gonna be in town for like a couple of weeks, make sure it's gonna be a place where you're gonna be able to commit, like, because you're saying to a child or something, I'm gonna be there every other week or every two years.

• 1:45:14Speaker 01

  At least a year. In fact, the evidence is that if you do it for less than a year, it's actually harmful.

• 1:45:18Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:45:18Speaker 01

  Better to not do it at all.

• 1:45:20Theo Von?

  Right.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  If you can't do it for a year.

• 1:45:21Theo Von?

  So that's something right there. And even just men getting together to like, take a walk together, think together, you know, spend time together. It's like, how do we start to build those new things?

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:31Theo Von?

  And also, some of that is, like, the cycle has changed. You know, a lot of our energy came from wars and stuff, you know? And there were a lot more bowling leagues. There's a book, book, it's called Bowling a Lot. Yeah, maybe.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  Yep, Robert Putnam.

• 1:45:43Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  All about what he calls social capital, which is basically just this connection and community.

• 1:45:49Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  And how important that is for people. And he talks about the decline of bowling leagues, which are basically just structures through which to have this solidarity, right?

• 1:45:57Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's just hiding from your wife for an hour and you and your buddies calling each other fat, right? But that's what men need sometimes, right?

• 1:46:04Speaker 01

  Right, but you can't say to your wife, I'm going out to just hang out with the guys and call each other fat. You have to say, I've got bowling tonight, right? That has to be a thing, right? I've got darts tonight. I've got kind of whatever. It's a thing, right? It's not just, I'm not, we're not, we can't just say, I'm just getting, maybe a bit more now, but like you needed like a, and I think it's a deeper truth that men do need a reason sometimes to kind of be together. And that's just okay.

• 1:46:29Theo Von?

  Right, yeah, you don't want to tell your wife, yeah, I'm just going to hang, you know, it's like, yeah, I'm going to do something. That's a man thing too, is doing something.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Doing something.

• 1:46:37Theo Von?

  We're creatures that are supposed to be in action, right? It's like the more sedentary I get, you know, like I just noticed that. It's like if I do the next right thing I'm supposed to do, everything goes fine. The second I stand around and think, it's like things get a little weird.

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, just a bit of forward momentum, right? Do the next thing.

• 1:46:51Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's just keep it moving, man. And it does help. It helps you. But then, yeah, um, but what was I thinking of? Oh, I was, um, I wrote down, was I making a point there or no? I can't remember. I wrote down this, this question because I thought a lot about this, like men and women stuff, right? And, and I'm glad that we talked a lot about it, like just because, yeah, women have had this sort of evolution in a way, societally and financially, and they had to do that. It felt like to get more respect and maybe if there'd been a different respect in the beginning, things could have been different. But we live in a capitalistic society type of thing. And so I wrote down what I wanted to say because it was too hard for me to, to remember and say.

• 1:47:31Theo Von?

  So it just, I was saying, it seems like through the feminist movements and trying to make more gender equality, close the income gap, et cetera, that women were striving to have what men had, such as more income, such as more equitable treatment, such as being able to strive in the workforce, having more access to educational opportunities, et cetera. That women wanted more power or what was conceived of as power. And in a capitalistic society, money is power. But is it really power, though? I think it is pretty lonely and disconnected when men achieve the status of being powerful, either through a lot of recognition or wealth, or just producing a lot in general. I'm not saying that men could not have this type of power and not be connected to the world

• 1:48:16Theo Von?

  around them and people around them, but I think for most men, it was basically lonely and disconnected. Is this what women really want when it comes to equitable treatment, et cetera? Or having the same opportunities for financial success and upward mobility? Do women really want what men have or had? I wonder if women are really the ones that, generally speaking, have it right as far as being connected to others, being able to communicate better generally, and providing more of a home in the sense of a settled space around themselves wherever they go or wherever they are. I think it's interesting that in trying to balance out male and female, the female wants to move towards the male. I get it, but I just wonder if maybe it made more sense to have the male move towards the female.

• 1:49:00Theo Von?

  And I don't mean that men should be women. What I do mean, though, is that these attributes that women seem to possess, based primarily on their sex and some gender roles, seem to be more fulfilling overall. So wouldn't it make more sense that the men would move a little closer to them, or the women would tout that what they have is good enough and is best instead of going ahead and trying to get what the men have?

• 1:49:28Theo Von?

  Like I said, I get it and I can understand why women want what they perceive men as having. I just wonder if that's really the best direction for women and for children and for men and boys and for people in general. Do we really want to show our children that women can dominate and produce in the same ways that men can? Personally, I don't really think so. I think men have it wrong. I think that the men should be masculine and women should be feminine, but I think that the expression of masculinity, generally speaking, in our society has been kind of weak and kind of disconnected and honestly, sometimes kind of dumb. Sorry, that was so much words.

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:50:02Theo Von?

  But I just did, I was trying to like, I was like, I can't remember this, but this is like what I think, you know, like, it's not a clown on women or that their journey or anything. It's just like, what are, what are we all really looking for?

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think. We're at a really important moment for that.

• 1:50:19Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  I, I, I see the movement of the last, let's say 50 years as largely being about women trying to get more economic independence. I don't, I don't really like the language of power around this because it tends to presume that it's like power of person A over power of person B. It's much more like opportunity, independence, chance to flourish.

• 1:50:40Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  To be you.

• 1:50:41Theo Von?

  Yeah, to let yourself be seen, to let your, yes.

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  And that's.

• 1:50:45Theo Von?

  And to feel equal, to feel like, oh, I can do these things as well.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  To get equal respect, right? And, and, and I, I feel like we've been up. So I think this sense of like, if you think about the more female virtues, to use your framing as being more about like care and connection and so on, and the more male ones being around kind of material money, et cetera. I do think that it was quite right for women to have more opportunities to acquire more of that economic opportunity.

• 1:51:11Theo Von?

  Yes.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  Right? And economic independence, quite right. Now, I think that we might see the next 50 years are about some of movement in the other direction, which is that men also learning that like, it's not actually just getting to the top of the economic ladder. It's like, that's not what life is about. It's important to provide. It's important to bring material resources to your family, to your tribe, to your community. But it's also important to have those relationships and that care. And if that's seen as more of a female virtue, then I agree that we might see a little bit more movement now to, of men towards women. But in the end, it's just about creating opportunities for all of us to be able to flourish and to rise and to do that together.

• 1:51:51Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:51Speaker 01

  And to have equal respect for what we each choose to do.

• 1:51:55Theo Von?

  That's the biggest.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  Without one set being dependent on the other, without one group having power over the other, without one group being seen to be better than the other, or one set of virtues being better than the other.

• 1:52:11Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  And instead to just say, look, we're all, in the end, I hope that my work focusing on boys and men is partly in the end, humanism. It's partly about in the end, like, we want to get to a world where we're all able to kind of flourish together. And we're not going to get there if we pretend there are no differences between men and women. We're not going to get to equality through androgyny, right? Pretending there are no differences between men and women, right? But we can learn from each other. And isn't that amazing? Isn't that an amazing opportunity? And so I think the opportunities for men now to kind of grow and expand our roles as fathers, as coaches, as mentors, as community leaders in the home, in the community, whilst also, I think, building staff and providing, in other words, reforming masculinity

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  rather than ditching it and saying, we don't need masculinity anymore, or somehow trying to get the old kind of masculinity back. So I think when I'm feeling optimistic, and it's good to be optimistic sometimes, I actually think what we're experiencing now is like the birth pangs of like a different way.

• 1:53:13Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Right? And I think it's all been about women up until now, and I think that's understandable. But I think the next few decades have got to be about how do we help men as well? How do we help men rise, not instead of women, but with women? And women rise with men.

• 1:53:27Theo Von?

  Yeah, and how do we even, yeah, how do we just? Yeah, and evolution takes, it takes pain, you know? It takes discomfort for everyone.

• 1:53:35Speaker 01

  Change is hard.

• 1:53:36Theo Von?

  Yes, change is hard. And also, I think though, you look at like people having the time to do things in the evenings and stuff. It's like we create, you know, like a lot of people live in separate households. I talk about it with the holidays. The holidays are a bummer a lot of times now because you gotta go visit, both your parents have been married two times and divorced. Now you're visiting six people or something on a, you're dividing your Christmas up. There's, it's, you know, it's like, we're dividing up the, the, the comfort we had, you know? And it's becoming a nightmare because you're having to drive so many places to see so many people like.

• 1:54:08Speaker 01

  But I, I, I think the spirit of what you're saying throughout this whole conversation has been about equal empathy and respect for, for men and women. And I feel like there was probably a time when like, if women complained about stuff and wanted more power, men would be like patronizing or maybe roll their eyes at them a little bit. And like, oh God, you know, off she goes again, right? But I now think the opposite is happening. I think when we talk about some of the problems that men are having and men saying, I'm struggling, I'm trying to figure this out, there's sometimes a tendency for people to roll their eyes and just say, well, get over it. And neither. Either of those responses is good enough. We need to kind of look each other in the eye and just say, look, I'm here for you. Let's figure this out together.

• 1:54:44Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:44Speaker 01

  And not pit us against each other. The thing I really worry about is particularly politically right now, that we're somehow going to end up, young men and young women, seeing each other as somehow not on the same team, uh, as against each other. You see this growing political divide, cultural divide, less dating. I think it will be really bad news if we don't see young men and women seeing that their interests as being more aligned than in antagonism with each other.

• 1:55:08Theo Von?

  Yeah, well, politics just, it's a societal structure. I know it's at some point, it's something you need for diplomacy and stuff, but I don't even, I feel like it's been so commandeered. Who, I don't think most people even know what it is anymore, or don't believe in the sanctity of it. But I do think that in the end, you, that other humans are your real government.

• 1:55:30Theo Von?

  You know, your neighbor is your government, you know?

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  It's norms, it's the atmos, it's the like.

• 1:55:34Theo Von?

  Yes, your tradition, whatever, you're, you know, and I think it is, men need to just wake up, shave, put on a clean shirt. And be ready for, you know, whatever blessings do come or the things that they create for themselves too. I think some of it is like just showing up for the day in the world. But also we need to, if we could, it would be nice, we need to, what the fuck do I know? But it'd be nice if families were together and that, that everybody didn't have all these separate homes to go, it was just, everything didn't feel so divided.

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:02Theo Von?

  I feel like even managing a life feels very dividing for a kid when one week they're here, one week we're there. And then the parents are separate and they probably sit there, you know, yeah, maybe they go in, but they wish maybe they'd have been able to figure, I don't know.

• 1:56:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:14Theo Von?

  I think I'm, I romanticize a lot.

• 1:56:16Speaker 01

  But it can be like, the key thing is the relationships, right? That's like, I found this very interesting study that said that kids whose father is not resident with the mother, doesn't live with the mom anymore, but has a good relationship with them. They do better than the kids whose dad is with them, but they have a terrible relationship with. And so it's like, it's, it's, in the end, it's the relationship that matters.

• 1:56:35Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:35Speaker 01

  But your point about like care and nurturing, sometimes I think we obsess about the structure. And we don't actually think, no, actually what really matters here is the substance.

• 1:56:44Theo Von?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:44Speaker 01

  What's the relationship, right? And so one of the reasons I feel so strongly about that is because. So many kids now, like most kids to parents without college degrees are born outside marriage. Most like that's the norm outside of the college educated class. And so I don't want to say to those fathers, oh, well, sorry, you've already failed, right? And you don't.

• 1:57:04Theo Von?

  Right, that's.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  You don't bench the dads, right?

• 1:57:06Theo Von?

  Good point.

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  And so it is incredibly important that fathers hear the message that they matter in their kids' lives.

• 1:57:14Theo Von?

  Yeah, it's a great point.

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  Whether or not they are with the kid's mother. And in some ways, if they're not with the kid's mother romantically anymore, the father might be even more important. Right? Because there's a good chance that that kid's going to be struggling in other ways. And so there is no hall pass for fatherhood. If you become a father, it doesn't matter how you ended up having that kid. You have a moral responsibility to be there for that kid. Period. That is not a negotiable. Now, you may or may not be married to the mom, and I'm not saying it isn't easier, but you know, to be married to it makes, but.

• 1:57:43Theo Von?

  Right, but that doesn't really, that doesn't really make it different always.

• 1:57:45Speaker 01

  No, and also like, and also don't, don't point at these dads to, for whatever reason, they're not married to the mom and blame them somehow.

• 1:57:52Theo Von?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I had, I just have this romantic view. But yeah, I think if, if, yeah, being a father is just being a father.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  And, and it also being.

• 1:58:00Theo Von?

  What do I know? What the fuck am I even talking about?

• 1:58:01Speaker 01

  And it never ends. I mean, I'll say that it, um, it doesn't end with being a father. Like one of the, I mentioned my, my own father, my dad earlier. And, and watching him as a grandfather to my sons has also been an extraordinary experience and made me think about. I'm already thinking about what kind of grandfather I'm going to be.

• 1:58:24Theo Von?

  Wow.

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  My sons are all in their twenties now, uh, from late twenties to early twenties. And so that's the next stage for me. And I'll tell you, like my, one of my sons really struggled, uh, in high school. He's the one who's now become a teacher. And he, when he went, went to college, he chose to go to college back to the UK. But not just back to the UK, he went back to Cardiff in Wales where my parents live. Cause he wanted to be near my parents. And he told me once that on a day when he was really, if he was really struggling, he'd get out and it's just some mental health issues, whatever. He was really struggling, he would look, he could look, when he was walking to his lectures at college, he could look to the north. And a couple of miles north, there's this big tower of a hospital right next to the, where my parents live.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  And he said to me, even on a really bad day. I know that I can look up there and I know that grandpa's there and if I need him, he'll come.

• 1:59:20Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 1:59:21Speaker 01

  And I want my grandsons and granddaughters saying that about me one day too. And, and so the point is like, as parents, you do the best you can. And then as grandparents, you help out and then as uncles and nephews or neighbors or mentors, you kind of help out, but it, it, it, it never ends. And, and that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's a, it's a beautiful thing. And I, I, as a, as a father, to see my father being such an amazing support for my son.

• 1:59:52Theo Von?

  Interesting. You're in the middle.

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  I'm in the middle and guess what? Sometimes maybe granddad is going to be the better person for your son in this moment than you are.

• 2:00:02Theo Von?

  Hmm.

• 2:00:02Speaker 01

  And what amazing blessing that is to have that. I feel so incredibly fortunate that my kids have had that opportunity to have that relationship with their grandparents. So I've gone from thinking, oh, God, really? Grandfather, I have to do it all over again? Really? To being like, you know what? Yeah, this could be good.

• 2:00:21Theo Von?

  Yeah, I just appreciate you thinking about stuff, this stuff with Richard. And I know there's a lot of other things we could talk about too, about recovery programs and 12 step. We could save that for another conversation.

• 2:00:30Speaker 01

  Anytime.

• 2:00:30Theo Von?

  I feel like we've, I feel like this has been a nice conversation and just some good food for thought and, and not to harp on man or what's going on. And if you feel uncomfortable, it's like, I think there is that, there's a sense inside of a lot of us of like, what do we do? Where, where is my purpose? And, um, and where's that coming from, you know? And, um, and that's okay.

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I've really, really enjoyed this.

• 2:00:54Theo Von?

  Me too, Richard. I appreciate it. Richard Reeves, you have books out, don't you?

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, of boys and men.

• 2:00:58Theo Von?

  Okay. Excellent. And how do people, um, if people want to get involved with your organization, what, uh, do they just donate? Is there volunteer possibilities or what are the things?

• 2:01:07Speaker 01

  Donations would be great, but yeah. Uh, so it's A I B M dot org, A I B M dot org. Uh, there's a, there is a donate button there. We'd love your support, but also the main thing is just to be part of this conversation. Uh, and let's have a positive conversation about boys and men without putting down women and girls and just love the men and boys in your life. I just, that's the mission I'm on. I feel called to this work now and I'm, I'm excited to be part of it.

• 2:01:31Theo Von?

  I love hearing about it, man. And I appreciate you just being patient with me to, to today while we just kind of had this conversation and, um, yeah, this was a great practice for me and just like, uh, learning to talk and think about things together.

• 2:01:42Speaker 01

  It's amazing that you want to get more into this space. Thank you.

• 2:01:45Theo Von?

  Well, yeah, it's just so important, man. And I'm gonna have an ad to at the end of this for Valor Recovery. It's a sexual, sex and love addiction group that we, that I associate with. And so if you're struggling with porn addiction and that sort of thing, or intimacy disorders, anything. If you are just struggling with something, we can, that's a great program right there. And my great friend Steve started it and I've been in recovery with him for years. And just blessed, man, blessed to be on this journey and just know that other men are on it too and trying to figure it out. And, you know, stay alive, dude. It kind of gives you some, you know, it's weird. It kind of gives you a little bit of purpose.

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:26Theo Von?

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:02:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, and that life without purpose is not life.

• 2:02:30Theo Von?

  It sure isn't, man. Thank you so much, Richard Reeves. You bet.