White Male mortality in the U.S.

[Ten oz]

Not sure I follow. Why would you expect suicide rates for minorities to rise if they're seeing improvements in all of those various measures?

Whites are seeing the same improvements yet their rates are growing. If we assume expectations is part of the problem that the suicide rate should increase for any group with increasing expectations.

[iNow]

I believe the issue is with expecting or feeling entitled to something and not getting it. That doesn't seem to be the issue with minorities who are seeing improvements despite their overall lack of expectations that these improvements would/should occur.

[Ten oz]

I believe the issue is with expecting or feeling entitled to something and not getting it. That doesn't seem to be the issue with minorities who are seeing improvements despite their overall lack of expectations that these improvements would/should occur.

True, minorities probably experience entitlement to a far lesser extend. Thing is though; shouldn't the number of minorities who do experience a sense of entitlement be increasing? If no blacks felt entitled during segregation should at least a couple feel more entitled today?

[iNow]

In the long-term, I suspect that may occur, but in the immediate-term that hole out of which they're digging remains pretty deep (i.e. it's going to be a while before it's expected).

[Ten oz]

In the long-term, I suspect that may occur, but in the immediate-term that hole out of which they're digging remains pretty deep (i.e. it's going to be a while before it's expected).

Broadly yes, but many are out of the whole. Have you every heard Will Smith's kids talk? Lots of high expectations and entitlement going on there....hahaha

Edited January 4, 2016 by Ten oz

[iNow]

Yeah, well I'm sure Rockefeller and Carnegie had high expectations for their kids, too, and may even have given talks trying to encourage people to dream big and reach for the stars, but that's a bit different than having your family stories entail slavery, jim crow and segregation, or hiding from the law b/c you didn't have papers or had a baby here who is a citizen even though you never went through the process.

 

Back the thread, I think your initial suggestion was the right one. There's something that white males feel they've lost (hard work leading to good life, entitlement, privilege, whatever) coupled with their general lack of strong social network / religious group /etc. that is feeding the higher rate of slow and fast suicide.

 

EDIT: There may be a role played by the changing nature of our culture and social media... Something about our parents / grandparents being part of tighter communities and smaller towns and closer knit pockets and groups... However, now we all see ourselves as just another drop in the bucket... a harder to find signal in a much more full spectrum of noise. Perhaps seeing so plainly in front of us how many billions of other people are on the planet has changed our perceptions since in the past we only knew of a few hundred / a few thousand.

 

I dunno... Just brainstorming. Could be a crap idea in the end.

Edited January 5, 2016 by iNow

[StringJunky]

Yeah, well I'm sure Rockefeller and Carnegie had high expectations for their kids, too, and may even have given talks trying to encourage people to dream big and reach for the stars, but that's a bit different than having your family stories entail slavery, jim crow and segregation, or hiding from the law b/c you didn't have papers or had a baby here who is a citizen even though you never went through the process.

 

Back the thread, I think your initial suggestion was the right one. There's something that white males feel they've lost (hard work leading to good life, entitlement, privilege, whatever) coupled with their general lack of strong social network / religious group /etc. that is feeding the higher rate of slow and fast suicide.

 

EDIT: There may be a role played by the changing nature of our culture and social media... Something about our parents / grandparents being part of tighter communities and smaller towns and closer knit pockets and groups... However, now we all see ourselves as just another drop in the bucket... a harder to find signal in a much more full spectrum of noise. Perhaps seeing so plainly in front of us how many billions of other people are on the planet has changed our perceptions since in the past we only knew of a few hundred / a few thousand.

 

I dunno... Just brainstorming. Could be a crap idea in the end.

I think you are right. The world is megalopolising into one and we are generally becoming ever smaller fish in an ever increasing pond; less and less important and relevant. This is not good for ego and self-worth.

[CharonY]

Looking at a recent PNAS article (Deaton and Case vol. 112 no. 49) at least in the middle-aged white male segment it appears that the highest issue (higher than suicide) is drug abuse (alcohol and drug poisoning). This effect was mostly observed in low income/education groups (highschool degree or less) whereas for the group with college education mortality was actually declining. Overall, especially opioid use are far higher in white males compared to other ethnic groups. Also IIRC more people were reporting chronic pains. Whereas these are somewhat related, I do not know.

[Ten oz]

@ iNow I agree with what you are saying. I personally would like something more concrete though. The ideas you and I agree on are a bit unclear. I can pin won to what extent white males would experience those things over minorities.

 

Like the media angle as a factor. That is more clearly observed. We know that certian types of media are far more heavily followed by specific demographics than others. We also know certian types of media provide a far more negative world view. Plus people have the ability to be more insulated today. Between partisan blogs, Facebook, talk radio and etc it is easy for people to fall into propaganda spirals where there here the same misinformation repeated over and over again. That feedback loop of misinformation has driven such things as fear of vaccines. are white males more likely to be victims of negative media misinformation loops?

[iNow]

Look up demographics of Fox News viewers and I think you'll have your answer.

 

EDIT: Less flippantly, I'm really not sure. Will need to think on that a bit after a decent nights sleep.[/EDIT]

 

This article below came across one of my feeds earlier today. More fuel to the fire we've been exploring here, but also interesting because it's introduced another potential explanation that I don't believe either of us has raised yet:

 

http://neurosciencenews.com/male-suicide-psychology-3346/

A professor in the College of Natural Sciences Department of Psychology, Canetto adds a new chapter to that story in an article recently published in the journal Men and Masculinities. Among her findings are that older white men have higher suicide rates, yet fewer burdens associated with aging. For example, they are less likely to experience widowhood and have better physical health and fewer disabilities than older women. They have more economic resources than ethnic minority older men, and than older women across ethnicities.

 

White older men, however, may be less psychologically equipped to deal with the normal challenges of aging, likely because of their privilege up until late adulthood, Canetto asserts.

 

An important factor in white mens psychological brittleness and vulnerability to suicide once they reach late life, Canetto says, may be dominant scripts of masculinity, aging and suicide. Particularly pernicious for this group may be the belief that suicide is a masculine response to the indignities of aging. This is a script that implicitly justifies, and even glorifies, suicide among men.

I hadn't considered that this might be perceived as a dignified way of escaping undignified situations. I'm also appreciative of the new vocabulary this article has provided me for discussing the topic, specifically via the descriptor "psychological brittleness." Edited January 6, 2016 by iNow

[Ten oz]

Look up demographics of Fox News viewers and I think you'll have your answer.

EDIT: Less flippantly, I'm really not sure. Will need to think on that a bit after a decent nights sleep.[/EDIT]

This article below came across one of my feeds earlier today. More fuel to the fire we've been exploring here, but also interesting because it's introduced another potential explanation that I don't believe either of us has raised yet:http://neurosciencenews.com/male-suicide-psychology-3346/

I hadn't considered that this might be perceived as a dignified way of escaping undignified situations. I'm also appreciative of the new vocabulary this article has provided me for discussing the topic, specifically via the descriptor "psychological brittleness."

It the about being less equipped to deal with challange due to privileges until late adulthood doesn't match the data IMO. Or perhaps I am just reacting to the fact that it reads as a mild insult. I will need read up on it.

[Ten oz]

Ten Oz,

 

Oh...mortality...nevermind.

 

 

Regards, TAR

 

I have not read that thread either, but reading the first few posts, I am reminded of a unvoiced speculation of mine that there is a certain emasculation going on in the last half century, that empowers the state at the expense of the personal control of the individual.

 

One of my theories on why people commit suicide is that it is a response to a loss of control over one's life. A desperate last attempt to have ultimate control.

 

As I age, I am not as strong and fast and agile and virile as I was when I was younger. In both mind and body I am a little less capable. Personally I can approach these weaknesses and use strategies to overcome the lessening of one strength with the use of other facilities. I might use a digging stick as a level and lift up a rock and have my wife put dirt under it and lift it onto the surface in this fashion, now, where when I was 18 I would have just yanked the thing out of the ground.

,

But when the state makes rules to protect the weak against my strength, I personally take offense. I already made sure I did not take advantage of others with my size and strength and intelligence. The power I accrued through the purchase of tools and motors, the education in trades and processes I pursue and whatever "strength" I should amass by lifting weights or investing, or saving, or purchasing a weapon, or joining clubs and associations and having "brothers and sisters" at my back, are things that give me personal control of my life and are direct results of me exercising good judgement and delayed gratification throughout my life. It is disturbing for the rules to change and for people to take from me, what I planned to be mine, so I could always have a strong say in how my life was to be lived.

 

For instance, I never purchased a weapon, because I had two daughters and would have had to keep the ammo separate from the weapon and locked to the extent that in an emergency I would take several minutes to become operative and would probably lose in that time any advantage that a weapon would give me. Plus I could accidently kill someone that was just trying to steal some money for drugs, and whose life should not be forfeited for such behavior. Plus, I knew some people who did have weapons, and if any emergency situation, like a riot or invasion, or revolution should come about, I knew where to go. However, if the rules change, and everybody has to outfit their guns with fingerprint checkers, I would have to reevaluate, since I would no longer be able to use one of my friend's weapons, in an emergency. I have always considered my neighbors to be people with good judgement and good values. I trust. If my government makes a rule that takes control of my situation from me, because my government does not trust me to use good judgement and be a good person, and the law negates the plans and effort, that I have be executing for 50 years, I am bound to feel a bit put upon.

 

A little emasculated. Past what age alone has inflicted.

 

This loss of control might be acceptable if strategies to regain control can be constructed. But a continual erosion of personal power might be taking a toll on the male phyche.

 

Regards, TAR

Why would this be race specific and such a problem in the United States?

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

I have not read this thread yet, so I don't know the context and what has already been discussed, but my guess is that there is a cultural clash. Power that a white male thought was accrued to him by virtue of following the rules and being a solid, honorable team member and pulling his weight is taken from him and doled out to people that have not earned their spot on the team. A loss of control on a large scale.

 

 

Regards, TAR

[Ten oz]

Ten Oz,

 

I have not read this thread yet, so I don't know the context and what has already been discussed, but my guess is that there is a cultural clash. Power that a white male thought was accrued to him by virtue of following the rules and being a solid, honorable team member and pulling his weight is taken from him and doled out to people that have not earned their spot on the team. A loss of control on a large scale.

 

 

Regards, TAR

I do not understand what you mean. White males have more wealth, higher levels of employment, and etc than minorities and those levels have increased over the last decade. What has been lost? Also what has been doled out and to whom?

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

I did read the thread, and some of the links.

 

I was thinking, in terms of the power lost, of the Oregon occupation. The government has taken land to protect the environment, and endangered species and such in spite of ranchers wanting to exercise control over the same land.

 

I saw an older man, with successful children, sitting with a rifle in his hands, saying he was not going to jail. Suicide, to sit on federal land and suggest you will die, before having your freedom taken from you.

 

Regards, TAR

such a feeling I can understand as a white male

 

perhaps non-white males can not understand the guy's feelings

there is, in this country a certain distrust of big city intellectuals wielding power and evening the playing field at the expense of white males whose power it is that is being wielded

 

that is the loss of control I am suggesting might cause there to be more suicide amongst white males than other than white males

Edited January 9, 2016 by tar

[Ten oz]

@ TAR, I have no doubt many feel as you do. However the things you a naming aren't unique to the last decade or so. The federal govt has been establishing parks and prohibiting resource exploitation of areas for a hundred years. Yellowstone and Yosemite were made national parks in the late 1800's for example. Which isn't meant as a debate for or against what is happening in Oregon.

 

White males are committing suicide at rates which has been increasing over the last decade while all other groups are experiencing a decline. I have no idea why this is happening. I assume whatever is driving it is specific since it is primarily impacting white males an the tend has change over a short time period. Concerns over liberty and big city intellectuals is one that I believe has been a standard concern in this country for a very long time. So I do not believe it explains the increase in suicides. If it did I would suspect that the increase would've started in the south during civil rights. Huge power lose of sort their when segregation ended mixed with federal authority vs states rights. Yet that did not impact suicides.

[iNow]

Though gun prevalence and easy access to opioids and alcohol weren't as common or as readily available in the south back then. I wouldn't necessarily write that off so quickly.

Also, family and church and similar social support networks throughout local communities were quite a bit more robust and common in those days.

[StringJunky]

Though gun prevalence and easy access to opioids and alcohol weren't as common or as readily available in the south back then. I wouldn't necessarily write that off so quickly.

Also, family and church and similar social support networks throughout local communities were quite a bit more robust and common in those days.

Yes, globally, modern social boundaries and quantitative connectedness are ever increasing, but on a personal level, social bonds and group identity are becoming more tenuous.

Edited January 10, 2016 by StringJunky

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

 

Well perhaps men, and white men in general do not have the automatic "king ot the household" role anymore, that they used to enjoy. It is certainly possible that the role of a white male is not the same as it was 50 years ago. Some things, I think, related to being the bread winner, and the protector of the house, have morphed over to include the female. And with Gay rights and all, the roles are very unclear, anymore, as to who is responsible for the outside of the house and who is the bread winner, and who takes care of the kids.

 

So two things to consider as contributors to the shaking of the white males psyche are the blurring of sexual stereotypical roles, and the fact that a non white male is the President of the U.S. and has the power to enforce arbitrary laws at the expense of white male control, in business, in the home, on the street and on the world stage.

 

For instance, during the Ebola outbreak, our military was sent to help in humanitarian roles. Not what our military was designed for. Not particularly what anybody signing up for the military thought was involved in protecting the U.S. Constitution from enemies, foreign or domestic.

 

More a nurse maid role.

 

Regards, TAR

Not that drugs and alchohol and pain killers and heroine might not be involved as well, but consider also the increase role of government transfer payments in providing for the livelihood of white families. In depressed areas like West Virgina, struggling as the coal industry is cutting back, there are increasing numbers of white males, on the dole, and on meth. Being obliged to someone else for your food, clothing and shelter is a hit on the white males psyche.

Between unenployement and disability and food stamps and social services taking kids away and such, I can imagine some white males feeling a loss of masculinity.

[Ten oz]

@ TAR, you could be right. I do not know what the right answer is. However, for me, that explanations feels too anecdotal. I can't connect all the dots with it. To what extent are white males more impacted by female head of households and gay rights than black or latino males? How can we quantify that?

 

 

Though gun prevalence and easy access to opioids and alcohol weren't as common or as readily available in the south back then. I wouldn't necessarily write that off so quickly.
Also, family and church and similar social support networks throughout local communities were quite a bit more robust and common in those days.

I like the way you a viewing this issue. I believe you are spot on the easy access to guns and drugs plays a role. Those are tangible things we can look at statistically by race. However I am not onboard regarding the cultural stuff involving church and community. If you look back at the chart showing suicide by state you'll see that states in the southern bible belt are both above the national average and below the national average.So statistically I do not see the connection.

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

 

I admit I have not studied the statistics to see why whites would be more effected by role changes than blacks, but lets say there has been, in the last 7 years a franchisement of black males, as that the leader of the pack is a black looking man, with black blood and who has therefore a real gene based tie to blacks, that no president before in the history of the U.S. ever had to such an obvious degree. A young black man growing up, can now say "I could grow up to be president" where previously that would have been a pipe dream. The good ole boy network, the backroom smoke filled meetings of white males, setting policy and making things happen, are things that have somewhat moved out of the mainstream of our culture. The white male dominated country club is still real, but society has asked those private clubs be opened to women and blacks and jews and Hispanics, and Japanese and other than European Wasps.

 

These changes however are not necessarily progress for a White Male Anglo Saxon Protestant, or for a Catholic, or for any American that might be easily construed as a "crusader" due to their European heritage and in the gun sight of an ISIS jihadist.

 

I don't have the statistics, but I have only my anecdotal "feelings" that there is a group in the country that "understand" our society, and others who seek to change it into something else. Best recent events that talk to this opinion are the sexual assaults in Germany carried out by Muslim Male Refugees who may have misinterpreted the meaning of a New Years hug by a strange woman. There are cultural differences between a white male American and a black male American. I heard of a recent event where 5 black males approached a father and daughter at gunpoint and told the father to leave. The five men each raped the female. The father returned with police and the rapists ran. Such behavior is completely foreign to me and completely contrary to my upbringing, and my expectations of proper male behavior. Those 5 men do not get it, as far as I am concerned, they are not doing it right. I sometimes feel misunderstood, when I utter such concerns, and feel embarrassed that I might sound racist to voice such concerns, but part of my manhood demands I not allow such behavior. If political correctness takes away my power to hunt these criminals down and put them in jail or shoot them in a shoot out, it is a degradation of my manhood.

 

Regards, TAR

[Ten oz]

 

 

@ TAR, white males are flourishing in the United States. I posted those charts to put it into perspective. You are referencing losses that statistically do not exist. I read about that horrific rape too but do not feel it is relevant to this thread. Rape has been around for a very long time. I don't see the actions of those 5 criminals as being part of a trend that explains the rise in white male suicide. Ultimately crime is down over the last couple decades.

 

I think you are speaking to a feeling that millions have. You are tapping into a view that is real and probably unique to older white males. However the rise in suicide is not restricted to older white males. Plus your personal feelings are probably no good here as you yourself are not suicidal. For all we know the majority of white males committing suicide are far leftist liberal angry about climate change. We do not have a means of knowing who these people are personally.

 

This link breaks suicides down by age group and race:

https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures

[tar]

Ten Oz,

 

Looking at the statistics, does not give any correlations that would jump out and say "this is why". That is why I am looking for something that changed for white males, across the board, that did not change for other groups, in the last 7 years, or in the recent time in which the rise in white male suicides has been noted.

 

My thesis is simply that loss of control is a factor in suicides and as a group white males have been losing control more than other groups.

 

On a different note, the statistics you linked suggested that there are a whole lot more self harm incidents than successful suicides. While all self harm incidents are not suicide attempts, the fact that successful attempts are made at a higher level in older populations than young, and in male rather than female, it might just be a case of capability. Perhaps white males, once of the mind to end their lives...do it.

 

Regards, TAR

[iNow]

That doesn't explain why the same trend is absent in other nations / why this phenomenon is local to the US.

[Ten oz]

@ TAR, you may be onto something but it is hard to know. How are you quanitfying the loss of control? White males are not on the slide/losing in any statistically area I can identify. Can you say specifically what it is being lost and then support that with a study of any type? If not is it possible that negative conservative rhetoric (which white males are far more likely to follow) has created a zeitgeist of sorts that leads to the feeling of loss you are describing?

 

 

That doesn't explain why the same trend is absent in other nations / why this phenomenon is local to the US.

To that point I looked up stats in Australia. We have already seen stats for Europe but I was curious if the more conservative Australia might more closely follow the trend here in the United States. It does not. Suicides down under peaked in 1968, had a small uptick in from 1984-1997, and have been in decline since.

http://www.mindframe-media.info/for-media/reporting-suicide/facts-and-stats