Beyond Adolescence

WITH its story of a boy accused of murdering a girl after his mind is poisoned through his social media reading, the Netflix series “Adolescence” has deservedly won praise from its many viewers and stimulated debate on how to counter the toxic influences to which many young males’ online viewing exposes them.

However, this focus may be too narrow. The culture of male entitlement and violence is a broader problem. For starters, most of what boys such as Jamie Miller in “Adolescence” consume online is formulated and shared by older men of an age at which, decades ago, they would have been expected to set a good example. That’s changed somewhat. The proportion of middle aged men among those arrested for violent offences around European football matches seems to have grown and similarly, their representation among the racist rioters detained in Britain in 2024 was large.

The thinking embraced by Jamie, the boy at the heart of “Adolescence”, is part of a much wider grievance culture which is most obviously expressed in Donald Trump’s white male-dominated MAGA base, by men who feel threatened by women’s rights, anti-racist initiatives aimed at rectifying inequality of opportunity and historic injustice, and by foreigners in general. Trump is now appealing to this sense of grievance in introducing sweeping tariff increases, which he portrays as a fitting response to a world that has supposedly been ripping off the USA for decades. His “might is right” approach to international relations, rubbishing international law, treaties and human rights obligations, appeals to the same set of loutish sentiments.

None of this should be acceptable to human society at large and there are plenty of people, including within the USA, who find it alarming and who make their opposition to it clear in no uncertain terms.

Returning to “Adolescence”, there are references to a claim that Jamie has taken to heart: that “80 per cent of women are attracted to 20 per cent of men”. Taking that apart can offer small suggestions of what needs to change.

Anyone prepared to think critically and objectively needs to do little more than use their powers of reason and observation to see through the 80:20 claim. Granted, boys in school know that some among them are regarded by girls as more good looking and appealing than others, but if they spared some thought for girls’ experiences, they would recognise that many young females see boys as being drawn to a minority of their own gender who are regarded as physically attractive: They themselves feel unappreciated and unwanted. The whole process of trying to get dates and finding a partner can be frustrating and demoralising, but it would take very little research to confirm that most people, of both sexes, do. Yet, if that 80:20 figure bore any resemblance to reality, 80 per cent of heterosexual men should be without a female partner (and 80 per cent of heterosexual women without a male partner), which is not true in any country in the world: Most men who seek loving female partners (not just a sexual outlet) find them.

Weighing up claims, thinking critically and making the effort to see things through others’ eyes are made harder in a broader culture that has little time for depth and nuances in analysis and that emphasises the satisfaction of personal desires over consideration for the needs of others or society at large. Taking on this problem means trying for a global cultural change, which is hard, but not impossible.

Values including consideration for others and a commitment to seek the common good as a fundamental condition of one’s own wellbeing should be encouraged, instead of seeking personal satisfaction no matter what it costs others. Reason, backed by verifiable facts, should always be preferred to unsupported or ill founded claims. Strength should be recognised not in violence, but in the kind of day-to-day endurance and resolution that allows individuals to persist in making a living through work that they may not find fulfilling, to raise families in difficult conditions, to face illness and hardship and to make personal sacrifices for the sake of the vulnerable and those who stand in greater need.

With such societal values as the norm, there would be little cause to worry about how to govern what boys might view online.

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John Gee is a Singapore-based freelance writer