Love, War, and Civilization
The beginning of an investigation
Can the world be redesigned to better support the genuine fulfillment of human erotic desire — for both men and women? While the question may sound absurd or even frivolous, I think it remains of great practical and political importance. This was, we might remember, well understood back in “the Sixties,” when the slogan, “Make Love Not War” went viral. The fixation of middle-aged male military planners on building ever-bigger rockets, bombs, and missiles was seen by the radicalized youth as a manifestation of their Phallic insecurity, a projection of sexual frustration, à la Freud.
The radical and liberatory movements of the Sixties were galvanized by the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which made the prospect of annihilation feel palpable. For four days, people feared nuclear war was imminent. Today, we are engulfed in a new movement toward total war, with Trump seeking $1.5 trillion to accomplish mass murder, despicable war crimes, and the destruction of the Earth while he eliminates social programs here at home. At the same time, we have the lurking specter of the Epstein files, a massive pedophile scandal engulfing the criminal syndicate running the U.S. and much of the world.
What is the relationship between “Katie Johnson,” the 13-year-old girl—who apparently, according to FBI files, bit Trump’s modest member as he attempted to sexually assault her—and the current movement of tens of thousands of khaki-clad soldiers into the Middle East, preparing a ground invasion as the next stage of the unbelievable, beyond parody, “Operation Epic Fury”? Does the name, “Operation Epic Fury,” ultimately refer to sad, frustrated, unconsciously deeply ashamed men able to buy sadistic and libertine opportunities to the most extreme degree but incapable of experiencing love, empathy, or communion? Who, in other words, can’t get no satisfaction, no matter which way they squirm or who they bomb “to the Stone Age”?
These days, men and women struggle to get along. Sociologists document a severe diminishment of erotic frisson across many sectors of society, around the world. As Deborah Soh, author of Sextinction explores, the actual rates of people having sex have plummeted, particularly among young people. Post #MeToo and Epstein, we find a widespread loss of trust between the sexes.
I suspect the suppressed anxiety about climate catastrophe, AI extinction-ism, and warmongering contribute to this collective loss of libido, as do the well-documented effects of social media addiction on attention, intimacy, and the capacity for sustained attention or desire. The new decathected climate is ambient and atmospheric, yet produces explicit and measurable social results.
Much of the energy and rage galvanized by the Far Right comes directly out of the sexual crisis. The Right has capitalized on the tremendous frustration and anger felt by many men who lost their traditional roles, along with their agency and their power, as women gained more social and economic leverage over the past decades. Women have made up 60 or 70% of college graduates in recent years, thriving as entrepreneurs and gaining greater economic share despite “glass ceilings.” Men have been moving into their parents’ basements, playing video games and buying guns, absorbing deeply misogynist content from Right Wing influencers like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate.
The Trump/MAGA/tech broligarch/Heritage Foundation program is, at bottom, a full-scale war on women, seeking to reverse their ongoing emancipation. Somehow, progressives (particularly women) in America are not responding to this like it is an existential emergency. In general, liberals and progressives still seem stunned, unable to believe this is happening.
We cannot say that a massive, sudden shift in the U.S. toward theocratic control is impossible. We have seen it happen in many other societies.
