Yeah, yeah, I know I’m late to the issue here. Shocker. Anyway, let’s talk about us Zoomers.
But first, a little refresher.
Last month I talked about why young men are struggling. That piece was mostly generalizations. I put together the rough skeleton of what ultimately resulted in eleven pages of material in only a few hours, so I thought I’d go ahead with it even though it’s not supported with data like I usually do. Now, the generalizations I make in that piece discuss not only why young men are struggling but also why young men are, in my mind, checking out. I attributed young men checking out primarily to young women in our society today pursuing the feminist ideal for a woman’s life professionally, personally, and even sexually. In spite of this, I ended up telling us young men to not check out and instead pursue what I termed “subject-oriented meaning”—meaning defined by faith, family, community, etc.
And, not to jump too far ahead here, but there are a couple reasons why I want to revisit this topic, albeit from a different angle. One of them I’ll get to. The other one is because Charlie Kirk—who, well, we all know what happened to him—had a similar message for young men—get married, have a family, work hard, etc.—which has been frequently highlighted in the wake of his death. So the topic has been frequently on my mind over the past couple weeks.
The other reason, which I alluded to, is because my generalizations got some statistical support a couple weeks back. And that support came not from a conservative or right-wing think tank or publication, but rather, from NBC.
Now, before I dive into this poll, I need to make a disclaimer. This poll distinguishes young men and women overall from young men and women based on how they voted in the 2024 election. The results of the poll for young men overall are different from the results of the poll for young men who voted for Trump. This is important to note because the difference in polling would lead you to believe that young men who voted for Trump are the minority of Gen Z men. But we are not. Trump won young men aged 18-29. So, why the discrepancy?
Well, I have a hunch. I don’t have any hard data to support this, nor does the NBC poll provide any clarity on the issue—maybe I missed something—but I believe the discrepancy likely comes from NBC being a left-leaning publication, therefore potentially resulting in a smaller sample size of Gen Z male Trump voters compared to Gen Z male Harris voters. If this is true, it obviously skews the data in this poll regarding what young men overall consider essential in order to have a successful life. You could say the same for young women overall and young women who voted for Trump, although Harris won young women aged 18-29, so Trump-voting young women are the minority. They should be statistically underrepresented. With all that being said, let’s actually get into the poll.
One of the questions in the poll had Zoomers rate a selection of thirteen options 1-13 regarding what is important for them to have in order to achieve what they would consider to be a successful life. These options included things such as “having children,” “being married,” “achieving financial independence,” “having a job or career you find fulfilling,” “having enough money to do the things you want to do,” etc.
Now, in this poll, the stark contrast that everyone is focusing on is the complete difference in priorities between Gen Z female Harris voters and Gen Z male Trump voters. People are focusing on this because, yes, the contrast is drastically stark, but also because, as I said earlier, these two groups are representative of the majority of their sex for their generation. To be specific, Harris won women aged 18-29 by 17 points (58% to 41%). Trump won young men aged 18-29 by 14 points (56% to 42%).
As we see in the poll, two of the top four priorities for Zoomer male Trump voters are “having children” and “being married.” The number one priority for these young men is “having children.” For Zoomer female Harris voters? These two priorities are ranked eleventh—“being married”—and twelfth—“having children.” Only “fame and influence” ranks lower.
I know “I told you so” can come across as conceited, but I told you so. My generalizations were correct. The majority of Zoomer women prioritize pursuing the feminist ideal—i.e., object-oriented meaning and self-indulgence—over pursuing more traditional pathways in life—i.e., subject-oriented meaning.
Interestingly, only Zoomer male Trump voters had “having children” and “being married” in their top five. Not even Zoomer female Trump voters had these priorities in their top five! Coming in at sixth for them was “having children.” And “being married” was at ninth. So not even the conservative women are actually that conservative in the traditional sense, according to this poll.
But why does this matter, besides showing the massive gender divide amongst Zoomers? Why did I want to broach this topic again? Well, it’s not to dog on young women and act as though young men have no problems. That’s certainly not why, nor do I believe the latter; we young men do have problems, which I discussed in the previous piece. Instead, I wanted to broach this topic again because this poll provides statistical evidence showing that we need to start asking ourselves as a society a question that for most of human history was quite self-explanatory.
What’s the purpose of life? What’s it all for?
For most of human history, except maybe to some of the philosophizing types, the answer to that question was, like I said, quite self-explanatory. Find a mate, marry him or her—because that’s the most stable structure for raising a family—, and then create and raise a family. Everything was centered around the family. Now, I’m going to leave what I mean by “family” intentionally broad. In the Western sense, you’re likely thinking of the nuclear family. But family can be broader in immediate scope in other places around the globe. Although the point still remains. Family, regardless of definition, was the focus; it was the point.
We understood this to be the answer to the question in the West well into the previous century. And then we broke society. And now the answer to that question is not self-explanatory. And because it’s not, many people, especially young people, are either directionless—young men—or, worse, heading in the wrong direction—young women.
So, what to do?
Well, pointing someone in the right direction is easier than getting someone heading in the wrong direction to stop and course-correct. This is so because the person receiving direction is at the fork in the road. He hasn’t chosen which path to follow. For the young women, by contrast, and this is why I stated in the previous piece that they have more work to do, they must make a U-turn, come back to the fork in the road, and head down the correct path.
But even before that, we must explain the answer to the question because, given the state of society and the results of the poll, clearly, neither the answer nor the explanation is self-explanatory anymore.
So why is family the purpose of life? Well, you can approach answering this question from a couple different directions.
If you’re a Christian, your primary spiritual purpose is to evangelize and spread the Good News of the Gospel. But immediately after that, your moral purpose is to, as it says in Genesis 1, “Be fruitful and multiply.” And Scripture is also quite clear regarding the framework wherein this process is to be carried out: in a lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.
But let’s say you’re not a Christian but rather an evolutionary materialist. Well, the primary biological purpose of all species is the continuation of their species. And sociology and anthropology would tell you that humans have generally come to the conclusion that the most efficient and stable framework in which to carry out this biological purpose has been a monogamous marriage between one man and one woman. Sure, the family structure around that can vary.
So the devout Christians and the evolutionary materialists agree on this one. Two groups who very rarely agree on, well, just about anything, agree on this one! That’s how you know family is indeed the purpose of life; that’s what it—what we do in life—is ultimately supposed to be for, supposed to serve, regardless if the foundation for that sense of purpose is moral or biological in origin.
And this is obviously true because what’s the alternative? Self-indulgent pleasure? Okay, sure, that’s wonderful in the moment, but you end up dying alone.
Great. You’re super rich. You’re super accomplished in your career. What do you actually have to show for it? Nothing. You have nothing to show for it. You’re on the path to, again, dying alone. That’s horrible because humans aren’t just social creatures, but specifically, we’re social creatures in need of intimate social relations with our fellow humans, particularly on a familial and romantic level. And we’ve created a culture in which we encourage people to behave in manners that actively distance them from achieving those factors necessary to human flourishing.
To go back to the poll, only one of the four groups of Zoomers—male Trump voters—had “having children”—which was ranked first—and “being married” in their top five priorities. None of the other three groups did.
We have to keep raising attention to this topic. We have to keep having conversations regarding this topic. We’ve got to get the other groups—or, at least, Zoomer female Trump voters if this poll is an accurate reflection of society—to think similarly along the lines of Zoomer male Trump voters, i.e., to think and desire to pursue more traditional pathways in life. We have to right the ship on this one. Without families, we literally don’t have a society.
So, can we course-correct? Of course. Making something culturally relevant usually has an impact. So let’s continue to make this topic as culturally important as we can.
Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-gen-zs-gender-divide-reaches-politics-views-marriage-children-suc-rcna229255
https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election#youth-vote-+4-for-harris,-major-differences-by-race-and-genderThe Youth Vote in 2024 | CIRCLE