Adolescence, Boy Psychology / Immature Masculinity, and the EUM Lens
Introduction
This note is written as I prepare to join Kartik Shah for our EUM based podcast in the month of May.
While the blog presents my initial thoughts were around the Netflix serial — titled Adolescence, and the theme of ‘immature masculinity’ — which often gets perceived as patriarchy, toxic masculinity, fragile masculinity, or hypermasculinity, it lays out some interesting linkages with the work of two Jungian psychologists, who were also the author of King Warrior Magician and Lover — Gilette and Moore, as well as to Ashok Malhotra’s Child Man. These are two must-reads for every OD practitioner.
I am excited at Kartik’s proposal to integrate the EUM lens and the framework while exploring the nuances of the series and the connect with reality that I have experienced thus far. Even if you are not familiar with the EUM construct, I am sure you would be as concerned as I am on how radical notions of and around masculinity are pervading our context.
As recently as yesterday, I was confronted by a senior police officer who believed that Mein Kampf has lots to offer to the modern man and it sent not just the usual chill down my spine but also highlighted how as an older generation of men, I have not really reinforced and offered my sense of what it means to be a man…
Adolescence — the Netflix OTT series
As a parent, watching the four brilliantly crafted episodes of Adolescence — an OTT series offered by Netflix, was an intense rollercoaster experience — it evoked sheer terror, deep sorrow, and a helplessness as we witnessed the narrative unfurl and evolve. There were times when my partner and I had to pause and talk about what was happening to both of us, and then proceed. When these feelings finally ebbed and seeped away to the normal humdrum of living, the series left many a question around Manosphere and its cruel grip over young boys, lack of institutional spaces to work with masculinity, and what is masculinity today in India.
This blog is not just an ode to the Adolescence Series — it is a must watch for all who have young children — this blog seeks to explore the world of masculinity and how this gets internalized by young kids, adolescents, middle-aged, and older men.
Theme 1
Adolescence: that precarious bridge between Boy and Man Psychology
Let’s try and define the construct of masculinity before moving on to Adolescence series.
What is Masculinity?
Masculinity is a complex and multifaceted concept that refers to the socially constructed roles, idealized behaviours, normed expressions, and identities of men and boys. It’s not solely determined by biological sex but is heavily influenced by cultural norms, historical periods, and individual experiences.
What stands out in this theoretical definition is:
a) Masculinity is a social construct — implying that it varies, changes, mutates across different cultures, subcultures including the Manosphere which we would talk about at length, and time — the 21st century take on masculinity appears to be different.
b) Since it is a ‘social construct’ — masculinity is learned, defined, and reinforced through socialization from a young age, through a wide variety of social systems — including the family, peers and friends, social media, and institutions like schools and religion.
c) This means there isn’t one single, fixed definition of masculinity. Instead, there are many “masculinities” often at contradictions and conflict with each other. Today it is difficult to find convergence — seems near impossible given the fragmentation of systems that socialize us.
What was ‘Traditional Masculinity’ about?
In many Western cultures, traditional ideals of masculinity have emphasized traits like strength, courage, independence, leadership, dominance, assertiveness, and stoicism (suppressing emotions). It were these ideals that got propagated through literature, TV, and films across the globe.
For example, as a young kid, I would read Louis L’amour and his 90 plus tales of individual heroism and machismo of the Cowboy, illustrated Commando comics that would be based men and their World-War II missions, or Alistair Maclean and his narratives that spoke of courage, steeliness, adventures, and stoicism.
In India, these attributes were quite easily added to an already long list that included being a provider, being a protector, being responsible through ‘role-oriented’ — including being the good son, the good father, and the karmayogi. Maryadapurshottam would be another attribute often cited as how a majority of Indians would look at masculinity. For me personally, the western definitions were refreshing and quite attractive — perhaps this is influenced by my colonised mind which celebrated agency more than communion.
The ’death’ of Traditional Masculinity in the West (and the East)?
Traditional masculinity supposedly died … its decline was evident and palpable as I was entering my thirties (around the turn of the century), for much of traditional masculinity now got to be seen as toxic masculinity — a form of masculinity seen as harmful and narrow for women, children and of course for men.
I would also like to add here that Patriarchy is as harmful for men as it is for women, for patriarchy reinforces immature masculinity in other men, as nothing would scare the patriarch more than the next generation of men becoming men and owning their own masculinity.
Let’s look at how ‘masculinity’ has evolved …
a) Stoicism is now seen as ‘suppression of emotions’ and a reluctance to be vulnerable. Stoic men were now seen or labelled as cold, unrelenting, impenetrable etc. and could not be trusted with emotional intelligence — expressing emotions in a healthy way.
b) Assertion is now seen as needless aggression, wanting to be dominant and forceful and unwilling to invest into a dialogue or be negotiable. With aggression, listening and empathy are seen as a key lacunae in the old-fashioned man.
c) Self-Reliance — the much vaunted attribute of a traditional gunslinger is now seen as unwillingness to seek help, remain stubbornly inefficient while fixated with one’s own resources, and non-collaborative, and condemned to being isolated. Teams that are a product of this century would not know how to value this aspect.
d) And lastly traditional masculinity was getting defined as an ‘opposition’ to femininity — and its purveyors often sitting on a judgment that masculinity is superior.
Today, given the influence of feminism and the changing contexts of occupations, skills, competencies, economics, and society, traditional masculinity is eschewed and people speak more of positive masculinity. Positive masculinity invite us to reflect on authenticity, integrity, responsibility and meaningful relatedness imbued with empathy and compassion. Rigid stereotypes are discouraged and men are invited to embrace emerging gender identities that challenge binary views.
While positive masculinity is being worked with, it is not the decline of traditional masculinity that I am worried about or reluctant to embrace, but the overall resistance to discern and distinguish boy psychology / immature masculinity from man psychology / mature masculinity.
And this is where the Netflix offering on Adolescence is most impactful — the series speaks of how there is another world (known as Manosphere) where in the name of traditional masculinity lurks ‘boy psychology or immature masculinity’ that seduces boys that are in transition …
What is Boy Psychology / Immature Masculinity?
Some reminiscing over Pulin Garg’s work on Masculinity which resonates with the work done by Moore and Gilette…
In the early 1970s, Professor Pulin K Garg — a professor at IIM Ahmedabad, and a founder of ISISD, wrote the fairy tale of four princes, and subsequently offered a deconstruction of four role-identities — the Wise King, the Mighty Warrior, the Empathetic Healer, and the Maverick Trickster / Joker that lie in us in the form of archetypal energies and how the interplay of such energies gives rise to Role-Identity that determines our behaviours and stances.
Many of us were truly inspired by his original work and there have been numerous books, blogs and even games designed on his work, as decade after decade, process workers, group facilitators, OD consultants, and coaches have worked on his tale. For example, Raghu Ananthanarayanan, built on Pulin’s work, researching the Mahabharata and its heroes, and has written two books on Indian masculinity.
Pulin was more cryptic in the evolution of these four role-identities — his writing could be deemed as ponderous, but many of his readers and his recipients of his work were satisfied with a lot less…
In many a behavioural lab or a coaching session, one would hear someone emerging with great clarity and delight about how he or she is like a Warrior — tales of conflict and resistance, of aggression and fights, of intense passion and independence would be seen being a Warrior. I was not too convinced with the ease of this nature of self-reflection seemed too easy and too crystalized!
It was only when I read King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Gilette and Moore, I was able to articulate my unease. Gilette and Moore offer the construct of Boy Psychology — a stunted, skewed, abusive, and false masculinity that is based on fear — fear of the feminine and the fear of the masculine.
Gilette and Moore argue that Boy Psychology results in Immature Masculinity. They write — “Boy psychology is everywhere around us, and its marks are easy to see. Among them are abusive and violent acting-out behaviours against others, both men and women; passivity and weakness, the inability to act effectively and creatively in one’s own life and to engender life and creativity in others (both men and women); and, often, an oscillation between the two — abuse/weakness, abuse/weakness.
There is a bridge in the form of a ritualized initiations that Moore and Gilette maintain is critical for the Boy psychology / immature masculinity to transform into Man Psychology or mature masculinity… As per the authors, this bridge took the form of rituals — rituals that would pronounce the death of ‘boyhood’ and the birth of the man.
Moore and Gilette speak of death of boy psychology offering frames and constructs that boy psychology archetypes are imbued with sadomasochistic violence, fragility, precocity, lust for power and dependency — and it is these aspects of the boy ego that need to die and give birth to mature masculinity or man psychology that is more generative, more calm, more compassionate and purpose centric.
Historically this bridge would be the ritual or initiation on ‘becoming a man’… the American Indian tribal lore is rich on such rituals where the boy becomes a man by discovering his ‘animal-soul’ and expand on his consciousness. The animal soul would be the segue towards a deeper understanding of both identity and responsibility, apart from discovering a deeper and more responsible connect with nature. My personal experience of this ritual was immensely enriching.
In today’s context this bridge is virtually non-existent and thus there are really no rituals anymore! There are — a) absent fathers, b) immature and fragile fathers, c) no meaningful rituals, and d) scarce ‘elders’ that can design bridges and anchor rituals.
One quote that made sense to me was:
“The drug dealer, the ducking and diving political leader, the wife beater, the chronically “crabby” boss, the “hot shot” junior executive, the unfaithful husband, the company “yes man,” the indifferent graduate school adviser, the “holier than thou” minister, the gang member, the father who can never find the time to attend his daughter’s school programs, the coach who ridicules his star athletes, the therapist who unconsciously attacks his clients’ “shining” and seeks a kind of gray normalcy for them, the yuppie — all these men have something in common.
They are all boys pretending to be men. They got that way honestly, because nobody showed them what a mature man is like. Their kind of “manhood” is a pretense to manhood that goes largely undetected as such by most of us. We are continually mistaking this man’s controlling, threatening, and hostile behaviors for strength. In reality, he is showing an underlying extreme vulnerability and weakness, the vulnerability of the wounded boy.”
From: Moore, Robert; Gillette, Doug. King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (p. 13). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
The rituals that worked many moons ago have long been morphed or have disappeared. The bridge that would offer a sense of psychological safety and belonging may appear in some systems. For example, ragging in colleges is a distorted pseudo ritual that focuses on humiliation and yet promises to “make a man out of the young adolescent”.
When some of my friends joined National Defence Academy (NDA) they spoke of initiation rituals that would happen in the hostel — rituals of manhood that were more terrifying and physically demanding than the daily rigor of being in the academy. It is said that the city gangs and the underworld have their own rituals — where the young kid is initiated into a manhood — the rituals are around abuse, drug abuse, violence, and sometimes even a murder.
If I were to direct our attention back to the Netflix series — you may recognise the following patterns:
a) Jamie Miller — the 13 year old boy is an adolescent and is stuck in the triune of boy psychology / immature masculinity of wanting to be ‘Heroic’ and yet unable to work with his cowardice (when he is bullied by others) … the Hero / Coward archetypal energies may get transformed into the Warrior (a mature masculine archetype) only if Jamie were to give himself a sense of purpose, compassion to self etc. and cross the bridge.
b) The only authority figure Jamie seems to trust is his father (and not his mother), for the boy archetypes within are terrified of the feminine (including his mother and sister) except that his father — Stephen Miller is more of an absent father and at best a provider of comforts at home. Stephen is stuck in the working class rituals — hard gruelling work of a skilled plumber in the marketplace, the occasional weekend football game with two or three pals, and the stoic father who sees his son not good with sports. Stephen is a gig-worker at the bottom of the food chain and has little time or energy to offer any masculine wisdom.
c) The internet and the Manosphere gets to be a bridge of rituals, of identity, of purpose, and of clarity. The rituals are simple — Blue Pill — to remain oblivious to how the world of men is being upended by women, and how the ordinary average male has no hope of sexual intimacy with the 80–20 rule, and how women are choosing not to remain traditional (patriarchal) and be of service to men through care, unconditional love, devotion, and sexual libidos. The Red Pill (quite akin to Neo’s awakening in the Matrix) is all about discovering this shift and then doing something about it — the action choices include ‘manipulating the women at their weakest moments’, and abusing or being violent to the women. The Black Pill is surrendering to a world of solitude and loneliness — it is seen as shameful and humiliating and a road to suicide.
d) The bridge or portal invites the Incel (Involuntary Celibate) to seek membership and belonging to different tribes — these choices range from joining (1) the MRAs or Men Rights Activists who advocate political action to (2) the MGTOW or Men Going There Own Way and who avoid all women for they are toxic and abusive, to (3) the PUAs — the Pick Up Artists that use manipulation and tricks to seduce women. Jamie seems to be more evoked by the third tribe of PUAs.
e) The most interesting aspect of Manosphere is how anti masculinity lurks under misogyny and violence to women — The world of men is seen through as three types — the Alpha Males or the ‘Chads’ who epitomise a boy’s worshipping of a man — handsome, high social class (aggravated by Capitalism) and who is lusted by hot women (titled as the Stacys); the second tribe of men are the Normies — who are ordinary and yet get to have sex — largely because of patriarchy where men and women are married early, and each man gets a woman never mind that the latter does not get to make any choices. The bottom of the hierarchy are the Incels — Incels seek the Stacys but never get them for the Incels are ugly (pun intended).
f) Boy Psychology or Immature Masculinity is all about Consumption — consumption of unlimited and unconditional love, sex, caring, motivation, devotion, and loyalty — consumption of services that women need to give and nothing about any ‘Offering’ back. As per boy psychology or immature masculinity — the man needs to offer nothing …
g) Lastly, immature masculinity also means that only Men can be trusted. This pattern comes again and again in the series — Jamie is loath to talking to his mother or his sister or even his therapist. He is always seen defending his father and ensuring that the man does not get implicated. He is not willing to open up before women including his mother — especially his vulnerabilities and his ‘weaknesses’.
The EUM Lens: From Boy Psychology to Man Psychology
I believe that the EUM lens may offer interesting patterns for exploring and even working with immature masculinity or boy psychology.
The underpinnings of boy psychology seem to be construed on direct interplay or dynamics between Universe of Strength and Desire (USD), the Universe of Roles and Boundaries (URB) and the Universe of Belonging and Protection.
Firstly the Universe of Strength and Desire is likely to provoke mixed feelings — of lustful attraction to it including the associations of power and dominance, of terror and shame — if desire and power are disowned or are seen as illegitimate, and of tremendous envy and rage if other people seem to flow with it and I cannot.
My hypothesis is that if Jamie were to respond to EUM-I and EUM-O, the EUM-I profile is likely to see very low Self-Current scores, very high Self Ideal Scores, and High Other People Scores. At an intra-universe level, there seems to be a sense of really low trust with one’s own power and one’s own desires or being desired and this gap between current and idealised scores creates a sense of inadequacy and shame. When we look at high Other People score, it is not just a cross one bears — being bullied by others, being seen as less masculine (Incel as opposed to Alpha) — it leads to repressed rage and low self esteem.
The second universe that becomes critical is the Universe of Belonging and Protection — and my sensing is that Jamie’s profile would have very low Self Current scores, very low Self ideal scores, and moderate to high Other People scores. At an intra-universe level Jamie seems to believe that he does not deserve a sense of belonging and protection and that he is at best an outsider or an untouchable who would never find a sense of belonging.
Low UBP and low USD scores take away key foundations or moorings of one’s persona and renders one a ‘ghost’ — a pariah doomed to exile into virtual worlds such as Manosphere, and it becomes imperative to look at URB and explore how roles and boundaries are enlivened. It is here that Jamie has to confront and painfully so, that he is a product of working class in a hierarchical system and where his father is at best a gig worker or a craftsperson. Class politics and perhaps a low URB score makes Jamie a silent rebel and with no cause. He is unable to look at self-regulation, he is unable to have the role boundaries protect him, and he is caught in a black and white world which is cruel and judgmental. Chances are that he has low self-current scores as well as low self-ideal scores, and yet would see Other People as very high. This makes Jamie feel judged by others, being laughed upon for he has no tribe or friends, and very ambivalent to normative values.
Jamie’s first coping mechanism is that of Denial — perhaps that comes from dealing with a world that is experienced as judgmental, relentless, and insensitive. Chances are that Jamie has also moderate UPA as well as UMI scores — he appears to be intellectually very sharp, he is able to sense how others feel and respond, he appears to be a good listener, and only when he unleashes into fury and temper tantrums, UPA and UMI become insignificant. It is only in these temper tantrums, he is able to demonstrate his power — albeit over a woman, and the rest of his persona seems to be doomed.
The only hope for Jamie is — as he struggles with boy masculinity, is his realization and a decision in the final episode to accept that he had murdered another human being. This act of his is still in the privacy of men — speaks of this as a son to his father (he is unaware that his mother and sister are also listening to the conversation). It is perhaps the first act of being a man — where he takes accountability and responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Masculinity — UMI and The Art of Loving by Eric Fromm
One of the books that was gifted by a dear friend many decades ago was title — The Art of Loving. I was perhaps eighteen years old and had never read Fromm. But I do remember that the book offered me several invitations to look at the world of Intimacy.
The EUM universe of Meaningful and Intimacy is perhaps the final reference to an individual profile, for the UMI scores offer the finishing touches on how as a man one looks at intimacy and to be a loving, compassionate, and generous man.
Theme 2
Adolescence: Sense-making of SYSTEMS
What makes Adolescence a masterpiece is that the narrative is imbued in the world of systems — the foreground is the cast of characters including Jamie’s family, the police detectives etc. etc. but the background is that of four systems, and each episode offers a detailed glimpse of these systems:
a) System 1: The Police Station as a System
The first episode is focused on the arrest of Jamie and how charges are brought against him, including an intense interview, apart from routine procedural checks. The backdrop of this system to kickstart the narrative is an interesting choice.
The Police Station is what an idealised Clockwork is (EUM-O metaphor) — it is intricate, it has clear protocols and rules, it has clear boundaries, and yet strangely enough — it is showcased as a humane system with a fair amount of sensitivity, tolerance, humility, and touch offered by those in authority.
If I were to be asked what a good system is — I would point to how the series describes the police station as an institution. There are numerous points where values, rules, norms, standards, and procedures are not just hinted to, but patiently explained, and where the other side is listened to.
The system appears to be the most efficient of all four systems as compared to other systems — this is both ironic and a slap on your face — for the other two institutions of family and schools seem to be in tougher times.
It is ironic and makes one sit up given that the narrative of Adolescence uses diverse systems as the background — and yet the most humane and efficient system turns out to be the police station. It is ironic and even absurd to think of it as the viewer moves from one system to the other.
b) System 2: The School
The second system (largely responsible for secondary socialization in most societies) is that of the School.
Adolescence paints the school as scarily chaotic (Like an Arena in EUM terms) — there is scant respect of teachers, there appears to be no discipline, the authority figures are teachers — who seem to be only high on UMI and Ecology while martyring themselves to the precocious lot of boys and girls. The School is what the EUM-O would describe as — Low Clan, High Arena, Zero Clockwork, insignificant Network and islands of ecology (the teacher sub-system).
As a public school, the institution is depicted as struggling with chaos — partly because its students have been involved in a murder, but also struggling to work with adolescence sexuality, aggression, and libido. The school perhaps is a sad oasis for boys and girls walking their path into adulthood — an oasis that sees nurturing to some extent but largely apathy to most students.
The role of authority — teachers — are shown as tentative, lost, not resourceful, not committed etc. There is also a script of how teaching has been reduced to showing a film and then discussing it — the role of the teacher is becoming more of a benign facilitator if not a nanny, who steers clear of enforcing norms and values.
In India, technology and EdTech companies are perhaps doing the same — all this in favour of efficiency, impact and reach — however what there has not been a dialogue is on the contrast and perhaps conflict with the ancient ethos of ‘guru-shishya’. The Netflix series points to something that is happening in Indian schools without investing into a dialogue on the nature of shift when it comes to the role of the Teacher.
From Episode 1 to Episode 2 — the shift in the background is quite scary … as a viewer of the narrative, it leaves many a question of what has society become — with efficient police station clockworks with some empathy to chaotic learning systems.
c) System 3: The Youth Detention Centre
The third system shows and pushes one to notice the role of ‘surveillance’ as a mechanism to bring order.
I would definitely want to talk about the Panoptican (as referred to by Jeremy Bentham) as perhaps the greatest invention to bring discipline in modern society. Many scenes where the forensic psychologist — Dr. Briony Ariston prepares herself for the interview with Jamie is in the control room with cameras everywhere.
The Youth Detention Centre is technically a prison for the young — and the metaphor of a prison evokes many a feelings. Briony tries to make the interview dialogue oriented and humane — she changes her seating, her style, and yet the interview room remains an Arena — a continuous tussle with occasional fits of rage and violence, apart from misogynistic attacks on her.
The Youth Detention Centre is high Arena and high Clockwork — there appears to be really no space for any dialogue or exploration — it is a fight to the end… if there is an end.
Prisons were originally established with the objective of preparing oneself for redemption, learning, and re-entry into the society… today this notion is laughable as most prisons seem to socialize one and prepare one to go down the path of crime from petty crimes to more critical ones.
Is there really an opportunity for redemption for Jamie? Well the series keeps the question alive …
d) System 4: The Family
The final episode is all about the family and the community in which the family is embedded.
It is in this episode that you discover normalcy and humanity — Mrs Miller appears kind, gentle, helpless, and yet extremely sharp — as opposed to someone who was traumatized in episode 1 and clueless in the police station.
Stephen Miller, Jamie’s father, occupies a centrality in this system — he is seen struggling with guilt, shame, rage, as he seeks to take care of his daughter and wife. Stephen offers the traditional masculinity (now patriarchy) attributes — he remains stoic, till he breaks down, he is self-driven and independent — rarely seeking any kind of help, he is aggressive when he acts while defending his family, and he is energized by his role as a provider … he is the ordinary man caught in shitty times.
The family as an institution for an ordinary working class man has no resources when Stephen has to deal with Jamie — with Jamie’s reluctance to look at sports or other rituals. Stephen essentially ends up becoming a provider to the next generation — he buys a computer for Jamie (and setting Jamie off into Manosphere) and abdicates his role as the father.
The only resolve that Stephen has is not mimic the physical violence of his own father.
What does the family mean today is a question with no easy answers — do comforts and things take away our attention from how the family becomes the key to our foundational values…
Jamie’s mother and sister are also interesting characters in the narrative — they emerge out of the initial shock in episode 1 and stand out as mature women who struggle and yet heroically cope with what has happened. The series poignantly and saddeningly points out how Jamie’s mother copes with the loss of her boy … how Jamie continues to ignore her as if she and her daughter are not prime or significant in the Manosphere.
From a EUM-O perspective — the background of the four systems for the narrative is extremely poignant and enriching and we dialogue during the podcast on the role of systems that impact us as well as set the stage for our action choices.
The EUM PODCAST
The EUM podcast where we discuss Adolescence from an EUMian lens would be offered in the coming days or fortnight. Our intent is to bring alive a dialogue on masculinity — one is tempted to write or use the clickbait — Masculinity is in Crisis in India.
But sanity returns and Kartik and I would be building an interactive session where we seek your thoughts, your questions, and of your critique. As a part of preparing yourself, please do watch one episode of the series as well as do visit our website — www.eumlens.in if you can — if you are new to the EUM framework.
