Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity - PACH

NYU news. The interviewer did a great job!

What Teenage Boys Teach Us About the Roots of Mental Illness, Loneliness, and Violence Steinhardt and Abu Dhabi Professor Niobe Way eviscerates the toxic nature of “boy” culture and offers listening with curiosity as a solution in her new book

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Our new project funded by Young Futures (fiscal sponsor is Cambiar Education) is developing an app to help build friendships among youth. We will be co-designing our AI driven apps (agapi.kids and agapi.teens) with youth from 10-19 years old. To begin the process, we are sending out a survey for people of all ages about friendships, listening, and curiosity. It is completely anonymous and confidential (we won’t be able to link your responses to your email address). The survey takes no more than 5-10 minutes.

Just click the link below to get started:

https://qualtricsxmrqql9hnpk.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3CKQZPY9L9Lc3Qi

Please share this on your social media and with your friends, colleagues, family members, and everyone! We would love to have a wide range of ages (3-100+) respond to our survey.

Thank you so much for your time and support! If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

agapi building human connection

I am responding to the lead article in the New York Times Magazine today on Loneliness. The answer to the question posed on the front of the magazine, according to almost four decades of research with boys and young men and the manifestos of mass shooters, is that we are a modern culture that does not see the waters in which we swim. We can't solve our loneliness crisis or our mental health crisis or our violence crisis because we live in a culture that doesn't see the damage that we do to ourselves and to others via our beliefs and values or our thin stories we tell about ourselves and others. Thus we don't take individual or collective responsibility for creating the change that is necessary to solve our own problems.

We are refusing to see that we live in a culture that only values one side of our humanity (the hard sides) and mocks the other (the soft sides). Living in such a society, according to almost four decades of research with boys and young men and the manifestos of mass shooters, leads many of us to be psychologically, socially, and emotionally screwed up and thus, for some, violence and not giving a damn about others. That is what boys and young men teach us through their words and actions. Such a "boy" culture as I call it as it privileges the "hard" over the soft" or everything we have deemed masculine over everything we have deemed feminine (i.e., thinking over feeling) and is fundamentally immature, immoral, and anti-social.

Boys and young men also teach us about how to solve our loneliness crisis and our mental health crisis and even our economic and educational crises (valuing "hard" and "soft" jobs equally and valuing kindness and human connection as much as we value educational achievement). Listen especially to those who are experiencing and/or causing the problems and we can solve their and our own problems. I provide concrete strategies based on listening to young people that have been empirically proven to effectively address our loneliness and mental health crises and to dismantle our "boy" culture so that our culture better aligns with our nature and our needs in my new book Rebels with a cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture.

Niobe-way.com

If you want to know why it's been difficult to solve the loneliness crisis (the lead article in the New York Times Magazine), read my book Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture. The boys and young men in my studies over the past three decades (almost 4) and the manifestoes of mass shooters tell us directly why we are not solving our loneliness crisis or our mental health crisis and only getting worse. To give you a hint as to what they teach us is that it's a cultural problem and not an individual one. They also teach us about how to solve our loneliness crisis and our mental health crisis. Check out the book! Listen to boys and young men and all other young people and we will be able to solve our own problems--- all of us regardless of our identities.

One of the best articles on Rebels with a Cause. The reporter for the Harvard Gazette totally got my book. So gratifying. The only mistake is that she said I am following in the likes of Harvard's Howard Gardner. I am following in the likes of Harvard's Carol Gilligan (who is now at NYU), make no mistake about that. She is the reason I do the work that I do and that I am able to tell a thick story about boys and about us as she has been telling thick stories her entire career. Carol was the first person in 1987 to show me how to see the world through the lens of power and to become interested in how and why the field of Human Development had and still has a "male" bias (only focused on the "hard" sides of our humanity).

The urgent message of ‘Rebels with a Cause’— Harvard Gazette Author Niobe Way is less interested in what boys and men can learn from the culture than what the culture can learn from boys and men.

A powerful essay written by a former student Tanvi Vartek about anxiety and how the problem is not just individuals but an entire culture.

Indian Civil Services: My Anxiety Journey After eight months of intense preparation and four months of passive study for the civil services exam, I was in a constant state of fight or flight. The battle was between staying in a competition…

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/nyregion/powerhouse-books-andy-bachman-event-cancelled-zionist.html

A Bookshop Cancels an Event Over a Rabbi’s Zionism, Prompting Outrage Shortly before a talk between a Jewish author and a liberal rabbi, a manager at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn barred the rabbi from participating, saying, “We don’t want a Zionist onstage.”

My new book, Rebels with a Cause, discussed in relation to the election. With a message to dems. Enjoy!

Many Gen Z Men Feel Left Behind. Some See Trump as an Answer. Men under 30 are much more likely to support Donald Trump than women their age. It’s a far bigger gender gap than in older generations.

Tim Walz is the embodiment of the cause for the rebels with a cause in my new book. He reveals that even powerful men have hard (military, football coach) and soft (social studies teacher, listener, openly caring, privileging people over money) sides to them and it's the combination that make us all love him. Kamala Harris does too as noted in salon.com by a journalist who cited my book to make his point. If they win, the rebels in my book will have won. Vote to make sure the rebels win which means humans who reveal our full humanity and act accordingly win.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tim-walz-hope-gus-dnc_n_66c6ba97e4b0f1ca4693cd4c?utm_source=cordial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hp-us-reg-morning-email_2024-08-22&utm_term=us-morning-email&email_hash=4d5a63287fe3bf23a8bd2449702b7ab396630368

Tim Walz Shares Touching Moment With Kids As He Speaks About Long Road To Parenthood "Hope, Gus and Gwen, you are my entire world," the vice presidential candidate said.

Here is the link to register for another book event at Barnes and Noble on the upper west side in NYC on September 25th. I will be in conversation with Blair Miller about my book Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves. and Our Culture. There are only 75 seats in their new space so please register for it to get a spot. Hope to see you there.

Niobe Way discusses Rebels With a Cause with Blair Miller Please join us here at B&N Upper West Side in welcoming Noibe Way to celebrate the release of REBELS WITH A CAUSE, in conversation with Blair Miller. This ticket grants you access to the discussion portion of this event. A purchase of REBELS WITH A CAUSE from B&N Upper West Side will be requ

My 12 year old nephew Idris. He and his twin brother Kamran will be co-designers for my new AI driven app agapi.kids (funded by Young Futures) that will foster connection among 10-14 year olds. They have already given me dozens of great suggestions of how the game should be played using my method of transformative interviewing

To the Linkedin Community: This review of my new book Rebels with a Cause captures the essence of what the cause of the Rebels in my book. The hundreds of boys and young men who participated in my federally funded, mixed method, and longitudinal research over almost four decades want us to stop listening to the so called "experts" on boys and young men and start listening to them. The mass shooters discussed in my book also want you to stop listening to the so called "experts" and listen to what they are telling us directly in their manifestos and social media postings.

We should stop relying on the non-empirical research accounts of WHY we have such soaring rates of depression, anxiety. loneliness, su***de, and mass violence and listen to what young people tell us directly as to why they AND we are suffering and what we can to prevent their AND our own suffering and stop the violence. No more citing "experts" unless they are empirically grounded researchers or long-time practitioners who have listened to a wide diversity of young people. It's the adults who have created the mess so let's stop listening only to them.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ TiredTiresias's Review of Niobe Way: Boys are Telling Us What's Wrong. Will We Finally Listen? from Remaking Manhood: The Healthy Masculinity Podcast This speaks to the heart of the problem and points to the solution of so many issues in our culture.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ TiredTiresias's Review of Niobe Way: Boys are Telling Us What's Wrong. Will We Finally Listen? from Remaking Manhood: The Healthy Masculinity Podcast on Friday, 16th Aug...

Nice integration by the writer of this piece of the thesis of my new book Rebels with a Cause into his analysis of the sexism directed at Kamala Harris. Also suggests she represents "the hard and the soft" and that's what makes her so disruptive as leader (in a good way).

The weird and sexist criticism of Kamala’s “cackle”: Decoding how Harris got the last laugh Donald Trump may be irreparably triggered by the joy of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

Fascinating article and he did a great job interviewing me for it. The British GQ magazine. Just submitted an op ed to the New York Times addressing the reasons for violence we see from boys and young men that is based on four decades of listening to actual real boys and young men, including mass shooters through their manifestos (I didn't interview them). I hope it gets accepted. It's also reveals the solutions that they offer as well!

I was drifting from my best friend. So we went to therapy together In his mid-30s, Sammi Gale feared losing his best friend Billy. So he suggested something radical: seeing a professional to save their relationship. Could ‘doing the work’ be the solution to the crisis of male loneliness?

My letter just published in the Wall Street Journal in response to the review of my book by Richard Reeves.

To the editor:

Richard Reeves' review of my new book Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and our Culture captures the spirit of my book, but not its content. The focus of my book is on what boys and young men teach us not only about why they are suffering but why all of us are suffering and what we can do to solve their and our own problems. Boys and young men reveal in my four decades of research the consequences of living in a culture that privileges the “hard” sides of ourselves over the “soft” sides and thus thinking over feeling, independence over interdependence, autonomy over connection, and stoicism over vulnerability. Yet humans, including boys and young men, think and feel, want independence and interdependence, autonomy and connection and have the capacity to be stoic and vulnerable. This “boy” culture of ours doesn’t reflect a real boy of course but a stereotype of a boy who only values his hard side. When we raise our children to believe that only their hard side is important and the other half is lame, "girly or gay," they will inevitably have problems. The solution, however, is not to flip the hierarchy and put the soft qualities on top and the hard on bottom but to value both sides of our humanity equally. Once we see that the problem is not “toxic masculinity” or the feminization of boys and men but a culture that doesn’t value our full humanity, we can create a culture that better aligns with our nature and in which everyone has a chance not only to thrive but simply to survive.

Niobe Way
Professor of Developmental Psychology
New York University
Past President of the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA)
Author, Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and our Culture.

Opinion | Recovering the Soft Side to Value Our Full Humanity What we can all learn from studying boys and young men.

I am only posting this because this German newspaper made a cartoon image of me that is to say the least favorable with respect to my looks. Ha ha! Thank you German Newspaper!

https://aussiedlerbote.de/en/boys-and-men-are-experiencing-a-crisis-of-connection-expert-says/

So here is the problem with our culture that wants to only think in binaries and refuses to hear a more nuanced message such as the one in my new book. Unlike what Richard Reeves claims in his review of my book Rebels with a Cause in the Wall Street Journal, I do not criticize toxic masculinity at all (I don't like the phrase as it suggest that its masculinity that is causing the problem but that's not what boys and men suggest in my data).

I criticize our culture (which I call "boy" culture given its immaturity --fun over responsibility -- and it's stereotype of a boy who only has a hard side which isn't a real boy as suggested by my four decades of research) that leads to us privileging thinking over feeling, the self over relationships, autonomy over connection, and stoicism over vulnerability. BUT we humans, including boys and young men, want and need both sides of our humanity (the hard and the soft).

The solution is not to flip the hierarchy and put the soft on top or the hard on top of the hierarchy of human values but to value both our stereotypically "masculine" sides and our stereotypically "feminine" sides that aren't actually a gender identity but simply human sides of our humanity. Reeves simply fans the flames between the right and the left and the point of my book is to try to imagine a culture that doesn't do that and that recognizes that we are all suffering to different degrees in this "boy" culture of ours.

AND we can easily create a culture that better aligns with our nature. I spend a good part of the last part of the book giving concrete strategies I have used in schools for over a decade the fosters connection and a sense of our common humanity. Read the book and you will see the problem with this review (I also criticize Reeves in the book for turning culture into biology which I am sure didn't make him read it favorably)

‘Rebels With a Cause’ and ‘BoyMom’: The Challenge of Raising Young Men The left excoriates ‘toxic masculinity.’ The right warns against the ‘feminization’ of society. Many boys wonder who they are.

Thank you Forbes magazine. I do want to add that my book reveals that the crisis of connection is not only felt by boys and young men but by all of us to different degrees regardless of our identities. "Boy" culture, in other words, is bad for everyone and not just boys and young men. Young men are often, however, the loudest in their suffering as they are the perpetrators of mass violence as a consequence of their crisis of connection.

Playing Dungeons & Dragons Is Great For Social Development Playing Dungeons & Dragons provides social connection, a creative outlet, and a sense of control that benefits their mental health, according to new research.

Two things to share with my community of humans who value both sides of our humanity (the "hard" and the "soft") or the Yin and Yang that makes us a whole:

1) There are a lot of glorious scholars, practitioners, and people cited in my book as I review what we know about the social and emotional nature of humans over the past century including what we know from listening to young people of all identities but with a focus on boys and young men and what's getting in their and our way and ALSO how do we solve our own problems in our homes, schools, and workplaces. The book is a collective piece of work in other words so many of you who are in the social sciences and who are practitioners in your communities will see friends and colleagues cited if not your own work.

2) If you have read the book or read the book and want to send me words I can put on the book website Niobe-way.com with your title (any title is fine with me including human), that would be great.

An article about how my new book Rebels with a Cause helps us understand the shooting at the Trump Rally. Thank you Shannon Carpenter the journalist who wrote the piece whom I am calling my book angel as he gets the message of the boys and young men in my book completely and has committed to spreading the word as loudly as possible.

Boys and men are experiencing a ‘crisis of connection,’ expert says | CNN In her new book, developmental psychologist Dr. Niobe Way seeks to understand boys and young men and the culture that leads to an AR-15.

For those who know my work, yes I wrote a letter to the editor already indicating that the nihilism and violence that we see among young men is not driven by politics but a crisis of connection caused by stereotypic "boy" culture that only values the hard side of ourselves (thinking, stoicism, autonomy) and not the soft sides that are essential for connecting to self and others (feeling, sensitivity, etc) AND that doesn't value friendships. When we raise our children in such a culture, there are violent consequences.

Opinion | The Trump Shooter and the Growing Nihilism of Young Men The rise of post-ideological terror.

"Boy" culture is bad for everyone and not simply boys and men. The hierarchy of humans and human qualities (the hard over the soft) which is the ideology that drives "boy" culture and leads to everyone trying to be harder than others to get on or stay on top or be elected president of the U.S. is killing us and killing others. Such a culture in which thinking is privileged over feeling, the me over we, stoicism over vulnerability, autonomy over connectedness, having fun over taking collective responsibility clashes with our nature which is grounded in both our hard and soft sides. Raise children to only value one side of their humanity and there will inevitably be problems. I speak about this in an interview on CNN posted tomorrow.

Thank you Andrew Keen for a great interview that underscores the relevance of my new book to what happened at the trump rally this weekend.

Episode 2029: Niobe Way on America's Crisis of Masculinity Does America have problem with its boys and men? Yes (https://lithub.com/richard-reeves-identifies-todays-crisis-of-masculinity-and-explains-how-to-fix-it/) ...

niobe-way.com
Rebels with a cause website

Swag created by Stuart Freeman at my book party last night. I will treasure it forever and also frame them # # #

Thank you Blair Miller for the conversation about my new book Rebels with a Cause at McNally Jackson at the seaport in NYC. It was sold out and standing room only. Thrilling for me as the book reflects almost four decades of my research with teenagers. It is my professional and personal manifesto.

Thank you Michelle Tangeman and Erin O'Conner for the great interview!

Ep. 133 - Dr. Niobe Way: Rebels with a Cause - Michelle Tangeman, LMFT, BCBA In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Niobe Way about her new book, Rebels with a Cause, which expands on her earlier work about boys and friendships. Niobe explores "boy culture," a term she uses to describe the privileging of...

Fantastic interview with Andrew Keen in which we spoke at length about the relevance of my book to our current political mess.

Niobe Way

A great podcast with Elise Loehnen about my new book Rebels with a Cause. Elise is the author of a fabulous book titled On Our Best Behavior that draws from the work of my mentor and friend Carol Gilligan. The interview was fantastic as she really knew the work I referenced and had truly read the book!

Niobe Way: The Critical Need for Deep Connection (Growing Up) — Elise Loehnen “You can't be independent if you're not deeply connected. So what happens to a child that's not deeply connected? What actually happens? Guess what happens? They don't feel the confidence to be able to take risks. They don't feel the confidence to go out and be self-sufficient. They don't feel the...