Welmer

In most of the developed world, male and female lifespans are separated by a few years. The average difference for all countries appears to be around four years, but that is because men and women in severely deprived countries have roughly the same lifespan. As development increases, women outpace men until they live around six years longer. Men who live only five fewer years than women in the developed world are doing pretty well, and those who live only four fewer – or three in the case of Iceland – are living in exceptional countries.

However, where Iceland is an encouraging example of a country in which men live past 80 on average, the situation for men in Russia appears abysmal. With an average lifespan of 59, Russian men are outlived by Russian women by almost 13 years. In fact, men in Haiti, one of the poorest countries on earth, outlive Russian men.

Much has been written about the causes of excessive mortality among Russian men. Some shocking findings, such as the fact that Russian men at the age of 16 had a better chance of living to 60 in the late 19th century than they do today, have come to light.

Alcohol has been singled out as a major factor in the spiking death rate for Russian men, but this must be a symptom rather than a cause, because French men have been drinking more for much longer than Russian men. The French outdrink almost everyone in the world, yet their men still outlive even American men by a couple of years. The same goes for the Irish.

There’s obviously something far more toxic than mere ethanol that is causing Russian men to destroy themselves. If one looks at male suicide rates by country, one thing that stands out is that the top five countries are all former members of the Soviet Union. Russia is in second place behind Lithuania.

In addition to a very high rate of suicide, the Russian homicide rate is also very high – nearly four times the American rate – and the Russian accidental death rate is astronomical; at 130.8 per 100,000 (as of late 90s) it is the highest in the world.

When these factors are taken together, it becomes apparent that Russian men have very little regard for their lives. Because these trends tend to cluster around the northern Former Soviet Union states, it is obvious that the most important factor here is culture — both material and spiritual. What is it about this particular region that destroys men?

I would argue that it is due to their crippling loss. During the Communist era, men were defined according to their position as a worker, and denied any place in the world beyond the role of servant of the Communist system. As we all know, systems sometimes break down, and the USSR notably disintegrated almost twenty years ago. The concepts of family, God and property had all been largely destroyed in favor of the all-encompassing state, and it took only the blink of an eye for the state to collapse, leaving men with nothing to live for.

Take, for example, the biblical story of Job. Imagine Russian men collectively as Job, but without faith. When men lose everything material in this world, only faith and hope can sustain them. Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, both of whom lived through that particularly Russian phenomenon of total loss, gained a deep understanding of this truth.

Here in America, it is becoming more and more common for the state to dispossess men of their families and the means to support themselves. Prison has become a standard solution to the problem of lost men, and the stability of the state, which will sooner or later face insolvency, is not necessarily as secure as one might think.

So when loss on an epic scale sweeps over America, and it will someday, we can only hope that men still have faith, because without it many men will die.