Sunday Essay: The Ambition Deficit in Modern Men
Why so many of today's men avoid responsibility, eschew leadership, and waste their God-given callings.
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by Virgil Walker
August 24, 2025
You’ve met him.
The beard is grown in. The bills don’t always get paid. He’s not developing skills that matter, so he leans on government programs or juggles multiple low-paying jobs just to get by. Some are still living at home well into their twenties. He insists he’s “not interested” in marriage, not because he’s an incel, but because he’s entangled in shallow relationships or enslaved to pornography. The spark is gone. His hands are idle, his eyes fixed on a screen, his life quietly drifting toward irrelevance.
He’s not hostile. He’s not dangerous. He’s just…absent.
Present in body, missing in mission.
While women can coast for a time on the currency of beauty, men are measured by demonstrated value — stewardship, strength, and the ability to protect, provide, and build. Yet too many are building nothing. Some hide in endless hobbies. Others vanish into sports stats, fantasy leagues, and video games. Many have dulled their discipline and traded ambition for distraction.
He’s not outnumbered. He’s out-disciplined, built for battle, but living like it’s peacetime.
The Cultural Sedation
Modern culture doesn’t just sedate men—it guts them, stripping away the fight God designed and replacing it with safe spaces, self-care slogans, and endless entertainment.
Masculinity is called toxic.
Drive is labeled selfish.
Leadership is branded oppression.
The result? A generation tranquilized by comfort, medicated by distraction, and robbed of the God-given will to lead. The boy who dreamed of climbing mountains is now a man who can’t get out of bed.
Feminism’s Fallout
Feminism didn’t just embolden women, it disarmed men.
It told women they didn’t need men, and men believed it. It told men they were oppressors by nature, and they apologized their way into passivity. Strength was redefined as aggression, leadership as control, and provision as patriarchal oppression. This cultural reprogramming didn’t just change roles, it rewired identity.
Now, men fear leadership will make them villains. They think initiative is domineering, protection is patronizing, and provision is irrelevant. They’ve been discipled to retreat, not advance. And in their retreat, homes weaken, churches lose warriors, and a generation of boys grows up never seeing manhood done right.
Passivity is not harmless — it’s slow spiritual suicide.
Addicted to the Age
The ambition deficit isn’t just laziness, it’s addiction. Many men are chained to the sins and distractions of the age:
Porn turns warriors into voyeurs.
Video games turn conquerors into spectators.
Outrage politics turns leaders into hecklers.
Comfort turns kings into cowards.
This isn’t wasting time, it’s abandoning the mission.
The Church’s Blind Spot
Too many pulpits have traded the war trumpet for a lullaby. Challenges are rare, and pastors who call men to courage are labeled harsh. Instead of summoning men to storm the gates of hell, we hand them coffee and tell them to join another small group. Instead of calling for sacrifice, we congratulate them for merely showing up.
The forge has been replaced by a lounge, and we wonder why the swords are dull.
This is not shepherding, it’s sedating.
The Common Thread
Men don’t usually lack accountability; they live under paychecks, deadlines, and scoreboards. But they do lack holy ambition, the burning drive to take the raw material of manhood and forge it into something that matters for God’s glory.
At the core, the same rot infects both culture and church:
Comfort over calling
Distraction over discipline
Passivity over leadership
Self-preservation over sacrifice
The Battle Line
On one side: the man who embraces God’s mission with courage, discipline, and sacrifice.
On the other: the man who drifts through life, numbed by comfort, enslaved to distraction, allergic to responsibility.
Only one will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Men, God didn’t save you to drift.
He saved you to advance His Kingdom with your life.
You don’t need permission — you need repentance, discipline, and courage.
— This essay originally appeared at Virgil Walker’s Substack, which you should follow.
>>"Now, men fear leadership will make them villains. They think initiative is domineering, protection is patronizing, and provision is irrelevant. They’ve been discipled to retreat, not advance. And in their retreat, homes weaken, churches lose warriors, and a generation of boys grows up never seeing manhood done right."
Leaving aside the beta-by-choice males (e.g., "Progressives") who genuflect in things like "I'm a feminist too" ...
Methinks a lot of the dynamic is (also) "learned helplessness."
For decades now men have been perpetual punching bags in "family court"; passed-over for hiring and promotions in favor of "DEI hires"; had their blue-collar jobs shipped to near-slave labor domiciles like China and, e.g., subject to summary career immolation at any mere allegation of "harassment."
Relatedly, workplaces for decades now have focused on "teams" - this actually serving to make them more female-friendly than male competitiveness friendly (at the behest of "feminists" to make workplaces feel "more inclusive").
ALL OF THIS IMPOSED, BACKED BY THE COMPULSORY FORCE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM.
Today's young men have grown up with this, knowing nothing else.
Intuitively, this system goes against mens' nature. But the "learned helplessness," especially in the younger generation(s), is arguably a rational reaction to to a system they feel they can't change, so instead they just "check out."
All that said, perhaps the tide is beginning to turn. Recent article (by women) bemoan the fact that men aren't interested in dating them (etc.). Perhaps the (increasingly shared) misery caused by feminism will provide the catalyst for a societal return toward a more natural order.