A recent survey shows that 42% of young men (18-29) view themselves as failures. This is a pretty disturbing datapoint, and I’m reminded of Hans Fallada’s great novel of Weimar Germany—specifically, the male protagonist of the novel. ‘Sonny’ struggles with low wages, unemployment, and a pervasive sense of despair. He fears that his wife (‘Lammchen’), to whom he is devoted, will leave him because of his lack of success. His blue-collar father in law is contemptuous of lower-tier white collar men like Sonny.

At one point, when Sonny becomes unemployed for a protacted period and Lammchen is able to support the family by doing sewing for more-affluent families, she says to a friend:

What do you think, Mr Jachtmann? Do you think it’s going to be like this from now on with the men at home doing the housework while the women work? It’s impossible.

Sonny’s feelings about the politics of the time:

Ministers made speeches to him, enjoined him to tighten his belt, to make sacrifices, to feel German, to put his money in the savings-bank and to vote for the constitutional party. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn’t, according to the circumstances, but he didn’t believe what they said. Not in the least. His innermost conviction was: they all want something from me, but not for me.