Yet in our society, parents are often the only models boys have. Caring relations between men have broken down at every level, not just within the family. Men rarely rely on one another. Nor do older men feel an obligation to help and encourage younger men as they come along. On the contrary, competition rules almost every relation between men.
Most men have no successful initiatory experiences.
The relationship of student to mentor can be highly charged, unstable, and often ends in betrayal. Yet those who are lucky enough to find a mentor have found far more than most men. It is interesting to examine the phenomenon of the counter-culture from the point of view of these ideas. Whether through long hair or search for alternative philosophies and states of consciousness, its male adherents acted out their rejection of the Fathers and everything they stood for. But driving that rejection was the grief of shattered illusions.