Should we feel sorry for white men?
It’s a question that not so long ago would have been basically impossible to ask in American media—but it is the one that has been rattling around the internet for the past week. That’s because of a viral essay published in Compact magazine by Jacob Savage. In it, Savage describes anti-white discrimination in elite spaces, and calls the years between 2014 and 2024 a “lost generation” for white millennial men like himself, especially in the arts and media world.
Savage’s essay struck a chord. Vice President J.D. Vance was among its fans, describing it as an “incredible piece that describes the evil of DEI and its consequences.” As the strong reactions to the essay, both positive and negative, suggest, Savage hit on something central to our politics. That’s why we wanted to probe the themes of the essay further—and so we asked a group of Free Press contributors for their thoughts.
