China’s bizarre wave of elementary school knifings continued yesterday, with 28 children, two teachers, and a security guard all wounded by a deranged 47 year-old, and the next day five more were wounded by a 45 year-old with a hammer before he set fire to himself.

Sadly, these are surprisingly frequent events in China. And they’re just so odd – no connection to the victims, no clear motive, et cetera. So why are they lashing out?

What we’re witnessing, I think, is the first pangs of this severely male-heavy generation. by 2020, the male-female imbalance in China is expected to reach 24 million, thanks to the one-child policy and other social engineering measure of the Communist regime. This is one of the major destabilizing factors that Gordon Chang thinks will limit China in the twenty-first century. The Era of China, indeed.

But basically, we’re about to see a massive wave of angry, frustrated young men with little-to-no marriage prospects, traditionally one of the drivers of men beyond adolescence and into maturity. The best we can expect is an emotionally stunted class of mental dwarfs, but far more likely is a cohort coming to power and lashing out. Or the whole edifice crumbling around them.

Forgive the rambling; it just seems like a such a fundamental weakness in the character of a nation (and a more-than-likely explanation for the spate of knifings). It can only end poorly.