James Bloodworth has a somewhat similar take to mine on the appeal of Adventures With the Islamists. He wrote about it in the Independent a couple of weeks ago.
[F]or all the arguments which put Islamist violence down as a ‘terrible indictment’ of this or that aspect of Western policy, London Mayor Boris Johnson was probably closer to the mark when he described Jihadists as “porn-obsessed losers who can’t get girlfriends”.
Put another way, bitter and socially awkward virgins are often drawn to ideologies which seek to police women’s chastity and reap violent revenge on the society that has shunned them.
Ideological creeds like Isis, which seek to turn women into sex slaves and cling to a cartoonish masculinity festooned with heavy weaponry and ultra-violence, come ready-made for the Mohammed Emwazis of the world.
For obvious reasons. The set-up is perfect for people who are unpleasant, uninteresting, charisma-challenged, dull, and otherwise lacking in talent for attracting lovers. They don’t have to do anything. They don’t have to please, or make an effort, or be reasonable or fair, or take turns, or think about someone other than themselves. All that is taken care of. Everything is provided, by force, so he doesn’t have to do anything but fuck it.
To be sure, the body count is high, but then if you’re pissed off enough, that’s could be an extra perk as opposed to a drawback.
This is why the media’s obsession with Emwazi’s supposed ‘radicalisation’ is myopic. Based on no evidence at all it is inferred that if only we could locate Emwazi’s grievances (British foreign policy/the brutality of the security services etc) we might safely inoculate society against further outrages. ‘It is our fault,’ as the solipsistic argument has it; we just have to find out why the Jihadists are so angry with us.
That may be one advantage of having made so thoroughly familiar with angry internet harassers over the past few years – I know all this. Why are the harassers so angry? Who knows and who cares. They’re shitty people who spend all their spare time frotting their hatreds online. They’re not angry because of the Iraq war or income inequality or NSA surveillance or the decline of the NHS; they’re angry because they’re angry. It gives their lives meaning. It’s not at all hard for me to believe that Emwazi is like that multiplied by some very large number.
Human beings have long been attracted by the promise of utopia (heavenly or earthly); and in Britain at least racism has undoubtedly helped to push young Muslims into the arms of proselytizing Islamists with their ready-made and all-encompassing explanations of us-versus-them. But another way of understanding the anger of a person like Mohammed Emwazi – and Jihadist fanatics more generally – is to locate it within the penumbra of male – and particularly adolescent male – insecurity.
The obsession throughout Jihadist politics with the behaviour of women ought to be the giveaway. Islamism’s original theorist Sayyid Qutb concocted his politicisation of Islam partly based on disgust at political repression in his own country, but as he documented in Milestones, he was also repulsed at the freedom afforded to American women. Similarly, the British-born Islamists who plotted in 2004 to murder clubbers in the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London did not cite Palestine or imperialism as their casus belli, but instead gleefully talked about murdering “those slags dancing around”.
Misogyny, people. It’s a warning sign, and it’s the toxin itself. Men who froth with hatred of women are not volunteering at food banks or being clinic escorts.
>>reaches for the popcorn<<
“The obsession throughout Jihadist politics with the behaviour of women ought to be the giveaway.”
Duh! Exactly. ‘S obvious, no? ?? Etc. etc. etc.
Well, it’s bleeding obvious when you’re at the wrong end of that gun. Even when it’s a (usually) smallish one carried by gross internet trolls.
It’s sort of funny, in a gallows humor-y way, watching so many men staggering about in a stupor saying, “Why oh why oh dearie me what’s happening here?”
Ask the ones who’ve been in the war for centuries.
Interesting, isn’t it, that of all the ultra-authoritarian regimes I can think of, the only ones that weren’t openly misogynistic were the communist ones. There was still plenty of sexism in communist countries, it just wasn’t part of the manifesto.
A completely serious question: what does society have to offer to, quote:
Add in that most of the people we’re talking about (i.e. residents of civilised countries or the US who become radicalised and leave to join Daesh or similar) have the bonuses of usually being an increasingly despised ethnic and religious minority, and (relatively) poor to boot. What is life like for someone like that?
Which is to say – it’s all very well saying “it’s all about teh MISOGYNY”, but even if you could eliminate that and make them view women as equals, those people – overwhelmingly those MEN, let’s be honest – are still going to be the same unpleasant, uninteresting, charisma-challenged, dull and unattractive poor racial underclass they were before. Will their mood (and hence actions) improve substantially if they can be persuaded women are their equals?
Or is the problem the toxic model of masculinity they’re sold, of which the misogyny is only a relatively small part?
I thought this was a great interview:
Terry Crews, the Feminist: “Millions Have Died Because of Male Pride” – See more at: http://www.damemagazine.com/2015/03/06/terry-crews-feminist-millions-have-died-because-male-pride#sthash.nPxpObWI.5fLDvs6A.dpuf
He talks about toxic masculinity and how it affects women and men.
For some people it is easier to blame other people than deal with one’s self-doubts and insecurities
It’s probably not a cure-all, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. A lot of guys have trouble talking to women exactly because they view women as these strange, unfamiliar beings, with which they have nothing in common.
If we break down that separation, I think many guys who were previously awkward, boring, or entitled would suddenly start being much more pleasant and interesting to be around.
Of course, this is not something that can be achieved overnight, nor is it a matter of a purely intellectual change of mind. It requires prolonged work to weed out behavioral habits and change core attitudes about the world.
I think the main limiting factor would be whether the guys in question can be persuaded to put in that work.
#4 Sonofrojblake hits the mark that the OP totally misses.
“Why are the harassers so angry? Who knows and who cares.”
First, they are conscious creatures who are suffering. They deal with their suffering in ways that are unhealthy, but they didn’t wake up one day and choose to be horrible people instead of good people. There are no “bad” and “good” people. There are just people who act the ways they do because of their brains and circumstances. Trying to understand why they act the way they do will not only help us fix them, it should also make it possible for you to empathize with why they act in those ways.
But also, understanding behavior is the first step to fixing it. If society is producing an increasing population of men who are willing to kill everyone around them, we better all care. Sex and companionship are natural desires for almost all humans, programmed into us by eons of evolution. People who are systematically denied those things will be increasingly unstable, because they are hopeless. Hopeless people become desperate, and will do all kinds of things that we want them not to do. And there’s no good way to reason with them. You can’t tell a starving man that he should just accept that not everyone gets food and be a good person anyway. He won’t care. Tell him his kids will have to starve and he’ll be even less friendly. You’re telling him he shouldn’t even expect the chance to have kids.
Put another way, bitter and socially awkward virgins are often drawn to ideologies which seek to police women’s chastity and reap violent revenge on the society that has shunned them.
I’m pretty sure ALL people go through at least a brief phase of being “bitter and socially awkward virgins.” I know I sure as hell did. The difference is that some societies give their young people more and better means of dealing sensibly with their feelings and grow past them; and the ones that don’t, are the ones most likely to produce people like ISIL, the Taliban or the KKK. So even if we acknowledge that misogyny plays a huge role in forming and driving such barbaric movements, we’re still stuck with the task of figuring out what to do about the social forces and circumstances that make misogyny worse, or at least allow it to fester.
so what are you saying, governmentman @ 7 – that women are a vital resource like food, and that men who don’t own any should be given some? That women should not be allowed to say no to prospective sexual partners? That women should not be allowed to say no because women are the same kind of thing as food, and their saying no = death to someone?
No, Ophelia. I’m not saying any of those things. You can tell because I didn’t say any of those things. I said that there are certain facts about biology / neurology / psychology that we should recognize when we are explaining why people act in the ways that they do, and that some of those facts will give us insights into the mental states of those people.
You’re just so used to people making outrageous arguments that you have a hard time even recognizing the descriptive claims without responding to completely anticipated normative claims. But nothing about the fact that many people use those descriptive claims to make outrageous normative claims creates a necessary, or even reasonable, connection between them. Recognizing that young men without access to mates will suffer as a result doesn’t mean that denying rights to women is an obvious solution. There may even simply be no solution. That doesn’t mean that the right move is to deny the descriptive facts in anticipation of people making bad arguments for slavery.
You are an arrogant putz, governmentman.
You’re right moarscience. I’m sorry for the snarky tone Opheila. I felt like you were accusing me of advocating for the complete oppression of women rather than just asking me in neutral curiosity whether I would support that.
The latter statement does not demonstrate the former. People act the ways they do because of their brains and circumstances, yes (to put it very simply). Some of the ways they act are bad and some are good. When someone repeatedly and/or incredibly acts in good ways, we call them “good.” When someone repeatedly and/or incredibly acts in bad ways, we call them “bad.”
In other words, morality exists. Not in spite of our brains and circumstances, but because of them. Denying that, strictly speaking, doesn’t make you sound like an “arrogant putz,” as moarscienceplz puts it, but denying that in order to lecture Ophelia on not properly empathizing with misogynistic harassers does.
Also I would point out, governmentman, that your final paragraph @ 7 has plenty of normative claims along with the descriptive ones.
I do want to ultimately deny free will and any moral responsibility of individuals, Gretchen. People do bad things, and we should protect ourselves from those people by whatever means themselves produce the least harm for everyone. But those aren’t “evil” people. If I had their brains and were in their circumstances I would do exactly what they did. And so would you. They can’t choose to have different brains or circumstances than they do, and they never could. If you want to posit some kind of radical free-will where people change the physics of their brains somehow to make non-deterministic choices, then this analysis certainly falls apart.
Ophelia, can you be more specific? By normative claim I mean one about what someone “should” do, rather than simply what the fact of the matter is. In paragraph @9 I said that we “should” take into account the facts of a situation before deciding a response. I don’t see any other “should” claims that I made.
governmentman says
March 19, 2015 at 11:18 am
Ah, you were being a sea-lion for science, evolution, and genetic drift and not making any other point. Sea-lions gotta sea-lion…..
Sex and companionship are natural desires for almost all humans, programmed into us by eons of evolution. People who are systematically denied those things will be increasingly unstable, because they are hopeless. Hopeless people become desperate, and will do all kinds of things that we want them not to do.
Yes, those are natural desires, and it’s natural to feel bad when they’re not fulfilled; but people still have an obligation to understand — and society has an obligation to teach — that they can still function and be responsible adults whether or not we get what we naturally desire. The whole point of being sentient animals, and having civil societies, is to help (and sometimes force) each other to keep our heads on and keep on acting like responsible adults whether or not this or that emotional need is being satisfied. Saying to each other the things governmentman said, quoted above, doesn’t really help; it only encourages people to think they have an excuse to disregard the rules of civilized conduct.
The issue is not that people want companionship and sex and can’t get it. The problem is when people think it is their due or that their “manly identity” is threatened when they can’t get sex.
I can sum up what’s wrong with this post in three words: check your privilege.
If you are – as one assumes the author is – pleasant, interesting, charismatic, um… interesting, and otherwise talented at attracting lovers, then it’s easy to ridicule and dehumanise those who are not. And that’ll help, of course, to make them see how much better you are than them, and how they should really be more like you, and how their problems are of their own making, and so on. Keep on punching down at those people, it’s for their own good.
Why are the Islamists so angry? Who knows and who cares. They’re shitty people. All of them, without exception, even and especially the unwitting dupes who could know no better. (Note I’m NOT defending those who should know better – e.g. jihadis of both genders from the UK and other civilised nations).
I’m usually in broad agreement what what gets posted here. Where I disagree, I can usually at least understand the other side. But this post leaves a nasty taste.
@ 19 sonofrojblake
Oh, for fuck’s sake you insensitive fool, do you have any idea the shit Ophelia has to put up with? Here’s a fucking clue:
Now tell us again how Ophelia is “punching down”, beanhead.
governmentman said:
Yes, I know. The problem is, you’re wrong. And wrong in a way that is dramatically unhelpful in a context like this. It’s mistaken to begin with to deny free will and moral responsibility, but so much worse to march into someone’s thread discussing people doing reprehensible things and order them not to blame those people for it because it wasn’t their fault. Because you don’t believe there is such a thing as “fault.”
If I had their brain and circumstances I wouldn’t be me, you nit. I’d be them.
I never claimed evil people exist. I claimed that bad people exist, and explained what “bad” means. I can see how this distinction would fail to sink in for someone who has done a little bit of reading about the brain and reached the dramatic and high falutin’ conclusion that there is no such thing as free will for the first time in all of humanity’s search for truth (not).
Please shut up and go read Freedom Evolves or something like it. Or don’t, but either way– nobody cares that you don’t believe in free will. Every discussion of wrongdoing is not an opportunity for you to spread the non-free-will gospel. Quite to the contrary, doing so makes you sound incredibly non-empathetic. Okay?
@17 Raging Bee
I agree that we all have obligations towards each other and to society. You don’t think that understanding the motivations of people who do socially destructive things helps the project of trying to educate and help each other to act in the appropriate ways?
More specifically to the point, isn’t it important with respect to how we address people most likely to join ISIS whether they are joining it because of political grievances, sincere religious fervor, or personal inadequacies? Won’t the effectiveness of our responses and policies change depending on whether we have an accurate understanding of the underlying problem?
Gretchen, we’ve identified a salient premise to this argument that we disagree about. You don’t need to tell me ad nauseam how wrong I am. I think you’re wrong too. Is this where I add a bunch of rhetoric and tell you to read a book?
sonofrojblake @ 19 – no, you’re wrong. It’s as Silentbob points out – I’m notoriously repellent and nausea-inducing. I don’t have not-repellent privilege.
You had it right @ 4. You should have stuck with that thought. Yes, of course the problem is the toxic model of masculinity they’re sold. It’s the combination of that with the failure to be in the top class of charismaticness (and with other things, like lack of empathy, incomplete prefrontal cortex, etc) that makes the monsters.
You don’t think that understanding the motivations of people who do socially destructive things helps the project of trying to educate and help each other to act in the appropriate ways?
What I think is that your simplistic focus on social awkwardness and frustrated sexual desire is not at all helpful in reaching that understanding. It’s a lot more complex than that, which is why some societies produce a lot more violent misogynist extremists than others, despite sexual frustration, social awkwardness and misogyny being common to all human societies.
Zorba the Greek) (1964) –
Look.
Boss, a big, beautiful, wild widow.
Pavlo!
Look at Mavrandoni.
He is burning.
Why?
His son is crazy in love
with the widow.
But she spits him in the eye.
The more she spits…
…the more he wants her.
Look.
Look at the faces of all these.
They all want her.
And they hate her
because they cannot have her.
From: http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=alexis-zorbas-zorba-the-greek