It’s under the hashtag #YesAllWomen, and it’s largely women doing the talking. Laci Green is also explaining the importance of this issue.
When she was describing all the ways our culture shapes how men are supposed to regard women, I suddenly recalled all those times playing video games when women would join the group, and the orders would ring out: “make me a sandwich.” A joke. But think about what that joke says about our expectations of women’s roles. There’s a long stretch from “make me a sandwich” to gunning down random strangers because women wouldn’t have sex with you, but they’re both on the same continuum.
By the way, this should settle all those claims that he was mentally ill and Aspergers: a comment from a friend of the Elliot family.
Astaire said Elliot had not been diagnosed with Asperger’s but the family suspected he was on the spectrum, and had been in therapy for years. He said he knew of no other mental illnesses, but Elliot truly had no friends, as he said in his videos and writings.
For making this video, I think I owe Laci Green a sandwich.
I’ve tweeted a couple of things under that hashtag that I thought added to the conversation, but for the most part I’ve just been following it. Lots of pent up anger being voiced there, and it’s only trending faster. It’s even made it to Fox “news”, if you can believe that.
Mondo Sammich with horseradish!
If she digs horseradish.
ebotebo, next time try reading the post for comprehension.
I just found out that the person who started the hashtag has had to make her account private and has asked that she not be connected with it by name at all, because she has gotten such a high level of threats and harassment since starting it. That’s what happens to women who speak out.
Carlie – yes. Particularly women of color, which she is.
A new hashtag started: #YesAllWhiteWomen to discuss the ways racism can change how women experience misogyny. For example, women of color are 35% more likely than white women to experience domestic violence.
Carlie @ 6:
Watson’s Law: Anytime you speak up about harassment, harassment gets worse.
Johnny Pez @8
Also Lewis’ law, comments on any article about Feminism justify Feminism.
More than 15 years ago a journalist named Paulina Boorsook wrote an article about the dot.com boom techies in the late 90s commenting on their behavior and expectations. She’s the one who introduced me to the phrase “a voracious sense of entitlement.” I first saw this in San Francisco in the 90s. I see this “voracious sense of entitlement” has continued and when mixed with misogyny results in death. Not to ignore misogyny it’s just that I can not figure out where the hell the entitlement comes from. What are the inputs? Who teaches them that they are entitled to whatever they want? I don’t get it.
BTW, gratuitous Terry Pratchett quote: “Sin is treating other people like things.” Where’s Granny Weatherwax when you need her.
Carlie @6:
It’s truly disturbing how much of these discussions consist of men telling women: “Not all men are violent towards women! You should be raped and killed for saying such a thing!”
she just exudes awesomeness. She has from the very first vid I ever saw her make… which was linked from here, btw.
I’ve been posting this link all over facebook since i watched it.
thanks for the heads up, PZ.
“He was the monster that we, as a society, created.”
Wow, that about sums up the issue in one succinct, powerful statement.
Well done, Laci!
@omnicrom #9
Sad but true. Why else can’t we talk about crimes such as this recent one without some vile misogynist insisting it’s feminists who are responsible, and that feminism itself is the real “threat” to America.
If an Amanda Marcotte article or Laci Green video is more threatening to you than someone coming after you with a firearm then your view of the world is beyond warped.
…and I just realized that my previous comment (#11) may be triggering to some people. Sorry if I upset anyone. :(
So his friend is now a qualified medical professional?
Guy seemed like a narcissist from his videos, but his friend put this rest. Oh good. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to blame society’s hatred and oppression of women.
Crimson Clupeidae wrote:
And it’s a statement I’d love to see repeated over, and over, and over again until people get it through their thick skulls. Other peoples’ problems don’t stay other peoples’ problems for very long. Create a situation where someone can pour their resentment into misogyny (or racism, or homophobia, or…), and this is the result.
Jeff wrote:
So, now you’re a qualified medical professional? Is there a reason why you’re so invested in declaring him crazy?
Speaking for myself, when I was a teenager, my high school tormentors (i.e. 95% of the student body) made it clear to me that I would NEVER have sex. I remember the cruelest of these bastards telling me that “you couldn’t get a $2 whore to fuck you if you paid her $2 million.” Given that the girls were just as likely to pick on me as the boys, I believed him. Rather than blaming women, I internalized my anger and directed it back at me I’m the reason they don’t want to be with. I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m a freak. I have no one to blame but myself. And while I never thought it I was entitled to sex, in a society that dubs an inability to find a partner a weakness, my perpetual “single” status just made me feel worse and worse.
Patriarchy and the cult of masculinity hurts in so many ways. Some it drives to hate, others it drives to depression.
Ck, what do you mean? Why am I “so invested?”
He comes off in his videos and writing as a narcissist to me, so I said as much. Is that really accurate to portray as being invested in declaring him “crazy” ?? Do you want I suggest something?
“Do I want to suggest something” above should read “do you want to suggest something”
Fat thumbs and touchscreens.
Um, PZ, I think ebotebo was referring to tuibguy. He was saying Laci deserved a sammich, not that she should make one. Hence the “if she digs horseradish” comment.
As to the matter at hand: Laci Green is the bomb diggity. Too many folks out there trying to write off the issues of misogyny in our culture, and she puts out a brilliant voice against all that shit.
I agree with gmacs. I think ebotebo was being congratulatory. Offers of virtual sandwiches are apparently a thing.
saccharissa
And from another angle:
How many of the men now saying “Isla Vista isn’t about misogyny” also said moderate Muslims need to condemn all Islamic terrorism? [Note: That is the whole post. Link is for attribution.]
I thought you comment at 11 went nicely with this.
Jeff @ 16
Were you really worried? This is a problem with your post: the final sentence comes off as sarcasm since the first portion is an incredulous protest against relying upon a family friend who only gave information about what the family suspected and that he was in therapy but never diagnosed. So yeah, just what is it you were trying to say: actual relief or sarcastic relief?
Right, and whose fault is that?
He could easily have had friends if only he had made the effort to learn how to interact with people without coming off as creepy.
He could easily have had a relationship, if he’d put in the effort.
He didn’t, and he blamed everyone else for his own failings.
The result?
A young man who felt entitled to others’ time and resources, and when he didn’t get what he “deserved”, he decided to kill for it.
I blame the parents for not doing more to prevent this.
I blame the police for not doing a thorough check on this guy, including his YT channel.
I blame the government and the NRA for promoting gun culture, and ignoring safety issues.
I blame the shooter for being an entitled jackass.
FTFY.
Fuck off, Lars. I was accurate in my assessment, and there was nothing to fix.
FWIW Narcissism isn’t just “Narcissistic personality disorder” Someone doesn’t need a degree to look at someone so self absorbed, who has no sense of care or value for others, and say “Gee they seem narcissistic”. It’s a personality trait that this guy had in droves.
I don’t get it. The family thought he had an ASD, and yet, despite the fact that he’d been getting professional help for years, they didn’t seek a diagnosis? Or maybe they did, but didn’t get the answer they wanted?
(Also, it would be nice if the media would say “just FYI, aspies aren’t known for killing sprees”)
No. And fuck you too, asshole.
Oh, it’s easy for me, therefore it’s easy for everyone else, too. Because I say so.
You’re not only an asshole, you’re a fucking idiot too.
Lars… do we need to send someone to your house for an intervention?
is this a cry for help?
I’ll fix it for both of you:
What Lars should have said is ‘many people, either because they’re not neurotypical (who is?) or because of personal life events and circumstances CAN’T ‘easily’ make friends and form relationships, no matter how hard they work at it’ Reasons include traumatic abuse, social isolation for one reason or another… Basically a person who can’t form normal relationships during childhood is not off to a good start in adult life. It’s very much a learned thing.
May drop back later to see if either of you feel like calling me any names and which ones you pick. Wouldn’t want to miss that, would I?
…something you invented whole cloth and was not at all apparent from anything Lars said.
presume much?
I’m too tired to make a good insult out of “presumptuous” though.
“By the way, this should settle all those claims that he was mentally ill and Aspergers” – So, a quoted claim in a news article by a “friend of the family” settles whether he suffered from a mental illness?
It’s not disputed the guy was a violent mysoginist. But I think in this particular case, mysoginist culture or “male entitlement” had only partially to do with it. See also https://medium.com/@lucyinglis/eaee5b1fe1f3.
^^ if your point was that the sources cited in that link are no better a source for a mental health diagnosis than the “friend of the family” you have a point.
otherwise… not so much.
It’s not “easy” to have a relationship, for a lot of people. It’s not “easy” to make friends. Yes, one can learn how people interact with each other and what kinds of scripts to use in order to initiate conversation, but that doesn’t make it “easy” to put into practice without “coming off as creepy”. And you’re wrong to say it is, WMDKitty. If you don’t believe that there are people who have that difficulty in personality, just think about geography – there are people who are physically not located near people who would be the most likely friend/relationship prospects, and they don’t have the means to move to where they would. Not everyone lives in a place surrounded by a diversity of people where they can find a good match.
QFT. I was rather astonished at what I read (and then re-read, to try and make sure I hadn’t mis-read) as an implication that either is necessarily “easy”. I suggest it depends on the parties involved and the circumstances, and most likely other factors as well (such as mode / medium of interacting). Making, sustaining, whatevering, a friendship is different — different levels of difficultly and advisable effort — for each individual, and for each individual ((potential-)friend) the individual interacts with.
Ichthyic, #35:
I drew the same conclusion as Pen, and it did seem obvious: Lars crossed off the word “easily,” and said, “fixed it for you.” That unambiguously means, “I agree with what you said, EXCEPT the part about it being ‘easy.'” IOW, “you’re right, except that it can be hard rather than easy.”
Lars is right, it can be hard. Calling it easy is insensitive to those for whom it is very fucking hard, including introverts, neuro-atypicals, and victims of abuse.
“By the way, this should settle all those claims that he was mentally ill… ”
Seriously?? You are so invested in the feminism narrative that you are claiming that someone who goes on a random murder rampage is NOT “mentally ill”? Seriously????
Man, you have jumped the shark.
How does the presence or absence of mental illness affect the “feminism narrative” and what exactly do you mean by those words?
The truth is that we don’t need the presence or absence of mental illness to show how women in this fucked up culture are expected to be sexually available for men who take interest in them, or expect them to be their pleasure models while they gratify themselves at their expense. That’s not a “feminism narrative”, that’s a basic fucking human rights narrative.
So, gingerbaker, could you give us your qualified psychological analysis of the following people, please?
Hitler
Either George Bush
The pilots who dropped the bombs over Dresden
Those who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki
My friend s ex who punched holes into the wall
All members of Boko Haram
Laci Green says: “There have been 71 mass murders in the US since 1982 and 70 were carried out by men… it’s telling us something about our culture.”
Coincidence and culture aren’t the only possible explanations for the gender imbalance in mass shooters. Across all cultures, males are more violent than females because of biology. Stephen Pinker explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wprj_FcWhig
Oh Jesus Hopscotching Keerist. This? Really?
Stephen Pinker makes some bad assumptions from the get-go:
Ugh. How can you say boys start out more violent when they are steeped in the culture that tells them to be more violent since birth?
There are many refutations of Stephen Pinker’s work.
I’m not so sure that “mentally ill” is a truly accurate way to describe Rodgers. As an FBI behavioral profiler once said about serial killers, they’re not suffering from a diagnosable “mental illness”, but they’re certainly not healthy either.
When thinking about Rodgers, I’m reminded more of what the Boston marathon bombers’ uncle said about them: that they were “losers” who were envious of those who had succeeded where they had failed, and so turned to Islam as a way to frame their anger and give them an excuse to take violent revenge. I of course don’t actually know, but it seemed rather accurate. One would not call those two “mentally ill.”
Rodgers seemed like that: he had “lost” at the effort to make friends or connect with anyone. He became more and more angry at those who had succeeded. But why did he turn to misogyny to frame his anger, find someone to blame, and give him an excuse or a framework in which to be violent? Why his conviction that women were subhuman and evil, when he couldn’t connect with any person, male or female?
I think it’s because misogyny and violence towards women were there. They’re in our culture, women socially acceptable (if you want to call it that) target of rage. Like fanatic Islam, with excessive blaming of Western culture and justification of violence. That many men on the internet–seemingly Rodger’s only social interaction–were framing their rage at the “evil” of women, that this is a thing, gave that stance more validity. If many otherwise succesful men are suffering from the evil of women, it’s not that he, Elliot Rodgers, is a failure. He’s also suffering from this same widely-known cause.
That’s the way, I think, that misogynistic culture influenced him. That he picked that target and took it to that extreme, is not really an indicator of mental illness, any more than the Boston bombers’ choice of fanatic Islam is.
jonathanray, is the outlier effect on social development, or real biology you can point to actual genes with?
Sorry, that’s “women are” a socially acceptable target of rage.
Having young kids I move in spaces with lots of other kids a lot. Something I see time after time again is that, yes indeed, the most agressive and out of control kids are usually the boys. There’s something else I see time after time again: The guardians of those boys are completely passive. They watch their boys take over the space that was meant for all kids and monoploize it. They’re giving their official approval to that kind of behaviour. The behaviour of girls, their level of noise, is checked long before that (and for good reasosns, mind you)
After over 50 years of fighting the misogyny I am tired. Tired of being treated as an object for the delectation of men. Tired of being judged on my appearance and perceived sexual attractiveness above the fact that I am a highly qualified and experienced computer programer. Tired of being put down and talked over by men. Tired of the snickering and sneering and the online abuse. I am tired too of the whole generation of silly women (or should that be “grrrrrls”?) who claimed that because they were free to go to bed with whomever they pleased that they were equal and that there was no need for we old-fashioned shrill feminists. As a result they threw away of the gains that we ugly old hags had won for them back in the 1960s and 1970s. I can’t find the energy to fight any more.
gingerbaker:
You’re qualified to comment on anyone’s mental health…how?
That you cannot understand the motivations of someone who would go on a killing spree does not therefore mean they’re mentally ill. It’s lazy to say “Elliot Rodger killed a lot of people, therefore he must be mentally ill”. It certainly causes some people to stop digging deeper into his motivations and trying to understand why he went on his rampage.
Even if there is a biological component to this – very difficult to show because (as ought to be blindingly obvious even to Pinker), we can’t actually raise children without acculturating them – there are orders of magnitude difference in how violent men (and women) are in different cultures.
Speaking as someone with at least one foot in each of those categories, I’ve certainly found it challenging, but less demanding than it seems like:
-stockpiling weapons
-planning a murder spree for more than a year
-writing a 140 page masturfesto, and
-maintaining the level of doublethink required to blame everything on “women” in a general sense
would be.
So, “easily” can certainly be read as glibly dismissive (and holy fuck on entire batches of toast are the neurotypically-privileged prone to such glib dismissiveness in general) but it has merit in context.
Although, yeah…
Icthyic, for fuck’s fucking sake, you’re smarter than that. This. Was. Not. Even. Slightly. Ambiguous.
Misogyny is a form of mental illness. Or, more generally, treating people as ‘mere things’ is a form of mental illness.
Mental illness does not mean “bad ideas,” it’s an actual medical condition.
sadunlap @ # 10: … “a voracious sense of entitlement.”
Various others: … narcissism …
All this despite Rodger’s chronic social failures, which in most people would create strong feelings of inferiority.
Though I haven’t dug into this story much – the ratio of chatter to fact is very high (and yes, I know I’m contributing to the former here) – I can’t help but wonder if a generation-long California-based school policy of “enhancing self-esteem” uber alles may have played a part in this disaster.
profpedant:
::Sigh::
Where is your proof of this?
Citation fucking needed. Seriously, I’ve never heard this “self-esteem” thing outside of petty old-person rants about “kids today.”
That actually makes sense; if they felt there was something “wrong” with him and his isolation and bitterness and wanted an explanation for it…
Azkyroth @59: Here you go.
From the autobiographical part of the manifesto, I have seen no mention even of the enhancing self-esteem thing. Things only started to go really bad for him when he was in late middle school and early high school in terms of bullying. He himself stated that he became severely depressed, and when he was 16 or 17 he flat out told a group of people that included one of his parents that he wanted to kill himself because he was so miserable. This is not an uncommon feeling for teenagers, and I feel that anyone who feels like that should be helped asap.
I am a qualified medical professional and will say this about Rodgers: I haven’t the fucking foggiest what was wrong with him psychologically, if anything. I’d like to think that psychologically healthy people don’t shoot strangers because they can’t get any sex, but the evidence in favor of this hypothesis is not strong. None of us is going to be able to sort out whether or not he had a psychiatric condition at this point. It’s also irrelevant: psychiatric illness doesn’t make people go on shooting sprees and lack of a diagnosis doesn’t mean someone is “safe”. This sort of thing can’t be prevented by psychiatry. It can be prevented by fewer, more tightly controlled guns and less misogyny. Until we as a society start working on those issues, we won’t see any decrease in gun violence.
Azkyroth … @ # 59: Citation seriously fucking needed.
As I understand the story, “enhancing self esteem” was the preferred panacea of the personal therapist of the Speaker of the California House of Representatives, and said Speaker (one John Vasconcellos) pushed through a series of well-funded programs to promote same in schools and state-provided counseling services. Thus the trend of giving a prize to every contestant, the mantra (also eagerly co-opted by advertisers) that “you deserve good things, etc.
Certainly many “juvenile delinquents” do exhibit lots of low self-esteem, and no doubt some of them did improve their behavior after receiving praise. Not surprisingly – especially given the multi-million $$$ incentives – the touchy-feely crowd went way overboard with this idea, apparently not considering that actual accomplishments have something to do with finding successful roles in life – and, as California was still then a trend-setter, “enhancing self esteem” became a national (global?) fad.
I personally suspect that much of “entitlement culture” feeds on this, particularly among the affluent.
Anyway, have some serious fucking citations.
I was Elliot Rodgers as a young man. I was a socially crippled virgin until I was 20. Although reasonably fit & attractive, I suffered from undiagnosed Asperger’s and chronic depression. I thought a lot about killing myself, and obsessively dwelt on every imagined slight or insult. The only substantial difference was that I never sat in my own BMW while whining, “Life is so unfair!!!”
But I grew the fuck up. I still find myself in awkward social situations where I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ve learned to fake it. I look back on the bullies who tormented me, and I can realize what pathetic fucks they were. I’ve learned to value myself for things other than who will deign to fuck me. I have a happy kid who has avoided my youthful problems. I have a beautiful, sexy ex-wife whom I am still friends with, and a beautiful, sexy girlfriend who blows my…mind.
I have zero sympathy for Elliot Rodgers or any of the misogynist fucktards who think he was even remotely in the right. Been there, done that, and got over it. What’s your excuse, you miserable self-absorbed whiners?
(That last is directed at Rodgers and the MRA/PUA gang, not the FTB readers)
Funny, you’d think at some point I would have noticed, having been a child in California and all.
Meanwhile, gun activists are being more outrageous than ever.
Your Dead Kids Don’t Trump’ My Guns
That was in reply to “::Sigh::
Where is your proof of this?”
The
Ever try closing the tag?
profpedant:
I agree that treating people as things is wrong. I do not agree with this:
You need to back it up with evidence. Otherwise it will be dismissed. “My own sense of right and wrong” is not proof that misogyny is a form of mental illness. The burden of proof is on you.
profpedant @69:
Instead of the above, you could have referred to me by ‘nym (Tony is fine) or even the comment number.
From the commenting rules
Oh, for fuck’s sake, my point is, HE DIDN’T PUT ANY EFFORT INTO CREATING OR MAINTAINING ANY KIND OF RELATIONSHIP.
And that is nobody’s fault but his own.
And yes, it would have been “easy” if he’d put in the effort to actually learn to socialize.
BTW, this is coming from someone who IS introverted and suffers from anxiety. If my crazy ass can manage it, there’s no reason he couldn’t.
Gen, of all the countries and isolated hunter-gatherer tribes that have ever been studied, no one has ever found a culture where violence by women >= violence by men. And other studies have shown that the hormone testosterone increases the likelihood of violent behavior. etc. etc. It’s quite a leap of faith to cling to the hypothesis that culture alone causes violence in the face of all the evidence. You are exactly the kind of stultified postmodernist nincompoop Pinker debunks in The Blank Slate.
[blockquote cite=”
Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop!
27 May 2014 at 2:25 pm (UTC -5)
[snip] “Misogyny is a form of mental illness. Or, more generally, treating people as ‘mere things’ is a form of mental illness.”
You need to back it up with evidence. Otherwise it will be dismissed. “My own sense of right and wrong” is not proof that misogyny is a form of mental illness. The burden of proof is on you.
“] (see! I did close the tag!)
Nope. The burden of proof is upon you if you want to claim that people – people who by definition are behaving in a reasonable and productive fashion, people whose behavior we should emulate, are sane when they treat people as mere things. And the burden of proof is particularly upon you if you want the definition of sanity – those behaviors which are reasonable and should be emulated – to include spree-killings.
Mental health is not something separate from the rest of our lives. Mental health is something that each and every one of us has to work at each and every day. The most important difference between someone like me who has struggled with depression, anxiety, and a host of related annoyances and the self-assessed ‘mentally normal’ is that I know that mental health takes constant work. Those who do not know this are both lucky and naive.
If you include ‘treating people like things’ and ‘seriously wanting to kill someone’ as something that a sane person would want to do you are legitimizing those activities and inclinations. If someone is hurting me and everyone around me talks about that person as a fine upstanding individual – what am I to think about my pain – that I deserve it? After all, the individual who treats me as an object is viewed as ‘sane’, so clearly what he does is legitimate and good…..
profpedant:
Use the angled brackets for blockquoting. The ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ signs.
Here’s the thing: I am not making any claim whatsoever about the mental health of people like Elliot Rodger. *YOU* are making a claim about his mental health which I sincerely doubt you know anything about. Qualified mental health professionals don’t typically diagnose people online, so why are you? Why are you qualified to say that misogyny is a mental illness? Where is your evidence of this? You’ve made a claim. If I wanted to check your source for this claim to determine whether it is true or not, where would I go?
profpedant:
Oh, and you really should have read the entirety of Louis’ comment that I copy-pasted above.
Laci Green is an ex-mormon. Getting herself out of mormonism was probably good for her brain.
Whoops. Accidentally embedded a video in comment #77. Apologies.
I’m not sure what the flamefest is really about here, but in other news, the NYT has started to have the conversation. This piece was on their home page for several hours:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/us/campus-killings-set-off-anguished-conversation-about-the-treatment-of-women.html?ref=us
numerobis:
I’m not sure what flamefest you’re referring to.
profpedant @ 74
That is a definition of “sane” which you have just extracted from the confines of your ass. Sane people are perfectly capable of believing things which are not true. One can reason entirely correctly within a framework of false beliefs. Their conclusions will be all kinds of fucked up but they will still be sane and rational. If they act on their fucked up conclusions, they may do immense harm but they will be no less sane. Acknowledging that they’re sane is not the same as approving of their actions.
Profpedant, learn to draw a fucking distinction between “having bad ideas” and “having actual neurological malfunctions.” For pedantry’s sake, if fucking nothing else, you half-assed hack.
in rats.
Actually, I believe what’s been consistently shown is that higher testosterone levels correlate with status-seeking behavior, which in humans, among other things, includes making fairer offers in game scenarios, and is not well-correlated with physical aggression. From here:
I repeat:
In other words, you Two Humours fuckheads are actively making the problem worse.
Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) wrote:
Except I suspect you already know that this was the age-old “kids these days are rotten, I tells ya!”
Score one for the “blank slaters”? Kidding aside, it really should not shock anyone that people will play the part they’ve been assigned, even if they’re unaware that they’ve been assigned that role. Yet, time and time again, there are loads of people insisting that certain things just gotta be innate based on little, or outdated evidence or no evidence at all.
Then again, given the sad state of science education, I’m not convinced you could get a majority of people giving you the right answer to the question about “which falls faster, a light object or a heavy one?”, even if you stipulated that both were the same shape and air resistance would not be a significant factor on either object.
Quoting Azykyroth at #83:
profpedant:
Do I know if Elliot Rodger was insane? Nope.
But then, I don’t know anything about his mental state.
What are your qualifications for making a mental health diagnosis of anyone?
Oh, and if you’re going to whine about being called harsh, naughty no no words, you may be at the wrong blog. If people feel you deserve to be insulted, they’ve every right to do so and that has fuck all to do with your perception that anyone here is a ‘defender of sanity’.
“What Lars should have said…”
is what I was responding to, fucknuts.
shove your head up your own ass, it fits better.
You are speaking at the wrong level of abstraction.
You are abusing the term “mental illness” in a way that harms and marginalizes a large group of non-dangerous people which includes many people I care about, by conflating their involuntary medical conditions with the cultivated, conscious attitudes of a violent person whose mental functioning, at the level of abstraction we are actually discussing, is at most in question.
You are using language to describe his violent behavior which has the effect of creating an artificial distinction between his “insane” behavior and views, and “normal” people, and thus between “insane” and the dangerous ideology and experiences and otherwise apparently normal cognitive processes which actually spawned them, reassuring people that there is no need to actually fix anything, that he was someone who was merely “insane” – basically a subhuman monster, a ticking bomb, defective by birth, and definitely not something we as a society need to do anything to stop from creating again, which accomplishes the exact opposite of your rationalization for applying the label of “mentally ill” to his views and behavior.
You are simultaneously smug and wrong in my presence; you are enough of a pseudointellectual to present your credence as a bargaining chip, not only a thing to be withheld or withdrawn based on whether I appease your ego and submit to your gerrymandering of the rules of interchange, rather than on the quality of the arguments you have been referred to when they were made elsewhere the first time and which I have summarized here, but a thing you absurdly presume to be of value to me, which leaves you pretty much in the position of “failed Faust even the devil didn’t want”; and you don’t even rise to the level of indulging in pomposity, so much as sort of doorbell-ditching it.
I will fucking well call you what I please. :)
profpedant
So, everybody in pre-civil war USA was just crazy, right?
Including Jefferson, right?
Also your great-grand-pa, cause women did not have human rights.
It’s just so easy. It’s almost as good an explenation as “god did it”
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- wrote:
Not to mention convenient.
“Oh, they did the bad thing because they’re crazy! How do I know they’re crazy? Well, they did the bad thing, didn’t they? And since they’re crazy, and I’m clearly not, I don’t have to ask myself any difficult questions.”
The gun argument about “good guys” and “bad guys” (or alternatively “criminals”) goes down the exact same way.
profpedant (#87)
So I take it you’ve never repeatedly smashed yourself in the head with a book while thinking, “Self harm is bad, stop hurting yourself.”
profpedant
I did engage with what you said. You just opted to ignore it because I didn’t phrase it in a way you find suitable. Too damn bad.
Seven of Mine:
See, the problem is your use of like ‘ass’ and ‘fucked’. Heck, you even said ‘fucked’ twice! That means 3 *whole* words (out of 90-yeah, I counted) from your comment @82 were . Profpedant became completely unable to understand the points you made (which, as you say, were engaging hir comments) all for 3 words.
Oops, I said ‘fucked’ 3 times in this comment (4 now). I wonder if exceeding the limits of acceptable will result in an inability of some to understand all the other words…
Tony! #95
That’s kinda like way too meta.
Y’know?
@ Tony
I feel like you’re trying to communicate with me but all I hear is an odd buzzing sound. Weird.
“Easy” in what way? Because it is not easy for everyone.Learning how to do it doesn’t mean having the ability to do it well,at least well enough to get the results you ‘re hoping for.
“It’s easy to make sculptures! You just have to put in the effort to actually learn!”
“It’s easy to deadlift 600 pounds! You just have to put in the effort to actually learn!”
“It’s easy to be a neurosurgeon! You just have to put in the effort to actually learn!”
Wow, no. Not in the least. Being introverted is not the same as not understanding how human interactions work and not having the physical ability to pull off mimicking those interactions. It…has nothing to do with not being able to make friends, really. Anxiety maybe, but that still has nothing to do with your abilities in interacting with others. You are seriously talking out of your ass here. I doubt that Rodger had serious social skills problems, but you are swiping through everyone who does and saying that it’s easy for them to put in some effort (which is a contradiction right there) and poof, they’ll be able to make friends.
WMDKitty — Survivor @27, 28 and 73
Lars @27, 31, 32
Ignoring Ichthyic @33, 35 and 89 for their lack of reading comprehension.
This has got me to register after years of lurking on this PZ’s blog.
I agree with Pen@34 and A Masked Avenger@40 and Azkyroth@54 that Lars’ “fix” clearly meant that it’s not “easy” for everybody to make friends.
And, WMDKitty, you are wrong, both about it being easy (for everybody) AND your assertion that he didn’t put any effort into creating or maintaining any kind of relationship.
Saying “even” you could manage it, is like saying you have it worst in the world, nobody could possibly have a harder time of it. Clearly, some people do, and I’d suggest it’s harder for a man than a woman at a given level of social competance, simply because women are less likely to come across as creepy or threatening at first contact.
He put in at least some effort, in that he sought out an online community that promised to help him create the kind of relationship (sexual) he desired the most, like society and the media tell us you should. He picked a crap community, but didn’t have anybody to tell him that he’d made a mistake.
Where, exactly, would you suggest he should have gone to get good relationship advice on the internet? I’d be interested in reading it because, although I’m in a long term relationship now, with two wonderful kids, almost every woman I ever slept with (not many) picked me up, not the other way around (and in one case even had to try twice before I noticed).
carlie @ 6;
That is depressing but sadly predictable. Violently misogynistic men like Rodger are only part of the problem; far more common are the kind of misogynists who engage in online threats and harrassment to try to silence any woman who speaks up about anything. Even in the wake of a tragedy such as this, their first priority is still to force any woman who speaks her mind out of the public arena at the first opportunity. That background radiation of incessant misogyny contributes to an environment that shapes men like Rodger by constantly reinforcing the message that the personhood of women is unimportant if not wholly non-existant. Pair that with pervasive toxic constructions of masculinity and a massive sense of undue entitlement to women’s bodies, and this kind of violence becomes ever more likely.
@99, goaded
My own friendless existence hasn’t made me kill anyone, not even myself.
I think the entitlement and the rage are the important things in this case. And the ideology, of course.
Gregory Greenwood wrote:
Frankly, I think I’d call the threats and harassment simply a different form of violence. Emotional, social or physical, I’m not sure there’s a great deal of difference.
@goaded: I’d suggest it’s harder for a man than a woman at a given level of social competance, simply because women are less likely to come across as creepy or threatening at first contact.
I’d suggest that it’s harder for a woman than a man at a given level of social competence because women are less likely to be taken seriously at first contact and are more likely to be flat out ignored. At least being told that you’re a creep is an interaction. I’ve been literally treated as though I were invisible.
ck @ 120;
A fair point, and there is also the problem that it is impossible to tell which of these ranting misogynistic arsehats are only going to spew sexist hatred (as harmful as that itself is), and which ones may intend physical violence, and so all threats of rape and violence must be viewed as being on the same continuum from endorsing rape and physical violence as a means of silencing women up to actually committing it.
As you say, emotional and social violence is still violence, and should be viewed as such.
I think this article:
http://thefederalist.com/2014/05/28/the-ten-most-asinine-things-about-yesallwomen/
Deserves its one special fisking.
Deserves its *own* special fisking.
A huge percentage of the people in our past, and a huge percentage of the people living now, are not fully sane. That almost certainly includes Thomas Jefferson, and it definitely includes at least one of my great-grandfathers.
Why you refer to this problem as ‘easy’ I have no idea. There are people hurting out there, there are people being hurt, and upon recognizing the problem you dismiss it as ‘easy’. Very strange. Humanity has a lot of work to do, hard work that involves a lot of relearning ‘what it means to be human’ because as a naturally-evolved species that had to figure everything out on our own we have a huge accumulation of errors in our understanding of ourselves and the world that must be corrected if we are to prosper in the long-term. But I suppose we can relax, you say it is ‘easy’.
As for the malicious individual who claims that I am marginalizing people: what is wrong with telling someone that hate and violence are unacceptable? I know full well that most people with mental difficulties are not particularly violent, just as most people who erroneously believe they never experience mental difficulties are not particularly violent (i.e. the violence level in both groups tends to match what is socially tolerated). If anything it is more respectful of mentally ill people to draw the line between ‘acceptable’ and ‘not acceptable’ at engaging in hate and violence than it is to draw it at the ‘having mental difficulties’ point that you seem to prefer.
And if you read what I actually wrote instead of what your imagination imputes to it you’ll see that I include myself as someone with mental difficulties, and also that I clearly stated that there is no intrinsic reason to be ashamed of having mental difficulties. But, for some reason the idea that engaging in hate and violence is something that a healthy well-adjusted and admirable person would do is personally important to you. Fortunately for me I am not under your psychological care, it would be a disaster for me.
Are you being stupid or dishonest here? It’s obviously one or the other, since it’s quite clear what Giliell means from the following sentence:
I suppose I’d better be charitable, assume you are being stupid rather than dishonest, and explain: Giliell meant that attributing a wide range of past and present harmful behaviour and beliefs to insanity is “easy” in the sense that, like attributing everything complex or puzzling to God, it allows you to avoid thinking through what might actually account for what is thus “explained”. Got it yet?
I think the issue here is profpedant is forgetting that words have meanings and just because they choose to define words differently does not mean that that is magically now the definition.
Mental illness has a definition. The definition of mental illness has to do with thought form and process and *not* with thought content per se, with rare exception. To wit: Catholics believe that a virgin gave birth to a dude who went around turning water into wine and then got murdered but then resurrected to wander around and chat with his friends. Said virgin went on to levitate into the sky rather than die like everyone else. Totally nutso. But this is the reality of what they are taught from birth. To believe that is not mental illness, by definition in the DSM.
If a guy thinks women are objects there for his pleasure, it’s hardly crazy in our society. Which is the point of #yesallwomen. So, misogyny is definitely assholery, but not mental illness.
Even if we were in a society that did not hate women, saying and doing things outside acceptable norms does not automagically make someone mentally ill. Diagnosing mental illness is difficult. I don’t know if this asshole was mentally ill, but I would say he thought out his position quite thoroughly, and nobody corrected him. People fucking egged him on.
dianne @103
It happens to me, too. Frequently. But you’re right, I don’t know if it happens more or less with women. Feel free to ignore that bit, which probably has something to do with my point of view.
For what it’s worth, I’ve avoided being the first to talk to women in a group, for various reasons including to avoid being teased. If everyone does the same, that would have the effect of ignoring them.
You can tell someone that hate and violence is wrong without engaging in armchair psychoanalysis.
For what it’s worth, I’ve avoided being the first to talk to women in a group, for various reasons including to avoid being teased
“Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.” –Margaret Atwood. Forgive me for being less than perfectly sympathetic to your plight.
@107: Sorry, no. Having values that are discordant to yours is not the definition of “insane”. I don’t know of any evidence that Thomas Jefferson was insane and certainly people haven’t suddenly developed the ability to be sane in the past 100 or 200 years.
goaded, I don’t want to pile on you over this – this is addressed to the thread in general, really, it’s just that it was goaded’s comment that put me in mind of it. Dianne said it better already; this is just to qft her – I just wanted to remind you (general you, not just goaded-you) that to many men any woman who is not young, cute and at least moderately “fuckable” is invisible until proven otherwise. Women may be less likely to come across as creepy and/or frightening, but they most certainly do get ignored so hard they don’t come across as anything at all.
Is it possible that when comparing the difficulties of the less socially competent, only physically noticeable (i.e. reasonably attractive) women were included in one’s mental calculation in the first place?
profpedant:
And you continue making diagnoses of people. What are your fucking qualifications for diagnosing the mental state of people, let alone those you’ve never even met?
This question is irrelevant because that is not what your language choice is actually doing.
“Insane” or “mentally ill” does not simply mean “unacceptable.” You are clearly not genuinely too stupid to understand this.
opposablethumbs:
This being ignored, does it feel like how I feel about the bulk of my comment being totally ignored, except for the bit I said I was wrong about and should be ignored?
No, sorry, I didn’t say it was wrong, I just said it was probably wrong (and made the fatal error of trying to ex/manplain my point of view). It was wrong. Sorry.
opposablethumbs:
I think I was assuming equivalent attractiveness. Is it possible that only physically noticeable (i.e. reasonably attractive) men were included in one’s mental calculation in the first place?
profpedant
And your evidence is?
Could you give us a definition of “sane”?
Is it the same as “not mentally ill”?
Why do you think you can diagnose Jefferson?
Or does “sane” simply mean” agrees with me”?
And what does it have to do with the price of butter?
Giliell:
I’ve been asking profpedant to provide some evidence and xe has yet to put forth any.
profpedant @55:
Me @58:
profpedant @68:
Xe continues to provide no basis for their definition of ‘sane’ or ‘insane’ other than “that’s what I think is right”.