August 15, 2021

"Now, because identity looms so large in the culture, and because the internet makes it so easy for likeminded lunatics to find each other, we find [the Plymouth killer] conveniently categorised as an incel."

"These are involuntary celibates, a category he toyed with online. Once, if you couldn't get a girlfriend or get married – and several blameless men I know were at one time or another in that not uncommon position – you were just a normal bloke with a girl problem; now there's a debate about whether to categorise incels as terrorists, up there with the Real IRA and IS. There are and always will be, men with a sense of grievance who take out their rage and frustration on others. The BBC seems oddly willing to entertain the idea that incels should be designated as terrorists, possibly because it gives a boost to the notion that misogyny should be categorised as a hate crime – an already dodgy category.... [I]t is guaranteed to waste police time and resources by obliging them to investigate incel outpourings online (and the whole stupid lexicon of red and black pills).... [And] it would be unfair to men who happen to be involuntarily celibate but who wouldn't dream of running amok with firearms...."

From "Why incels aren’t terrorists" by Melanie McDonagh (Spectator).

10 comments:

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

The woke look around and see people (surprisingly, in a way) who disagree with them. There are two main possible explanations: mental illness, or pure evil. One would think "terrible education" is an excuse, but I think a big part of woke dogma is that there has long been enough evidence for all sane people to adopt the woke perspective; your education, peers, etc. are not likely to be a good excuse for failure. More precisely, the white male elite has been blind to injustice because of their privilege, but there is no real excuse for the way they supported or indulged injustice. There is always an excuse when putative victims, who supposedly see things more clearly, commit violence or whatever. When the woke prescribe re-education and endless recitation of certain mantras as solutions, they might seem optimistic that "everyone" can be cured, but it is more likely that they want to torture white males for a while before getting them fired.

So yes, any kind of "misogyny" (which itself ranges from "it's possible women's brains are different from men's" to "based on women I know best, I don't like women very much" to much worse things) must be either mental illness or pure evil. In this case they're not rushing to use mental illness as an excuse. Hunter Biden I guess is playing something like the mental illness card to the max, but presumably the woke look the other way only because they think Joe Biden or his ventriloquist are the best they can do for now.

Temujin said...

This is the same mentality that the Left uses in labeling anyone who disagrees with them, or anyone on the Right as a terrorist. And we have our Dementia-laden President leading that characterization, which actually started under Obama. And all of this seems to be straight out of Rules for Radicals, doesn't it? 'Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.'

From our national security apparatus to our President, our media, Big Tech, and academia (the usual suspects) they seem to have learned their lessons well. And it's not so much just to separate out as 'others' those you want to defeat or remove, it's to get those very people to react and do so harshly. It's a goading process. You call someone a terrorist from so many angles, cut them off, remove their avenues of communication and some will get very frustrated. They may act out. And the makers of the labeling will have succeeded in proving themselves right.

Hence- you get January 6th as being called an 'insurrection' or comparing it to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor when it was, at best, a massive protest that got way out of control and turned into a non-bloody riot complete with people going inside the Senate Chambers and...sitting down. The horror.

The reality of men with women problems (not getting laid or not having a relationship) is as old as humans are. The 'labeling' of such men as 'incels' is new and done with purpose. 'Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.' Obama would be proud.

Iman said...

This strange, new world confuses and frightens me. So much categorization, subterfuge, malevolence and inhumanity.

There’s just one thing I’d like to know: what’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?

GowronIsMySpiritAnimal said...

Categories, like boxes, are used to put things that might otherwise have more complex interdimensions into brackets that are easier to understand. They keep using that word. I don't think they understand what it means.

Sally327 said...

If I were a traditional terrorist, Islamic fanatics, Basque separatists, Greenpeace radicals, I might be offended that all these other mass killers are diluting the brand. I guess the push to get the incels labeled as terrorists is so that more or different resources can be brought to bear and to get them on a list so they can be watched? Presumably by intelligence services or such like? Not the police I wouldn't think, they can barely handle things as it is.

Tacitus said...

There are always going to be mentally ill people. They will always take dark inspiration and validation from the unwholesome corners of political thought. They will do horrible things. I'd like to believe in a future where these maxims do not hold, but I was not born yesterday and in fact was born so long ago that I remember when thuggish Soviet regimes used the mental health "profession" as a tool to repress dissent. You won't change humanity with more drugs, more therapists, more inclusive curricula.

What we need instead is accountability. If the Devon and Cornwall police looked at this loser's mental health evaluation, interviewed him and said "Right, seems OK to us", then they were wrong. Tragically, fatally wrong. People need to be fired over this. Perhaps the next time a report is written or an interview done all concerned will take it more seriously. Similar approach when the FBI has someone "on the radar" and things get ignored. People get fired. Their successors will be motivated to think and work harder.

I'd not associate mega shaming with these firings. It is hard work to predict the behaviours of the Mad. "You got it wrong, mate. Best make a career move. In fact, here's the box I'll help you clean out your desk."

T

Yancey Ward said...

Look, this is pretty simple- as long as the incels double mask and get their COVID vaccines/weekly boosters and passports, they aren't terrorists, unless they vote for conservatives.

Yancey Ward said...

Does Ms. Bates have video and audio of her so-called undercover operation? If not, then my working assumption is that she is making it all up.

Leora said...

I'd go back to Clinton for presenting those who disagree as dangerous terrorists and purveyors of misinformation.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

For these two articles together, the key issue is whether there is any increase in sexual or violent crime that is attributable to them. We went through this in the late 20th C with the increasing availability of pornography, some of it shockingly vile, accompanied by predictions that this would incite some women, and many more men, to commit crimes. It didn't happen. Sexual crime went down. The safety-valve argument may not be true, but it is certainly true that the availability did not cause that sort of catastrophe. (Whether it eventually causes other cultural catastrophes is unknown, but looking unlikely.)

I was one who believed that wide availability was going to create a more dangerous world for women. Knowledge about the topic was even part of my profession, as I worked with dangerous sex offenders for a time. I was wrong.

So too here. Are they committing more crimes or creating some other measurable trouble? With that, then we have a discussion about what might be done. Without that, I am not worried about "troubling attitudes."