I'm not sure how much of a splash it made outside the UK, but last week a so-called 'incel' went on a shooting spree in Plymouth, killing 5 people including a 3 year old girl before ending his own life. It's a desperately sad story, as these things always of course are, made somehow worse by the fact that the news media can pore over the perpetrator's YouTube rants and reddit posts in lurid detail - you could watch his last video blog on most national news websites practically before his body was cold. Ghoulishness has taken on a whole new life in the Web 2.0 era (no pun intended).
A lot of media attention has focused on the question of whether some or all incels, or at least incidents like this, should be treated as being 'terrorist', and to what extent there needs to be a crackdown on these online groups' 'violence and misogyny'. A few people have pointed out that the truth, both about Jake Davison and incels in general, is much more complicated. What's depressing is that, like almost everything else now, this has become politicised: to those on the left, this is an example of right-wing extremism fuelled by cuts to social services. To those on the right, this is an example of how privileging the status of 'victims' is driving even white men to define themselves against the perceived oppressiveness of social structure. Nobody really seems all that interested in understanding what is going wrong and, more importantly, how to fix it. It's all about the posture one adopts within one's own political subculture.
The main root of the issue seems to me that there is a fundamental problem, which all societies face, concerning how young men are socialised. This is why any traditional society one can name tends to have explicit or implicit rites of passage for adolescent boys, and robust male-bonding exercises. To put it bluntly, aggression, disagreeableness and indiscipline are traits that are much more common in young men than young women (no, not all men, do I even have to say it?) and societies all around the world have evolved methods of coping with that.
These methods tend to involve the influence of older men - fathers, uncles, older brothers, teachers, 'elders', etc. - who are there to physically and/or metaphorically give the individual young man the necessary clips around the ear so that he eventually grows up into an actual man rather than an overgrown child. Many people reading this will be sniggering about this outmoded, ill-informed, antiquated 1950s nonsense, I'm sure; all I can say is that it's informed by years of working as an educator, years of working with teenage boys doing martial arts, and years of being an actual teenage boy surrounded by lots of other teenage boys in a rough state school. If it doesn't chime with your view of reality - well, I'm not going to convince you of anything, so you might as well stop reading.
The summary: young lads have a tendency to go off the rails when they haven't been properly socialised (again, not all, but more so than girls), and it's incumbent therefore on sensible older men that they try to properly socialise younger ones. Women can of course play a role in that as well, but just as girls tend to respond better to female role models, boys tend to respond better to male ones.
Is the solution to people like Jake Davison 'play D&D'? No, it isn't that simple. But, if I look back to the pre-internet days, when I was a teenager, it is evident to me that a fair few of my peers could easily have been putative Jake Davisons if they happened to have been born 25 years later. There were plenty of lads in my school or among my peer group with bad social skills, bad hair, bad acne, bad clothes and bad attitudes. Lads who no girl in her right mind would want to even look at, let alone talk to. Let's face it: teenage boys are pretty grotesque, and some are very grotesque indeed. Left to their own devices, there are plenty of teenage boys I used to know who could easily have ended up getting 'blackpilled' on reddit if it had existed at the time.
But back then they weren't left to their own devices, because sitting in your room by yourself at home every day simply wasn't a viable option, unless you were really dedicated to walking the asocial road. No: you got into heavy metal and went to the local 'rock night' every Wednesday at the Queen Vic. Or you did judo. Or took up amateur dramatics. Or got heavily into the Scouts. Or went to church. Or went to the local youth club. Or joined a bowling team. Or tried to get good at cricket, rugby or football. Or, you played D&D or wargames at Games Workshop.
The point about this was not that getting involved in these kinds of hobbies put you in touch with girls (although that was often your aim, and a side-benefit). Rather, it put you in touch with other, often older, men - youth workers, your friends' older brothers, karate instructors, guys who were in bands, whatever. And these older men would tell you: get a fucking hair cut. Stop staring at that girl and creeping her out. Take a shower. Get a job and stop sponging. Was their advice perfect, or always sensible? No, but at least it was something. And you were infinitely more likely to listen to these people than your mother, who you probably hadn't had an actual conversation with for several years beyond 'Where are you going?' 'Out.'
It would be crass and reductionist to say that having a regular face to face D&D group would have stopped Jack Davison murdering people. I didn't know the man from Adam after all. But having that sort of hobby is part of the necessary social fabric which prevents many such people living the kind of atomised, unsituated, disconnected lives that drive them slowly mad and hateful. That fabric is fraying, but it can be mended if enough people want to try, and involvement in hobbies (real hobbies, done with real people, in the real world) is a bigger part of it than people think.
Very interesting, and pertinent, points. I wonder how much lockdown, and the subsequent decrease in "real world" meetups, could amplify this problem. Online gaming is great for hooking up geographically disparate groups (perhaps also age-disparate? My re-acquaintance with RPGs came via a bunch of university students, friends of friends of friends, who were half my age and full of fresh ideas). Not so great for general socialising though.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how much "real world" gaming involves mixing of different age groups (although it was interesting to hear you and Patrick talk about "the teens"). When I started, I played entirely with people my own age groups and a year older, and I'm pretty sure that was the norm. But then, in those days there was only one Games Workshop shop, and it didn't have space orcs. (My own socialisation came via the Woodcraft Folk - I still find it notable that, although I've not been involved with it for years, all of my lifelong friends - and my discovery of D&D - came via Woodcraft Folk, I never got on much with folks at school or college).
Something else I found notable was speaking a couple of years ago to a friend who runs IT for a network of FE colleges. She told me that over 90% of their referrals to the Prevent scheme, which I think was set up out of a fear of Islamic terrorism, were of young men radicalised by right-wing groups. Perhaps this reflects a liberal bias in teaching, but I still found the percentages quite an eye-opener.
Well, on the last point it really doesn’t surprise me. This possibly reflects my own biases but this thing of backing young white men into a corner and telling them they have to feel appalling for how privileged they are, when they know that they’re not, really doesn’t help matters. It doesn’t make sense in the British context and it just gives young lads from poor backgrounds a massive grievance. Not really surprising that they then turn to crackpot stuff online.
DeleteThis should be obvious.
Yes, perhaps not surprising as such.
DeleteI worked as a foster carer for 12 years and observed a lot of "backing into a corner" of underprivileged white kids (though I also saw how this is orders of magnitude worse for the Iraqi & Somali kids we fostered, and worse again for girls - it was only then that I appreciated what "intersectionality" is). There is a willful blindness to class-based discrimination which stands in stark contrast to efforts to comabt sexual, racial, etc biases. All sorts of middle-class assumed niceties exclude these kids by default.
At a tech conference a few years ago I saw this clash of cultures explode into a huge controversy when a speaker who worked with street gangs crossed boundaries that he didn't even know existed. I wrote a fair bit at the time about how the industry could never hope to be representative while these boundaries are policed so ruthlessly without any appreciation that middle-class values are neither universal nor innate. Despite much head-nodding and chin-stroking, it didn't feel like anyone really took on board what I said. Certainly no-one had any answers.
But I'd question whether the explosion in right-wing radicalisation is "obvious": it doesn't seem to have occurred to those who came up with Prevent, nor (whether through ignorance or bias) to most media voices until very recently. I think that most of the population, if you told them about it, would indeed be surprised.
(The demonisation cuts many ways though; remembering our time fostering always puts me in mind of the Rotherham child-abuse scandal, which affected families close to us around 5 years before it hit the news. The media narrative around this was and still is that, while it was known about, nothing was done because of social-workers' fear of implicating brown men. So far from the truth that I'm fuming again to think of it. Truth is that, although many of us reported what was happening to South Yorkshire Police, their assumption was that girls of a certain (under)class are naturally promiscuous at a young age, and there's no way of preventing that)
DeleteGood blog post.
DeleteHere in the USA, I've read that all anti-government groups are classified as "right-wing hate groups".
Dan - that's why I said it should be obvious! But a lot of people don't seem to be able to understand basic human psychology and motivations any more. Or human history for that matter? I mean, the extreme right tends to thrive when people feel desperate and like they don't have a stake in society. So maybe making young working class boys feel like they don't have a stake in society isn't such a great idea? Maybe I should be running Prevent!
DeleteI wprked as a teacher for a while, then as a writing instructor (in Spanish we have a word: 'tallerista') in a government institution for youths (17-29 year olds), these youths came from the most marginated sectors, youths that could abandon their studies due to a lack of money, to violence, etc. They were given a monthly money support for their studies and in exchange they had to be part of one of everal 'beigades', mine was a writing, photo, radio and video workshop, and we also made a monthly magazine for the writers and photographers.
ReplyDeleteTen years later, every single one of these youths is a responsible man or woman, some with families, some degrees, some with books published, some with jobs dedicated to educate boys or youths.
So, I agree with your post and I don't think for a minute it's antoquated 1950s nonesense.
That sounds like a really good program.
DeleteAn ethical, thoughtful take (imho). You lean to the right David and I'm some kind of anarcho-space mentalist, but despite any quibbles one may have had in the past with some of your polemic (in sticking with that description), I've found your recent writing to be sharp and humane. I think there's a new sense of where we're at politically (in fact, it may be striving for apoliticisation). A sense of uniting over the grievances that 'western' culture metes out in the name of 'progress'.
ReplyDeleteKeep on keeping on. Good interview with Patrick also.
Thanks! Yes, when everything is political, being apolitical becomes a radical act.
DeleteAbsolutely, the thumos of this age converts everything into politics, and hastens the arrival of Skynet. A discussion for another time, you're already a blog ahead...
DeleteI was definitely a candidate to be a school shooter when I was young. Luckily I had no access to weapons back then (the 80s).
ReplyDeleteI was just generally frustrated with life, the world, everything... respecting nothing and nobody.
There were some older men who tried to 'fix' me, but their own flaws were so apparent (my alchoholic uncle drunkenly telling me to cut my hair during his Thanksgiving booza-palooza) that it bounced off of me.
It took me years to crawl out of that hole and sometimes I think I've still got a ways to go.
The one think I've found to be helpful is taking on responsibilities, especially toward other people. Helping other people is the quickest path out of my own head and into a larger perspective that gives me purpose and meaning where none had previously existed.
Running a D&D game in High School was a bit of that, volunteer work was good... any sort of work or project where I knew I had other people relying on me.
Jordan Peterson has saved more young men than any other person this century.
DeleteI think that part of his message is very important, and it's great that somebody prominent is trying to get through to wayward young men.
DeleteI don't follow Mr. Peterson too closely, but his flaws are also obvious.
DeleteI think that you're correct, and I would add that people have lost, in fact rejected, any concept of virtue. Instead of finding meaning in using well what they have been given, they cling to an anti-meaning of what they wish that they were given but do not have. I suppose that's a pit that almost anyone could jump into, but it seems especially fashionable nowadays.
ReplyDeleteUntil the late 60s in America, practically every high school had a shooting club. Let that sink in! I'm sure that there were plenty of kids who weren't getting laid and yet owned guns. Why so few shooting sprees? Because almost everyone was a Christian. They believed that Right and Wrong were real things, and that their lives were a gift from God the use of which they would one day be answerable for. Almost no one was such a narcissistic psychopath that they thought their own boredom or frustration was a reason to commit mass murder. They were, by and large, better human beings, at least at the time.
It's almost funny that cultural critics, actors and politicians get on TV and bawl about wanton acts of destruction. These same people preach, or at least argue by their actions, that there is no God, morality is relative, and nothing matters beyond the raw friction of flesh against flesh. And then dare to show surprise when some rando takes that philosophy to its logical conclusion.
Well, I think it's more that people have discovered a different concept of virtue - or perhaps rediscovered it. It's no longer about being a good person, but saying the right thing. A resurrection of Phariseeism.
DeleteIf being an incel is so dangerous, the solution is obvious: fuck them one by one and they stop being incels.
ReplyDelete"even" white men ... ?
ReplyDeleteAs in, white men are more resistant to things than other races?
No, as in white men usually didn't define themselves by opposing the social structure. At least that's my interpretation of that sentence.
DeleteThanks for the comment, Anonymous, but I think that sadly you are wasting your time. The chance that Alexis is reading my blog in good faith is more or less nil.
DeleteOne of the regrettable side-effects of the fall of YDIS is that there is no one left to bully Alexis until he slinks back into the lightless crevasses of the pelagic where he rightfully belongs. Instead this blubbery, indignant, pompous termagant regularly beaches himself on otherwise green and pristine shores, emitting foul smelling wafts of noxious gas and making an awful din until s/h/it is finally expelled by a rightful application of stones, thwacks with oars and punches to the blowhole.
DeleteOh boy.
ReplyDeleteI just learned the term "incel" the other day; had no idea that the snarky portmanteau was associated with a misogynistic sub-culture. And that's not really a rabbit-hole I care to research.
While my first thought is "how have we gotten to the point that being a virgin is reason for killing yourself and others?" (at the age of 22!!) I think there's some solid ideas you're expressing here about the need for REAL cultural/gender-based mentoring (probably for non-binary-conforming gender-folk we'll have an even larger can of worms in the future). Kids need role-models...not in the "hero worship" sense, but rather "roles" to "model." And hopefully multiples of various (functioning!) types. But real life people...not internet aliases.
The isolation our technology affords us has always been a double-edged sword...and this sad example makes that even more apparent. And, no, the pandemic doesn't help.
I know. Lord Denning, one of our most eminent judges, was famously a virgin until he was in his 30s.
DeleteOne thing you have to remember is that these kids have been surrounded by online porn for years. They are hypersexualised. Not having had sex with dozens of women by the time you're 22 is considered aberrant and a failure.
Is that true though? Obviously the “surrounded by porn” part is true, but the “expected to have had a lot of sex” part? Ikeep reading statistics saying that people are waiting longer to have sex, and having less sex, than they did in the ‘70s-90s. Of course this might just imply they are EXTRA frustrated….
DeleteGood question - I think the two things might not be mutually exclusive. Pornification makes young men especially judge themselves against an impossible 'ideal' (in their view) of constant sex with an endless variety of women, but are also actually having real sex less, or later. Hence the rage and self-loathing that these people feel.
DeleteI also wonder if the 'people having sex less' phenomenon has partially the same root, in that (and this is an armchair observation, but one which I think must be true in many cases) widespread violent, misogynistic porn puts a lot of girls off sex.
On the YouTube channel Contra Points Natalie Wynn's breakdown on incels is pretty informative and discusses the online mental traps that lead to resentment, hatred, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity, and self-loathing in this subculture.
ReplyDeleteInnuendo has an interesting video that kind of concludes in the direction of what Dave is talking about where D&D can help. This example regards normies becoming radicalized by the alt-right. According to the video really folks are looking for a sense of belonging and human connection. What helps to get out of violent, racist or other anti-social affiliations is a "holding space" where people changing are encouraged and expected to be better but not judged.
I think, for me at least, our D&D games have been that. We have a diverse group and things did get somewhat funky when Donald Trump was in power, but we respect each other and can generally have divergent views and remain friends (although our resident Qanon adherent seems to have deserted us during the pandemic).
Yes - the only thing I would add is that the hyper-woke, cancel culture thing is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. A radicalization process that leads you into a nasty, anti-social place without that "holding space" you speak of.
DeleteThank you for this post.
ReplyDeleteJust to throw my hat into the ring here. You say that the left uses these events to say this is what happens when social services are cut and then say that the possible solution to the problem is having places where people can learn to build character (silly sounding but that is the only phrase that comes to mind) and socializes. My question is: isn't a lot of social services are social programs where people do the things you're advocating like community centres and good education?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have difficulty discussing the 'Incel' phenomena because I have strong opinions on what should be done and how we got here (though part of how we got here is that I agree that we forgot the methods of raising boys into functional men), and as well I find Incels and the things in their orbit to be generally loathsome and I find it hard to be sympathetic. Yet others will have different opinions and difference perspectives on what is to be done and how we got to this situation and I don't want to shout down or shut out those perspectives.
I partially agree, but I just don't think that human beings need government programs to socialise and have hobbies and interests. The great boom in hobbies, sports and social pastimes started in the 19th century in the complete absence of government social programs. If anything, an overreliance on government to solve everything is one of the main sources of the problem.
DeleteI think a big difference here is in the amount of leisure time that people have (admittedly they may have had less in the 19th century, but that's a long long time ago and plenty else has changed). I notice particularly with friends in London that pretty much their entire waking lives are spend trying to earn enough money to live in London, commuting to work and back, and eating.
DeleteI noticed a huge change in the youth group I was involved with between the 80s and the 2000s - in the 80s, plenty of parents were willing to give up an evening a week, and two weeks over the summer, to run the group. By the 2000s, parents had rotas so they only had to help out one or two evenings per term, and likewise help at summer camps dwindled so that parents were staying a night or two rather than for whole camps.
Government schemes might not be the best solution, but they are certainly a solution. I've seen kids turned around by them. I also suspect that their rapid cancellation under austerity was a contributing factor to the 2011 summer riots.
Also worth mentioning that government money doesn't necessarily mean government programmes - my dad was chair of his local Council for Voluntary Youth Organisations, and it was depressing to see how many of those organisations have closed over the last decade. Even those that remain have almost all had to drastically cut back the services that they offer.
DeleteI think lack of leisure time is a part of it, Dan, but then people do seem to have plenty of time to stay abreast of what's going on on Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer, etc... It's just a lot easier to stay at home and not do anything than it used to be.
DeleteNail on the head that the continued erosion of male communities and social isolation is contributing to this regrettable phenomenon, the victims of which receive zero sympathy from our friends at the Anglosphere-media because of the race of the perpetrators and the cause of which is usually ignored. Good post, thoughtful.
ReplyDeleteWe watched porn in our time (from our dad's not so well hidden VHS stash), but it never occurred to us, even at the tender age of 15, that the rather unlikely scenarios depicted there had anything to do with real life, yet alone real life expectations. Where has your basic common sense gone from today's youth?
ReplyDeleteYou were only watching a bit of it, occasionally, and you weren't steeped in it from a much more impressionable age. A lot of these kids have been watching it since they were 11 or 12, constantly, on their phones.
DeleteStill, no one got the impression that overeager women will fall over you exactly every 5 minutes, and all you need to do for that is to step out of the room. What young geniuses we were!
DeleteWe should be glad that all these incels exist, really. Can you imagine if they all figured out what women actually like? A brand new horde of tanned, tattooed coke dealers clogging up the gyms. Ripping down the avenues at 2 AM with their anti lag-equipped rice rockets sounding like machine guns. Getting into fistfights outside bars. Starting shitty boring bands. No thank you!
ReplyDelete"And these older men would tell you: get a fucking hair cut. Stop staring at that girl and creeping her out. ... Was their advice perfect, or always sensible? No, but at least it was something."
ReplyDeleteI don't see what's keeping the older men in this scenario from being shitty people themselves, and passing on correspondingly shitty advice to nascent shitty young men -- if anything this seems pretty common
"Shitty people" is a really nasty, judgmental phrase that should be avoided.
DeleteMy experience is that most people in life try to be decent, which means that most older men in such scenarios will be decent, which means that their advice will be decently motivated.