The Boston Herald reports on Elliot Rodger and his multiple murders in Santa Barbara.
“On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house at UCSB, and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut I see inside there,” Rodger said in his final video. “I will be a god compared to you. You will all be animals. You are animals, and I will slaughter you like animals. I hate all of you. Humanity is a disgusting, wretched, depraved species.”
The Santa Barbara City College student complained of being a virgin who had never been kissed and was constantly rejected by women who prefer “obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.”
“You think I’m unworthy of you. That’s a crime I can never get over,” he said. “If I can’t have you girls, I will destroy you. You denied me a happy life and in turn I will deny all of you life. It’s only fair.”
And then he did.
Which is not to say that misogyny is all that’s going on here. But to pretend it’s irrelevant? I don’t think so.
“All of you girls who rejected me, looked down upon me, you know, treated me like scum while you gave yourselves to other men … ” Elliot Rodger said during the final moments of his video. “I hate all of you. I can’t wait to give you exactly what you deserve — annihilation.”
…
Experts say the shooter appears to be the product of a sick modern society that encourages violence against women, and that he is suffering from one of man’s oldest mental ailments — envy.
“You’re looking at someone who’s unhinged. In a culture that legitimizes violence against women — whether it’s video games or pornography — this violence is sexualized,” said Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College. “When you hear something like this, he’s picking up on cultural cues that women are less than him and don’t deserve to live.”
Again, not necessarily the only factor, but a factor? It certainly looks that way.
How could it not be?
How can people pretend it isn’t?
Not, of course, to deny the obvious factors, but I wonder who or what led him to believe that “supreme gentleman” was a good thing to be. It’s not a common aspiration among the young.
@2 One guess is that one of things PUAs often encourage is to be a “gentleman”…as a way to get women into bed. http://www.puatraining.com/blog/how-to-be-a-gentleman On the briefest reading it seems positive, but this makes it clear: “…if you’re gent who has game… women won’t stand a chance. So make sure your game is up to speed by learning my Stealth Attraction techniques.”
@3 Thanks for the link. Yes, that might well be it. The sad thing is that it wouldn’t be bad advice in a different context – it’s the PUA attitude that poisons everything.
It’s the attitude “I want, so I should have”. Everyone must be a slave to this absolute imperative. There is no idea that studying at college is a good in itself, because the poor obsessed cretin can think of nothing but sex. And what normal person can imagine a normal human relationship with a poor obsessed cretin? It’s both pitiful and terrible. And the MRAs are promoting this emotional subhumanity for all they’re worth, which is not very much.
I think that this attitude explains so much about human life that it is hard for me to stop seeing it in everything. Rationally, that cannot be correct. But it’s hard to avoid.
Actually, I think that “envy” is a contemptible diagnosis, and is the sort of thing a person says who can’t and won’t confront the obvious. It’s not a merely personal thing here but a sickness that pervades all of society at every level and in every human institution. It’s why even apparently rational men think that a man has the right to ask any woman for sex at any time. You don’t have to look at India or Egypt. You only have to look at us men.
I wonder why he hated blondes.
@6
Yes, ‘envy’ seems a strange interpretation, perhaps a deranged sense of ‘ownership’ is more appropriate, as when men murder their estranged wives, their children and even the family pets, if they can’t have them, nobody else will.
Yes, or cover “their” women in shapeless clothes so that no other man will see them. It is so vile!
The simultaneous vision of women as ‘prey,’ and as Overwhelmingly Powerful Gatekeepers of Sex is absolutely batshit crazy.
I haven’t checked the link above, but the PUA materials I have seen imply that ‘Gentlemen/Nice Guys’ are just poses to be assumed in order to con women into sex. The reeking contempt for women, for sex, and for themselves is absolutely suffocating.
Is gender segregation a required common thread between Rodgers and the Tarhir Square rapists? Don’t any of these ‘men’ have mothers or sisters? How do we get whole generations of ‘men’ who view themselves as some separate species?
In this video of his, titled “Why do girls hate me so much?”, Rodger explains how much effort he puts into making the proper appearance that girls are supposed to go for, observing “I am sophisticated. I am magnificent” and “See? Look at how fabulous I look.” “I am the ultimate gentleman, and yet, you girls [points at the camera] never give me a chance. I don’t know why.” “I don’t know why you girls are so repulsed by me.” – interpreting a girl’s disinterest as offensive rejection. He describes all the beautiful girls, with their “revealing shorts and cascading blond hair and pretty faces” and concludes with “I want one for a girlfriend.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I do everything I can to appear attractive to you.” (So you OWE me)
“I’ve never had sex/kissed a girl/even held a girl’s hand. I don’t have a young girl’s number in my cell phone. And that’s such an injustice, because I’m so magnificent! I deserve girls much more than all those slobs…” Purely superficial – regards himself as the only truly sentient being in the world. On that bodybuilding forum, some of the guys compared him to “American Psycho.”
“I walk around the common areas and I see obnoxious guys with beautiful girls, and that pisses me off because *I* should be the one with the girls. [poses for the camera] I mean, look at me! I’m gorgeous! If you girls don’t see it, I don’t understand why you’re so repulsed by me. Why won’t you give me a chance? It’s ridiculous. The other day, I was doing some grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s and I was of course all alone – I always am – which makes me feel so miserable… Anyway, I was doing my shopping and I see this like disgusting looking loser – he’s a loser in my opinion – who walks in with these two beautiful blond girls at his side. I couldn’t believe my eyes – I was so insulted by that, because *I* should be the one with the girls. But you never give me a chance. If you just give me a chance, and get to know me, you’ll see that I am worthy of you. Because I am. Unbelievable. I mean, this world is so beautiful, but it’s so sad and depressing when I have to experience it all alone, and I have to watch other guys able to walk around and enjoy their lives with beautiful girlfriends at their side. I can only imagine how amazing their sex life must be. I’ve never had any sex or anything like that. Such an injustice. I don’t know why you girls hate me so much. I really wish I could ask you this, and this is my way of asking you this. This is the only way I can ask you this.”
“Indifference” is twisted into active “hatred” in his mind. No woman is free to simply not be interested because women have no agency. They are physical objects that, under the correct conditions, can be counted upon to behave in a manner more akin to laws of physics than anything else. “If I dress well, think well of myself, buy expensive accessories, drive a fancy car, and am both sophisticated AND a gentleman (check check check check check), that means the girls will flock to me. Guaranteed. If they don’t, it is because they are super evil creatures who hate me and want to torment me. By NOT flocking to me as they are required to by the laws of physics or whatever, they have demonstrated that THEY ARE MY ENEMY.” (My summary)
Well, quite. But then I wonder if it isn’t better expressed the other way round: that men view women as a separate species. Like an animal to be hunted: you observe its behaviour and set suitable traps. Unfortunately, the women are either too stupid to fall into the traps or are wickedly acting in such a way as to deceive innocent men about the true nature of their behaviour. This is because women have no rational minds, so they don’t get the message, and because women have brains which they employ to lure poor men to their doom. This must be true, because they look attractive but they don’t take any notice of me.
Is there anything that can be done about teaching boys how to relate to other human beings on a personal level? Is it only weaponry and football and high achievement? Why is it that a man is a man but a woman is only a woman?