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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
He likely was a misogynist.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
He likely was a misogynist.

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Really? The best you can do is "likely"?

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Originally posted by Porridge:
But where, exactly, does it get us to label him a misogynist?

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Originally posted by Porridge:
The folks I've known lack most of the tenderer emotions (sympathy, empathy, affection) themselves, so they’re unable to ascribe such feelings to others. When others express such feelings in their presence, the Asperger’s individual may be utterly perplexed and have no clue what’s evoked the feeling or how to respond to it, except through his repertoire of learned responses (if he has any for the current circumstance). The rest of us may seem not quite real to this person.

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by Porridge:
But where, exactly, does it get us to label him a misogynist?

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Where does it get us to recognize that the men who dragged James Byrd to death were racists? It reminded us that racism is not just about hurt feelings and can have fatal consequences.

Where did it get us to say that the men who crucified Matthew Shepard were homophobes? It showed us the real face of homophobia, that it's not limited to a few unkind words and stupid jokes.

Where does it get us to label Elliot Rodger a misogynist? Same answer. Pretending he wasn't is just an attempt to save misogyny's "good name".

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Originally posted by saysay:

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Originally posted by Twilight:
That answers the question I've had since seeing his picture -- Why didn't the girls like such a cute boy? I'll bet many a girl sidled up to him at a party, began flirting, and then, within minutes, felt something "off," about some little thing he said or did. And he never had the slightest idea what he did wrong.

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I don't know. I've known other people on the autism/aspergers spectrum, and their social reactions were frequently "off", but with a little bit of education people could cope with the mismatch.

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Originally posted by Porridge:
But where, exactly, does it get us to label him a misogynist? Or a racist? Or, for that matter, mentally ill? Or a case of personality disorder (2 different categories, BTW)?

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Originally posted by Pancho:
Don't be so certain of that. I don't know where you got your info but since since I had trouble finding statistics on the 'net I decided to count out the number of victims listed in Wikipedia for shootings in the US in the past 14 years.

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Originally posted by Pancho:
He didn't kill because he was a misogynist. There are plenty of misogynists walking the street today. (Misandrists too, for all I know). He killed because of his severe personal issues that somehow escaped treatment and intervention.

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:

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I've never been all that convinced by the line that people who seem to be completely narcissistic and entitled actually hate themselves. I've heard it a lot but it seems counterintuitive at best. Does it come from the perspective that says that self esteem is the cure for everything? I don't know.

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The argument is more nuanced than you put it. Narcissistic people hate their real selves, the flawed, ugly and broken parts of their personality. And so they tend to create exaggerated, perfect versions of themselves and that is what they "love."

Self-love is not about loving a perfect version of yourself. It is about accepting oneself, warts and all, the good stuff and the bad stuff. It's a journey of self-realization.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Thing is, I'm never sure if I'm on the Autistic spectrum at all, so if I am, it's very high-functioning, but nevertheless I can absolutely identify with the scenario Porridge describes; going through adolescence utterly out of the dating loop, whilst the bastards who beat the shit out of you because you're different are the ones getting the girls, having your approaches rebuffed; seeing again and again the horror on a girl's face when she realises you'd like to be more than just good friends (how terrible!) and watching her being treat like shit by some bloke who is inexplicably, even though he's a twat, more attractive to women than you are. Yeah, it can fuck you up. As I say, if I'm on the spectrum it's at the normal end, but yet I was 25 before I had any romantic involvement with the opposite sex, because of my inability to grasp subtle social conventions.

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Originally posted by Porridge:
But where, exactly, does it get us to label him a misogynist? Or a racist? Or, for that matter, mentally ill? Or a case of personality disorder (2 different categories, BTW)?

He is no less dead, nor are his victims, for 5 pages of strangers' efforts to label him accurately.

Here was a human being with catastrophically disordered thinking, enormous rage engendered by the frustrations of that disordered thinking, zero ability to cope with his rage and frustrations, a therapist and at least one parent fearful of and issuing warnings about his rage, and ready, legal access to multiple lethal weapons granted by the very society he was enraged with.

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
So, when Marvin pointed out (in the rape culture purg thread) that he has the same feelings of vulnerability when walking at night / in a room alone with someone, some women (and a few men) expressed surprise. But it makes total sense - a woman might fear being attacked and raped when on their own. A man has two concurrent fears - first being attacked and beaten up (by one of the strong, confident men at the top of the pile), and second, being perceived as a threat himself, by being mistaken for a predator or attacker.

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
All true, Orfeo. The nature and cause of the feelings are different, but they are feelings of vulnerability nonetheless.

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Originally posted by Porridge:
People with Asperger's seem to me to have an incomplete self. Again, this is based solely on my own experience with and observation of roughly two dozen clients with this diagnosis over the years; I don’t claim any special expertise and don’t have scholarly publications on the subject. Someone with more experience with a wider range of such clients (people eligible for my case load must have at least some capacity to live, with support, independently) can come along and blow everything I say out of the water.

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What I see in these folks is a “shell person;” someone with sufficient acuity and mimicking ability to “act” typical at least some of the time, but in superficial, almost mechanical, ways. At the core, where most of us have a private self-awareness, the folks I’ve seen seem to have no “there” there. Often there seems to be a learned repertoire of behaviors (“Ah, I see: when someone asks me ‘What in bloody hell do you think you’re doing?!’, they’re not actually asking for an explanation of my current activity; instead, they’re demanding that I stop at once, and my response should be, ‘Oh! Why? What’s wrong?’”). Unfortunately, they seem to lack any true capacity for self-reflection beyond this superficial level. The person may understand that there are social norms and that it smooths their paths to conform to these, but there’s no real grasp of any larger picture. The folks I've known lack most of the tenderer emotions (sympathy, empathy, affection) themselves, so they’re unable to ascribe such feelings to others. When others express such feelings in their presence, the Asperger’s individual may be utterly perplexed and have no clue what’s evoked the feeling or how to respond to it, except through his repertoire of learned responses (if he has any for the current circumstance). The rest of us may seem not quite real to this person.

I’m recalling work with one of these clients, who was apt to pop wildly inappropriate questions at staff during home visits. One of my staff instructed him not to ask personal questions of her. The next time she visited, she greeted him (as usual) with, “Hi, X! How are you?” His response: “How come I can’t ask you personal questions, but you can ask me personal questions?” He had no idea how to distinguish between “How are you?” and something like “Did you fart in bed last night?”

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Originally posted by Liopleurodon:

(You might also want to consider that "how are you?" might be an extremely personal question, particularly for someone who is bad at lying. It's a question that I absolutely hate but because I'm not neurotypical I don't get any say in what I consider rude or intrusive.)

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I have a good, neutral answer for "how are you" which is "Still kicking thank you". (Meaning 'still alive and kicking')

It gives nothing away, but is friendly and polite. If I want to make the other person smile I then add "Just don't ask me who!"



[/tangent]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
From the point of view of a lot of men, in social interactions, it's the women who have the power. Because sexuality is always floating around in the back of the male psyche, women hold this massive power over them. And ironically, from the woman's point of view, the power dynamic is perceived as the other way round.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
We're not shell people. We don't lack emotion. Our emotions and our behaviour don't match up in the way you expect because we process things differently from neurotypical people. The fact that you don't instinctively understand what happens in our heads doesn't mean that there's nothing there.

(You might also want to consider that "how are you?" might be an extremely personal question, particularly for someone who is bad at lying. It's a question that I absolutely hate but because I'm not neurotypical I don't get any say in what I consider rude or intrusive.)

Incidentally, there is no medication for Asperger's. There are medications for depression and anxiety (common among aspies, particularly anxiety) and I suppose stuff for irritability. But there is no medication you can give someone to make them less autistic. So aspies failing to take meds is not remotely like someone in a psychotic episode refusing to take meds. My experience has been that as creatures of habit and routine it's pretty soothing to do the same things each day, including taking meds.

It's pretty clear from the things that you're saying about the ASD individuals you've worked with that they're lower functioning that Rodger in any case. I'm not really sure why we're having this conversation except that it's painfully fucking predictable. Every time some shit like this happens everyone scrambles to disassociate themselves from the killer by pointing out that he is Not Like Us. So if you're neurotypical and have no mental health issues it's pretty straightforward to point to those and start sounding off about how people like me (yup, I tick both ASD and mental illness boxes) are more like the killer.

I can't believe I'm having to say this, but there is not one autistic personality. There are nice ASD people, and horrible ones. For the most part, we're more likely to be obsessed with not breaking rules which funnily enough makes us less likely to commit crimes. But invariably, when one of us does, it's presented as a causal factor.

We can discuss whether Rodger killed because of his ASD or we can look at the fucking reasons he gave us for why he killed. Imagine the following (yeah, I have an imagination, too. And a sense of humour. Just in case those aspie stereotypes come up):

Mr. A. is a white supremacist. He gets himself immersed in an online culture of racial hatred and spends his time talking to people with brutal violent fantasies about race war. Mr. B. has similarly immersed himself in Islamist extremism. He likes to hang out with wannabe jihadis online. Because of the nature of the internet, each of these guys is able to spend an inordinate amount of time talking to people who agree with them, and getting more and more caught up in rhetoric and flawed arguments and twisted evidence. They get angrier. Eventually, one day, each of them snaps, writes a 140-page manifesto about how they are vastly superior to [group] and want to crush [group] and put them all in a concentration camp and watch them starve. Then they each go on a killing spree.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Porridge:
But where, exactly, does it get us to label him a misogynist? Or a racist? Or, for that matter, mentally ill? Or a case of personality disorder (2 different categories, BTW)?

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It gets us to thinking about the next misogynist or racist and what that might mean.

Seriously, isn't that what the remark from the Onion is about? America is in this perpetual cycle of watching these kinds of events happen and showing no signs of prevention. Why? Because it's always purely REactive. Oh well, it's happened now, it's in the past, we couldn't stop it.

Goddamn it, start being PROactive. Come up with solutions. And what's required to come up with solutions? You have toANALYSE.

That's where it gets us, for God's sake. It's not about resurrecting Elliot Roger or Elliot Roger's victims, it's about understanding what happened well enough to have a decent shot at preventing the next 'Elliot Roger' whatever his name is.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Porridge:
People with Asperger's seem to me to have an incomplete self.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by Porridge:
If we had a grain of sense, we'd stop pretending that racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. etc. are merely the "opinions" (however misguided) we currently treat them as. We would recognize that these, too, are in fact mental illnesses. They are forms of the same kind of disordered thinking.

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Take Guy One: he believes that the CIA listens to his thoughts through his fillings. This is patently untrue. We label him "mentally ill."

Guy Two believes that women or sexual minorities or people of color or people with disabilities (insert group of choice here) aren't actually people subject to the same rights, privileges, and failings he himself is heir to. This is patently untrue. Him we label "ignorant" or "prejudiced."

Aren't both sets of beliefs are equally delusional? However, that's probably another thread.

There's more I need to respond to, but am out of time. My apologies.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Liopleurodon, you are awesome and absolutely my favourite Shipmate right now.

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Posted                          

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Originally posted by Porridge:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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Originally posted by Porridge:
But where, exactly, does it get us to label him a misogynist? Or a racist? Or, for that matter, mentally ill? Or a case of personality disorder (2 different categories, BTW)?

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It gets us to thinking about the next misogynist or racist and what that might mean.

Seriously, isn't that what the remark from the Onion is about? America is in this perpetual cycle of watching these kinds of events happen and showing no signs of prevention. Why? Because it's always purely REactive. Oh well, it's happened now, it's in the past, we couldn't stop it.

Goddamn it, start being PROactive. Come up with solutions. And what's required to come up with solutions? You have toANALYSE.

That's where it gets us, for God's sake. It's not about resurrecting Elliot Roger or Elliot Roger's victims, it's about understanding what happened well enough to have a decent shot at preventing the next 'Elliot Roger' whatever his name is.

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orfeo, I don't disagree with you. But I do live here, in this place where we're all but next door to having our streets running with blood (Chicago is maybe there already). I'll wager I see many more US "shots fired" stories than you do, as the *cough* lesser of these incidents likely don't make headlines very far afield, as we become paralytically inured to the ongoing carnage.

But just as we investigate airline crashes, we also investigate murders. The police DO that job; they're doing it now with the Rodger case. Yes, there is also analysis.

But murder is NOT an airline crash, where an instrument failure which a change in pre-flight inspection might catch next time out. It's not a routine flight procedure which doesn't work in certain weather conditions, and a change in pilot training might prevent.

In murder, it's always "human error." Pilots routinely get screened. Many of the unfit are weeded out before training; most of the rest will fall away during it; those who pass through these gates will continue to be screened for as long as they keep a pilot's license.

There is no way to screen 350 million people in this fashion. There's no way even to screen the 26-point-something-% of us who have mental illness in this fashion. Our system of laws and governance was originally designed to prevent the government from having the power to do any such thing. And though we're being covertly surveilled these days 16 ways from Sunday (by Amazon & Target, if not our own government), I can't see the US populace agreeing, for the sake of preventing the carnage we live with, to having themselves screened, examined, whatever-it-would-take. For pity's sake, we can't even pass sensible gun legislation: it's "Take the bad guy's gun, but keep yer mitts offa mine."

And I'll retract my query about labels. I'm wrong. They do matter.

If we had a grain of sense, we'd stop pretending that racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. etc. are merely the "opinions" (however misguided) we currently treat them as. We would recognize that these, too, are in fact mental illnesses. They are forms of the same kind of disordered thinking.

Take Guy One: he believes that the CIA listens to his thoughts through his fillings. This is patently untrue. We label him "mentally ill."

Guy Two believes that women or sexual minorities or people of color or people with disabilities (insert group of choice here) aren't actually people subject to the same rights, privileges, and failings he himself is heir to. This is patently untrue. Him we label "ignorant" or "prejudiced."

Aren't both sets of beliefs are equally delusional? However, that's probably another thread.

There's more I need to respond to, but am out of time. My apologies.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I agree that reducing misogyny is a good thing, and would reduce violence against women, rape, and so on. I'm not convinced it would stop people like Rodger, as I think he is gunning to kill somebody.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
orfeo

I'm not looking for a perfect plan, no way. But I work in a profession which takes part in a system of red flags, which flags up dangerous people. It is certainly not perfect, but it can always be improved, and hopefully, new ways will be found to do that. I think there were plenty of red flags for Rodger, and the cops were nearly there, but of course, hindsight is perfect.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
What bothers me, though, is that in your equation of him being a 'mad misogynist', it turns out that only the 'mad' bit matters. Misogyny ceases to be even a contributing cause, despite the existence of a considerable amount of openly misogynistic material and misogynistic justification for what he planned to do. Planned.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The problem with racism, misogyny, homophobia, and so on, is that (contra Porridge), they are not mental illnesses, nor even diagnostic of them.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
On US law, friends are telling me that the cops did have probable cause, to wit, the previous videos, threatening mayhem. This might over-ride the 'unreasonable search and seizure' protection, allowing the cops to search his room, with a warrant presumably.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by saysay:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
On US law, friends are telling me that the cops did have probable cause, to wit, the previous videos, threatening mayhem. This might over-ride the 'unreasonable search and seizure' protection, allowing the cops to search his room, with a warrant presumably.

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What videos threatening mayhem? AFAICT the misogyny and general creepiness in the videos was a warning sign, but there were no actual threats until right before he acted. He seems to have been too smart for that.

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Originally posted by Josephine:

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
From the point of view of a lot of men, in social interactions, it's the women who have the power. Because sexuality is always floating around in the back of the male psyche, women hold this massive power over them. And ironically, from the woman's point of view, the power dynamic is perceived as the other way round.

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Right, because men have penises, and women have breasts and vaginas, and because the very thought of breasts and vaginas can cause a man to have an erection, and because women (the dastardly, powerful, inhuman creatures that they are) can then refuse to relieve it for him. And that's clearly an incredible amount of power for one person to have over another, and one that we have to put a stop to.

So men have, from time immemorial, worked to equalize this horrific power imbalance. And they've done a damned good job of it.

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Originally posted by Liopleurodon:

Mr. A. is a white supremacist. He gets himself immersed in an online culture of racial hatred and spends his time talking to people with brutal violent fantasies about race war. Mr. B. has similarly immersed himself in Islamist extremism. He likes to hang out with wannabe jihadis online.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Mr. A. is a white man who perceives life to be unfair. He encounters white supremacist propaganda and it gives his frustrations focus. He then goes on a killing spree, targeting minorities. Is he racist? Yes. Is the reason he killed racism? Not necessarily. It might be without that trigger, he would not have gone this far. It might be he would have found another reason.

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Originally posted by Josephine:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Mr. A. is a white man who perceives life to be unfair. He encounters white supremacist propaganda and it gives his frustrations focus. He then goes on a killing spree, targeting minorities. Is he racist? Yes. Is the reason he killed racism? Not necessarily. It might be without that trigger, he would not have gone this far. It might be he would have found another reason.

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I am informed by a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center that when white supremacists spend time with other white supremacists (either online or in real life, it doesn't seem to matter which), and when their ideas are visible in public and engaged with, the white supremacists become more extreme and more likely to commit violence.

When their opinions are marginalized, and when they meet with clear and public pushback when they do show up in public, their opinions become less extreme, and they become less likely to commit violence.

In other words, without the immersion in the extremist milieu, it's likely that he would NOT have found another reason for his murderous rampage.

Making it clear that misogyny, racism, and the like are simply Not Acceptable Beliefs will not prevent every future murderous rampage, any more than adequate handwashing will prevent every future case of infectious disease. But they will reduce the frequency of such. And that's a good thing.

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Originally posted by Josephine:

Making it clear that misogyny, racism, and the like are simply Not Acceptable Beliefs will not prevent every future murderous rampage, any more than adequate handwashing will prevent every future case of infectious disease. But they will reduce the frequency of such. And that's a good thing.

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Posted                       

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Originally posted by Josephine:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Mr. A. is a white man who perceives life to be unfair. He encounters white supremacist propaganda and it gives his frustrations focus. He then goes on a killing spree, targeting minorities. Is he racist? Yes. Is the reason he killed racism? Not necessarily. It might be without that trigger, he would not have gone this far. It might be he would have found another reason.

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I am informed by a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center that when white supremacists spend time with other white supremacists (either online or in real life, it doesn't seem to matter which), and when their ideas are visible in public and engaged with, the white supremacists become more extreme and more likely to commit violence.

When their opinions are marginalized, and when they meet with clear and public pushback when they do show up in public, their opinions become less extreme, and they become less likely to commit violence.

In other words, without the immersion in the extremist milieu, it's likely that he would NOT have found another reason for his murderous rampage.

Making it clear that misogyny, racism, and the like are simply Not Acceptable Beliefs will not prevent every future murderous rampage, any more than adequate handwashing will prevent every future case of infectious disease. But they will reduce the frequency of such. And that's a good thing.

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