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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32405 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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Last week, Luke Pollard, the UK Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, yet again called for a "national incel strategy". According to him, it's vital that we do this to prevent another "incel terror attack" like the Keyham shootings.

I think the first time I actually heard the word was around the time Todd Phillips' Joker had released. What I don't understand is this extreme alarmism of progressives surrounding incels, when they say the exact opposite of Islamist terrorism. An internet subculture of terminally online, socially disabled men who find themselves unable to order a Big Mac without feeling butterflies in their stomachs are such a big threat to our society that we need a national strategy to combat them? This to me seems like it's completely tarred by alarmism surrounding white supremacy and racial animosity. Granted, incels do hold on to ethno-supremacist views, such fringe ideologies always find purchase among those on... the fringes of society, often young, single men with no social life and no job/ a dead end job and having nothing to lose. They spew all the vitriol online because they tend to be non-confrontational in real life, they might claim to support violence but almost never have the stomach to commit violence themselves. They've locked themselves inside their heads, no one's allowed inside and they view the world, society and women through a tiny keyhole into the sewer that is the most toxic spaces on the internet. They aren't hurting anyone but themselves. But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war? Is it simply because they spew the most bile against every 'vulnerable' demographic (women, minorities, LGBTs) online?

Incels are perceived to be a threat to women, and women are indispensable.

But I do not agree with the thesis statement that anyone actually fears incels. I can very comfortably post some rant about how incels should be rounded up and slaughtered on any major social medium and face minimal repercussions, outside of perhaps a boiler plate dispassionate ban for “inciting violence.” I think this fear-mongering is empty posturing done to signal status (virgins are losers, and displaying antipathy towards virgins is a low cost way to signal sexual desirability). This antipathy isn’t even universal. Plenty of people (yes, even women) feel bad for incels and want them to succeed, and believe that overcoming their insecurities will at least make them happier, if not sexually successful.

And as a 30+ virgin myself, I do not believe there is any disease that has infested western civilization by a few men getting no pussy, or that incels are endemic of a greater social morass. For every Epictetus who wrote on the nobility of being blessed by God to live as a crippled slave, plenty of ancient low-status men hated their lot and thought God was a dick. They’re just given access to the cheap and easy printing press that is the internet now.

But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war? Is it simply because they spew the most bile against every 'vulnerable' demographic (women, minorities, LGBTs) online?

The single oldest work of Western Literature is The Epic of Gilgamesh, "He Who Surpassed All Other Kings," "He Who Looked into the Abyss." Spoiler Alert! The wild man Enkidu is sent by the gods to chasten Gilgamesh for his overbearing ways, a fellow great hero to limit Gilgamesh and to be his companion. But Enkidu is wild and uncivilized after his creation, he uproots traps and robs farms. The Priestess Shamtat goes to Enkidu, and they make love for seven days and seven nights, and after that Enkidu is ready for civilization, he is alienated from his old friends among the beasts and the birds and must become a civilized man and go into town. Or it might take two weeks, depending on the tablets translated from

In a nutshell, the differences between the two episodes reflect different stages of Enkidu's transition from an animal to a human being. The discovery allows us to study this transition in more detail: What does it mean to become human? What steps lead from a life among the animals to a full human consciousness? What did humanity entail for the ancient Babylonians?

The first time Shamhat invites Enkidu to come to Uruk she describes Gilgamesh as superb in strength and horned like a bull. Enkidu readily accepts her invitation, saying that he will come to Uruk – but only to challenge Gilgamesh and usurp his power. “I shall change the order of things”, he declares. “The one born in the wild is mighty, he has strength.” Though Enkidu has learned to plan and speak like a human being, his way of thinking is still very much that of a wild animal: he immediately sees Gilgamesh as an alpha male, a rival bull to be defeated. The only thing that matters to him at this point is strength and domination.

But the second time Shamhat invites him to Uruk, after they have had sex for yet another week, he sees things differently. Shamhat says that she will lead him to the temple, home of Anu, the god of heaven. Rather than change the order of things, Enkidu is to find a place for himself in society: “Where men are engaged in labours of skill, you, too, like a true man, will make a place for yourself.” Enkidu, now wiser after a second bout of civilizing sex, is ready to accept this invitation. “He heard her words, he consented to what she said: a woman's counsel struck home in his heart.” He has understood the value of urban life, accepting the fact that human society is not all about domination and strength, but also about cooperation and skill. Each human being is part of a larger social fabric, where everyone must find their own place.

The incel is both threat and symbol of society's failure to civilize its men. Without a Shamtat, a sacred prostitute, to civilize them, men will run wild, they will remain with the wild playmates of their youth. Shamtat, of course, is ordered to take on this task, while she is typically portrayed as doing so voluntarily she does not do so of her own agency. Of course, other than the hair and the dirt, the reader also probably pictures Enkidu as being pretty hot, a muscled wild-man of the mountains, does the sacrificial task of Shamtat take on a different erotic charge if Enkidu is pasty and obese? It's a strange contradiction in terms, caused by a confusion in the discourse around incels which is the natural result of the terminology being unclear.

Cribbed from my own prior Reddit comment:

Taking the plain meaning "involuntarily celibate" is more like "unemployed" than it is like "disabled." Unemployed is defined as "someone who doesn't have a job but is seeking one," while disabled is defined (per social security) as "a person with a disability must have a severe disability (or combination of disabilities) that has lasted, or is expected to last, at least 12 months or result in death, and which prevents working at a substantial gainful activity." Many/most people are unemployed at some periods in their lives, few people are disabled at some point in their lives (leaving aside childhood and old age, when everyone is disabled from getting a job and no one can/should get laid).

We could distinguish there, between the "unemployed" incel and the "disabled" incel. Almost every man goes through periods when he is looking for sex and can't get it, very few young men are permanently physically incapable of getting laid. We could further distinguish among the unemployed incels the three general types of unemployment in Econ 101: Frictional, Cyclical, Structural. Virtually every man has periods of Frictional celibacy, between girlfriends or hook ups or busy at work or on a long term sojourn somewhere not amenable to casual sex. Obviously there's not a "business cycle" to sex, but we could substitute that for the lifecycle of the man himself, almost all men are ready and willing to have sex long before they are able to obtain it, and most are willing to have sex long after they are too old to interest most women. Those two categories are unimportant to us, they may participate in incel discourse for a time but ultimately they'll get their "fair share" of sex over a lifetime. It's the third group, Structural Incels, we should worry about. The Structurally Unemployed are those whose skills have been made redundant by industrial changes and reorganizations. Your coal miners or carriage makers. People who will never get laid with the skills they have. The solution to that is always training and help changing careers. Some people don't want to train and they don't want to change careers, well tough luck then. Sitting around whining you should have a bigger paycheck because you are the best carriage maker in ten counties, and failing to acknowledge that no one buys carriages!, is a bridge to nowhere.

I think we tend to conflate a bunch of different phenomena under the same incel heading. Some of this is rhetorical, politically active incels themselves conflate themselves with the disabled constantly when we'd probably label a lot of them somewhere in the unemployed category. But we all know somebody who can't get laid, and it is easy to be scared that they are or aren't on the slide into inceldom, permanent exile from civilization.

very few young men are permanently physically incapable of getting laid.

Well, possibly up to 10-20% of the population, but really impossible to find out.. Quality of the research being done is abysmal.

And sure, it's not 'permanent' only theoretically permanent, yet..

Is the hyperlink of something you claim "Impossible to find out" a 404 on purpose as some meta-joke about knowledge? Or is the link just fucked up?

Unintentional but apt meta-joke. The quality of research on porn addiction is abysmal, for something that potentionally affects tens of millions of people, there's like 20 people working primarily on it.

On my TODO list one of the items is writing an email to a bunch of researchers who flubbed their paper on it in what they did wrong and what they need to do to truly detect abstinence symptoms.

Sitting around whining you should have a bigger paycheck because you are the best carriage maker in ten counties, and failing to acknowledge that no one buys carriages!, is a bridge to nowhere.

Or a bridge to getting state subsidies. One could argue that carriage making is a traditional industry in which tourists may be interested in, so the government wanting to attract tourists, pays you to make carriages, and your unemployed friends to be carriage drivers. Tourists can see old-timey woodworkers, then take a ride in the previously finished product.

Your enire post is set in some Freemarketistan, in which the market with its pure economic logic, detemines winners and losers. But in actually existing capitalism, the state intervenes in various ways that help those who are unable or unwilling to provide what society values.

Sure, the state intervenes, but not easily. There's thousands of lawyers around the country who work at getting Social Security Disability Benefits for their clients. I've worked on those kinds of cases before. It is not as easy as you think to just reach out your hand and get a handout. There's a whole corpus of law and expertise devoted to determining what jobs a person is able to hold, and whether those jobs can make the necessary adjustments to allow the individual to work there, and if those jobs are available. Can this individual carry 50lbs? 15lbs? 5lbs? Can they walk a mile, a thousand yards, a hundred yards? How long can they sit/stand/walk before needing a break? How many days a week would they be unable to work? The government can dig into every aspect of your life at a hearing to determine if you'll get anything out of them, and half the time a lawsuit results. If there is any job you can do, you aren't getting disability benefits. If you lose your arm and can't work as a welder, you don't get money, you get told to go get a job manning the booth at a parking garage.

Which brings us back to our friends the incels. This is the debate we have over Incel vs Volcel, whether most incels could get laid if they wanted to fuck ugly women, or if they washed their hair, or whatever. The government, or society, has every right to interrogate if you are doing enough before giving you help.

Zoom out a little. The problem isn't with dudes not getting laid per se. It's a problem of managing unmarried young men. This is a problem societies everywhere in the world have always faced forever. In fact, human society has spent millenia designing and improving a roadmap specifically for how boys ought to navigate - military service, occupational development, expectations in (usually but not always) monogamous marriages.

Over the past 20 years (with antecedents out to 50) western societies have systematically destroyed all of these institutions for young men and offered no replacements. Say what you will about "traditional" male roles (and there are good reasons to want to change those notions) ... but an absence of roles and demonstrated paths to responsibility / status in society is absolutely catastrophic. This is for one simple reason; most of society's violence is perpetrated by young men. Murder, rape, assault, robbery ... 90% - 95% of all perpetrators are men between 18 and 35 (maybe extend that to 40, whatever).

"Incel" is just a part of the elephant that seems to be fun to grope recently (yes, I wrote that on purpose). The bigger issue is what to do with all these young men. But the climate is such that, right now, any political / social leader who stands up as says "Let's talk about the plight of young men" is ridiculed into oblivion.

Well, okay, we can continue to do that and continue to watch young dispossessed men murder random people on Twitch (literally that happened in the Buffalo shootings).

But the climate is such that, right now, any political / social leader who stands up as says "Let's talk about the plight of young men" is ridiculed into oblivion.

With the notable exception of Jordan Peterson.

"Let's talk about the plight of young men" is ridiculed into oblivion.

To be fair to the MP, he's going in that direction. A Prevent-style strategy is largely focused on identifying groups at risk of radicalisation and trying to work with them to put them on a better path.

Whether he will have any success in promoting such an idea is dubious, exactly because of the ridicule. Young Muslims are "justifiably aggrieved". Young sexless men? "Privileged."

If your matchstick for progressivism is the Labour Party (UK), it's worth remembering that last time the Labour was in power in the UK, Islamist terrorism got them to be a major participant in wars leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, as well as pass as pass major anti-terrorist bills.

In general, Western societies, during the last 20 years, have done a humongous amount of costly efforts, often very questionable civil-liberties-wise, to combat Islamist terrorism, and there have been large movements advocating for West to go above and beyond these efforts to considerably limit religious liberties in general insomuch as Islam is concerned It's these efforts that form the context of progressive criticisms of discourses perceived as Islamophobic, whether those criticisms always hit their target or not. Nothing similar has thus far existed for incels, evinced by the fact that a "national incel strategy" is something that individual MPs bring up as a thing to establish, not an existing thing to comment upon or update.

As far as my opinion on the incel danger goes, the true danger is not in the rather ephemeral connections to terrorism but simply that many online incels just seem to be young guys (as in, often under 20, maybe under 15) who are in no ways among the stereotypical 30-year-old kissless virgin no-hoper category and who are simply going through a fairly typical stage of being young and horny and arousing little interest in women due to the fact that young men are not always seen adult enough for them to date and the competition for young women is fierce since young women arouse male interest from all male age-classes.

Typically, such young men will see their chances improve as they gain in age and status - but if they fall into online incel circles full of those bitter-30-year-old no-hopers ready to tell them that it will NEVER get better and they will be FOREVER ALONE whatever they do, well, enough time marinating in that soup and the chances of this becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy start increasing.

If your matchstick for progressivism is the Labour Party (UK), it's worth remembering that last time the Labour was in power in the UK, Islamist terrorism got them to be a major participant in wars leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, as well as pass as pass major anti-terrorist bills.

Isn't the counter to this that this was under Blair's "New Labour," which was essentially the Neoliberal version of the classically-socialist Labour? I imagine all Labour voters after some point in the 2010's have disowned that era.

I imagine all Labour voters after some point in the 2010's have disowned that era

Not really. Blair has a tricky legacy, but that's mostly because of Iraq rather than anything about domestic policy. More broadly, the membership possibly and certainly the wider voter base looks upon New Labour relatively favourably, in large part because they actually won elections. Corbyn was really an aberration; Starmer has started embracing the legacy of New Labour more openly, and why wouldn't he? 1997-2008 was the probably the best set of years the country has enjoyed in the entire post-war period.

Tangential and beyond this, many Muslims (especially in their countries) are really receptive to manosphere and incel type texts. I've recently been befriending Pakistanis, Saudis and such on facebook and they all share the most cringe inducing things by western influencers. It's really disappointing, honestly.

What do you mean? Do these 'many Muslims' turn against Islam and polygyny? Polygyny, as practiced by Mohammad, who is considered as example of how Muslims should live, inevitably creates incels. As was already noted in this thread, nice if you building society to go to war and use incels in a war.

Polygyny, as practiced by Mohammad, who is considered as example of how Muslims should live, inevitably creates incels. As was already noted in this thread, nice if you building society to go to war and use incels in a war.

Yes. And? I don't understand how to respond to your comment. It doesn't seem to logically lead from what I wrote nor to itself. They're parroting western manosphere personalities, complaining about liberal women etc. in Pakistan. What do you mean what do I mean?

Should I clarify that "tangential" means loosely related or "cringe western (manosphere) influencers" are guys saying you should migrate to the 3rd world do find submissive women?

It appears you were going to share an observation, but your attempt didn't add to discussion because you were suffering from outgroup homogenity bias.

What I don't understand is this extreme alarmism of progressives surrounding incels, when they say the exact opposite of Islamist terrorism.

One is in their ingroup, one is in their outgroup. The actual deaths these groups cause are a casus belli against them, not the main reason for their revilement. Do you think progressives would not revile "incels" if a few didn't kill people? Do you think an ethno-nationalist would want all the Muhammad's in his nation if they never committed a terrorist attack?

But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war?

Because they are not "basement dwelling gamur incels" nor are most who suffer from gender conflicts transgender. You are looking at the ends of the spectrum, but what is the spectrum? Both are afflicted by poor conditions, one demands a wife/sex/family, the other demands to be both physically and metaphorically neutered. It is little wonder which one those with cultural power and little to no external enemy promote and which they demonize.

I think the incel movement is just a 'canary down the coal mine' for society in general with regards to how modern culture and technology is hampering people from getting their basic needs met.

While there is an argument that there were always socially inept young men who were unable to find romantic partners, I think that the modern western world has created unique challenges that didn't exist in prior generations (such as social media and downstream expectations on what a male partner should be).

It's pretty straightforward to me that the mainstream progressive view is that less empathy should be accorded to the outgroup (western incels) than fargroups (ethnic immigrants) with the same issue (finding female partners in the West).

I don't have any real solutions to this issue, but I hope society affords more empathy to incels moving forward and has the foresight to address the root societal, cultural and technological causes preventing those men (and women) from finding happiness. Touch, empathy, acceptance and love are basic human needs. Society would be much better off if incels had those needs met in terms of productivity via enfranchisement, less culture warring and societal friction and that's before you get to basic human kindness and decency in helping and accepting the unloved.

Instead we get people treating them like atomised terrorists and a threat that needs to be crushed. My time observing the culture war makes me think that their treatment will get worse before it gets better.

Society would be much better off if incels had those needs met in terms of productivity via enfranchisement, less culture warring and societal friction and that's before you get to basic human kindness and decency in helping and accepting the unloved.

I think this is far from a sure thing.

To meet the needs of an incel, a woman must throw herself on the sword and date a man who she doesn't want to (because if she did want to date him, he wouldn't be an incel). You can't meet the needs of incels without making women unhappy, and vice-versa. Western society currently prefers to side with making women happy on that dilemma; compelled arranged marriage in rural India society prefers to side with making incels happy on that dilemma. If we could do a ceteris paribus controlling for wealth, would Indian compelled marriage really lead to "society being better off" than Western female profligacy?

I think yes, because I suspect that men produce more net social benefit when happy than women do, but I recognise that there is a trade-off being made here and it's not a slam-dunk in favour of men.

needs of incels

But does an incel need sexual success (with the right woman, in the right way, with the right conditions etc.) in order to be happy? They certainly express a strong desire for such an experience, but is it necessary for their happiness? Obviously it isn't sufficient - there are millions of depressed people who are not incels - but I'm not even convinced that it is necessary, any more than I am convinced that e.g. a trans person needs everyone to affirm their self-identified gender in order to be happy or that a devout Muslim needs everyone to be a Muslim in order to be happy. These are just strong preferences that people have, and adults (and even many children, at least beyond a certain age) are perfectly capable of being happy despite unsatisfied strong preferences.

Strictly speaking, no one "needs" much of anything to be happy, which seems to be as much a function of life meeting your expectations as anything. Lower expectations enough, and happiness is always within reach: you can be a hermit in the woods eating the bark from trees and be happy.

But that stance can be applied to any social issue: at least in Western societies, nearly every political project isn't strictly necessary for happiness. And that's not a bad thing, as we're far richer than any society throughout history.

To focus on incels in particular, how realistic is it to have them drop their hopes of sex and (more importantly) pair bonding? To me, it seems extraordinarily unlikely they'll be able to drop those things, and to the extent that it is possible at scale, it'll be more through the distraction of porn/drugs/vidya than through achieving some kind of Buddhist relinquishment of all earthly desires.

Strictly speaking, no one "needs" much of anything to be happy, which seems to be as much a function of life meeting your expectations as anything. Lower expectations enough

I agree up to "expectations". This is a significantly ambiguous phrase in this context. I might "expect" X in the sense that I hope that it will happen. Alternatively, I might "expect" X in the sense that I think that other people (or God, or fate, or whatever) is obliged to give it to me. Or that the world is an unfair place if I can't have X. The latter sense is the type of expectation that causes most anger, as well as a lot of unhappiness.

And I would say that happiness, in general, comes from one's own activity and its relation to one's experiences, rather than meeting expectations (in either sense) as such. Our mental reward system encourages us when we are doing actions that are subjectively meaningful: they are conducive towards a desired goal. Again, this is one sense in which incels shoot themselves in the foot: most of the happiness that you can have from sex comes from the pursuit, not the act itself.

Of course, if they say "I'm no good unless I'm having sex, and with the right sort of context, and with the right sort of person... etc. etc.", then they might feel temporarily better after boosting their egos by having sex under the right conditions. But what then? Pretty soon, they'd find some other noose to hang themselves with. "I'm no good unless my partner only has sex with me, and only thinks about sex with me" or "I'm no good unless I'm having sex with lots of different women" or "I'm no good unless I'm levelling up to a more attractive woman" etc. etc.

The same pattern occurs with people who have anxiety. Deal with one source of danger and what then? There's always some risk in life to be anxious about. Only once the delusion "I must be safe" is addressed can someone be consistently free of anxiety.

Similarly, only once incels are free of delusions like "I need to do/be/have certain things in order to be happy" will they be free of their unhappiness, anger, and depression. And like everyone else, they won't be free 100% of the time, but that's fine - nobody needs to be happy all the time to live a good life. Indeed, there are many times (bereavement, disappointment, combat etc.) when unhappy emotions are perfectly rational and helpful.

how realistic is it to have them drop their hopes of sex

I wouldn't suggest this at all. There is a huge difference between hoping for X and thinking that you need X.

Personally, I only started getting laid once I stopped thinking that I needed to get laid, and instead thinking "Wow, I really want to get laid!" I suspect that pretty much all incels would find the same thing happened to them, sooner or later.

As for happiness, I don't think that there's a political obligation upon others to make a person happy, though you might argue that there's an obligation to create a society where that person could live a happy and fulfilling life, if they worked their ass at it. I'm not convinced that incels don't already live in such a society. And I'm not saying that they are all lazy - just possessed by a dangerous illusion that they need sex to be happy. Ironically, if they were free of that delusion, they'd be more likely to get sex. Neediness is not attractive, at least to people with whom you'd actually want to be in a relationship...

To meet the needs of an incel, a woman must throw herself on the sword and date a man who she doesn't want to (because if she did want to date him, he wouldn't be an incel). You can't meet the needs of incels

There are other options, such as platonic acceptance and friendship of incels, as well as encouragement of incels to use traditional techniques of physical fitness, grooming, fashion improvement and socialisation via meetups and the like. Not all can be saved, but I'm pretty sure a significant percentage can be. It probably starts with outreach and acknowledgement of the structural difficulties of dating in the modern world, rather than hyperagentic victim blaming.

getting their basic needs met

But love is not an adult human need. A baby will die if nobody cares for it, but incels aren't babies. At their best, AFAICT, they are possessed by a powerful false belief that they aren't loved if they don't get sex from (the right kind of) woman, and that the world is awful if they aren't loved.

So inceldom has a lot to do with neediness, but not to do with basic needs. Just because someone is needy, it doesn't mean that any of their needs (for survival, happiness, a meaningful life etc.) is not being met.

But love is not an adult human need.

Did you miss that part where some identities entirely built on (specific type of) sex and love have huge role in current politics?

No, I noticed them.

Note that "X has a right to pursue Y" is not the same as "X needs Y." For example, there is a (defeasible) right of sane and non-criminal adult citizens to vote, but adults don't need to vote in order to be happy, live meaningful lives etc.

The identity is central struggle; we say "gays" instead of "people with homosexuality" and the narrative was if we don't allow Y, then we are depriving X of something very important.

Yes, but that's still compatible with love not being an adult need. That something is very important doesn't mean that it's a need for happiness, life, or meaning.

Of course, I have no doubt that there are plenty of gay people with the delusion that they need love (everyone gets afflicted by this delusion, at least some of the time, some moreso than others) and like incels they are characterised by neediness. I've known gay people like that, just as I've known incels. Like incels, they would ironically have a much better shot at getting what they want if they started thinking of love as something that they strongly want rather than something they need. A strong desire is motivating and in the case of love can lead to amazing things from people. It can motivate action in the pursuit of a goal. A perceived "need" tends to lead to anger, depression, and unattractive behaviours. It tends to inhibit people from useful actions. And I don't mean "shower and smile" - I acknowledge that most incels would have to work very hard and tolerate a lot of frustration in order to find a loving relationship. I know I did.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs which has wide recognition in psychological circles has love & belonging as a need. Maslow is not without criticism though and basic physiological and safety needs rank higher.

I would also argue that its kind of a trope that incels only want sex from attractive women, are therefore voluntarily choosing celibacy, and thus deserve to be maligned.

I would also argue that its kind of a trope that incels only want sex from attractive women, are therefore voluntarily choosing celibacy, and thus deserve to be maligned.

My usual rejoinder to the "just lower your standards bro, then you'll have loads of partners to pick from" argument is that is is isomorphic with "just become gay bro, then you'll have loads of partners to pick from".

A man can't just choose to be physically attracted to a 200 pound heifer femcel and thereby mutually annihilate the incel-femcel pair, any more than he can choose to suddenly like male on male sodomy.

Another argument is that it's simply based on false assumptions that men and women are equally picky, equally amorous and equally able to satisfy one another.

There's no reason to believe any of those things.

But above, you say that Indian compelled marriage would make incels happy. What if an incel gets paired with a woman he isn't attracted to? Now you've put him in a position where he can't even (within social norms) "shower and smile" in order to attract a woman that he likes.

I agree. I'm just against the idea that incels on average are against hooking up with average or mildly cute girls and are holding out for 7+/10's because they deserve it.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs which has wide recognition in psychological circles has love & belonging as a need. Maslow is not without criticism though and basic physiological and safety needs rank higher.

I think that even psychologists who think that Maslow's conjectures will some day be vindicated by evidence are embarassed by that particular part of it.

It's plausible that humans need to love things in order to achieve the highest forms of happiness, but loving things and being loved by people and having sex with other people are three different things.

If most incels would be willing to have sex with women that they aren't attracted to, just to get sex, then they are even more deluded than I thought.

Society would be much better off if incels had those needs met in terms of productivity via enfranchisement, less culture warring and societal friction and that's before you get to basic human kindness and decency in helping and accepting the unloved.

I agree. It's like that "red pill manosphere alpha male when he gets an ounce of female attention" meme. Many of them aren't just unable to find a female partner, they're unable to make and maintain normal companionships with other males. It may be difficult for us to fathom, but I personally know a few, it's always the simple gestures that make their days, like wishing them on birthdays/Christmas/New Years, sending a text checking up on them when they're sick, asking how their job interview went, etc. Mundane things, but ones that don't exist in their lives because they aren't a part of anyone else's. They can disappear tomorrow and quite literally no one will notice, let alone care. They're basically like ghosts, they exist and at the same time, they don't exist. That's a pretty crippling thought, and tragic if true. And so to them, someone reaching out to them and giving them their time is affirmation that they aren't ghosts and that someone does give enough of a damn. The solution "sounds" simple enough, more empathy and less shaming. Instead, we confirm their worst paranoia about society and probably resuscitate any bad experiences that they may have from high school, the last social landscape they were in.

It's slightly amusing that the same people who are always calling for nuance (at least when it favors them) seem to have concluded that incels are what they've been searching for for so long - white right-wing terrorists. I did a course on terrorism - the teacher was practically scrambling to put right-wing terrorism up with Islamic terrorism despite obviously being puny in comparison. Incels were mentioned too, they got half a week of discussion mostly about the issue of categorizing them, along with school shooters. 9/11 killed a majority of terrorism victims in the US for the last 30 years - McVeigh was a distant second place. And there is no white ISIS, no Taliban, Al Qaeda, no proper intensive insurgencies...

Anyway, incels are a diverse group! If you go on incels wiki, something they talk about is 'just be white' or JBW where ricecels, blackcels, currycels all conclude that white men are advantaged in world dating markets. Apparently all you need to do if you're white is go to South East Asia and you'll easily find a gf. According to their statistics, Asians are significantly overrepresented in the incel community in the West, relative to their share of the population.

I did a course on terrorism - the teacher was practically scrambling to put right-wing terrorism up with Islamic terrorism despite obviously being puny in comparison.

I'm tempted to do an effort post on this as its somewhat related to my subject matter expertise. The short version is that western security services are (open source) reporting a rise in 'right wing' extremism, even as Islamism and foreign interference/espionage from enemies of the west remain larger threats. Past (brief) exposure to the employees of such services makes me think that unlike most of the rest of government (who are left leaning in their politics), they are highly professional and centrist in their political views. Basically the type of people you would want in those roles.

But there are people outside of the services themselves who wish to emphasise the rise of 'right wing extremism' for ideological reasons. I think there is a venn diagram overlap between incels/white nationalists/'right wing' extremists that some are trying to exploit by equivocating between the groups and then 'chinese robber'ing them when mass shootings and the like occur.

I also think the root causes growing those groups are similar; namely increased competition due to immigration to prop up falling birth rates in the West (and downstream ethnic tension and decay of social trust), Social media and the domination of mainstream media by left-wing political advocacy (and downstream alienation of young men who can't meet the ideal, or those with right wing political views).

It would be really great to see some sort of government level examination in the west (and in my wildest dreams actual treatment) of the root causes above, but I haven't seen any real political will to do so. I think in general its just full steam ahead on importing fungible economic units and demonization of anyone that questions the consequences.

Interesting. I'd like to see that post!

I think society has basically disintegrated - sub 2.0 fertility means our civilization is unsustainable. You can bring in immigrants but that won't fix the root cause, either they'll assimilate and start aging or you'll have a separate society in your country. Our civilization is deeply broken if it can't meet the most vital metric of sustainability, it is only enormous tailwinds in technology and wealth that are propping it up. Of course there will be massive and growing social problems, epidemics of suicide, mass shootings, drug addiction and especially terrorism.

Imagine a patient in a hospital who eats ravenously. Six meals a day plus dessert - no exercise. And yet they're losing weight, you can see their ribs more and more! They'd have to be seriously sick, you'd imagine dozens of doctors crowding around this metabolic mystery. That's us. Somehow our culture, incentives and economies are so perversely broken that despite all this wealth we're going extinct. Japan and South Korea first, then Southern Europe...

I know it's not a new insight, but even if we assume tfr=1.5, in 200 years there will still be over 20 million humans living in the current territory of the United States. Not quite extinct, and that's ignoring pro-natalists like the Amish, who are likely to become very relevant at some point.

IMO declining populations are mostly a problem in that they're inherently deflationary, and we don't know how to do broad prosperity without growth.

Granted, incels do hold on to ethno-supremacist views

No, nobody has ever demonstrated that incels are more likely to hold "ethno-supremacist views" than men in general. It's just reviling for reviling sake.

If anything incels of color are very likely to have the sort of grievances usually coded as "woke"; i.e. certain dominant ethnic groups are unfairly advantaged compared to me therefore some sort of societal action is necessary.

There was a survey of some incel forum, and unsurpriginly, incels were more left wing than random men of similar age.

I'm pretty sure the incel forums aren't even white dominated anymore. It's mostly East and South Asians and Middle Easterners living in the west, all races ranking terribly low in the SMV. South Asian men rank the lowest but "fortunately", so do their women. As such, and combined with arranged marriages, the problem solves itself after a while. East Asian men otoh lose out for real, also extremely low SMV while their women perform about as well as white women do and have extremely high outmarriage rates. Hence, seen plenty of Chinese and Korean men in their 30s making 6 figures who are still virgins.

There is nothing concrete in this article except pointing to the UK Online Safety Bill, and suggesting regulations need to be applied to 4chan if not the “dark web”. He made appropriate noise for his constituency, I don’t see this as being a revitalized CW front at this point, or at least from this article.

It's because they're men who don't fit into the far left nu-male mould. Masculine men are reviled for the same reason; they refuse to perform the gender role that is now expected of them by society; that of the spineless cheerleading doormat and ATM.

Women have been largely freed of their gender-based responsibilities and expectations, however those on men only evolve and grow more constricting. Society as it is seems to have a vested interest in controlling and neutering male energy. Allowing it to flourish, as in masculine men, or fester into hate, as with incels, is unacceptable; it must be channelled to the benefit of everyone but the man himself (and, indeed, men as a class). In the same way there is a concerted effort to prevent white racial consciousness (while kindling it in all other races), so too is there an effort to suppress men's consciousness about the reality of their social station.

Incels and traditional men both reject that men should be subservient to the interests of women, therefore both must be vilified, marginalised, and destroyed if at all possible. That's all it is. The same way all the furore around Andrew Tate never focuses on his actual crimes of sex trafficking and his dodgy scam empire, but is instead endless hand-wringing over his effects on the next expected crop of browbeaten and whipped males -- sorry, "young boys".

Masculine men are reviled

Wait, what? By whom?

The 80's level of worship for roided-out athletes and action stars was a high-water mark, not the norm.

I think masculine men have lost market share to trendy social movements, but it's the same sort of benign neglect that hits everything reaching a certain level of cultural cachet: it becomes the default. Movie stars are still fit white dudes. Truck ads are still laughably gruff. That doesn't change just because the media coverage for Rings of Power decides to lean on representation. There's no alpha in headlines about traditional masculinity--but that's not the same thing as reviling it!

I don't know where you're getting your news about the "furore" of the day, but I think you're being sold an unrealistic narrative. Everything I've seen about Tate does, in fact, focus on the sex trafficking. Everything about the Liver King leads with mockery that he didn't really live up to his image. The dregs of Twitter are not representative of normal, functional society.

Your counter-examples are all cultural figures, which are also not representative of normal society.

I think masculinity is thriving on YouTube and social media as well. Outside of twitter, masculinity finds a large, receptive audience.

I would say that kowtowing to something you don't agree with just to avoid the social shaming is fundamentally unmasculine behaviour, and partaking in some masculine hobbies and even having a wife (plenty of weak men have wives) doesn't make up for that flaw any more than wearing a dress makes you a woman when you've got an Adam's apple. I don't think I need to argue the case that there are big social consequences to men who don't hold their tongue in the face of absurdity. There's an inherent friction involved in being a man, but you're not supposed to hide from it.

And isn’t power pretty masculine?

Not necessarily, there are neutral and feminine forms of power, and the aristocracy were often ridiculed for being effeminate.

how much social criticism does a masculine man who lifts, is heterosexual, has masculine hobbies like fishing and woodworking, has a few kids, a stay-at-home-wife, is the breadwinner etc but who kowtows to the dominant ideology in public (like many ‘masculine’ men throughout history) actually face?

With a grand total of 7 stipulations put on his behaviour, how is that not exactly the "controlled and neutered male energy" that was being described?

"Just make sure all your hobbies are prosocial and you support all these hangers-on and you vote the right way and never think anything wrong and don't have any oddities..."

With a grand total of 7 stipulations put on his behaviour, how is that not exactly the "controlled and neutered male energy" that was being described?

Because those are mostly traditional, masculine things, and that was the original point of contention?

You seem to want to argue that there is some disjunctive set of conditions that men have to fulfill to be esteemed. That's right: it has ever been thus, and long may it remain so.

That seems like a bad example. I have never heard anyone refer to Trudeau as manly. He is "Prime Minister Bieber", the substance-free, effeminate pretty boy.

But even setting that aside, what you're saying seems like the sort of "do as I say, not as I do" intentional sabotage from Western elites. Maybe someone should slip esteogen and SSRIs into the water at Davos.

My understanding is that one of the things that put Trudeau to his path to current power was this boxing match, where he defeated a far more "macho" figure in Canadian politics.

The same description applies to plenty of middle class people.

Yeah you'd think Trudeau was a silly child the way talk radio describes him. Not the paragon of masculinity according to conservative gen-x talk show hosts.

But even setting that aside, what you're saying seems like the sort of "do as I say, not as I do" intentional sabotage from Western elites. Maybe someone should slip esteogen and SSRIs into the water at Davos.

So, I'm someone who would be an Incel, probably not one of those angry political people, but one none the less, if it wasn't for a big stroke of luck on my behalf. And there's absolutely a "do as I say, not as I do" element to it.

Incels are people who have taken the nu-male model and actually take it seriously, internalizing and actualizing the teachings. I think people just don't want to grapple with the idea that their ideology/aesthetic/politics can actually harm people, combined with the "ick"/low-status factor. That's my take based on my experience.

Those angry Political Incels, as I call them? By and large, they want those nu-male actualized traits to be lionized and considered high-status in society. That's generally what the complaint comes down to. And I mean...it's not going to happen, right? Self-improvement is the way forward and out. But that's often seen as a reactionary thing in and of itself.

Incels are people who have taken the nu-male model and actually take it seriously, internalizing and actualizing the teachings.

Many of them have been hearing it from their single mothers all their lives.

And all-female teachers

But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war?

Because "revilement" doesn't necessarily scale with danger - it can also scale with ickiness. Incels are one of the lowest-status identities in WEIRD countries, particularly among women (natch!) and gays - groups which wield disproportionate soft/cultural power, particularly on the cultural left. So of course the Incels are going to be treated like lepers by those groups, and the left more generally, and beating up on social outcasts in every way possible is an old, old political strategy.

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Considering how often ‘incel’ seems to be used as a term for ‘married father with politically incorrect views about gender and sexuality’, something tells me she’s not referring to actual incels.

Funny, I was just reading this article that I think conclusively challenged this stuff

For instance, the Times piece claims that incels accounted for half of the total referrals to Prevent in the year ending March 2021. There is no evidence to back up this claim.

According to public data from the Home Office, Prevent received 2,522 referrals about individuals with a ‘mixed, unstable or unclear ideology’ (MMU) – a catch-all category for anything other than Islamist or right-wing extremism, which accounted for the remaining 22 per cent and 25 per cent of referrals respectively. It also includes individuals with no ideological orientation who are nonetheless deemed ‘at risk’ of committing an attack, such as a school massacre. A more detailed breakdown of the MMU category is not yet publicly available, but the suggestion that it is mostly made up of incels is unfounded and highly unlikely.

I think there are a couple of things going on:

#1 is just a general post-ISIS butchering of "radicalization" as a concept because it serves as a way of elevating what is a political disagreement to something that demands the tools of state and the corporate moderators- the Hillary playbook: I didn't lose because I was unpopular, it was This Thing That Requires We Censor People [That article is from a man that actually studies incels btw]

The problem is that this sensibility becomes self-sustaining and actually a "grift" for some people:

So prevalent is the radicalization charge that you would think people are incentivized to hurl it around. You wouldn't be wrong: There is a whole industry that is parasitic on naming and classifying people as radicalized. It includes the mass media, which engorges itself on stories of radicalization. It includes academics like me who do research on radicalization. And it includes a whole edifice of counter-extremist entrepreneurs whose business model is to hype up existing threats and find news ones. Nobody in this game, if we're honest, has an interest in seeing radicalization go away. It's bad for business. We need radicalized people, and if we can't find them, we'll invent them.

Interestingly, there's a point that might especially apply to incels:

If everyone is radicalized, it becomes impossible to distinguish between those who are merely odious and hateful from those who, if they had the chance, skills and support, would like to slaughter you and me in our thousands.

And we urgently need to know the difference between the two.

In America, right now, the chief obstacle to this happening is the apocalyptic disgust that has overtaken and unhinged progressives and even some Republicans. It is not that the far-right isn't a threat to civil order and security in the US. It undoubtedly is. Rather, it is that the visceral revulsion that many progressives feel toward the far-right has led them to drastically over-inflate the actual threat it poses by suggesting it now eclipses the threat from global jihadists.

And who is more disgusting than the bitter,sexless loser? They have no constituency; feminism doesn't engender sympathy for "privileged" men already and men themselves as a class aren't particularly sympathetic to those considered "bitches". Hell, some make a point to be less so (perhaps because they can handle any resulting aggression).

#2 is Female Sensitivity

Women may just be more sensitive to guys that give the "ick" or appear dangerously entitled.

To me, overly online men aren't really threatening. But then...I've always been bigger and I've never had a reason to fear in the presence of other men. I'm not worried some of them will be opportunistic.

#3 is Feminist Ideology & Rape Culture.

I remember, in the early days of the culture war for me, that feminists would insist "yes, all men" (the red pill had "all women are like that", another point for horseshoe theory)

Now, this has problems in that it ignores that a disproportionate amount of sexual offenses are committed by so-called "Dark Triad" men. After all; the best predator is the one who can at least appear not-dangerous for a while.

If you take this logic seriously - that all men are potential rapists - who's more suspect than the incels? They're creepy, some are outright saying it and, if you buy into this rape culture narrative, this is something more than just losers online babbling. You'd think they'd be the people assaulting you (and some are).

EDIT: The other risk that incels pose is that sympathy for them will lead to pressure on women to lower their standards (or "enforced monogamy" - which caused a riot when Peterson said it). Obviously, no one wants to have their options constrained, but I think this is an oversold problem in practice.

#4 is Feminism needs a villain.

Despite - or because - they've dismantled most legal barriers, basically gained a hand in guiding the mores of corporate America via their 70% hold on the HR departments, having laws designed to protect them....feminists need an enemy or some sort of harm to justify even more and more demands. Incels shooting people - despite being rare - served that role and it takes a while for progressives to let go of martyrs (that gay nightclub shooting and Matthew Shepherd are probably still seen as a targets of homophobia by most, despite debunkings)

Incels, because they are male, fill this niche for feminists and progressives - which is why they ignore (despite all evidence) the fact that that incels aren't a white male monolith and, if anything, groups like Indians are likely to be overrepresented: to remove even the potential for the usual "woke" argument for sympathy.

#1 is just a general post-ISIS butchering of "radicalization" as a concept because it serves as a way of elevating what is a political disagreement to something that demands the tools of state and the corporate moderators-

15 years ago, when I asked my students to name a terrorist, the names that came up were (...) Anders Breivik (...)

Did those students make it to graduation without being whisked away by men in unmarked black helicopters?

Trans/Homophobia has held the analogous position for the LGBT movement. You think a bunch of prominent murdered trans or gays wouldn't get used in activism to make the issue more emotionally salient?

Christianity solves this. Arguably it was one of the greatest solutions to incel issues. And by limiting females to one male guaranteed one female for every male.

I don’t believe this is the solution he is searching for.

Monogamy is not a Christian invention. I'm not sure where people get this idea.

Maybe not a Christian invention (since the Romans also had monogamy), but it was Christian Popes that forced monogamy on non-Roman Europe, by threat of excommunication.

I don't believe non-monogamous systems were prevalent in pre-Christian Europe.

since the Romans also had monogamy

Did they? My understanding is that the Greco-Roman take was basically that a man could only marry one wife but he could essentially free access to slave and subordinate class women and males (this sort of system would also be prone to the inequity problem of polygamy - unless you have a broad class of exploited women to use as cheap relief for the lower class men*)

(This is also the status quo with Islam - except without the homosexuality. Thanks to Western Christian influence both polygamy and sex slavery have been suppressed but that's relatively recently)

Monogamy in the sense of the (alleged) Pauline epistles - husband of one wife - was a moral injunction for sexual monogamy on top of social monogamy and was thus substantially different.

* Which the Romans did. The price of sex at some points was distressingly low

My understanding is that the Greco-Roman take was basically that a man could only marry one wife but he could essentially free access to slave and subordinate class women and males (this sort of system would also be prone to the inequity problem of polygamy - unless you have a broad class of exploited women to use as cheap relief for the lower class men*)

In practice, this has been true in a lot of (most?) Christian societies, especially at the top of social hirearchy. "To wives and sweethearts... May they never meet."

Even in the Enthusiastic ferment of the Reformation, James VI still seems to have been able to have plenty of male lovers, and whether Shakespeare was intimate with men or not, his Sonnets certainly show that had a perfect language for seducing other men. Surely this is unsurprising: if Christianity has been an unreliable way of enforcing chastity among popes and bishops, it will naturally be an unreliable way of enforcing monogamy among other powerful men.

What Christianity has generally achieved is the practice of only allowing powerful men to marry one woman, but that was also practice in a lot of places, including Greece and Rome, IIRC.

In practice, this has been true in a lot of (most?) Christian societies, especially at the top of social hirearchy

It's true of every society that sex is not perfectly controlled (because it can't be - especially in premodern societies with very limited monitoring) and that the upper classes especially always have more routes to circumvent restrictions.

It doesn't mean that the change in standards wasn't substantial, or that it couldn't affect society broadly (in the case of the sex distribution problem the broad trend matters the most) and, sometimes, even the rich (as you point out: Henry VIII's circuitous route to getting rid of his wife would be hilarious to a Muslim sultan. Just take another?! Or set her aside!)

Even in the Enthusiastic ferment of the Reformation, James VI still seems to have been able to have plenty of male lovers

Case in point: this may be true but would anyone argue that the gains we've made in gay acceptance since then are unnecessary? If you agree not, then the general social taboos matter.

Case in point: this may be true but would anyone argue that the gains we've made in gay acceptance since then are unnecessary? If you agree not, then the general social taboos matter.

I'm fine with "Christian social taboos matter". I'm not fine with the suggestion that Christianity eliminated the dynamic described in the initial bit I quoted.

You don’t need to invent something to be the primary cultural conduit for a thing. Apple didn’t invent the smart phone.

Arguably it was one of the greatest solutions to incel issues. And by limiting females to one male guaranteed one female for every male.

You said this, which seems to imply it was a Christian 'solution.'

Has Christianity (or any religion, for that matter) ever prevented serial monogamy or cheating? Or guaranteed a fulfilling marriage?

A male loser always struggled for a partner, regardless of the cultural context. The biggest difference is that in the past surplus men were burned off through a variety of mechanisms, while contemporary society only has suicide as a release valve.

A male loser always struggled for a partner, regardless of the cultural context

Relative standard of 'loser', though.

My dad's in his mid-70s and comes from a family of 7 siblings from a working class Northern English setting. 5 sisters, all of whom were married before they were 20 due to essentially the non-viability of single life and the standard of 'good husband' being 'doesn't beat wife/kids too often, has an income, not a complete alcoholic'. Like a large part of the Incel issue is that there's a lot of men of reasonable means and unreasonable social awkwardness who'd make perfectly capable husbands and/or fathers who are kept out of contention due to 'the Ick'.

Has Christianity (or any religion, for that matter) ever prevented serial monogamy or cheating? Or guaranteed a fulfilling marriage?

Why would the standard be a guarantee? What other social institution is held to this standard?

Does feminism guarantee a fulfilling life for women?

Does welfare guarantee a better life?

Do traffic lights guarantee no car accidents?

Do police guarantee an absence of crime?

No, but these also don't solve these problems - they (allegedly) mitigate them.

Hm...this is actually relevant to your other response: Depends on the problem and the level we zoom in on; I think a reasonable observer could say that the ethnic Danes have "solved" mass illiteracy as an issue*, even if any individual may be illiterate.

You could argue that Christianity solved mass inceldom as an issue even if it didn't solve it for everyone... But was it an issue?

But was it an issue?

Unattached males are sort of a continual issue, like weeds, and there's evidence today that polygamous societies face challenges due to the sex distribution problem and the troublesome young men it leaves behind (it also goes in the other way; Mormon elders used to cast out younger men to monopolize females)

I guess it depends on whether you consider those sorts of situations as being the same species as the modern incel crisis we're talking about.

But Ancient Rome wasn't polygamous in the modern sense. As you suggested, rich men had access to multiple partners, just like in most Christian societies, but they could only marry one. This was also true of Ancient Greece, another key area for early Christianity. The Jews did practice polygamy, but it doesn't seem to have been common (this is debated) by the time of the early Christians.

It certainly helped that Christianity was compatible with the existing Greco-Roman monogamous approach, but Christianity didn't introduce it.

More comments

Incels are at least representative of the general population and plausibly more diverse than it in racial composition. To the extent they have "ethno-supremacist" views, it's along the lines of "women are status seeking hypergamists who love white men and hate minorities." Which, true or not, is only as ethno-supremacist as the progressive take on race (i.e. wanting disparate racial outcomes to be eliminated). It's also unclear to me that they have anti-LGBT views, unless you take ideas like "transmaxing" (transitioning so you have increased sexual opportunities) to be inherently transphobic. It's straight women they hate, not lesbians or gay men.

The reason they're particularly reviled is that they're terminally online (so examples of toxicity are readily available) and they're near-group low status men. Many of their arguments also are simply taking progressive ones and applying them to the sexual relationship sphere, which makes it noxious to people who make those arguments and apply them everywhere except to romantic relationships and which puts them into the near-group in a way that misogynist Islamist radicals aren't.

Expanding on how incels are progressive near-group, with anecdotes: Most progressive women I know have been bitching about incels (while not calling them incels) since before the term incel became mainstream. I think another poster probably hit the nail on the head, that incels are a certain kind of failure-mode of trying to internalize the numale role. The exact details I'm unsure about. It's possible incels have some combination of bad looks, poor social skills or risk-aversion that sets them up for failure. Or they're just not getting the joke.

I challenge that incels are unique in applying woke ideas to romantic relationships. I think the trans movement is already leaning that way. For more anecdotes, some of my friends who are most seeped in trans-apologetics unironically say things like, "not dating a trans person is transphobic," and "trans people are some of the most transphobic groups out there." See also: canceling of Super Straight.

I think the simplest explanation is that incel beliefs come out to reducing the status of women and increasing the status of men. Textbook anti-feminism.

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