Whenever people are like oh we need to empathize w/ incels, care about their feelings blah blah, I just think about what Lundy Bancroft said about abusers.
They need to learn empathy, and this excessive focus on their feelings is a barrier to them learning empathy.
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/iHateCogsci/status/1610409758120361984
https://sb-ex6e14yir4.b-cdn.net/media_attachments/files/109/628/430/505/308/353/original/db370a81de5f1eee.png
But this is step 1 of "offering an alternative": recognizing that it takes different skillsets/social conditions to get them well-adjusted, because for whatever reason they're starting from a different psychological basis.
I agree that to some extent the whole idea of focusing on these guys is counterproductive. But focusing on them is not the same as making sure that our movement is equipped to deal with them effectively, without having to relive this generational moment over and over again.
They feel alienated from society because it feels unlivably complex, and they happen to fit enough heuristics of the power group that they feel entitled to deal with that complexity by violently maximizing their adherence to power.
The right takes advantage of this by a) being in power already, b) being the same kind of people, and c) happy to use these guys to further their own interests. So they offer the easy, accessible, lowest-common-denominator solution of just catering to that entitlement.
Of course "Be a good person" doesn't effectively compete. But that doesn't have to be the only narrative the left offers. We need the next step, a narrative that starts with "Be a good person" and builds it into a competitively epic cognitive reward mechanism.
There are lots of left wing incels, as the saying goes, right wing sexists view women as private property, left wing sexists as public property. There are many "left" wing figures online that appeal to incels. Your vaush type guys for instance. I think a study even showed that incels were split fairly equally among right/left views. So I reject the idea that it's a right/left thing. There are plenty of left wing misogynists, it just presents differently to the mask off right wing stuff.
The study
So if you take the study at face value, incels need to leave the nest (or leave their parents influence if they still live with them) and start building their own life, as well as getting therapy. Is this possible under capitalism for most young people? No. So they fall back on the misogyny present throughout their upbringing and society to self validate their "black pill" views.
Do incels need to lean empathy? I don't know, they clearly have empathy for themselves and fellow incels or men they perceive as victims, they need to apply that empathy to others though. But incels don't believe others are worthy of their empathy, because they're living the good life or are priveleged according to the incel worldview. This especially applies to attractive women according to incels worldview.
I think right-wing incel culture goes beyond just people who can't form relationships and includes the "guy who hates his wife." Yes, people who can't form relationships exist among liberals and communists, but they aren't as often being drawn into the black hole of patriarchal terrorism, they're often just sex pests.
Like a lot of Jan 6 people, Proud Boys, and I'd bet the power grid terrorists are married or in long term relationships, but they share culture with incels who feed their toxic views on femininity, bipoc, and lgbt people. The true incels stoke the engine and the faux incel collaborators widen the scope of the culture and make it mainstream.
I would say that those people in your last paragraph are not incels, they are men who hold "redpill"/bigoted beliefs. If you call them an incel they'll laugh in your face, because they are not involuntary celibates, and their entire social circle shares the same bigoted beliefs as them. Using the word incel used to describe these men who hate women in all contexts is a bit misleading. Many men in relationships hold this traditional redpill mindset, saying that it's just incels minimises the issue of how prevelant toxic mindsets are.
That's fair on a technical level, but I think on a practical level they both are so intertwined that to understand one side you have to understand the other. Redpilled guys feed the toxic mindsets of incels and often grift them, and incels create a lot of the online content that redpill guys consume. If you got rid of incels but left the redpills behind, they would create more incels. If you get rid of the redpills, the incels would eventually draw more of them back into 4chan-esque sites. It's kind of in the same vein as the aphorism that under patriarchy, the greatest abusers of men are other men.
deleted by creator
It's a survey, so I guess they mean more liberal or socially progressive than left wing. It's still revealing that your average incel isn't some stereotypical chud.
deleted by creator
I would too, but many on the left don't believe or practice that, even if they say it.
Look at how Marx and Einstein treated their wives, look at all the leftists in the past that were massive "womanizers", hell even today there are lots of "left wing" men that engage in poor behaviour towards women, it's an ongoing issue and to say "well those aren't real leftists, because obviously if you're left wing you would consider women your equal", avoids addressing the issue.