Published on 12, July, 2020
This is something of a tricky and disturbing subject to broach, mentioning murder, sexuality and sexual politics, but I hope it is worth it.
On Monday, someone, alleged to be a 25-year-old man, Alek Minassian, drove a van along a pavement in Toronto, killing ten people and wounding at least 15 others. The dead were parents and children, sisters and brothers, and will not be coming back. In attacks using this horrific method, any pain of the perpetrator is a fraction of that which they have caused.
Nevertheless, while some will use words like 'evil', 'terrorism' or 'mental illness', others look for a motive or explanation from very limited evidence. In this case, at least the suspect is alive and may be able to throw some light on it. I have read coverage and thought the suspect might be autistic, and others may have similar suspicions, so the event may become a concern that autistic people need to 'defend' themselves against, or be something that can shed light on needs of (possibly undiagnosed) autistic people.
As anyone with experience with or as an autistic person knows, autistic people are usually more moral than average and often conscientiously law-abiding. This is something the general public may not realise enough, but is there anything in recent media reports that challenges perception of autistic people? Eg UK 'security minister' Ben Wallace said:
We seize a number of these people who have autism, who are targeted and groomed by IS and the far-Right — so are we doing enough in mental health to identify vulnerable people?
The idea of making autistic people do something against their own code seems implausible to me. We also read that while 'there is no substantial link between ASD and terrorism', 'there may be specific risk factors which could increase the risk of offending among people with ASD. Autistic special interests such as fantasy, obsessiveness (extreme compulsiveness), the need for routine/predictability and social/communication difficulties can all increase the vulnerability of an person [sic] with ASD to going down the pathway to terrorism. Searching for a “need to matter” or social connection and support for someone who is alienated or without friends may also present as risk factors.'
Here are some of the things that have been said about Minassian:
Mr Minassian had previously attended a school for students with special needs in north Toronto, former classmates said. He would be seen walking around Thornlea Secondary School with his head down and hands clasped tightly together making meowing noises... Mr Minassian had not been violent. "He wasn't a social person, but from what I remember he was absolutely harmless" (BBC/Reuters) socially troubled computer studies graduate who posted a hostile message toward women on Facebook [“The Incel Rebellion has already begun!”]... Mr. Minassian had displayed extreme social awkwardness. But they said he had seemed harmless... “He was an odd guy, and hardly mixed with other students... He had several tics and would sometimes grab the top of his shirt and spit on it, meow in the hallways and say, ‘I am afraid of girls.’ It was like a mantra... He was a loner and had few friends” Mr. Minassian did not express strong ideological views or harass women... but he was isolated and others privately made fun of him. Mr. Minassian had difficulty communicating and expressed fear that women could hurt him. Other classmates said he literally ran away when women approached, even female students determined to befriend him... Mr. Minassian joined the armed forces on Aug. 23 of last year and quit two months later, after 16 days of basic training. (New York Times)
Mr Minassian had previously attended a school for students with special needs in north Toronto, former classmates said. He would be seen walking around Thornlea Secondary School with his head down and hands clasped tightly together making meowing noises... Mr Minassian had not been violent. "He wasn't a social person, but from what I remember he was absolutely harmless" (BBC/Reuters)
socially troubled computer studies graduate who posted a hostile message toward women on Facebook [“The Incel Rebellion has already begun!”]... Mr. Minassian had displayed extreme social awkwardness. But they said he had seemed harmless... “He was an odd guy, and hardly mixed with other students... He had several tics and would sometimes grab the top of his shirt and spit on it, meow in the hallways and say, ‘I am afraid of girls.’ It was like a mantra... He was a loner and had few friends” Mr. Minassian did not express strong ideological views or harass women... but he was isolated and others privately made fun of him. Mr. Minassian had difficulty communicating and expressed fear that women could hurt him. Other classmates said he literally ran away when women approached, even female students determined to befriend him... Mr. Minassian joined the armed forces on Aug. 23 of last year and quit two months later, after 16 days of basic training. (New York Times)
I was never that extreme, but some of it sounds familiar from that age.
An article on the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center site describes 'incel' (involuntarily celibate) as 'part of the online male supremacist ecosystem', rather than what it would appear to be, a misguided attempt by sexually frustrated, emotionally conflicted young men to make sense of their needs for self-expression and affection. I believe the term 'incel' has been around for at least ten years, and probably wasn't originally misogynist or applied almost exclusively to men. The article claims incel 'grew out of the pick-up artist movement'. However, while normalisation of casual sex, and manipulating people to achieve it, could be one of the sources of the current 'incel' identity, sex is ubiquitously used to sell anything from entertainment to food, and more importantly, it's not as though popular culture hasn't been talking about the healing virtues of romantic love for decades. When every desire seems commercially satisfiable other than two that can be very intense and are hardest to satisfy, for love and for sex, which often get conflated when neither urge is met, after a while bitterness can ensue. If you're a straight young man who is both 'love shy' and perceived as 'weird' (not a bad thing by some definitions), obsessions with women, both in particular and in general, and continual rejection, can completely derail you. They did me. It obviously wasn't any fault of any of the women involved, nor the men I was envious and jealous of. But I could have done with appropriate support to handle it better, before it led to suicidal depression. In past centuries, I might have joined a monastery.
So I'm suggesting there may be a lot of people in the 'incel community' who are unidentified autistic or have other disabilities or social disadvantages. The fact that there's a very inward-looking online group identity may encourage extreme views and unhelpful self-pity - on the other hand, it may just reflect them. I had a look at the incels.me site where SLPC noted offensive comments apparently celebrating the Toronto attack, and its 'introduction' is possibly revealing - it mentions the predicament (possibly about affection and status more than anything), but also the word 'ideology'. The 'rules', however, seem to ban women, 'white-knighting' (presumably being a pro-feminist ally), the idea that 'being yourself is the best way to conduct yourself in life' or that appearance is unimportant, nor it seems any account from people who have actually overcome difficulties to achieve happy sexual relationships. Probably banning such forums, as Reddit did, won't help - the answer is better speech, not less speech. Recognition that there are social difficulties that can be acquired or innate, and those difficulties are much more difficult for some to overcome than for others is vital, but there is little actually done about it. In the UK this is recognised by the Outsiders Club. Maybe the best solution is diverse experience, time with friends of more than one gender to work through resentments, learning acceptance, help working through other behavioural problems, social skills training, and (no doubt controversially) I'd suggest sex workers probably can do more to help boost self-acceptance than mental health staff.
I realise I've mentioned a few different issues here: that someone might overcome all their inhibitions to kill contrasts strongly with the way they can't overcome inhibitions and social barriers to help their personal development - to many, the internal frustration will seem a long way from hate-filled acts. That people may discriminate against outsiders romantically is also very different from being afraid of them. I find it disturbing, but nothing is to be feared, only understood, as Marie Curie said.
I’ve copied a reply of mine from another thread about misdiagnosis of ASD because I think it’s relevant here:
I don’t have personal experience of this, but when I was on an NAS course, the tutor mentioned that she knew of some individuals that had a diagnosis of ASD but definitely weren’t ASD. She thought their motivations for getting a diagnosis were to be able to claim benefits and get adjustments at work.
On the same course we discussed how psychopaths are sometimes misdiagnosed as ASD because many of the traits are similar/the same, and the diagnostic criteria misses the crucial difference, which is that people with ASD have loads of affective and compassionate empathy, but we lack cognitive empathy (and psychopaths are the other way round). In other words, people with ASD do care about others but struggle to express it, and psychopaths don’t care but are good at pretending they do. But we know there is a common misconception that those with ASD have no empathy. So I always wonder when you get violent crimes and the news emphasising that the person was autistic so this was probably why they didn’t care about those they hurt, if the person was actually ASD or in fact a psychopath (not that people with ASD can’t commit violent crimes, it just makes me wonder given the overlap in much of the traits).
I don’t personally think that being autistic gives you any sort of predisposition to being involved in violent crime, in fact I think to most of us the idea would be entirely horrifying, but like the rest of the population there are no doubt some people with ASD who commit such crimes. I then question, as with an NT who commits such crimes, if they are mentally ill or a psychopath. I wouldn’t just put it down to autism, I’d think there is something more going on.
Right, I'd hope we could forestall the potential misunderstanding, generalisation and prejudice, and by speculating I didn't mean to feed it. I'm not really sure to what extent 'psychopathy' exists, but certainly there are mental health diagnoses that only get made after the event as part of the forensic process, and that inflates the small number of serious crimes supposedly involving mental health problems. The same will probably be true of autism.
I never mentioned empathy, and association of (lack of) empathy with autism is really a myth begun unintentionally by Simon Baron-Cohen. Several people have told me I couldn't be autistic because I'm a very good listener and gentle and caring and emotionally literate. I think that's true of most autistic people - they can be deeply affected by another's feelings, particularly not filtering out pain, even if they don't necessarily pick up nonverbal cues or social norms. The fact I don't know how to react to my attraction to others is not something people would normally call a problem with empathy.
By the way though, empathy can be overcome easily and regularly is: Minassian recently had military training, and part of military training is suppressing empathy for the 'outgroup'. Despite what I said about autistic people usually being true to their code, I see no reason to rely on empathy in autistics any more than allistics.
No, there is no general statistical association with violent crime, as I think one of the quotes above confirms - but there definitely is an association with suicide (approximately ten times the risk), and of course alienation. I've only just put 'incel' and 'autistic' together, and there is now an ideological (misogynist) component as well as an experiential one.
Yes, this is speculation on my part that Minassian is autistic, and the quotes above may have been selective on the journalists' part.
Cassandro said:I never mentioned empathy
That was only in my post because it was a copy of what I posted in another thread, sorry if I confused you there...
I don’t know much about psychopathy myself, but I know people who are diagnosed as psychopaths and they do share some traits of ASD. I didn’t mean to associate mental health problems and violent crime, after all I myself have mental health problems, what I meant was that in order to commit such crimes I feel as though you must be mentally disturbed in some way. Otherwise, I just can’t comprehend such acts. Maybe you can be completely sane and commit such acts - I just don’t understand how that could be because I could never do that.
Cassandro said:God, how we feel remorse and concern - it's more getting over those to action that's the problem. But if an autistic person is going to become violent, what's most likely to provoke them? Not a need to dominate, but uncontrolled pain and perceived injustice.
I agree entirely.
Thanks for the reply, and the article - which was good, although of course very medicalising. It was a shame there was any confusion to clear up in the first place, which again seems to be because of misunderstanding 'empathy'.
God, how we feel remorse and concern - it's more getting over those to action that's the problem. But if an autistic person is going to become violent, what's most likely to provoke them? Not a need to dominate, but uncontrolled pain and perceived injustice.
The traits I saw shared were quite general and I wouldn’t have jumped to ASD, but I could see how it could be confused by some people, particularly in childhood. For example, those psychopaths I knew didn’t show emotional responses as you would expect, they had behaviour problems in school, they struggled to maintain relationships with others, they could want to control situations (in the same way someone with ASD does in order to reduce anxiety), they came across as peculiar or quirky, their behaviour could be very impulsive etc.
Here’s an interesting article that is quite relevant:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/201402/aspergers-disorder-vs-psychopathy
I wasn't confused as such, just trying to clarify. I've met many, many people with mental health problems, but never anyone diagnosed as a 'psychopath' (even if that word itself confusingly translates as 'mentally ill'). I wonder what traits they shared with autism/ASC. As you say, the stereotypical psychopath (which I only know from fiction) is often socially adept ('good at pretending they care').
Yes, indeed, many people can't understand why violent crimes are committed (and therefore fall back on anything from some diagnosis to demonic possession), but the vast majority (>90%) are carried out by people with no mental health diagnosis, because of intense emotion, because they have something to gain and/or it is legitimated by people around them. There are many violent acts carried out by armies and so on, where being mentally ill is actually supposedly a barrier to involvement (unless perhaps you're a general).