Toronto atrocity and 'involuntary celibacy'

Further to my previous comment.

Imagine if you will, you are at uni. Away from home, possibly struggling. Desperate for acceptance, desperate for friendship (read some of the other threads here, it is a theme)

Upset by the lack of help, teachers ,finance, housing, goodness in the world. Someone comes along and starts talking to you, they understand about your problem, you see them again a few days later and the day after that. You start studying with them once a week, you have a friend. You are happy. A month later they say they are meeting a couple of other friends that feel strongly about the cuts just like you do. They come back and talk about it all fired upup and you agree to go along tomorrow,  you go, it's scary new people, but there are only 3 of them so you cope and they feel the same as you. you have 4 friends now. 2 week later there is going to be a demo, your 4 friends decide (and of course these people are your friends and you want them to stay your friends) that it would serve the council right if you did something to show them the night before the demo. It's agreed, you will chuck paint all over the front of the building. So you do.... Now imagine it's a bomb!   How did you get there

It's interesting you should bring this up, Song, because I can relate a very similar experience.  When I was at uni, I didn't really have any friends.  There were a couple of mature students, though, who latched onto me because we were the same age (10 years older than the other undergrads) and were studying the same subject.  They were good people who were very active in decent causes: anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc.  I learned a great deal from them.  Or rather, knowing them helped me to make more sense intellectually of feelings I myself had, but had thus far lacked a proper way of expressing.  Through them, I became politically active for the first time in my life: I went on demos against cuts, attended open lectures against Clause 28, and so on.  I started to write articles for the campus newspaper on these issues - and I had them published!  It was an empowering feeling.

One evening, I was tucking into a veal cutlet in the dining hall when one of these friends sat down next to me and asked me if I'd ever considered how veal was produced.  I knew she was a vegetarian, and quite naturally - feeling like I was under attack - I told her that I didn't care.

But I did.  As much as I'm contemptuous of that kind of evangelism, she'd sown a seed in my head.  I did some research on animal welfare issues: I read books, watched videos, attended discussion groups.  Within six months, I was vegetarian.  Within another year, I was vegan.  I became more actively involved in animal rights.  It came to define my life.  I was a hunt saboteur for four years.  I lived for the weekends when I could go out with a group of people who, for the first time in my life, felt like true comrades - true friends - and directly intervene in the saving of animals' lives.  I started to regard meat-eaters and other animal abusers as fascists.  I very quickly came to see the whole system as exploitative of innocent lives.  Before very long, my zeal brought me to the notice of people who were involved in criminal activity in the pursuit of animal liberation.  I was now facing a very serious moral dilemma, which started to screw me up.  My own loved-ones were meat-eaters.  Should I condemn them?  Should I disown them?  Should I break the law myself in the name of a higher moral law?  I was being egged on by my new associates.  The very least I could do, if I was morally 'pure', would be to join them in their more extreme forms of action: chucking bricks through butcher's shop windows, torching research laboratories, liberating animals.

Fortunately, my commonsense prevailed.  I wrote articles (some of which were published in Peace News) calling for more understanding on these issues.  I beseeched people to regard meat-eaters not as fascists or murderers, but as ordinary people who are conditioned to do certain things unquestioningly - as I had been - and who therefore required a more understanding approach.  Blowing things up wasn't going to convince anyone.  It was a stance that cost me the respect of many of these former comrades.  I didn't like losing them because of the sense of empowerment and inclusion they'd given me.  But I had no choice.  I couldn't break the law to the extent they demanded.

That's the stance I've taken ever since.  But I can really understand how easy it might be for some people to be sucked in and sucked in until they really don't know what to think for the best... so go along with it.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire. 

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Should I just let this thread end as too morbid? It's still making me think of possible positive actions, and I accidentally noticed today's BBC World Service programme and online item about 'incel'. After thinking about those and  the discussion above, I accept that alienated autistic people without sufficient 'intellectual self-defence' might find themselves co-opted by the 'alt-right' (or as I think of them, the 'alt-universe right'). Some of the interviewed 'ex-incels' rejecting the label and ideology (Jack Peterson, who even has his own Wikipedia article, and 'Matthew') may have worthwhile things to say.

Unfortunately that programme, as part of the Trending social media series, looks at 'incel' almost entirely from its representation on the web. 'Emily' is invited to speculate about incel as a reaction to threat from gender equality (I'm pretty sure that's not what's motivating most individuals involved), apparently based solely on what she's read online. And when she says 'If you project love into the world, you'll receive love back', there's no recognition of what happens when people lose that faith, perhaps after repeated rejection, and come to see it as naive. In fact, someone can choose kind and compassionate acts even if they are destined to be alienated and abused their entire lives. There's no social contract. Life is unequal and unfair, and if you don't realise that, you can't make it better.

We should resist tendencies to 'distancing', distortion, conflation and stereotypes, although maybe that risks becoming uncomfortably close to the feared other (here we distinguish autistic people:incel:massacres as we do Muslims:political 'Islamism':ISIS). According to the Washington Post.

In 2001, two researchers at Georgia State University surveyed 82 self-identified incels they found through an online forum. Some were, as the stereotypes suggest, adult virgins who suffered from autism or another mental or physical illness.

Was I naive not to realise that such a stereotype existed? (This is not supported in the linked press release. I'm not sure what proper research has been done into autism and sexual relationships. There's research on sexual orientation and sex education, and I've just found this free-full-text paper: 'although people with ASD are social at heart, they do not have the social skills to realize their social needs'). Anecdotally, a lot of autistic people I have met are married or have partners, but that's less true of those with poor mental health, and 'anxious attachment style' may also add to relationship difficulty.

Unfortunately that Washington Post 'incel' article was prompted by an earlier massacre, in October 2015 in an Oregon college, where it seems the perpetrator, who killed ten people including himself, is reported as having AS and unspecified mental health problems, and again a brief stint in the military. (Then there's Sandy Hook in 2012, again AS with misogynistic overtones, plus possible psychosis. I'm not helping avoid stereotypes, am I?) WaPo investigates r/ForeverAlone, which seems to have a more constructive attitude:

“If you hate yourself and believe you’re unworthy of anyone’s affection … you won’t be worthy of anyone’s affection because nobody is attracted to self pity,” the Reddit mod said. “It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, but one that’s incredibly difficult to break out of. The loneliness is devastating.”... “We are different,” the Reddit mod said, with a sigh, “and people don’t like different.” Maybe that differentness calls for compassion — not another moral panic.

There's no mention in the BBC items about why people are 'incel' as a situation, rather than an identity.  However, there's a longer interview with Jack Peterson, the incel representative, on US website The Daily Beast, which I'd recommend as possibly the best article I've read so far: https://www.thedailybeast.com/sympathy-for-the-incel It's clear Peterson had social difficulties growing up and was 'extremely shy', bullied and abused, but not that he's autistic (contested diagnosis of schizophrenia instead), and after all the media attention has decided to break out of his trap. I hope what I've been writing here is working towards the same conclusions as the author, Mandy Stadtmiller This earlier article by Marni Soupcoff in the centre-right Canadian press has a similar sentiment:

doing something about it — just like doing something about incels — will require more from us than the easy condemnation that tends to be our first response to people who are doing or saying awful things

Doesn't mention restrictions on hire vans, or better mental health resourcing, but this earlier stage I mentioned of avoiding alienation. So I'm wondering whether to dive into the incels.me forum where Peterson was active and advocate a relaxing of their restrictive rules (against women and fundamentally against hope), and that 'other identities are available', including autistic, love-shy, 'volcel' and ForeverAlone. In mental health peer-support groups, I've found it useful to stress that some are aiming at recovery, for others 'recovery' isn't possible and 'coping' is the target: so long as people don't try to impose one model on the other 'side' and respect each other, dialogue is useful. Dialogue is harder online. I've ventured into hostile environments before and been banned. On the other hand, maybe it'd be a complete waste of time, I wouldn't find an audience, and have little to offer in the way of improving social success and happiness, even if it were accepted. Raising awareness of autism as one factor, one that may be manageable, is about all I could do...

Cassandro said:

I'm probably most interested in a norm of autism acceptance among young adults, which is something that should be promoted anyway, but might have met Minassian's social needs, protected his mental health, prevented a chain of beliefs that diverged from both peers and reality, found alternative expression or propitiation or dissuaded from violence. I could see why churches, mosques and synagogues might want to think about this seriously, as well as secular youth groups, where they haven't been closed down. I think I was also less interested in the (non-)connection, even in the public mind, between autism and violence, than in this self-concept of 'incel' hitting the headlines, and discussion of it eliding those who aren't necessarily sexist but are disabled. I suspect the notion could be reasonably reclaimed.

Yes.  A norm of acceptance should be promoted.  At one end, forums such as this - in spite of social distance - serve such a worthwhile function.  Much more, I think, could be done by community groups, as you suggest.  As we have it now - and as we often read on here - many with the condition feel isolated, misunderstood, resentful.  And events such as this - in spite of the non-connection we perceive and understand - only tend, in my view, to create further distancing through things like populist media distortions and stereotyping.  In a similar way to how fundamentalist 'Islamist' terrorist atrocities end up generating a climate of suspicion around all Muslims - or even non-Muslims who conform, in the public eye, to certain characteristics of skin colour, appearance, dress, conviction, etc.

Cassandro said:

But does religion open people up to beliefs that lead to idiosyncratic action and even violence? Or is that propensity already there, as you described among hunt sabs who wanted to go further? And did it really 'seem to relieve anyone of the requirement to think', or did you believe you were thinking for yourself and associating with those who saw the truth?

That propensity may already be there.  At the same time, progressive 'eye-opening' can, I think, radicalise people in ways that they might previously not have thought possible.  I'm non-violent by nature.  I detest violence in all of its forms.  But I admit there came a point during my involvement with animal rights when I was starting to believe that the systematic abuse of animals needed a more radical approach than simply waiting around for society and the law to change.  And whilst I never became involved in such activities myself, my hearing about others perpetrating them didn't trouble my conscience too much.  In that sense, surely that made me complicit.  And of course, as an Aspie who'd always struggled to gain acceptance with any group of people, it was empowering to me to be involved.  I didn't want to lose the respect of these people.  In the end, though, making that extra step myself would have been making one compromise too far.  I had enough rationality left inside me not to follow that line of accepting, as many did, that the whole of society is to blame, and that therefore any misgivings or moral doubts needed to be set aside in the pursuit of the 'higher' cause of complete animal liberation - whatever the cost.

I wonder about that 'relieving of the requirement to think'.  I consider it in relation to groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who present a solid example of 'groupthink'.  Alternative viewpoints receive no critical evaluation, and are actively discouraged.  Witnesses who fall out of line risk being 'disfellowshipped' and shunned - losing contact with friends and family.  If they're indoctrinated into the Fellowship as children, they have little choice about these matters.  Their minds are conditioned.  They're brainwashed.  But if they come into it as rational, mature adults... are they not then surrendering their critical faculties, and effectively relieving themselves of the requirement to think?  To question?  No longer do they need to consider alternative systems of belief, because they've found the one that 'fits' for them.  And they understand that they need to accept it to the letter.  It's 'the Truth'.  Why should they need to think about it any further?

I wrote 'evolutionarily' because I was thinking of 'group selection', as expounded by Darwin, EO Wilson and so on. This hypothesis suggests there was evolutionary pressure to avoid extinction of small groups of humans, whether or not kin, and so behaviour that supports those around the individual is selected for. It's less about selfish individuals or selfish genes than selfish communities, and so rituals and stories that support group membership become part of 'human nature'. Harming the group is punished, and you can think of that as a type of ideological power by some group members, but it also explains why 'groupthink' is very powerful.

(For what it's worth, I'll put forward my own hypothesis that the tension between social conservatives and free thinkers is eternal, because they correspond to heredity and variation respectively, and that combination is necessary to produce a type of cultural evolution and adaptation analogous to genetic evolution.)  Groups nowadays may not be 'local' and instead consist of perceived interest groups, often based on ideology, and sometimes still based on gender, possibly explaining the 'incel' meme (I'm trying to relate all this to the thread I started).

I'd count myself as a secularist and a rationalist, but might argue that Abrahamic God is as real as other human fictions like money or government that you could say are 'means of social control', ways of regulating behaviour that may conflict with rationality but ensure a type of stability. I grew up in a Western religious tradition, but see it as having a two-way relationship with 'natural morality'. If it is shaped too much by hierarchy and control, the behavioural regulation can carry out atrocities, particularly against 'outgroups'.  You could see this in Abrahamic religions in in for example, the Lord's Resistance Army or Branch Davidians.  But does religion open people up to beliefs that lead to idiosyncratic action and even violence? Or is that propensity already there, as you described among hunt sabs who wanted to go further? And did it really 'seem to relieve anyone of the requirement to think', or did you believe you were thinking for yourself and associating with those who saw the truth?

The common picture you hear through the media now, presumably channelling that 'means of control' known as the Home Office, is of a 'pathway' to 'radicalisation', which they should really call violence. A radical idea is not itself violent, and meanwhile the global cult may itself be leading us over a cliff while believing itself to be rational. People claim to want to interrupt this pathway at some point, without having to, at the final step, ban cars from cities. An obvious protective factor throughout is social connection, in particular to neighbours and perceived outgroups, which is why ministers and advisers profess concern for those of us on a different social wavelength, even though we're no more prone to violence. I'm probably most interested in a norm of autism acceptance among young adults, which is something that should be promoted anyway, but might have met Minassian's social needs, protected his mental health, prevented a chain of beliefs that diverged from both peers and reality, found alternative expression or propitiation or dissuaded from violence. I could see why churches, mosques and synagogues might want to think about this seriously, as well as secular youth groups, where they haven't been closed down. I think I was also less interested in the (non-)connection, even in the public mind, between autism and violence, than in this self-concept of 'incel' hitting the headlines, and discussion of it eliding those who aren't necessarily sexist but are disabled. I suspect the notion could be reasonably reclaimed.

I wrote 'evolutionarily' because I was thinking of 'group selection', as expounded by Darwin, EO Wilson and so on. This hypothesis suggests there was evolutionary pressure to avoid extinction of small groups of humans, whether or not kin, and so behaviour that supports those around the individual is selected for. It's less about selfish individuals or selfish genes than selfish communities, and so rituals and stories that support group membership become part of 'human nature'. Harming the group is punished, and you can think of that as a type of ideological power by some group members, but it also explains why 'groupthink' is very powerful.

(For what it's worth, I'll put forward my own hypothesis that the tension between social conservatives and free thinkers is eternal, because they correspond to heredity and variation respectively, and that combination is necessary to produce a type of cultural evolution and adaptation analogous to genetic evolution.)  Groups nowadays may not be 'local' and instead consist of perceived interest groups, often based on ideology, and sometimes still based on gender, possibly explaining the 'incel' meme (I'm trying to relate all this to the thread I started).

I'd count myself as a secularist and a rationalist, but might argue that Abrahamic God is as real as other human fictions like money or government that you could say are 'means of social control', ways of regulating behaviour that may conflict with rationality but ensure a type of stability. I grew up in a Western religious tradition, but see it as having a two-way relationship with 'natural morality'. If it is shaped too much by hierarchy and control, the behavioural regulation can carry out atrocities, particularly against 'outgroups'.  You could see this in Abrahamic religions in in for example, the Lord's Resistance Army or Branch Davidians.  But does religion open people up to beliefs that lead to idiosyncratic action and even violence? Or is that propensity already there, as you described among hunt sabs who wanted to go further? And did it really 'seem to relieve anyone of the requirement to think', or did you believe you were thinking for yourself and associating with those who saw the truth?

The common picture you hear through the media now, presumably channelling that 'means of control' known as the Home Office, is of a 'pathway' to 'radicalisation', which they should really call violence. A radical idea is not itself violent, and meanwhile the global cult may itself be leading us over a cliff while believing itself to be rational. People claim to want to interrupt this pathway at some point, without having to, at the final step, ban cars from cities. An obvious protective factor throughout is social connection, in particular to neighbours and perceived outgroups, which is why ministers and advisers profess concern for those of us on a different social wavelength, even though we're no more prone to violence. I'm probably most interested in a norm of autism acceptance among young adults, which is something that should be promoted anyway, but might have met Minassian's social needs, protected his mental health, prevented a chain of beliefs that diverged from both peers and reality, found alternative expression or propitiation or dissuaded from violence. I could see why churches, mosques and synagogues might want to think about this seriously, as well as secular youth groups, where they haven't been closed down. I think I was also less interested in the (non-)connection, even in the public mind, between autism and violence, than in this self-concept of 'incel' hitting the headlines, and discussion of it eliding those who aren't necessarily sexist but are disabled. I suspect the notion could be reasonably reclaimed.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. Should I just let this thread end as too morbid? It's still making me think of possible positive actions, and I accidentally noticed today's BBC World Service programme and online item about 'incel'. After thinking about those and  the discussion above, I accept that alienated autistic people without sufficient 'intellectual self-defence' might find themselves co-opted by the 'alt-right' (or as I think of them, the 'alt-universe right'). Some of the interviewed 'ex-incels' rejecting the label and ideology (Jack Peterson, who even has his own Wikipedia article, and 'Matthew') may have worthwhile things to say.

Unfortunately that programme, as part of the Trending social media series, looks at 'incel' almost entirely from its representation on the web. 'Emily' is invited to speculate about incel as a reaction to threat from gender equality (I'm pretty sure that's not what's motivating most individuals involved), apparently based solely on what she's read online. And when she says 'If you project love into the world, you'll receive love back', there's no recognition of what happens when people lose that faith, perhaps after repeated rejection, and come to see it as naive. In fact, someone can choose kind and compassionate acts even if they are destined to be alienated and abused their entire lives. There's no social contract. Life is unequal and unfair, and if you don't realise that, you can't make it better.

We should resist tendencies to 'distancing', distortion, conflation and stereotypes, although maybe that risks becoming uncomfortably close to the feared other (here we distinguish autistic people:incel:massacres as we do Muslims:political 'Islamism':ISIS). According to the Washington Post.

In 2001, two researchers at Georgia State University surveyed 82 self-identified incels they found through an online forum. Some were, as the stereotypes suggest, adult virgins who suffered from autism or another mental or physical illness.

Was I naive not to realise that such a stereotype existed? (This is not supported in the linked press release. I'm not sure what proper research has been done into autism and sexual relationships. There's research on sexual orientation and sex education, and I've just found this free-full-text paper: 'although people with ASD are social at heart, they do not have the social skills to realize their social needs'). Anecdotally, a lot of autistic people I have met are married or have partners, but that's less true of those with poor mental health, and 'anxious attachment style' may also add to relationship difficulty.

Unfortunately that Washington Post 'incel' article was prompted by an earlier massacre, in October 2015 in an Oregon college, where it seems the perpetrator, who killed ten people including himself, is reported as having AS and unspecified mental health problems, and again a brief stint in the military. (Then there's Sandy Hook in 2012, again AS with misogynistic overtones, plus possible psychosis. I'm not helping avoid stereotypes, am I?) WaPo investigates r/ForeverAlone, which seems to have a more constructive attitude:

“If you hate yourself and believe you’re unworthy of anyone’s affection … you won’t be worthy of anyone’s affection because nobody is attracted to self pity,” the Reddit mod said. “It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, but one that’s incredibly difficult to break out of. The loneliness is devastating.”... “We are different,” the Reddit mod said, with a sigh, “and people don’t like different.” Maybe that differentness calls for compassion — not another moral panic.

There's no mention in the BBC items about why people are 'incel' as a situation, rather than an identity.  However, there's a longer interview with Jack Peterson, the incel representative, on US website The Daily Beast, which I'd recommend as possibly the best article I've read so far: https://www.thedailybeast.com/sympathy-for-the-incel It's clear Peterson had social difficulties growing up and was 'extremely shy', bullied and abused, but not that he's autistic (contested diagnosis of schizophrenia instead), and after all the media attention has decided to break out of his trap. I hope what I've been writing here is working towards the same conclusions as the author, Mandy Stadtmiller This earlier article by Marni Soupcoff in the centre-right Canadian press has a similar sentiment:

doing something about it — just like doing something about incels — will require more from us than the easy condemnation that tends to be our first response to people who are doing or saying awful things

Doesn't mention restrictions on hire vans, or better mental health resourcing, but this earlier stage I mentioned of avoiding alienation. So I'm wondering whether to dive into the incels.me forum where Peterson was active and advocate a relaxing of their restrictive rules (against women and fundamentally against hope), and that 'other identities are available', including autistic, love-shy, 'volcel' and ForeverAlone. In mental health peer-support groups, I've found it useful to stress that some are aiming at recovery, for others 'recovery' isn't possible and 'coping' is the target: so long as people don't try to impose one model on the other 'side' and respect each other, dialogue is useful. Dialogue is harder online. I've ventured into hostile environments before and been banned. On the other hand, maybe it'd be a complete waste of time, I wouldn't find an audience, and have little to offer in the way of improving social success and happiness, even if it were accepted. Raising awareness of autism as one factor, one that may be manageable, is about all I could do...

Cassandro said:

I'm probably most interested in a norm of autism acceptance among young adults, which is something that should be promoted anyway, but might have met Minassian's social needs, protected his mental health, prevented a chain of beliefs that diverged from both peers and reality, found alternative expression or propitiation or dissuaded from violence. I could see why churches, mosques and synagogues might want to think about this seriously, as well as secular youth groups, where they haven't been closed down. I think I was also less interested in the (non-)connection, even in the public mind, between autism and violence, than in this self-concept of 'incel' hitting the headlines, and discussion of it eliding those who aren't necessarily sexist but are disabled. I suspect the notion could be reasonably reclaimed.

Yes.  A norm of acceptance should be promoted.  At one end, forums such as this - in spite of social distance - serve such a worthwhile function.  Much more, I think, could be done by community groups, as you suggest.  As we have it now - and as we often read on here - many with the condition feel isolated, misunderstood, resentful.  And events such as this - in spite of the non-connection we perceive and understand - only tend, in my view, to create further distancing through things like populist media distortions and stereotyping.  In a similar way to how fundamentalist 'Islamist' terrorist atrocities end up generating a climate of suspicion around all Muslims - or even non-Muslims who conform, in the public eye, to certain characteristics of skin colour, appearance, dress, conviction, etc.

Cassandro said:

But does religion open people up to beliefs that lead to idiosyncratic action and even violence? Or is that propensity already there, as you described among hunt sabs who wanted to go further? And did it really 'seem to relieve anyone of the requirement to think', or did you believe you were thinking for yourself and associating with those who saw the truth?

That propensity may already be there.  At the same time, progressive 'eye-opening' can, I think, radicalise people in ways that they might previously not have thought possible.  I'm non-violent by nature.  I detest violence in all of its forms.  But I admit there came a point during my involvement with animal rights when I was starting to believe that the systematic abuse of animals needed a more radical approach than simply waiting around for society and the law to change.  And whilst I never became involved in such activities myself, my hearing about others perpetrating them didn't trouble my conscience too much.  In that sense, surely that made me complicit.  And of course, as an Aspie who'd always struggled to gain acceptance with any group of people, it was empowering to me to be involved.  I didn't want to lose the respect of these people.  In the end, though, making that extra step myself would have been making one compromise too far.  I had enough rationality left inside me not to follow that line of accepting, as many did, that the whole of society is to blame, and that therefore any misgivings or moral doubts needed to be set aside in the pursuit of the 'higher' cause of complete animal liberation - whatever the cost.

I wonder about that 'relieving of the requirement to think'.  I consider it in relation to groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who present a solid example of 'groupthink'.  Alternative viewpoints receive no critical evaluation, and are actively discouraged.  Witnesses who fall out of line risk being 'disfellowshipped' and shunned - losing contact with friends and family.  If they're indoctrinated into the Fellowship as children, they have little choice about these matters.  Their minds are conditioned.  They're brainwashed.  But if they come into it as rational, mature adults... are they not then surrendering their critical faculties, and effectively relieving themselves of the requirement to think?  To question?  No longer do they need to consider alternative systems of belief, because they've found the one that 'fits' for them.  And they understand that they need to accept it to the letter.  It's 'the Truth'.  Why should they need to think about it any further?