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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?
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.
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.
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.
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