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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?
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.
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.
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.
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