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DEAR FELLOW MEN: You’re making us all look like emotionally-stunted meatheads over this Lindsay Clancy thing
Tracey's takes are always interesting to me, and I enjoy his writing because I often find myself on either side of his opinions on a case by case basis. This time, I'm somewhat against him.
I don't doubt that plenty of men have had less than respectable takes on this case, but the far-and-away more interesting story surrounding this case is the social media response from women at large.
Tracey seems particularly focused on the first-degree conviction that the state is trying to prove, but that's not so interesting to me. Whether she spends 50 years behind bars or 50 years in a mental institute doesn't make a difference to me, really.
I guess my contribution to this is just the observation that what you think is worth talking about and what you think can be ignored is the essence of culture war. Or, put more simply, the culture war is the debate over our unstated and unexamined assumptions about right and wrong, and its hard for us to even realize this is what we're doing in the moment because we're blinded by the emotional flares of the object-level debate.
It's been commonly known for a long time that murderers get female groupies. Serial killers get female groupies. Mass shooters get female groupies.
I'm confused by the men who are treating Clancy like a new thing - something which demands a large curtailing of rights and responsibilities of women. I think it's largely an effect of the internet and social media, that it feels like there's a larger number of women who are supportive of Clancy than there really are.
The phenomenon itself isnt new. But it does feel like it may have been 'undercounted' in a pre-internet era because there was less opportunity to broadcast and receive it. And if you think female conformity, feminized societies, and social contagion are 'real things', the obvious question is if this is reinforcing and perpetuating things towards negative ends.
This is just another iteration of the 'wait, you think this too?' cycle that's been going on for years now. What's novel is seeing the extent of it now that everybody's veils have been lifted, and the sense that we're witnessing a cult-like level of solidarity that's extended to all members for almost any crime... unless you're Shiloh Hendrix and said the forbidden word.
I don't know who originated the comment that if Lindsay strangled three puppies you'd only see the knives out for her, but it rings true to me.
3-5% of men will commit a violent felony in their lifetime. (About 1% of women will commit a violent felony in their lifetime.)
If 2-4% of women find a violent criminal sympathetic and take actions to express their sympathy, then it seems like we are at parity for how deranged each sex is.
If I saw a poll saying that the majority of women think Clancy should be found insane, then I don't think that means that the majority of women support Clancy, lots of men on this forum also agree that it's possible that Clancy was insane.
I doubt that more than 4% of women are actually materially supporting Clancy.
It doesn’t need to be a majority of women. Just like with Islamism and Socialism, my concern is if there's more support than I am comfortable with before I let the preference cascade do its usual slide. And as we all know, society has had a weakness when it comes to bending itself to satisfy a 'loud minority' once it exceeds a low threshold.
This also not a case being witnessed in a vacuum. The discomfort comes from watching the typical excuse making and minimization extend even to something this heinous. Nor do I think much turns on wether shes 'truly insane'. The question is what to do in the aftermath any way. If the father had murdered his children in a psychotic break, many men may also have a degree of sympathy or understanding for him. My hunch is that none of them would strenuously object if it was determined he still needed to be hung.
But yes, I too would like to see a decent poll on the matter. The displays outside the court and the online defensiveness is distortive. It is also not a clean break away from the kind of soft-pedaling I've encountered irl.
I mean, for starters, some of us are against the death penalty even as applied to sane murderers.
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