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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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Steven Crowder has leaked portions of the Nashville shooter's "manifesto": https://nitter.cz/scrowder/status/1721545965402726734

I put manifesto in scare quotes because the leaked portions seem to more part of a "schizo mass shooting planning diary" as opposed to "schizo essay on motivations for the shooting." That said, the leaked pages do reveal some insight into the shooter's motivation. The biggest surprise to me is that it doesn't really mention being discriminated against for being trans. Instead it focuses on the shooter's perceived perpetrators being rich privileged white kids with daddy's money. Basically the lyrics to The Dead Kennedys's song Holiday in Cambodia if they were written by a mass shooter. Also semi-surprising to me is their repeated use of the word "faggot" as an insult. I wouldn't have been surprised to see this in a mtf trans shooter's diary, but it's a bit surprising to see from ftm trans. Maybe some sort of performative masculinity?

In any case, the documents appear to be genuine though they haven't been 100% confirmed. Currently there's a lot of hubbub over whether or not they were appropriate to leak in the first place, but I see very little questioning of their authenticity. What are your thoughts?

Why suppress this? I can understand suppressing such writings generally, but AFAIK this is the first time such a thing has actually been kept under wraps for any length of time.

I doubt anyone would be inspired by it, and it's certainly not going to spark a movement or any kind of adoration for the shooter like we saw with Elliott Rodger.

Maybe Crowder isn't printing a genius rhetorical flourish, but I really doubt it given the kind of thinking on display.

What I've read of Elliott Rodger's writings makes me go "I completely understand why you couldn't get a girlfriend". He's genuinely hurt about it, but he's also genuinely an entitled, whiny, pain in the ass. Not alone does he expect girls to fall at his feet in adoration simply because he's a handsome gentleman, he's nasty to those he considers his social inferiors (parts about turning up with his family at red carpet events where he writes abusively about the staff simply doing their jobs; just because your dad is currently an important director doesn't mean you have any clout or importance of your own).

Part of that was probably the usual adolescent turmoil, but again were I a sixteen or seventeen year old girl at that time I wouldn't have wanted to go out with a perpetually scowling guy who thought the sun shone out of his own backside and who would probably not been concerned with my feelings or wants.

Ah yes they must have sensed it. It’s the old vaginatron morality detector versus women like assholes theory. I will say that nastyness towards social inferiors is not disqualifying men as sexual partners. I think both sides overrate morality as a factor in sexual success.

Most people aren't perfect at code switching between "want to abuse janitor" and "want to impress chick" personality. Also, not all social inferiors are socially inferior in the same way. I've heard of guys being popular because they mogged on some guy in their social group or fended off a bum, not so much for yelling at a girl behind the counter in McDonalds.

In short, when angry guys in the manosphere observe that women don't like them even though they like other assholes just fine, they often fail to observe that they're not the correct sort of asshole.

Sometimes, often, they genuinely aren't assholes though. It's just that their way of not being assholes is not attractive. And that's okay. It's not women's responsibility, anyone's responsibility, to reward kind unassuming people with sex. But from a just world theory standpoint you can’t say that, so the demonizing and counter-demonizing follows.

Yeah, but also when they do try to be assholes their way of being assholes isn't attractive either.

There's also something to be said for not mistaking "kind" for "refraining from being unkind because you'd be bad at it".

I do not blame women from assuming the worst of those guys, really, because I've seen enough to believe that women do really have to deal, or in best case to expect to deal, with a whole lot of repulsive men.

They generally don’t go out, be assholes, and then come back saying that being an asshole doesn’t work. They just stew in the belief that they would be successful if they were assholes. And I have to defend their view again a bit here.

To be successful, they’d have to play the social game, which is essentially zero sum. So they’d have to step on a few toes, clip a few wings on their way to the social middle. Very social, inherently high status people can get to and maintain their righteous place in the social hierarchy with minimal breakage, but that’s not in the cards for the bitter rejects we’re talking about here. They’d have to crudely beat up on some other losers and social inferiors just to get to the social center.

That's just how the game is played, you have to say 'me first' a little.