If you wondered where I was yesterday, I was writing this piece for New York Magazine’s The Cut on confessed racist murderer James Jackson and the alt-right-ization of the MGTOW movement that takes off from this post of mine earlier this week. Discuss!
You might also want to take a look at Robyn Pennacchia’s Wonkette piece on Jackson.
Naturally, the comments to the article prove your points nicely. It’s good seeing most of the main MGTOW points summarized in one helpful location.
Fujimoto,
Yeah, that guy trying to make “MGTOW shaming” a thing was pretty hilarious.
“MGTOW is not a geographical location !”
It really does seem like MRA/MGTOW is what enabled the broader alt-right to rise like it did; it’s not like white nationalism was just invented this past decade (neither was sexism, mind, but this particular internet form almost literally was). Hell, I’ve seen James Weidmann basically say as much (not to mention that he’s an example himself).
Scary stuff. It’s important not to forget that the same toxic stew that this guy swam in was the same stew that cooked up Brevik, Roof and Rodger. All three of them had a similar focus on women and women’s purity, relying on the same sexism and misogyny to justify their actions to themselves.
Enough is enough. Honestly, I think we need to lay the moral blame for this pain and death at the feet of anybody who espouses this hateful garbage. Sure, they’ll gnash their teeth and scream bloody murder (ironically) that they haven’t hurt anybody, but as somebody who goes around spreading these very harmful ideas, it’s time they owned responsibility for the inevitable awfulness.
Yep. Roof was a reader of/commenter at the Daily Stormer. Rodger was immersed in incel, which is in some ways a more extreme version of MGTOW.
from the NY Mag article comments;
geez, fool, there wouldn’t BE any “anger and vitriol” if you’d just go your own way… GO, already!! All discourse directed toward you has been a <em<response to your continual whining about how you’ve been hurt so deeply you must now “go….”
Almost exclusively, this whining is about how you’ve been hurt by women who don’t want to “give you” the sex you “are entitled to”.
Okay, GO!!
But Gussie Jives, what about their frozen peaches?
@ David F
Great article.
@ gussie jives
The chatter on the MGTOW and Incel forums about this seem to be a mix of congratulatioary pride about his efforts towards the ‘beta uprising’ and derision because he gave up so easily before he could carry out his full plan.
The #notallmgtows stance seems to be for public consumption only.
@Alan Robertshaw
As much as #notallmgtows might be for public consumption, there’s gotta be an element that they use as comfort blanket to avoid taking any moral responsibility for what they say and do. Basically “Yeah, I’m glad that guy did that! But I’d never do it myself, heavens no, I’m not a murderer. Murderers are bad guys!”
Perhaps this is impossible, but I’ve come to believe that the only way to break this cycle is to get these deplorables (to use Hillary’s word) to own their actions and the consequences thereof. How to do that, I don’t think anybody save one of their own can snap them out of it. They’re certainly not going to listen to the SJW Beta cucks and feminazis.
There’s something these guys tell themselves so they can look themselves in the mirror and go to sleep at night. I’d love to know what that is, if it’ll put an end to this nonsense.
I dunno… maybe it’s just my feeling of helplessness talking. I just can’t help but think of that line from First Knight where Sean Connery says “A man who fears nothing is a man who loves nothing; and if you love nothing, what joy is there in your life?”
And as he says “I may be wrong,” but these people’s lives seem devoid of anything close to joy.
@Gussie Jives
Yeah, good luck with that. Look at the mindbogglingly implausible things they accept as incontrovertible truth. If they can swallow the big lies, the little ones won’t even touch the sides on the way down.
@ gussie
It would be nice to think that but…
*warning for misogynistic violence*
(and there’s plenty more where that came from)
Both MRA’s and the alt-right are essentially “therapy” or “self-help” cults. They’re similar to Scientology or Objectivism while Ayn Rand was alive. They promise self-improvement while also recruiting people to support an authoritarian right-wing political agenda. Warren Farrell and other “nice MRA’s” regularly promote their ideas in the mainstream career advice and self-help scenes (Farrell’s work on relationships was endorsed by Oprah in the 1980’s).
It’s a bit of a bait and switch. Hbomberguy did a video about how Roosh uses anti-feminism to explain why his techniques don’t work as well as they should. Everything becomes about how fucked up society is because progressive social movements ruined it.
The pattern involves a group addressing the felt needs of people who are socially outcast (like 4chan users or certain gamers) and then radicalizing those people.
@Gussie Jives
As Alan has shown, taking responsibility is the last thing they would do. It’d be better if people were taught at a young age to not be like them and for law enforcement to take these people seriously. When they’re at the point where thinking mass murder is a good thing, treat them like the radicalizing terrorists that they are.
@Gussie Jives
Sorry dude, but in reality there’s really only two proven ways out of that viscious cycle of nihilism and catharic indulgence:
1)They get bored and happen upon a drastic improvement in general life quality. or:
2)They get viscuosly reminded of how hostile the real world is to losers who like to whine about their problems on the internet.
Neither are easy to come by. Nor would I wish either upon them.
Good article, David.
I wonder how long it will be before ThrowawayUsername migrates here, if he hasn’t already.
I saw in the comments that couple of people recommended your site. Kudos. đŸ™‚
For me, the most heartbreaking thing is this comment from one Alexander Stallwitz on the Wonkette piece:
In the immortal words of June Jordan Browne, what the hell is everyone being reasonable about?
I’m mgtow and I think this article is a joke.
All mgtow is is a philosophy focused on making yourself happy. And It’s not just about women, it’s about life in general.
In my experience, a lot of MRA and alt-right types used to be right-libertarian-leaning Democrats. In other words, they were fiscally more centrist and agreed with a laissez-faire approach to social issues (so they supported abortion rights and marriage equality, but not broader feminist or LGBT movements for social equality). Supporting abortion rights and opposing the religious right made them acceptable as “liberals,” especially when Bill Clinton decided he’d pay less attention to feminist issues.
Obama was much more supportive of progressive social movements than any other recent president, even if he wasn’t as left-wing as many people would like. But his policies really rubbed some of the libertarian-ish Democrats the wrong way, so they defected from the Democratic Party and MRA’s and the alt-right filled their ideological gap.
One of the MGTOW bunch said “MGTOWs don’t seek to change any laws or oppress women, they simply don’t want to play the game anymore.”
I asked him why, then, didn’t they go do that in peace instead of wailing and gnashing their teeth endlessly about what a bunch of cock carousel riding sluts women are.
@Fujimoto,
The comment at the very top (when I read the article, anyway) is exemplary: men built everything, men made everything, men gave women everything, and let’s finish off with a nice little threat of violence or two. Oops, I forgot: also, women are hateful.
“Women Going Their Own Way” were radfems who pursued relationships with other women as a political statement even if they were mostly attracted to men. I doubt that’s the sort of thing MGTOW’s are into.
David: New Yo*r*k magazine I assume.
Repeating myself from another thread: All bigots are interchangeable. All bigotries reinforce each other