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By David Futrelle
In their forums online, where no one can see what they look like, self-described “involuntary celibates” come across as some of the most repugnant human beings that have ever walked the earth. Yet somehow incels think it’s their looks, not their personalities, that drive the women away.
Indeed, one commenter in the Braincels subreddit has managed to convince himself that personality, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t exist — and that it is actually our bone structure that determines how the world treats us, and how we act.
In a post a week ago, everythingshewants7 set forth the basics of his theory, informing his fellow incels that “[p]ersonality does not exist, and I do not give a shit about it.”
Let’s see if we can follow his unique logic.
People behave the way their environment wants them to behave, and the way people treat them. The way people treat them is based on bonestructure.
Two sentences in and already I feel like I need a flow chart. So the environment takes one look at a person’s bone structure, and then issues a set of instructions as to how other people should treat them? Or does a person’s bone structure tell the environment how it wants people to treat them? Who’s driving this car anyway?
As people can’t resist social pressure, they start behaving according to other people’s expectations.
So a person’s bone structure is some sort of invisible puppeteer that determines people’s expectations, which in turn determine how these people treat the person with that bone structure acts, which determines how that person acts? Again, if someone could draw me a diagram I might understand a bit better.
So, if you look intimidating, people will treat you with respect or fear, and you’ll start to behave like the tough guy.
Well, ok, that make a certain sense. I mean, look at this intimidating-looking apex predator fearlessly attacking a much larger enemy.
Tremble before this kitten’s SUPERIOR BONE STRUCTURE!
Meanwhile, ladies use their not-so-intimidating bone structure to trick the world into thinking that they’re not evil sluts.
If you look innocent as a woman, people will think you’re girlfriend material and a nice person. You start to behave according to these expectations. Not only do you start to behave like that, you will perceive yourself as a nice, caring woman.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world she was girlfriend material.
What does this mean? It means personality is a social construction, and nothing else.
Wait, personality is socially constructed? I thought it was determined genetically by a person’s bone structure.
It basically does not really exist. Since I know this, I don’t give a shit about people’s personality anymore.
So bone structure is socially constructing something that doesn’t exist. Got it.
There’s nothing as fake and constructed as personality. You see a nice feminine woman, and you think she’s girlfriend material. Most likely, she’s the biggest slut of all, forcing [her] to lead a double life.
Wait, so bone structure only determines personality (which doesn’t exist) when a person is on their best behavior in public? It doesn’t affect their real personality (which also doesn’t exist, I presume)?
Behind closed doors, she’s being fucked by one chad after the other.
I should have known that the dastardly Chad was going to make his inevitable appearance. Damn you, Chad! Damn you all to hell!
When she steps out of the door, she plays her role. This is our so called ‘civilized society’. Nothing, nothing you see is real.
Woah.
I think I might have to lie down for a while.
H/T — r/TheBluePill
NOTE TO READERS: Sorry I haven’t been able to post for several days; I re-injured my back and the combination of back pain and my chronic headaches kind of did a number on me. Feeling a bit better today. Thanks for you patience!
Smile, or else? Yeah, that sounds like a healthy way of going about things…
Oops, oh my. Did I get sarcasm all over everything AGAIN?
I’m sure they are intending it as a way to get kids to open up with their problems.
They’re doing it in a horrifying way that completely denies the idea that their problems might a) be legitimate, and b) be caused by the authority figures telling them to open up.
“These teenagers won’t open up to me with their problems! I ask what’s wrong and they just mumble ‘nothing’! I’ll give’m detention until they tell me what’s wrong, so that I can fix it for them.”
So – damn – self – centred. Infantilizing. Kids as problems to be solved and not people to be cared for. It’s taking a diaper-changing approach to perfectly normal growing-up problems. Teenagers’ emotions get bumpy, that’s just what happens when your brain decides to re-wire itself into an adult configuration.
Ugh, that sort of nonsense makes me so angry. Teenagers are good people who are allowed to feel down. Adults need to let go of their golden-age expectations and let other people feel what they feel. If they don’t trust you enough to open up, forcing them to do it isn’t going to make the problem better, it’ll make the problem worse.
Ugh. Sorry, that sort of thing steps on my legos.
Did you read the fucking article? There have been several complaints that the school’s approach to bullying is either to ignore it or to blame the victim. They are pretty obviously coercing the students into pretending that everything is all hunky dory at the school. It’s a move to improve their image without actually fixing any of the issues.
It also discriminates against kids who are going to have trouble strictly regulating their facial expressions due to for instance autism or anxiety disorders.
Anyone who has the education and experience required to run a school would know that using threats and coercion to either pretend to be or happy or forcibly “open up” to a counselor is not going to be effective if you want to actually educate and help the students. If the school’s administration cared about the well being of the students, they’d be dealing with the bullying issue, not threatening the students who are having a rough time with detention for not conforming with their idea of what a perfect school with perfect teens is supposed to look like.
Schools should not be borrowing their policies from Doctor Who villains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Patrol
Re smile:
My mother raised us a similar way. Be happy or be grounded. No matter what. Who cares about grades, sports, hobbies, or friends. It’s all about smiling so that people dont think she was a bad mom. Talking through feeling was a waste because ” what do you have to be sad about!?!? Be grateful your alive and have food!!!! Jesus died for you!” That was also the attitude of every fucking adult I came across. So why the fuck would I share my feelings when I was shamed for not smiling enough .
Made me hide in my room more. Made me draw my body inward. Made me more depressed than I was. Made my social anxiety climb through the roof and never come down, even after adulthood. Made me hate life and everybody in it.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Meanwhile, speaking of beatings to improve morale, Jordan Peterson has taken one. And not for the team, because he doesn’t believe in teams, only sacred individuals…and rape-marriage:
My last work was like that. The new manager was a huge asshole who ran a previously pleasant workplace like some kind of prison. Morale took a huge nosedive. Then the managers announced in morning meeting one day that they wanted to make a more positive environment. Turns out that meant ordering us to stop talking about anything negative. The only changes they implemented on their own end was to put out more contests. Productivity contests can be positive if they’re done in a good environment, but in a tense environment it just makes things worse because it reduces solidarity. So, positivity was just really forcing us to pretend we were happy and motivated.
@Alan:
Or this more recent episode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_(Doctor_Who)
Smile, or you’ll be disintegrated on the spot.
about smiling – I don’t often do it. not because I am sad because I don’t know what my face does mostly, what ever my face does other people always try to tell me but often a face is a lie. to force a student tell you their problems and secrets because of their face is completely ridiculous and unfair.
@Bina I think I love you. Your comments make me snort-laugh
What’s with all the weird poses Peterson seems to be striking in his photos. Are they supposed to be “power poses”? He looks silly and fake. The video quotes him saying he finds himself crying a lot? Wonder how that goes over with his fan base.
Violent attacks happen because men don’t have partners? So partnered men commit less violence? Where are the statistics for that?
Ed Brayton at Dispatches From The Culture Wars finally posted about Jordan Peterson and the thread went kaboom.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2018/05/19/the-vapid-sexist-world-of-jordan-peterson/
I think the opposition to the Peterson fans, who like Harris fans can’t cite what they criticize or offer the context they claim to be missing, went rather well.
I googled “enforced monogamy peterson” to find out if what he’s talking about is arranged marriage, and found this on a reddit page. It still doesn’t answer anything (didn’t go to the NCBI site to read the whole research paper). I’m going to guess what it means is a non-allowance of polygamy and the encouraging/normalization of monogamous marriage. However, I’m not buying that is what Peterson meant as our culture (and laws) currently does not allow polygamy and hasn’t for a long time. Monogamous marriage is the norm. He obviously meant something else in that interview. So the commenters/Peterson fans are being disingenuous here.
OK so I just went and read the NCBI research paper and it’s clearly talking about polygamy vs monogamy. As in actual polygamous marriages, specifically polygynous. Again, the link it makes between monogamy and lower crime is vs polygamy. So no, it doesn’t follow that these recent killers are killing because high status Chads are married to 2 Stacies and 2 Beckies simultaneously, leaving them with nobody. Peterson makes no sense using the enforced monogamy argument as we are already living in an enforced monogamy society.
From the paper;
^^^ That last sentence is what we already DO in our society. Normative monogamy. Nobody shut out.
As far as unpartnered men and increased crime, the paper asserts that in relation to polygamous cultures, not monogamous ones (like ours). So Jordan got that wrong too. However even there…
Followed the patheos link Brony posted and from there, this interesting angle on a possible pattern in some of the recent murder sprees;
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2018/04/the-waffle-house-shooter-was-homeschooled-and-so-was-the-austin-bomber.html
With the capture of the EAR East Area Rapist/GSK Golden State Killer, it’s the end of an era, the serial killer era, and the beginning of the mass murder era.
Violent men who are partnered tend to direct that violence towards their partner. Most murderers have past records of domestic violence.
So, basically, people who are advocating that violent men be “cured” by having a wife/sex slave bestowed upon them are advocating that women should be used to soak up the violence that might otherwise affect Actual People (i.e. Men and sometimes women who are not sex workers).
@Lunetta, thanks! I aim to please.
BTW, I can well believe that Jordan Peterson finds himself crying a lot. He always sounds like he’s just about to. Maybe it’s a peculiarity of his voicebox or something, but that man is whinier than a cranky toddler.
As to WHY he’d cry (in spite of raking in all that sweet, sweet Patreon loot), I’d have to guess that either he’s not taking his own facile advice, or he’s trying to and it’s not working out…or he’s living it to the letter and it’s all backfiring on him, as it pretty obviously should. Any way you slice it, it’s pretty funny to think that a man trying to position himself as the Guru of Manly Happiness™ is actually a mighty unhappy camper.
I just wonder how long it will be before one of his fanboys realizes that he’s been hornswoggled, and demands a refund. At gunpoint.
How does bonestructure make one look “innocent”? How come then that most stereotypes about women’s “innocence” has nothing to do with their bones?
Catalpa,
That was my impression too. A certain percentage of women are supposed to take one for the team and make sure the violence stays localized to her instead of out at the wider world. Never mind that despite these mass murders being a bit of a trend in recent years, violent crime in general has gone down over the last several decades even though tricksy feeeemales are marrying later or not at all and can get divorced if their husbands turn out to be assholes.
Like I was saying on Twitter the other day, I also find it really interesting how all of a sudden the standard talking points about how men and women relate has utterly flipped. For the past what? century? we were told that men are naturally promiscuous, monogamy is oppressive to them and they get dragged kicking and screaming into marriage by nagging girlfriends. Women on the other hand, can think of nothing else but getting married and having babies. If we reach 30 and are still single, we are miserable or even crazy but in a neurotic, not dangerous way. But the past few years, the narrative has started to reverse. Men have figured out that women really are just fine without them. This cannot stand. Women have to be blamed for the world’s ills and men need to control us. So, now women aren’t just hardwired to be commitment obsessed while men are commitment phobic. Now men desperately need monogamy and intimacy and women are cruelly denying it to them because we’re willful sluts.
Funny how that works.
That paper on enforced monogamy is sure evopsych alright. Also desperately lacking in critical thought about social or gender power structures. It talks about how polygynous marriages are all about women making some sort of a willful choice to “become a second wife” in exchange for power, protection, and wealth, all the while ignoring the possibility that they weren’t making a choice at all.
These assholes know it, too. More motte and bailey bullshit. Evopsych, the economics of the sociological world. It’s funny how the asshole crowd loves to denigrate the “soft sciences”, unless that soft science says something they like.
Sigh.
WWTH, the story is whatever makes a woman shut up and get back in line. It’s never made sense or been consistent. The dominant story just switches as-needed. Are women being loud about their abuse? Well, clearly women need to be nicer to them! Are women refusing to marry and having sex when they want? They’re clearly wild harridans who need a firm hand. For every behaviour outside of “get back in the kitchen” there’s an answer.
Reminds me of my sister’s ex. His behaviours swung between desperate-for-romantic-attention and frigid-aggressive-veiled-hostility. Whatever would make her shut up and do the thing he wanted her to do. He was really good at sussing out what would do the job, too. Well-honed predatory instinct in that one.
On the Jordan P reddit page they confuse “cultural evolution” with biology and then mock JP critics for “not knowing anything about biology”. So yeah, they’ve got the soft and hard sciences confused.
These papers, largely written by white people in developed countries with no exposure to arranged marriages and how they work would assume that marriages in cultures where polygamy was very common (and still may be) were/are marriages of autonomous (female) choice.
On JP’s reddit page there are grown men who are writing comments about how “alpha” JP looks in his photos.
I wonder if JP is going to crash and burn soon. I read an article by TeNehisi Coates where he talks about his brief brush with almost celebrity style fame and how it ruined decades long relationships for him and started to change him in ways he didn’t like. He pulled back before it took him to truly scary places. JP has already given up his therapy practice to chase the media fame dream. He’s obviously letting this go to his head. Better be careful.
Oh look, he’s doing the King Kong pose! Unfortunately, he still sounds like a slowly deflating balloon, so not much use in posing like a baboon.
Given that he’s engaged in professional misconduct, this is probably good news for any woman who had him for a shrink before. Unfortunately, it still leaves all the women having to deal with men in their lives who are acolytes of his.
That crash and fireball can’t come soon enough.