By David Futrelle
The Incels Without Hate subreddit is supposed to be the good one, free of festering resentment and calls for (or threats of) mass murder. The subreddit’s rules specifically ban expressions of hatred, as well as “blanket statements assigning blame to a particular group of people for your problems.”
So why are the denizens of the sub openly cheering on hatred?
In a post today with dozens of upvotes, an incel calling himself BeertjeBombazijn makes a case for hate:
“Why is ‘no hate’ stressed so much?” he asks.
Isn’t it a kind of ritual submission to the system which inflicted to so much pain and heaped so much aggression on us?
How is “the system” aggressing against incels? Perhaps some assholes bullied you in school; that sucks, but it’s happened to a lot of us — including me — and most of us make an effort to process it and move on. Any anger that the public feels towards incels today is the result of incels’ abhorrent and hateful beliefs — not to mention the actual massacres that have been carried out by incels and celebrated by their incel fans.
Resentment is just the appropriate emotional reaction to not getting your dues and if you let resentment simmer and stew it turns to hate and aggression. After all, they live while we rot and they are withholding what’s due to us.
Women aren’t “withholding what’s due” to you, dude. They just don’t want to have sex with you, and their right to basic bodily autonomy trumps your desire for sex.
The self-hate we feel is just an internalization of their hatred and aggression.
Dude, virtually no one knew that “incels” were a thing until Elliot Rodger launched his murder spree and you guys cheered him on. You brought whatever hatred the public feels for you on yourselves.
It’s like a garrison posted in our brain, to keep us down and depressed, so that they are relieved even of the task of bullying us. We bully ourselves for them.
Aside from a few obsessed individuals, no one is interested in bullying you or having you bully yourselves. We want you to step back from incel forums — virtually all of them cesspits of self-replicating hate and self-hatred — and try to get yourselves healthy. You’re the ones who react with bitter anger towards those who have tried to help you.
It’s about time we stopped letting our oppressors dictate what we should feel and how to express it and instead own our emotions.
Giving in to your worst impulses isn’t the same as owning your emotions. When you truly own your emotions you take responsibility for them and for whatever sorry consequences that follow from them. Trying to drum up even more hate within incel communities is a losing strategy, and will only serve to make incels feel more alienated from society than they already are.
We know you’re hurting. We don’t want you hurting. We want you to take steps to pull yourselves out of the incel morass — and are willing to help, if you only let us. So far very few of you have.
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No incel will listen to me, but for anyone who will:
Resenting an entire segment of society is not good for you. In the past I’ve held all sorts of grudges against individuals for minor slights, and it hasn’t been good for my mental health. I can only assume it’s far worse to resent a large group like “all women.”
To any incels who truly want to be “without hate” (it’s unlikely any exist, but if one or two of them are merely confused):
Incels are a hate movement and a death cult. Get out while you can. I get that dry spells are hard, I’ve had them before. But I know that this isn’t the way out. Try to work things that interest you and on being a good person.
I think what makes it hard to form a group mostly intended for cis het white men without it turning toxic is that they really have nothing in common (except I guess groups like Life After Hate where they presumably share in the horror at what they used to believe). Contrast with groups of whatever other identity who have similar experiences of oppression with other people of that identity, and can even share experiences of oppression with other identities. Dudes like this can try to apply the language of social justice to themselves, but it can only come out as appropriation and twisting of the terms to mean something else entirely.
I think it’s important to remember that people can genuinely feel resentment for actual oppression by segments of society.
More from the enlightening discussion over at Incels Without Hate:
Say, TheSnowglobeFromHell, did you know that there are laws against forcing someone to “love” you? Check out the laws regarding abduction. The penalties are pretty severe. The laws against rape are also severe. And it turns out that these laws apply to everyone, even those who are (self-described) wonderful people.
One even finds this IN leftist communities, men who conflate their sympathetic outrage with the oppressed, with actual oppression they have never been the target of. The “hearing about this awful thing is just as bad or worse than being a victim of awful thing” syndrome. Then next thing you know, they’ve worked themselves into positions of leadership, displaced women and POC, and everyone wonders how that happened.
And heaven help you if you challenge these entitled brats…they will whine and gaslight like the worst MRA. It’s another symptom of male privilege….incels and MRAs are just the most extreme example.
@Kat
It also may be a good opportunity for our friend to reflect on why people don’t want to. Also, if one must start conversations by saying how smart and wonderful one is, that shines doubt on how smart and wonderful they are.
@Naglfar
As for me, I would like people to give me money. Lots of it.
They should want to to begin with. I’m a wonderful person, I am smart and I have plenty of qualities. I deserve it.
@incel
“Resentment is just the appropriate emotional reaction to not getting your dues and if you let resentment simmer and stew it turns to hate and aggression.”
I would agree if you said disappointment and frustration are the natural reactions to not getting an important goal met, (such as sex or dating), but frustration and disappointment are not resentment. Resentment is what happens when you describe things as “your dues”; ie. your entitlement is the problem and the reason why you’re feeling so badly. (Nothing in life is “your dues”- even stealing food is wrong.)
I’m sure there’s someone out there who would begrudge an incel for simply having normal feelings of disappointment, and that’s a problem, but it’s really the entitlement that makes people recoil. That and the fact that “hate and aggression” are presumed to be just the natural progression if frustration, or even resentment, in anyone over the age of toddlerhood. This could also be part of the reason of why you can’t get a date/sex, dissapointment is a part of even the best relationships (and life in general), and learning how to manage it without it growing stronger is a prerequisite of having a healthy, fulfilling relationship and life.
I get that “Incels without hate” is probably an oxymoron and all, but I just have to appreciate the fact that there are many incel hangouts out there, and this individual can’t handle it that one of them purports to not want you to express the emotions he wants to express.
‘Cause if you find a community “for X, no Z allowed”, the thing to do is obviously to Z all over the place, because not doing so is oppression.
@Kat & Naglfar
You’re missing the point. TheSnowGlobeFromHell has qualities. People like that are few and far between. I wish I had qualities, but I don’t.
Edit- on reading the OP’s follow up comments, it appears that his “dues” refers to being free from verbal abuse, and not to getting sex. Weird way of putting it without explanation in a sub about being involuntary celibate. Seems almost like a troll for a Gotcha.
I’ll come back to this after I sleep.
Nah, there are plenty of possible reactions to that (and only if something is really due to you, not that you think is automatically due to you), but you dream there are not so you can leave your hate on. It is not self hate, just self justification for violence.
Who describes themself as “a wonderful person”? That’s a red flag right there.
If they really believed that “oppression turns to resentment turns to hate” was a natural and rightful progression, they would be fine with being told that they are quite legitimately hated by women, black people, gay people, etc. (Since nearly all of them are straight white men) (Of course, most people don’t turn to hatred, but I’m going with their argument here.)
But they apply this principle only to themselves. Other people hating them? That’s oppression! They resent that. They hate those other people.
@Moogue
I think the main people who would begrudge an incel for that are other incels. If one showed up and said that “you know, I’m having a hard time getting a girlfriend, and I’m a little bit disappointed that the girl I asked out declined, but I don’t have any hard feelings and I’ll try again with someone else,” the sub would probably pile on about how he’s not a real incel and is actually a white knight mangina or something. That’s part of why it’s so toxic: they bash anyone who expresses disappointment in a safe and healthy way rather than as resentment and rage.
@Moggie
IIRC Kim Jong-Il described himself as a wonderful leader, and we all know how that worked out.
@Amtep
B-b-but, those groups aren’t really oppressed. They’re so much more privileged than incels, who are the most oppressed people ever. They’re just faking their oppression, incels are the real victims! /s
I just checked the sub and one of the top posts thinks that the Netflix show Too Hot To Handle will “blackpill” thousands of men because to win they have to give up sex. Uhh, this isn’t the first time men have been asked to not have sex, and most men who aren’t having sex don’t become monsters.
That’s one of the things I’ve always found so strange about incels. Many of them were/are being bullied, so for support they…turn to a group that reinforces and amplifies the bullying? All those -cel groups are like 3 a.m. jerk brain on steroids.
Yet for some reason, verbal abuse from other incels doesn’t cause resentment or hatred. It’s OK for incels to tell each other “you’re ugly and worthless”, but God forbid a woman on Tinder doesn’t match with them.
It’s a cult that attracts narcissists with a strong external locus of control. Women are just a handy target.
Look around you, incels. Look at the messages telling you to stop fretting about not getting laid and actually find something you can enjoy. They’re coming from the “normies,” the “simps,” the “cucks.” Any negative messages you get from them are a direct response to the negativity you express towards them. Meanwhile, the messages telling you that your life is worthless, that you’ll never amount to anything because of the shape of your chin (bullshit), and that you should kill yourself come from your fellow incels, the ones that are supposed to be “helping” you. The “bullies” are trying to ease your suffering, while your “support group” is doing the bullying.
You can stop this any time you wish. Just stop going to those hateful echo chambers and do something, anything else. Your cage not only isn’t locked, but the cell door is wide open.
@TB Tabby
I wonder on some level if it could be like Stockholm Syndrome, that after being bullied so long, they become dependent on it and would miss it if they left. They may have so thoroughly internalized this that they need constant reinforcement or else they feel weird. I’m not sure how one gets out of that frame of mind, but there must be a way. Problem is, any time anyone suggests that incels get therapy, they whole-heartedly reject the idea as a thing for “normies.”
OTish, ‘cos I could use an antidote to the incel hatred:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52303859
Captain Tom Moore is originally from West Yorkshire, which Alan has informed us is the best part of Yorkshire.
@ Vicky P
Indeed; and we also produced the (current) best Doctor Who, and the best Star Trek captain!
Someone recently bumped into God in Yorkshire and asked what he was doing. “Same as everyone.” he replied “Working from home.” 😉
@ Alan
HA!
I learnt about incels for the first time here on this blog. Then I surfed in their forums for a bit and while being disgusted by their far-right tendencies, their vast use of a thesaurus with ridiculous words and names (stacy, chad, normie) and those borrowed form toxic alt-right circles Redpillers, PUAs (alpha beta, redpill, bluepill, mangina, white knight) I couldn’t but notice cases they described a bit similar to my situation.
Feelings of loneliness, anxiety, misery, extreme sadness intensified by the lack of friends and romance, self pity and self hate, an existence full of fears, a life with no risk and no confidence are things all familiar to me. Often I would stand in front of a mirror and call myself a coward and a loser, then laugh hysterically.
I knew about the classical “stop hating yourself and be confident”. I mean, seriously confident for what? Or with what? It’s not me, it’s not in my nature. If I suddenly become “confident”, I’ll be only delusional. But sometimes I would fake confidence and it would work for a moment or two, next time all that facade would disappear and there would stand the same poor creature, in all its powerless and helpless glory. That’s why I found their (incels’) dismissive behaviour towards those that would come up with helpful advice quite similar to mine. But I never ended up hating the opposite sex or anyone else for that. Never. Loneliness isn’t an excuse for hatred or resentment. I even found soulmates. And they are all women. With similar (if not worse) condition.
Anyway, I don’t want to speak of them form a certain moral high ground, in a patronizing tone, to show that I am above them. But I know one thing for sure: they should stop reading PUA content or Jordan Peterson style stuff and take them for granted. It doesn’t help, only intensifies their helplnessness and hate.
I hope it’s not too disrespectful to Captain Moore, but when he said “I’m surrounded by the right sort of people”, I immediately thought “please don’t do a Milkshake Duck on us, sir”.
Not sure that not getting sex should be compared to stealing food, the most famous Ethics 101 problem.
Capt Tom Moore is wonderful. Of course he is. But it shouldn’t be necessary. It’s necessary because the tories have starved the NHS of funds for the last 9 years. And they STILL don’t have PPE
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/led-by-donkeys-nhs-message-houses-of-parliament-boris-johnson-1-6611341
@ Shiela
Indeed. I’m always wary of feel good stories that are actually dire examples of what’s wrong with societies.
Like those social media things of children setting up lemon aid stalls. You never see the headline “Kid forced into child labour to fund medical treatment…”
@Alan:
Or worse, when what you should be hearing is ‘Kid forced into child labour to fund bogus medical treatment’, since a number of those ‘feel good’ fund raising stories end up being for quack clinics that promise miracle cancer cures with coffee enemas or something similar, and the NHS was actually quite right not to fund that treatment but is still getting dragged through the mud in the media for being ‘heartless’ because of it.