"If we keep bashing men and ostracizing them, nothing good will happen. Every time we take away due process from men, throw them in jail for debts to women and children (child support), portray them as perverts and rapists in the media, and treat them as expendable, we break the bonds of trust and threaten our own survival and that of others at the same time. It is societal suicide." - Dr. Helen Smith
I can't remember where on the Internet I read it, but the comment was along the lines of "They'll go all Sodini" on them. It was in the context of men doing this to women. I didn't recognize the name so I Googled it.
Sigh.
George Sodini, who was in his late 40s, entered a fitness center and murdered four women, then killed himself. Sodini hated women because he felt he was ignored and rejected by them. For decades. In a word, he felt shamed and humiliated and powerless.
When people feel humiliated, they sometimes seek to restore their lost pride by revenge. This can include murder (think Cain killing Abel, which was the attempt to replace shame with pride).
Humiliation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of (take a deep breath) low self-esteem, school-related difficulties, pernicious child-rearing practices, delinquency, poverty, social phobia, anxiety, depression, paranoia, marital discord, domestic violence, sexual aggression, rape, other forms of violence, serial murder, and suicide.
It's an understatement to say that's a lot of problems.
I am reminded of Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in Virginia. It's clear to me Cho was utterly unpopular with women, was a virgin, never had a girlfriend, and had never kissed a girl (not surprisingly, he was a stalker). People made fun of him in high school. Like Sodini, he felt humiliated. He got his revenge and went out in a blaze of glory.
Then we have James Holmes, another complete loser with women. Holmes had struck out with three women on a sex site and was described “a shy, pretty socially inept person.”
It's really really really bad when you can't even get a slut to fuck you.
By the way, when I say "loser" there is no moral condemnation in that description. A loser is someone who loses, that's all. We're all losers in some way or another.
Unfortunately some of these losers have been so traumatized they can't get over it. They can't forgive people, so they exact their vengeance.
I go out of my way to not humiliate people (which I consider emotional homicide), since I know what it can do to them. And this is from a man who is not a particularly nice guy (I was once described as "a gentleman and a barbarian").
There are three concepts I keep in mind: mentor, model, mirror.
A mentor who someone who teaches you. A model is someone you imitate.
A mirror is what people reflect back to you. When people reject, ignore and humiliate you, they are a mirror in which you see those things. We become what we behold.
Humiliation followed by revenge - the attempt to replace shame with pride - is so well-established I consider it a science.
By the way, the word "recognize" means "to look twice."
The psychiatrist James Gilligan, who spent 35 years interviewing thousands of prisoners, said he always heard the same story as to why they murdered or brutally assaulted people. What he heard, every time, was “He dissed me” or else mocked, insulted and ridiculed the prisoner’s children, wife, parents, friends.
Gilligan one day realized what he was hearing, over and over, was the story of Cain and Abel: the feeling of humiliation followed by revenge manifesting itself as murder.
Gilligan also said, "an underlying factor that is virtually always present to one degree or another is a feeling that one has to prove one’s manhood, and that the way to do that, to gain the respect that has been lost, is to commit a violent act."
By the way, to mortify means to "make dead". People who murder people - especially mass murder or serial murder - are already dead inside.
John Douglas, the retired FBI profiler of serial killers, and the author of several best-selling books, stated that every serial murderer he encountered was an “inadequate” type (i.e., he felt humiliated) who covered it up with grandiosity (i.e., an immense Satanic pride) and sought revenge on anyone who reminded him of those who believed caused his problems in the first place. Again, humiliation leading to murder.
Wrote Douglas in The Anatomy of Motive about one mass murder: “…this crime…[was] a kind of revenge…it was retaliation for some perceived wrong – real or imagined – perpetrated against the killer” (in another case, a teenage school shooter said, “The world has wronged me, and I could take it no more” — his pride was hurt).
One of the worst punishments is ostracism. That's why solitary confinement is such a horrible thing. And when you ignore someone and pretend they don't exist, that's ostracism. It's worse than solitary confinement. It's being invisible.
And of course you can make yourself visible - and have people recognize you - by violence. It is the easiest and cheapest way to make people pay attention to you. And you get revenge and restore your lost pride to boot.
Whenever I Google "humiliation revenge murder" I always get someone saying "I committed murder to get revenge for my humiliation." As I have pointed out many times, that's the lesson of the first recorded murder in the West - Cain killing Abel.
For the last few months I have been reading the Manosphere (before then I had never even heard of it). One of the concepts is that of the Omega, which are men who are complete losers with women. They are the men who commit the kinds of murders I've mentioned.
Another concept is that of the Alpha, who are supposed to be the most popular of men with women. They are also supposed to be immune to what women say because they don't take them seriously. And that is more important than it sounds.
Feminism, which is leftist/lesbian, has never been about equality. It's been about exploiting, abusing and humiliating men. The Manosphere, which is reaction to feminism, is in some ways about becoming immune to what women say and do. Hence, that is why an Alpha is not supposed to take women seriously. In other words, to devalue them as feminism devalued men.
Alphas are supposed to be immune to being humiliated by women. That shows right there what a Big Red Button is involved in the Manosphere being a reaction to the abuse of feminism.
And why do people devalue each other? Generally, out of envy - which means hate. You can see this dynamic in the story of the Garden of Eden, in which the serpent, a symbol of hate and envy, wants to bring down Adam and Eve.
Feminism, based of the envy of men, wants to bring down men. The Manosphere, based on men's envy of women, wants to bring down women. It's a cycle, a cybernetic feedback system. It's a system that is incapable of gratitude. And without gratitude there can be no happiness.
In fact, envy and gratitude are opposed to each other. That's been noticed as far back as Aesop - and I'm sure even further.
This doesn't mean that the Manosphere isn't in some ways a necessary corrective to feminism. But it does mean that in other ways it devalues women as feminism devalued men.
You see Humiliation followed by Revenge in the movies all the time. Think Charles Bronson in Death Wish and Russell Crowe in Gladiator. Kill Bill. Amadeus.I could go on and on.
There is a way around the humiliated seeking revenge. Success is the best antidote. Who hasn't heard, "Living well is the best revenge"? It's true. In fact, living well is not only the best revenge, it is the only revenge that doesn't involve violence.
The problem, of course, is being successful. That's the rub.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post. As you know, I am looking at 'misogyny' right now.
Is 'alphadom' a type of misogyny? Hm, not sure. I am not sure, either if ignoring someone is always about hurting them. I have often heard MGTOW say it is (for them at least) more about 'self-preservation', which, to me is a great reason to do anything. Perhaps, for these men, it is a case of what you propose: to 'live well'.
As for the omegas, yes, they are true 'losers' in the sense that they lose twice - the first time when they are actually humiliated, and then the second time when they commit their acts of violence. I am not condemning them, because afterall, there but for the grace of God go I, but just making an observation of their predicament.
There are people who 'luck out' later in their lives, having had rotten luck for a long time prior. It's about perseverance and patience. But yes, that's very difficult to live out...
But, we don't really have a choice, do we...