Politics

Elliot Rodgers: A Disease Model And Responsibility

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I’ve been following reactions to the Elliot Rodgers shooting, and the #YesAllWomen hashtag it inspired.

As women share their experiences with harassment, misogyny violence, and cultural biases towards women, I’ve also seem many questions come up.  Was Rodgers mentally ill, what other things influenced him, can we blame misogyny if he was mentally ill, and of course who is responsible, etc.  As you can guess I’ve been following this in case you hadn’t noticed from my posts on the subject (one of which made it to Comics Bulletin).

From what I can tell (and this may update) he was troubled, he did get some therapy, he seemed aware of what he was doing, he may have been on the spectrum, and I’m frankly not sure what was up with his family.  However nothing happens in a vacuum.

Now let me state that I consider Rodgers responsible for his actions as he seemed clearly aware of them.  But his horrible crime is calling attention to the world he inhabited, from our culture at large to the MRA/PUA forums that are so often documented at We Hunted the Mammoth.  That bears discussion, because as horrible as he seemed, his crime spotlights problems in cultural enclaves as well as our culture at large – as the #YesAllWomen hashtag notes, for many women, Elliot Rodgers was an extreme of something they’re used to.

So in discussing Elliot Rodgers, his crime, and the role of culture, I’d like to use a metaphor to clear up my take on it – and how we can help.

Let’s talk disease.

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Imagine a society where a disease is extremely common.  People are used to it, and in many cases for a long time didn’t even realize it existed.  The disease had terrible effects, but people kept living and going on with their lives, they were born and died, and in general society went on.  It’s presence was really normalized and not even questioned.

Some were terrible infected, some lightly infected, but it was there and it was passed on.

Over time, people began realizing there was a sickness.  They sought cures or cured themselves, and over time people began realizing that something was wrong.  Folks began speaking up about the effects of this all-too-common illness.

In time it was treated, if in a terribly erratic fashion.  More and more people woke up to the fact something was wrong.  Parents made efforts not to infect their children (or make sure they weren’t as badly infected).  Some people managed complete cures, others managed to put the disease into remission with temporary flare-ups.  In times many people began realizing there was a sickness, though there were arguments over how bad it was, how infected someone was, and so on.

But there were those who didn’t want to be cured.  They thought the disease was normal, or they benefitted from it, or they didn’t know better, or they celebrated it out of a weird contrarianism, or they feared change.  Some of them were so extreme they mostly interacted with other infected people, and their diseases got worse and worse, and some who found them became easily infected.

However, by now people knew enough about the diseases that those who regarded it as normal or even something to celebrate were usually doing so as a choice.  They were presented a healthier world and option, and choose otherwise – some even recruited into their odd worship of the illness.

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Misogyny is a cultural disease.  It turns people against each other, limits members of society, produces violence, restrains growth, dehumanizes us, and holds down the members of a society.  It’s out there, it’s out there in force, but people have been fighting it in whole or half-heartedly, and I think we’ve certainly reduced the infections, had remissions, and even had people get cured.  We’re more and more aware of it.

Elliot Rodgers was at least a troubled person if not someone who needed a lot more therapy.  At best he was a person who wasn’t able to cope and chose a dark path, at worst he had the mental equivalent of a compromised immune system.  Either way, the world of misogyny he waded into was a place where the disease was worshipped, and he got infected bad.

Wether he sought infection or was vulnerable, a cultural pathology was a gateway to him becoming a murderer.  It ended up in his bizarre manifesto which seems to be every misogynistic trope and fantasy I’ve seen on the internet, clearly pointing to how he was “infected” by the various anti-women groups.

Elliot Rodgers was infected with a problem of our culture.  Any debate really is about the method and how it could have been prevented, not if it existed.  He became the embodiment of a larger problem, an extreme case of an already extreme world.

So that’s how I view it.  Our culture has a disease that harms us, and we need to address it – and to do that we need to be aware and admit it. #YesAllWomen is a way to say “here are the symptoms, there is a problem, it is real, and it is true.”

In the end, Elliot Rodgers didn’t take responsibility, blamed a bunch of other people, and killed folks.

We can be responsible, fight the disease in others and ourselves.  But we have to listen.

As for taking action? Beyond some of the resources I posted:

  • If you’re male, honestly review your behavior and ask female friends/relatives if you’ve shown any misogyny.  Be open to criticism.
  • Call out misogyny when you see it.
  • Join an organization, donate to one, or otherwise get involved in something that assists fighting misogyny.
  • Support the #YesAllWomen hashtag.  I’m an admitted skeptic of hastags, but this one is getting attention, showing camaraderie, and also giving useful ideas and information.
  • Pay attention to gender politics when you vote, and look for people that support human rights versus those biased against genders.
  • Come up with your OWN advice and post it to get people to take action.  Let me know.

 

– Steven Savage

 

No Mystery On The Science Of Political Theater

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One of the groups protesting (counterprotesting?) the genetrification and changes in Silicon Valley* protested at the home of Kevin Rose of Digg and Google Ventures fame.  They also apparently asked for $3 billion to establish anarchist communes, which will doubtlessly lead to many sarcastic analyses of investments.

Kevin Roose (not Rose, but boy he’s apparently had problems with parties over the names) referred to this as political theater.  Indeed, political theater is something the Bay Area** is used to, usually from the left and in this case anarchists, unless that’s also part of the joke.  Except, the more I think about it, it seems that who uses political theater has changed, and I think this is where the protestors are going to experience backfire.

Political theater in America is now the domain of the Right.

The right is the realm of elaborate Tea Party costumes***.  It’s the realm of Glen Beck’s blackboard.  It’s where Clint Eastwood does performance art talking to an empty chair.

I don’t know about you, but I associate political theater with the Right in America, not the Left or Anarchists.  As Roose (not Rose) notes, the more “mainstream” protestors are involved in anti-eviction, city planning comissions, and the likes.  Those prone to political theater are in the realm of the Right at this point, and that may hurt their cause, whatever it is (one guy even suggests it’s a false flag), since the traditional Left won’t be sympathetic, the Right isn’t sympathetic, and others may just be confused.

* I should note that the exact geography of Silicon Valley is up for debate.

** Not necessarily the same as Silicon Valley, but let the debate begin.

*** Cosplay for people into politics.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Review: Twilight of the Elites, America After Meritocracy

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Twilight Of The Elites CoverReview: Twilight of the Elites, America After Meritocracy

ISBN-10: 0307720462
ISBN-13: 978-0307720467

PROS:

  • Book transcends petty politics while being straightforward and realistic.
  • Proposes understandable models of elite decline.
  • Reviews historical issues past and present on elite decline, providing useful fine detail.
  • Explains its subject matter smartly, realistically, and accessibly.

CONS:

  • Proposed solutions could focus more on actual solutions.
  • If you follow news closely, some sections will literally be “old news” and will be more of a review.

SUMMARY: Must-read book for people concerned about what’s gone wrong in the American (and world) culture and economy.

I’m going to be putting this review in the “Geek As Citizen” slot for this week because this is a book that aspiring Geek Citizens really should be reading – though it’s focus on economics, psychology, and systems also makes it a heavily – but accessibly – geekonomic tome.

Christopher Hayes takes on a subject that we’re all concerned about, but not always inclined to analyze, namely, what happened to our elites and how have they gotten so much wrong despite supposedly being so, well, elite

It’s easy to understand why the subject is important, because we’ve seen a decade or two of serious problems, often build on foundations of previous decades of elite incompetency we missed. Financial meltdowns, housing bubbles, pointless wars, Catholic Church sex scandals, lead many of us to figure that something has gone terribly wrong with the people who supposedly are qualified to run things. Worse, it seems the people who messed up haven’t been punished or in a few cases were even rewarded.

So, what happened – because we really wonder how much more of this our culture, economies, and planet can take.  How did we end up with, well a Twilight Of The Elites? (Yes, a reference to the oft-quoted Twilight of The Gods).

Off the bat a book like this could descend into political polemics, or even be focused more on selling books via outrage than solving a problem (another issue of elite incompetence in a way). Hayes, to his credit, both wears his liberal politics on his sleeve but also shows both an open mind and a lot of empathy in his subjects. Hayes isn’t busy wagging fingers and feeling self-righteous, he wants to solve problems and understand what’s going on; he even empathizes with some dysfunctional elites because some of us might be just as messed up were we to exchange positions.

This is a guy who can look at people who have done massively awful things and actually take a moment to empathize with them – before explaining how much they messed things up.

Thus the book, though very readable and even at times a bit poetic, has a refreshing and blunt realism without rant or contrived outrage. This makes it very useful because you can get maximum information with minimal BS.

Hayes starts off by reviewing our discontents about our elites, and then jumps straight into the nearly unquestioned idea of meritocracy, the belief in a system where people succeed on their merits. This rather beloved myth actually has its roots in a political parody, and the irony becomes even more apparent because the parody being taken seriously in many ways resulted in a rather mockable system. It’s apparently produced an elite that is not meritorius, but one that starts poitness wars and covers up horrible sex scandals.

Next, Hayes explores exactly what happened, and the political theorists who have touched on similar issues for years if not centuries. Though it’s hard to do justice to his ideas – and indeed a short review isn’t enough – essentially meritocracy breaks down because those who benefit from it eventually subvert any ability for people to rise through the ranks. At some point the people who got to the top – even if they did so virtuously – will often be interested in making sure they stay there and only people they want get there as well.

Having established his theories, Hayes then “treats” us to an overview of our dysfunctions, from what builds functioning systems and builds trust in our systems to what happens when things break down. He points out, essentially, how one by one major social systems people rely on to know what’s true, to build trust, to get things done have stopped working. A lot of this seems to be common sense, but he uses examples and analysis to help give a near-visceral understanding of what’s wrong.

Finally, Hayes gives us a tour of major malfunctions. This is, oddly, a less interesting part of the book for anyone who’s a news junkie (like myself) as you’ve seen it all before – only in this case he puts things in context. This is useful and appropriate, but for some people this part of the book is “yeah, I know.” It is necessary for the overall context of the book however, so it’s inclusion is understandable.

Hayes lays out an excellent model for elite dysfunction, shows how things have broken down one by one, then looks at major scandals and issues to show just what happened behind the scenes of the last decade or so. He gives a small-to-big picture view in the book that makes his theories and analyses applicable . . . if you’re not too busy being depressed.

The book closes with a look at what can be done. This chapter is a bit weak because though Hayes remains hopeful and optimistic, a great deal of change is not made by grand outlines and scenes, but actions at critical points by people and groups. Thus he gives possible outlines of what may and could happen, but it is vague – and he knows it. Frankly, I’d like to see a followup book on specific actions.

Is the book worth it? Frankly, yes. In fact it’s not just a good book, Hayes’ empathy and understanding, building of systems and connections, is actually a good model for writing a book – it actually has influenced some of my writing goals already.

I consider this book a must-buy for:

  • Citizen geeks who want to know what went wrong and how to fix things.  As he proposes theories and systems there’s stuff we can work with.
  • Econogeeks who want to understand much the same thing – and get some good historical context.
  • Anyone who wonders what the hell happened the last twenty years.

This is a must buy, must keep, and a must-get for others book. I look forward to Mr. Hayes’ other works.

– Steven Savage