I read Elliot Rodger's manifesto so you don't have to.

Because I have a morbid curiosity about broken men --- maybe because I came close to being a broken man so many times myself --- I took the time to read Elliot Rodger's 141 page manifesto. If you really want to read it yourself, go ahead. I don't necessarily recommend it. That said, here's my impressions.

• Misogyny was unquestionably his primary motive. "But then again, women's rejection of me was a declaration of war." - Elliot Rodger's manifesto, p 124. Statements like this are on almost every page of his manifesto. They include a paragraph about how if he were dictator he would take every woman, put them into concentration camps, keep a few for a secret breeding program, and literally watch the rest starve to death. His misogyny is clear as day. Anyone who denies that this was his primary motive simply doesn't know what they're talking about.


• He hated women because he felt entitled to their company. He hated them because they "denied" him their company --- probably because he scared the shit out of them. He hated women, too, because they would hang out with other guys --- probably because those guys didn't scare the shit out of them.


• He hated men, too, but only insofar as they had the things he wanted. Most of all, he hated any man who enjoyed sex with a woman.


• By implication, any claim that he was acting out homosexual impulses is just plain wrong. "Who the hell would claim that?!?" you ask. Why, this person. On Fox News. Naturally.


• There's nothing to indicate that he was criminally insane. He might have had diagnosable emotional disorders --- depression, borderline personality, or the like --- and we can guess that he had Aspurger's from his videos. But there's nothing to indicate that he lost touch with reality on the one hand, or was a sociopath on the other. To the extent he was mentally ill or neuro-atypical, it wasn't a significant factor in his actions. Dismissing him as a "nutjob" doesn't really address the problems he had, which were problems primarily with his point of view.


• It's likely that he would have committed this massacre even if he couldn't buy guns. It's not just that half of his victims were stabbed, not shot. The sheer vitriol of his manifesto is such that if he didn't have a gun, he'd have found another way to cause lots of casualties. He spent $1800 on two handguns --- that kind of money buys a lot of glass bottles and gasoline.


• His attempts to improve his odds with women focused on material manifestations of success, that is to say, better clothes, a better car, more money. He never appeared to make a concerted effort to improve his social skills. It speaks to a very cynical view of what women value about the men in their lives, which was doubtless based on his own insecurities. Unfortunately, it's doubtful that any of the web sites he visited, including PUAHate, would have helped him develop a better model.


• His idea of meeting girls was, apparently, to walk around in nice clothing and hope they'd talk to him. Seriously. It should be noted that he never mentioned using the usual pick up artist (PUA) games for meeting women. This is not to defend the PUAs, simply to point out that there's some validity to their claim that he wasn't one of their disciples. It should also be noted that his parents tried to get him therapy to improve his social skills, but by that point his worldview was too toxic to form a decent working relationship with any of them. He rejected the first therapist because he had sex with four different women, which made him a scumbag in his world. He enjoyed the company of his second such therapist, a blonde woman, but didn't take his therapy seriously because he saw her more as a "rent-a-friend" than a professional; and eschewed female therapists after that, as no different, for his purposes, from hiring a prostitute. And so on.


• It's unlikely that "learning game," as the PUAs put it, would have improved his attitudes toward women or made him less toxic. The key here is his sense of entitlement. The process of finding a companion that's good for you and vice versa is grueling for all but the luckiest people, and hard for everyone. Mistakes, especially early on, are common, and often emotionally devastating. Even smart, sweet people can end up with liars, bullies, the insane, and the toxic; but on the other hand, breaking off with someone who's bad for you is just harrowing. Given his already damaged point of view, it's likely that a breakup, especially a painful one, would have just made things worse, or even driven him towards a violent reaction sooner.


• It's unlikely that losing his virginity would have changed him much. See above.


• He tried using "The Secret" to get things that he thought would make him more attractive. His success rate was, as one might expect, decidedly mixed. In particular he tried to use The Law Of Attraction to win the lottery, to get the kind of money that he thought would make him attractive to women. It didn't work out, which is pretty typical of snake oil. (It is notable that he never wrote about using the Law Of Attraction to find female company --- which, unlike the lottery example, might have actually worked, insofar as it changed his mindset to a more successful one.)

In short, his point of view was undeniably toxic, obviously misogynist, narcissistic, and perhaps worst of all, internally consistent. It was inspired on painful early experiences, founded on bad assumptions, and sustained with bad information, and accelerated with unabashed arrogance. He was a bomb waiting to go off. And it is unlikely that new or different experiences would have been able to change his mind.

So, what do we do about future Elliot Rodgers? Stay tuned.

US Supreme Court asks litigants to file briefs in Oregon Same-Sex Marriage Case

From Portland, OR NBC affiliate KGW:

A Supreme Court Justice asked to put a halt to Oregon's same-sex marriages has requested that litigants in the case to present briefs to him by Monday at 1 p.m. before making a decision.

The request signals that the U.S. Supreme Court may get involved in Oregon's battle over gay marriage.

My best guess is that the Supreme Court will decide that the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) doesn't have a leg to stand on. Still, here we go again.....

Wednesday (Short) Miscellany!

• The Princeton Election Consortium --- think of them as Nate Silver's geekier, more rigorous competition --- puts the chances that the Democratic Party will continue to control the U. S. Senate after this year's mid-term elections at 67%. That's not very good odds, and of course, they're subject to dramatic change.


• A great breakdown of the assumptions, and dangers, of the Pick-Up Artist (PUA) mindset, here. The denizens of PUAHate.com might hate the PUAs, but they never question the mindset; and that is both their biggest mistake and the biggest reason why they're dangerous.


• How Roe v. Wadea conservative agenda of protecting segregated schools and denying Carter a second term led to the creation of the Religious Right, here.