When will it stop?
In case you were off doing fun joyful things and not paying attention to the news, there was another shooting rampage in the California on Friday. Like the previous incidents, it was perpetrated by a very disturbed, well-off young male.
The difference this time is the rampant misogyny that drove him.
This man, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, allegedly felt so slighted by the universe that he decided to punish everyone who made him feel that way. Not that people went out of their way to do anything to this man, but in his own twisted mind, just by existing these people mistreated him.
How did they mistreat him? Women mistreated him by not dating or having sex with him, and men mistreated him by having girlfriends when he himself did not.
Let that sink in for a moment.
This drove him to stab three people to death in his apartment, then get in his vehicle and drive to the Isla Vista community in Santa Barbara, shooting three more people and injuring six more people before turning the gun on himself.
Before going on his rampage, along with posting a horrifying video to YouTube outlining what he was about to do, Rodger wrote a 140-page manifesto, telling the story of his life and everything that led to the events that took place last Friday.
I attempted to read the whole thing. I wanted to see just what was going through his head that lead him down that dark path.
My head felt like my brain was trying to escape out the back of my skull the whole time.
After only 20 pages, going through the first half of his life, I can tell you this guy had an extremely privileged, spoiled rotten childhood. Yes, his parents got divorced and going back and forth between two homes is tough and all, but his view on the whole thing was ridiculous. From what he wrote, he was completely coddled by his mother, who did anything and everything for him as soon as he asked, while his father left the parenting up to a stepmother of sorts.
My head hurt, literally hurt, after reading to that point.
The further on it went, you could see little jabs at girls being mean and cruel to him, which upon reading some of the situations he described, were really nothing more than the usual youth transgressions. But oh no, those were apparently personal slights that he would never forget.
Upon hitting puberty, he claimed his life went straight to Hell as he couldn't find a girlfriend to eventually have sex with. Even worse was people, in his mind, flaunting the fact that he was alone and they were not and
Oh, and apparently sex and love from his particular sexual preference are the only things in life that are worth anything.
Does any of this sound sane to anyone?
Narcissism, delusions of grandeur, superiority complex, small man syndrome you name it, it's pretty much all in there. He threw temper tantrums constantly when he didn't get his way, despite thinking he was a well-behaved kid.
He does acknowledge that jealousy and envy were permeating emotions in his life which I guess is something.
He yearned to remain a child, living in a "fair and just world." I don't know what universe he was living in, but life is not fair. Not for anyone, not at any age.
The privilege this guy had just oozes out of the manifesto, it's almost like he has no idea that the majority of people don't live that way. He constantly refers to fairness, as life is supposed to be fair.
I can't even understand this level of delusion - he actually writes that he told his mother that "she should sacrifice her well-being for [his] happiness."
As he grew older, he claimed that girls were mean and cruel to him, but only because they didn't talk to him.
His mind twisted the act of sex into a barbaric act, viewing sexually active people as enemies and wanting to outlaw sex, because if he wasn't having it, no one should.
Take a moment and think about that for a second. Its all women's fault that he as not having sex, because he believed he was entitled to sex. Never mind that he never talked to girls, never expressed interest openly to any of them, expected them to come to him and just give their bodies over to him.
He wrote that he felt his rage was completely justified and that anyone that didn't feel the same way he did were weaklings. "To be angry about the injustices one faces is a sign of strength," he wrote.
The rage he describes at seeing couples, not just any couples, but couples where the female is a "hot blonde white girl" is mind-boggling. Saying that couples engaging in PDAs are mistreating him is the most ass-backwards way of thinking I can't even fathom where
After about 70 pages I started wondering if there are other guys out there that think this way. Do any males I know think this way? Seeing all those "Men's Rights Activist" websites that seem to be increasing in popularity worries me that there are men that feel that way and how long before they completely snap?
After 100 pages, knowing what the end result was going to be and ever-growing pit in my stomach, I had to stop. I couldn't finish reading it.
At first I was a little disappointed in myself for not just plowing through and finishing it, but then I realized that the disgust I felt reading it just proves I'm a regular, normal person.
I'm also tired. So tired of this kind of violence happening in the world today when we should know better by now; tired that women are being accused of having a "feminist agenda" when all we really want it not fear assault or death when interacting with men.
I don't think that's asking too much.
