Everyone else is posting their Elliot Rodgers theories, so heres mine. A story Ive heard over and over again is this: In my teens I was an outcast, miserable and lonely. And then I found [the hippies/the born-agains/the punks/the gay community/the BDSM community/whatever], and they were my family and they accepted me, and things immediately got better and stayed better. Ive come to believe that this process of finding a village is an essential part of growth and healing, particularly for victims of isolation and bullying. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, [People] want lives in folk societies, wherein everyone is a friendly relative, and no act or object is without holiness. Chemicals make them want that. Chemicals make us all want that. Chemicals make us furious when we are treated as things rather than persons. And that is the real story, IMO, behind Rodgers. He never found that, and the weak substitute he found - Internet-based MRA, a pseudo-community based on hatred rather than shared values - made him worse.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 16:24:27 +0000