Thursday, May 29, 2014

Elliott Rodger's My Twisted Life

It is compelling to read, rather like watching video of a horrendous traffic accident.  As a commenter pointed out, this is the logical, although extreme outcome of our post-Christian society.  His life is defined by material possessions, money, and sex -- and there is nothing else that matters.  If he can't have those things, no one else will, either.  He ended up with tickets to a private, invitation-only Katy Perry concert:
I couldn’t help but feel a bitter form of envy at all of the rich kids at the concert. They grew up in lavish mansions, indulged in excessive opulence, and will never have to worry about anything in their pleasurable, hedonistic lives.  I would take great pleasure in watching all of those rich families burn alive.  Looking at all of them really drilled in my mind the importance of wealth. Wealth is one of the most important defining factors of self-worth and superiority. I hated and envied all of those kids for being born into wealth, while I had to struggle to find a way to claim wealth for myself. I had to be ruthless,and do whatever it takes to attain such wealth. After all, it was my only hope of ever being worthy of getting a girlfriend and living the life of gratification that I desire.

I notice that his father was big on The Secret, one of those New Age ideas that is very popular with those who want "spirituality" without anything that involves real change.  Of course, Rodger bought into this "positive thinking" nonsense, and was so disappointed when it didn't help him win the lottery.

Some people see a pity party in his ramblings.  Yes, no question.  But I read stuff like this, and I shudder to think what might have happened if someone, anyone, can befriended this weird but smart guy and told him that there is a meaning to life, and it's not found in things, money, or sex:
Within the following days, I spent a lot of time at the park, watching the wind blow through the trees and the children playing in the fields. I questioned the very fabric of reality.  Why did this all exist?  I wondered.  How did life come to be? What was the nature of reality? What was my place in all of it?
There was no point to my life anymore. I was never going to lose my virginity. I was never going to get a girlfriend. Because girls are repulsed by me, I was never going to have children and pass on my genes.The only way that I could have been worthy enough to beautiful girls is if I became wealthy at a young age, and the faith I had in that happened had just been crushed. There was no hope left.
Admittedly, this kid was not going to hear answers to these questions from his parents, or in the Hollywood culture of lust, greed, and selfishness.  And certainly not in college classes.

UPDATE: I do not know exactly how to categorize this self-grandiosity, but as much as he does not fit into the typical madness of such mass murderers, it is hard to read this and not start looking for something that describes this kind of bizarre thinking as some form of mental illness:
The ultimate evil behind sexuality is the human female. They are the main instigators of sex. They control which men get it and which men don’t.  Women are flawed creatures, and my mistreatment at their hands has made me realize this sad truth. There is something very twisted and wrong with the way their brains are wired. They think like beasts, and in truth, they are beasts. Women are incapable of having morals or thinking rationally. They are completely controlled by their depraved emotions and vile sexual impulses. Because of this, the men who do get to experience the pleasures of sex and the privilege of breeding are the men who women are sexually attracted to… the stupid, degenerate, obnoxious men. I have observed this all my life. The most beautiful of women choose to mate with the most brutal of men, instead of magnificent gentlemen like myself....
Women are like a plague. They don’t deserve to have any rights. Their wickedness must be contained in order prevent future generations from falling to degeneracy. Women are vicious, evil, barbaric animals, and they need to be treated as such....
All this from a guy who went on a murder spree because there were no women who recognized him as a "magnificent gentleman."  Projection is the formal term for this.
In order to completely abolish sex, women themselves would have to be abolished. All women must be quarantined like the plague they are, so that they can be used in a manner that actually benefits a civilized society. In order carry this out, there must exist a new and powerful type of government, under the control of one divine ruler, such as myself. The ruler that establishes this new order would have complete control over every aspect of society, in order to direct it towards a good and pure place. At the disposal of this government, there needs to be a highly trained army of fanatically loyal troops, in order to enforce such revolutionary laws.
The first strike against women will be to quarantine all of them in concentration camps. At these camps, the vast majority of the female population will be deliberately starved to death. That would be an efficient and fitting way to kill them all off. I would take great pleasure and satisfaction inc ondemning every single woman on earth to starve to death. I would have an enormous tower built just for myself, where I can oversee the entire concentration camp and gleefully watch them all die.  If I can’t have them, no one will, I’d imagine thinking to myself as I oversee this. Women represent everything that is unfair with this world, and in order to make the world a fair place, they must all be eradicated. A few women would be spared, however, for the sake of reproduction. These women would be kept and bred in secret labs. There, they will be artificially inseminated with sperm samples in order to produce offspring. Their depraved nature will slowly be bred out of them in time.
There has to be a term for someone with thinking this bizarre, hateful, and fantastical.  I must confess, it does remind me a bit of how the Weather Underground used to glibly discuss among themselves having to "eliminate" 25 million Americans who could not be "re-educated" to socialism.

3 comments:

  1. His rants on women could have been spoken by an Iranian mullah.

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  2. Related to a comment on your previous post about this case:

    This strengthens my suspicion that the Elliot was abused in some way, during the first 8 years of his life.

    This mindset might be a reaction to psychological and/or sexual abuse by a trusted female.

    This reaction may or may not have been compounded by Asperger's. But the counseling started at age 8.

    It's horrifying to contemplate.

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  3. In the video, he looks and acts like someone with gender issues. His features are far too effeminate. When he talks about sex, it seems like he does not know what he is talking about -- like someone who, at 22, knows that he should have sex, but doesn't quite know what it is. Why did he not just hire a prostitute? It is common enough in Hollywood.

    Even his attempts to get a girlfriend -- I have to be richer than everyone else, he says -- are just idiotic for a 22 year old man.

    The current attempt to call this myscogeny -- or to blame seth rogen movies, as one critic did -- is too simple minded.

    ReplyDelete