MRAs are most certainly not created in a vacuum, you're absolutely right. But now that they've forged a community on these forums and on Reddit or wherever, they're creating one for themselves to settle into.MRAs do deserve lots of criticism, after reading a bit more about this situation, I quite agree with you. But our current culture remains quite misogynistic, MRAs aren't created in a vacuum, it's easy to pin it on the MRAs without looking at how our wider culture probably created them.
I think I was probably wrong to look to blame this on a possible mental illness, that in itself does a disservice to people with mental health issues. Plus there are plenty of people who do bad things for extreme reasons, with no mental health problems. As has been pointed out to me, a muslim kills people, it's a terrorism problem (the man who killed the soldier in London in last year, has a history of mental health problems), black man kills someone, it's problem with a thuggish culture, white (or white presenting since Elliot was half asian) it's obviously just mental health.
It's really an intersection of a number of things that created this guy, racism and misogyny still prevalent in our culture and an unknown degree of mental health issues, you can probably throw in easy access to guns in there for good measure to. Chicken and egg scenario, though the misogyny does seem fairly decisive.
The thing that strikes me about Rodger is that he never actually tried. In all of his huge manifesto, he never once talks about actually trying to get to know a girl, or show interest in one beyond superficial looks. There was one section where he mentions that a beautiful girl smiled at him, and he was so happy, but then later on in the day became depressed because he was sure that girl would never actually go out with him. Well, how the hell would she if you won't even try?
In his twisted world view, simply being an attractive white male should be enough to make women try to be his girlfriend, without him putting any effort in at all. He viewed women not as equals with free agency to make their own choices, but as mere accessories that he should have gained due to his perceived status. It's one thing to be all woe-is-me defeatist if you've actually tried to engage with women as equals and consistently struck out. At least then you're not objectifying women and treating them as inferior beings who should be so lucky as to be your girlfriend. But he was so far up the misogynistic MRA/PUA rabbit hole that he couldn't see that his so-called "tortuous" life was entirely his own doing.
While you're at it, knives too
KNIFE CRIME is holding us back as a nation.
wow.
It's like a ghost town in here.
wow.
It's like a ghost town in here.