What to do about dangerous ‘incels’? Maybe help them

THE (NDP) HAS BEEN SPINNING ITS WHEELS ... FOR 23 YEARS, — KELLY McPARLAND

Suddenly, a lot more of us now know what “Incel” means. And those who don’t can consult one of the dozens of helpful articles that have popped up online in the past few days, in the wake of the massacre of pedestrians in Toronto, to explain what it means. “Incel” is short for “involuntarily celibate,” and generally refers to a subculture of men who are frustrated and angry about being sexually rejected by women. They commiserate with one other online while raging against what they believe to be a culture that discriminates against them.

Is Alek Minassian, the Toronto van attack suspect, an Incel? We don’t know. An odd message enthusing that an “Incel Rebellion has already begun!” apparently appeared on Minassian’s Facebook account not long before the rampage. The message also praised Elliot Rodger, the young man who injured 14 people and killed seven (including himself ) in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014 — an attack motivated by revenge for perceived sexual rejection.

One message has not proved enough for police to come to any conclusions about Minassian’s motive yet, and rightly so. We don’t even know for sure if Minassian wrote it. But it’s been enough for the public — or at least a vocal part of it on social media — to lash out at Minassian for committing what much of the Twitterverse seems to consider the worst of all possible sins: hating women.

Toronto activist Kristyn Wong-Tam tweeted Tuesday: “The hatred and violence that fuelled Alek Minassian’s attack yesterday is best described as misogyny.” Others blamed Minassian’s alleged murders on “toxic masculinity” and the radicalization of white men. Left-wing writer George Ciccariello-Maher on Twitter labelled it “mass murder by a misogynistic men’s rights activist.” These are among the more nuanced comments. There are plenty more that simply emphasize how ugly, disgusting and pathetic Incels are (the word “losers” appears again and again). Besides being premature, these comments are counterproductive.

That what Minassian is alleged to have done is horrific, is clear. But it is horrific because of the damage the attack has done to so many human beings and the loved ones who survive them, or who will stand beside them as they embark on a long road of physical and psychological recovery. The attack is no more or less horrific if it was based on the victims’ genders. And the attacker is no more or less culpable if the alienation and/or rage that fuelled it stemmed from a subjective feeling of sexual rejection, a hatred of women, or, say, an obsession with society’s class inequality.

So, when commenters respond to the story by shrieking that all Incels deserve to die, or even with the far subtler charge that what happened tells us something about gender or misogyny, they miss the point. It’s not that Incels aren’t misogynist or disturbed. And the important point isn’t that someone driven to go on a destructive rampage of the sort that took place on Monday is obviously repellent. What it tells us, most importantly, is that the level of anger and social disconnection evident is so significant that it calls out for figuring out how to reach and reintegrate these people into normal society, and to help them find better ways to address their pain. That isn’t helped by smug tweets about their mother complexes and vileness.

We have programs to deradicalize religious extremists. In the case of Incels (which the van driver may or may not be), shouting about what horrible women-hating losers they are (which they may very well be) is not going to prevent one of them from murdering again. And banning them from Reddit subgroups isn’t going to help their persecution complexes. It won’t make them go away. It’ll just send them further into the shadows.

In the case of the van driver, if the early reports that he has pronounced social difficulties prove true — and if it wasn’t that he suffered some sort of psychotic break that left him out of touch with reality — then what we seem to have, regardless of other factors, is a person whose isolation from other people was too painful and profound for him to deal with.

That’s not vile or disgusting. It’s sad. And dangerous. And doing something about it — just like doing something about Incels — will require more from us than the easy condemnation that tends to be our first response to people who are doing or saying awful things.

I admit I’m not sure what compassionate teaching of human connection looks like in practice — especially with adults who have lived so many years without the relevant experience, knowledge or skills. And I admit that if I had a close personal connection to one of the victims of Monday’s attack, I might not appreciate a column like this one, counselling against lashing out at people who have done terrible things. But if the goal is to reduce the chance of a similar horror taking place, then the difficult work of helping even the least-sympathetic isolated people find respect and belonging must be higher on our agendas than generating hatred — even for those people who hate.