Incel ideology
Re: The agony of an attack without explanation, Barbara Kay, April 25
In her article, Barbara Kay includes the line: “I will cop to extreme selfishness in saying I would have preferred if this had been an act of jihadism or something else linked to a clear ideology or cause.”
However, we have clear evidence that the accused Yonge Street attacker was linked to an ideology or cause, and so the attack was terrorism. The suspect is apparently an “Incel,” part of a social group that has a distinctive view about the nature of society (together with their own special words, like Chads and Stacys), what’s wrong with society (they’re not getting the sex that they deserve) and how to fix it (with violence). They even have their own special anointed figures, such as Elliot Rodger, and now sadly Alek Minassian.
The Yonge Street attack appears to have been motivated by the same hatred of women that motivated the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989. Then, as now, people are not willing to see it for what it is.
When I wrote to Kay about this, she responded: “Incel is not an ideology. It is a bunch of pathetic losers finding common cause for revenge fantasies on the internet.”
As someone who teaches and studies philosophy and critical thinking for a living, I do have some sense of what an ideology is. An ideology is simply a set of beliefs shared among different people, which shapes how they see the world, determines what they see as valuable, and motivates actions. By saying that these “losers” are finding “common cause,” Kay is already admitting that the accused attacker’s motivation here was ideological.
Unless we’re prepared to see the truth, we won’t be able to prevent future attacks of this nature. And indeed, as many have pointed out, this kind of male supremacism is a natural gateway to racial supremacism, so pretending that this isn’t ideological (and merely the act of deranged individual) will allow a very dark cesspool of hatred to fester. Imola Ilyes, Professor of Philosophy, Humber College, Toronto