Elliot Rodger

A loser in our post-civilized, Darwinian sexual marketplace has lashed out and committed murder. There's much to say about this, especially how it is the foreseeable result of removing all restraints against the animal id. You cannot let this genie only halfway out of the bottle.  A "society" with unrestrained animal sex will also have unrestrained animal violence, and we are reaping the whirlwind we have sown. This is NOT a justification for a despicable crime, merely an observation of its predictability.

As I plod through Elliot's manifesto, what leaps off every page is narcissism. Not in the commonplace usage of self-love, but rather the psychological usage of massive insecurity that craves the approval of others. This is THE defining trait of modern American life: if you're not in the public eye or perceived as famous or cool, you're nobody and might as well not exist. As always, this evokes themes of the Christian versus the (neo-)pagan senses of life. The Christian is special because he has a soul and is loved by Jesus, no matter what the world might think. The pagan is special only if the world loves him, since the physical world of the senses is the only one the animalistic and soulless pagan knows.

UPDATE

The blame game is already beginning, by which I mean the standard attempt to blame someone other than the murderer. A victim's father blames the NRA. Others blame "men's rights activists." Just stop it. It would be just as easy to blame women by arguing that they gravitate toward violent men and thereby reward and encourage such behavior. This was Rodger's own lament, which gained traction when he suddenly won a large number of female admirers after unleashing his inner killer and becoming the primitive (i.e., "alpha") male they crave. If you don't like this conclusion, then stop pointing fingers anywhere other than where you should, which is at Elliot Rodger alone.

UPDATE 2

Another line of analysis that's emerging of late is a stern reminder that men are not entitled to demand whatever they might want from women, such as the article I stumbled on here that argues that men's entitlement mentality is rampant; that men and women are equals; and that "enough is enough." Too true. In the spirit of equality that the author appears to embrace, let us also scorn the female entitlement mentality and the demands that women so often place on men. For starters, it's not my duty to pay for your food, your daycare expenses, your medications, your contraceptives, or your abortions. Practice what you preach, and stop placing demands on me. Enough is enough.

If there is a major distinction to be found in how men and women make unjustifiable demands on each other, it is this: the demands of women have the systematic force of government violence to back them up.