Hey Rudyard Lynch Stop Manipulating My Friends

My Friend Dave

You probably have a friend like Dave. Happy-go-lucky, funny, kind and generous Dave. One day a couple of years ago I ran into Dave at the grocery store and he seemed agitated. He was concerned about something that he really wanted to get off his chest. I paused to listen.

“Did you know Biden is spending billions of dollars on immigrants, on people who aren’t even from here!” he blurted out.

I was surprised he was putting any of his usually happy thoughts into this matter. “Well I expect some of those people are incredibly poor,” I said. “Heck, a billion dollars is about the price of a single bomber, and helping those people out probably makes the world a better place more’n a bomber does.”

He kind of crumpled at my response. I think he was expecting me to agree with him and get all worked up like he was. “Well I guess you’re right about that,” he muttered as he ambled off. I ran into Dave again a few months later. Now he was ecstatic about something else. “You gotta listen to this podcast I found! This guy debates twelve feminists at once and wins!”

“Thanks I’ll pass,” I tell him. Normally Dave and I avoid talking politics. After a few heated arguments we’ve “agreed to disagree,” as so many people have who find themselves on opposite sides of the political spectrum with a loved one.

But he wouldn’t let it go, and the stuff he was bringing me kept getting more and more outrageous. One day we were cooking burgers together in my back yard and he asks me “Hey Laurence what if colonialism was actually a good thing?”

“I don’t know Dave,” I said as I flipped a burger. “I’m pretty sure colonialism has been hard on the people in those countries that were colonized. Maybe ask one of them how they feel about it?” For good measure I sent him a link to a documentary about the effects of colonization on Puerto Rico. Later I asked him “Did you watch that Puerto Rico video I sent you?”

“Uh, no, I didn’t get all the way through it,” he admitted.

Another time we were out fishing on the lake and the topic turned to our relationships with women. Suddenly he waxed thoughtful and said, “I think women want to be dominated.”

“I think you better ask a woman about that before you go and make that your guiding principle,” I suggested. “Maybe ask your sister or your mom how they feel about that?”

And then again more recently when we were camping out: “What if…” he started to say but he stopped short when he saw me wince.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“What if the whole history of slavery was a hoax made up by black people in order to make white people feel sorry for ‘em?”

I looked at Dave to see if he was joking. He wasn’t joking. Usually I am pretty even tempered but at this point I just about lost it. “Oh c’mon Dave!” I shouted. “That’s just ridiculous! Where are you getting this stuff?”

“Off the Internets,” he told me sheepishly.

“Okay Dave I think you need to take a break from the Internet for a while and just let your head clear for a bit. Maybe read a book or something instead. If you really want to learn more about slavery and how black people felt about it, I suggest you read Toni Morrison’s Nobel prize-winning novel Beloved. It’s very well written.”

But Dave is not a big reader. He didn’t read the book. And he couldn’t stay away from the toxic podcasts. So about a week later he texted me a link and innocently asked me “What do you think of this discussion about how women are taking over society?”

https://youtu.be/C2aNFej-cJ4

“Here we go again,” I thought. “Is Dave being hypnotized by subliminal messaging in these podcasts?” I wondered. “Maybe I better watch it and find out what the heck is going on with him.” So I put it on and arduously made it through the whole insipid thing and then I texted him back this response:

“Idk Dave. I took a look at this podcast and followed a few of the references and it raises so many red flags I don't even know where to begin. I think the quality of this ‘discussion’ is beneath someone of your caliber. The twitchy smug fat guy is so rambling and incoherent that the frowny bleary-eyed interviewer can hardly keep up trying to interpret wtf he is talking about. This Rudyard Lynch prides himself on being well-read but the books he cites are awful. He says that he admires author Jordan Peterson who even Wikipedia describes as ‘the dumb man's smart man.’ He is so painfully obviously using manipulative tactics. I looked up some of his podcasts and this guy is truly creepy. In one video his goal seems to be to incite his fellow incels to violence. You can do better than this Dave. I know you are bored during your morning workout but I'm sure you can find something less trashy.”

“Well I agree 100% with everything Rudyard Lynch says,” Dave wrote back indignantly. “How is he inciting incels to violence? I don’t believe you!”

“This is the video where he incites incels to violence:” I responded. I sent him a link to a video named “The Coming Incel Revolution” with a graphic that shows a young white man engulfed in smoke throwing a rock or a bomb or something:

https://youtu.be/U4dxsmlPguY

I agreed to watch the video and discuss it with Dave. And so we come to the results of my review, which is the essence of this essay.

Dave is of course not a real person. He is a character I made up. He is a composite of various friends of mine and the preceding dialogue contains comments that several of my friends actually said. Please do not be offended if you see a little of Dave in yourself. It doesn’t mean you are stupid. It doesn’t mean you are evil. It just means you were the victim of the manipulations of someone like Rudyard Lynch and his toxic podcast peers.

My Review of Rudyard Lynch’s Video “The Coming Incel Revolution”

The first thing you will notice about this video is that it resembles journalism. What's that, you ask? You see, there used to be a class of professionals who we trusted to give us news that was as unbiased as they could make it. They were known as “journalists” and “editors” and “fact checkers”. If a journalist made a statement that was false and manipulative, they risked being discredited and no longer allowed to use the tools of mass media. One of the side effects of the internet is that it puts these tools into the hands of everyone, including unscrupulous people who present themselves as journalists (or historians) but really they are charlatans. We no longer have a class of journalists tripping up all over each other to provide us the public with as honest a depiction of reality as they can. Instead we have a class of professional liars and manipulators strategizing how they can deceive us.

So now instead of being able to trust what we see on our screens, we have to learn how to tell if we are being manipulated. This skill is especially important right now because our current administration relies heavily on manipulative techniques in order to continue stealing from us. I grew up in a community dedicated to honesty known as the Quakers. Quakers spend a lot of time thinking about how to be scrupulously honest, so we have a pretty good handle on what dishonesty looks like. Some people both left and right might feel it’s okay to be dishonest if it is for a good cause. I think it is never okay to manipulate other people. It is never okay to be purposefully dishonest as a strategy. Our society is in a crisis of honesty right now. People’s belief systems are shattered. They don’t know what to believe. And this is due in large part to lying assholes like Rudyard Lynch.

Incel Defined

Sigh. Alright let’s get into it. This video is about incels. Incel, for those of you who don’t know, is short for “involuntarily celibate”. It is a group of mostly white young men who have fallen into despair over the issue of not being able to attract a girlfriend, and have formed online communities to commiserate about this issue. It seems innocent enough. But the misogynistic far right rhetoric in these online groups has reached such a feverish pitch that some of these young men have taken up arms and gone out and killed people. If you google “incel violence” here is some of what you come up with:

Notable Incidents Attributed to Incel Ideology:

• 2014 Isla Vista killings: Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured 14 others in Isla Vista, California, before killing himself. He is considered a "patron saint" and "founding father" of the violent incel movement, and his manifesto, "My Twisted World," is revered by some in the community.

• 2018 Toronto van attack: Alek Minassian drove a van into pedestrians in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 16. Before the attack, he posted on Facebook: "The Incel Rebellion has already begun! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!".

• 2018 Tallahassee shooting: Scott Paul Beierle killed two women and injured several others at a hot yoga studio before killing himself. A Secret Service report on the case highlighted misogynistic extremism as a motivating factor, noting the perpetrator had a history of violence and a desire to harm women.

• 2021 Plymouth shooting: Jake Davison killed five people, including his mother and a 6-year-old girl, before taking his own life. His online activity revealed his involvement in incel forums and adherence to the "black pill" philosophy. (The black pill philosophy is basically when incels cross a threshold of believing they will never attract a girlfriend.)

There are a lot of documentaries about incels coming out but perhaps the best of all time is this one by Natalie Wynn of ContraPoints:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0&t=86s

In the first part of his video about incels Rudyard Lynch takes great pains to assure us that he is not an incel himself. He wants us to know that instead he is a well-adjusted functional person. His evidence is mainly that he makes six figures and owns an Audi. Is that all you got Rudy? What I would look for is not your income, Rudy, but some evidence that you have learned how to give love and receive love. Who can you give us as a reference? A wife or a girlfriend or a lover or a child or your mom or even a pet? Rudy?

Even though Rudyard Lynch claims he not an incel himself he spends the rest of the video comforting incels and spouting incel ideology and justifying the coming violence that he believes incels will wreak upon us and explaining why we will deserve it. He describes a “young male dating crisis,” and why it is women’s fault and Marxists’ fault and even black people’s fault. I won’t go into his argument because it is ridiculous.

The underlying fallacy of this video is that Rudyard conflates his and his incel buddys’ personal flaws into a major geopolitical crisis. This is typical behavior for self-centered people. They recognize something is wrong (for example “How come everyone leaves the room when I enter?”) and since they can’t bear to attribute this to themselves (“Maybe I should take a shower?”) they instead attribute whatever is wrong to everyone else in the room (“All these sheeple have become infected by feminist ideology!”).

Instead of debating Rudyard’s ridiculous argument I will try to tease out what techniques he uses to manipulate his viewers, so that my friend Dave and the rest of us can all learn the skill of how to tell if you are being manipulated.

Rudyard’s Techniques for Manipulating His Audience

Gish-galloping is a favorite technique of the right. The term "Gish gallop" was coined in 1994 by the anthropologist Eugenie Scot who named it after the creationist Duane Gish, whom she described as the technique's "most avid practitioner". Basically it is when a debater says so many controversial things in quick succession that their opponent is momentarily stunned and doesn’t know where to begin to dispute the lies. Another effect is to so enrage their opponent that the opponent can’t think clearly. (I think one reason I’m well-suited to writing this essay is that I don’t become enraged very easily. I’ve seen some of my liberal friends become so perpetually enraged by the daily antics of the current administration that they become spent and despondent.) Gish-galloping doesn’t work very well in print form since the reader can read the outrageous claims slowly and think clearly about each one in turn. But it works especially well in a debate format where quick thinking is required. It works especially well to impress an audience who doesn’t like to read. I think anyone caught Gish-galloping should be banned from the internet, and certainly not be elected to public office.

Here is an example of Gish-galloping from Rudyard Lynch’s video: at one point he says “A man can’t expect a woman to be attractive, attentive, take care of the children, and not cheat on you without being called sexist…Woman just need to keep a good weight and not be annoying to get a date, whereas men are expected to…[blah blah blah].” I think most normal people’s response would be something like “Wait, why is it the job of a woman to be attentive to you…wait what? You’re saying it’s her duty to keep a good weight so that you can be attracted to her? That’s just repulsive. Wait, you’re calling all women annoying? No wonder you can’t get a date…” You just can’t keep up with his steady stream of nonsense.

What would the opposite of Gish-galloping look like? Quakers have a technique called “worship sharing with attention to [some contentious matter]” that I think exemplifies how to create a safe caring space for people to work out their differences. Basically a group of people who disagree about something get together and sit in a circle. A facilitator encourages them to carefully contemplate what they want to say, and when they feel “moved to speak” they can stand up and say it. But they are not saying it to anyone in particular. And people are encouraged not to respond to what another person said directly. Lastly the facilitator enforces a period of silence after each person speaks. It is not a debate. It is not even a discussion. It is a way for everyone to be honest and informative about what they know and think and feel about an issue. The group is encouraged to frame all sides of an issue rather than to judge that one side “won the debate”. It is a very effective technique. I wonder if someone like Rudyard Lynch could handle all of the honesty in the room, or would he run away screaming?

“Lies per second” is a technique similar to Gish-galloping favored by the right. Wikipedia notes that “During and between his terms as President of the United States, Donald Trump has made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims. Fact-checkers at The Washington Post documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first presidential term, an average of 21 per day.” (More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump ) It would take a lot of time to fact check every lie in Rudyard’s video and clearly that is by design. In an ideal world we would just have to find one falsehood and Rudyard’s audience would brand him as a manipulator and not trust him in front of a microphone again. Here is that one obvious falsehood. At one point Rudyard claims that 95% of recent jobs have been given to people of color. He cites a Bloomberg report with that title. I think a right-leaning person would simply snort and say “That explains a lot!” and move on without questioning this lie. But most left-leaning people would think “Hey wait a minute that couldn’t possibly be true” and they would pause the video to check it out. And sure enough if you do take the time to read about the report you will find that it was a study of companies that, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2021, initiated programs to hire people of color. And the report found that 95% of the people hired by these programs designed to hire people of color were indeed people of color. Ironically the real news here should have been “How is it that 5% of people hired by these programs designed to hire people of color were not people of color?” But instead Rudyard takes this headline out of context in order to stir up white discontent against black people.

Another technique Rudyard uses is what psychologists call “projection”. Here’s how the internets define it: “Psychological projection is a defense mechanism where individuals unconsciously attribute their own unacceptable feelings, thoughts, or impulses onto another person. This is a way to avoid confronting these uncomfortable aspects of themselves by externalizing them, leading to behaviors like accusing others of hostility or jealousy when they are feeling it themselves. Projection can be a coping tool, but it can also damage relationships and, in more extreme cases, lead to paranoia.” I suspect however Rudyard’s projection is not unconscious but a conscious effort to discredit his opponents before they can discredit him. Basically the technique is for Rudyard to claim that his opponent is using manipulative techniques against him and his audience. This diverts the audience from thinking too deeply about what he may be doing that is unethical and instead focusing on what his opponents are doing.

Another related technique Rudyard uses to manipulate is viewers is to ask “What if...?” questions. "What if...?" questions are part of a broader kind of manipulation called PsyOps that I'll cover later in more detail. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the “What if...?” question is. And his goal is not to provide any evidence of its truth, his goal is to sow doubt. Perhaps the most famous “What if...?” question that helped Trump get elected the first time is “What if Hillary Clinton eats babies?” There was never any evidence that Hillary had this kind of appetite, and yet people whose belief systems had been tampered with were all up in arms about this ridiculous “Pizzagate” issue. The fact that Rudyard’s podcast is named “What If Alt Hist” should tip you off that he is using this technique. This technique explains my friend Dave’s current interest in conspiracy theories and the high esteem conspiracy theorists have in our current administration. For a hilarious yet informed exposé of the manipulative techniques that conspiracy theorists use see Natalie Wynn’s analysis here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teqkK0RLNkI

Lastly Rudyard uses the standard white male dominator techniques of claiming that he knows what is best, what is rational, natural, and moral. These techniques have been in use for centuries and have been roundly debunked elsewhere so I won’t go into them here. Suffice it to say that if someone starts a sentence with “It’s only rational that...” or “It’s only natural that…” or if they make an appeal to “Christian family values” or “tradition,” whatever they say next should be treated with extreme suspicion, and they should be required to provide supporting evidence.

What Rudyard Lynch Doesn’t Say About Discrimination

First let me just make a little disclaimer here: when I write “white men” what I really mean are people who belong to a hyper-rational self-centered dominating class of people. Some of these people are black or have other skin colors or even freckles like I do. Some are women (Margaret Thatcher comes to mind). You know who I mean. Okay let’s get on with it.

One of Rudyard’s main claims in his video is that young white men are being discriminated against in modern society, and this justifies their discontent. The video has lots of images of scowling women meant to strike fear into the hearts of his incel viewers, and also includes the image of a helpless young man under the thumb of a very large woman that I've put at the top of this blog post. And Rudyard is correct that there are instances of discrimination against men that are out there. For example it’s pretty clear that in the custody cases of divorced couples, the legal system, perhaps occasionally unjustly, tends to side with the woman. And, more to the point of the issues here, it is true that teenage girls have a reputation for being mean to teenage boys (and to each other and to everyone else for that matter). And sure, that’s gotta sting when she makes fun of your shoes Rudy. But what’s wrong with Rudyard’s thesis is a matter of scale. The small size of any perceived discrimination against white men is totally of a different scale than the very large very well documented scale of discrimination against black people, women, and the LGBTQ community. To put it bluntly, white men have a long sordid history of raping, torturing and murdering millions of people. And I think a lot of what Rudyard mistakes for discrimination against white men is simply people objecting to this history and not wanting it to continue into the future. Margaret Atwood described this difference of scale very well when she said “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

White men have a history of setting up whole institutions for the purpose of rape, torture and murder and these institutions have existed for centuries. Most people are familiar with the institution of slavery that has so very much shaped the character of our fractured United States. And most people are familiar with the genocide of the indigenous Americans over the last several centuries although they might not know that raping Indian woman was a favorite pastime of the calvary; this aspect is not covered in Hollywood's cowboys vs. indians movies. And lastly readers may not be familiar with the scale of the “witch craze” that swept through Europe from about 1450 to 1750. (See Mary Daly’s Gyn-Ecology for details.) Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of outspoken women were raped, tortured and murdered by "respectable" white male Christian judicial institutions that accused them of being “witches” on the slightest of pretexts. Most people have heard about the Salem Witch Trials in which a few dozen women were killed, but few people realize the true scale of the overall witch craze. It is as if our history texts have been purged of this information for some reason. If Rudyard Lynch wants to talk about discrimination, he needs to mention this history. And any appeal to Christian family values needs to reckon with this Christian historical reality.

Should white men be made to feel guilty about this history? Or should they be allowed to deny that this happened? A (white male) friend of mine had a great answer to this question. He responded “I’m ashamed, and I’m proud to be ashamed.” And he is active correcting the wrongs of the past rather than denying them.

Rudyard thinks the wrongs of the past are justifiably extended into our future. However I was pleasantly surprised when toward the end of the video he says something like “Some people on the right don’t admit that women are being oppressed.” I thought “Okay Rudy maybe I misjudged you!” But then he goes on to minimize that oppression in such a way that I realize his comment is just another manipulation technique: if you want to lie about something that is so overwhelmingly true, admit that it is true and then minimize it.

If you are reading this Dave and you want to move your understanding of discrimination beyond blame and shame and into a positive direction, what can you do? For starters, read up on history. But avoid books by white men. What do black people say about slavery? What do woman say about their experience? Furthermore, any discussion about discrimination needs to take into account the direction of privilege. If you don’t understand that concept, you have no business talking about discrimination. Period. If Rudyard’s strategy of denial isn’t working for you try reading “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin Diangelo. Or “Letters to My White Male Friends” by Dax-Devlon Ross.

Dating Advice

Whew. Okay. All that revelation about rape and torture and murder is a little hard to take in. Let’s move on to a lighter topic covered in Rudyard’s video: dating techniques.

Let me begin this section by letting all you incels reading this know that I really can empathize with your situation. If the word “incel” had been invented when I was 16 I probably would have been called one. My first sexual experience was very humiliating. If you must know, it’s because I got a cramp. I got a leg cramp during sex and it was a total buzz kill and my brief girlfriend at the time subsequently dumped me. And that experience kind of subconsciously put me off sex for a few years and I was totally involuntarily celibate until my junior year of college. During this time in my life it seemed that all my peers were enjoying sex and at times I felt like a total loser. (Later I learned that they mostly weren’t fully enjoying sex because sex is only enjoyable if both parties have the intent of a long-term relationship.) I would totally have looked for solace in online forums if they had existed at that time. I would totally have tried dating apps or indulged in online porn but they had not yet been invented. I probably would not have gone out and shot anyone. Quakerism forbids that.

So I am no expert on dating. But that won’t stop me from giving you my advice anyway and it certainly does not stop Rudyard in his video. Here is a summary of his advice:

This is pretty much 100% bad advice except maybe the bit about “It doesn’t really matter what you say.” But not for the reason he states. Hey guys here instead is a dating principle that works every time: don’t date. The very act of dating sets up expectations that are harmful to both you and to your date. And the very mindset that you need to think of another person as a “woman” is off-putting. Instead of “dating women” you should enjoy interacting with all other people, treating them as you would want to be treated yourself, both talking to them and listening to them. Don’t treat women (or anyone for that matter) as an “other” that you need to conquer.

Let’s think about what might be a better approach to attracting the affections of another person. Here’s something you might not have heard of before Rudy: it’s called humility. Try putting aside the mansplaining and instead taking an attitude of, “I want to know what love is, and I want you to show me.” And how about trying something new: honesty and empathy and compassion. Not hunting. This leads us to:

Laurence’s simple dating tips:

• Don’t “date.” Simply do things that you think are fun with other people without having any goals about the outcome. Be open to the possibility that love might come from a direction that you least expect. Here is an inspirational video by musician Bjork that I think captures this idea very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JE6rUwfckI

• Don’t think of other people as “men” or “women”. Think of them simply as people. Try to understand who they are as individuals instead of making assumptions about them based on their superficial attributes.

• Don’t think of your interactions with other people in a transactional way.

• Don’t worry about your appearance. Celebrate your own unique appearance.

• Don’t worry about what words to say. Important communication is wordless. If there is chemistry between you and another person you will both feel it and good things will happen. And if there isn't that chemistry well then best not to force it just because you are lonely or horny.

• Eschew digital communication. Don’t use dating apps. Don’t watch porn.

• Be humble. Work on your own self-improvement rather than trying to improve other people.

• Develop a regular spiritual practice such as meditation or prayer.

• Develop a regular movement practice such as dance or yoga or running or some other solitary sport.

• Be honest with yourself and others.

• Learn how to give and receive love. There is even an excellent book about this with exercises you can do with a partner! What a great idea for a date! It’s called “The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent” by Betty Martin and Robyn Dalzen.

• Hang out with people who recognize the importance of consent, such as the Burning Man community.

PsyOps Strategies for Manipulating People

As I mentioned before, one group of manipulation techniques Rudyard and his friends use is so insidious and harmful that I think it deserves its own section. You are now reading that section.

At first I was pleasantly surprised that so many of the right-wing podcasts that my friend Dave forced me to listen to were about paranormal topics that interested me, such as psychedelic drugs, UFOs, telepathy and so on. I was a big fan of the X Files series when it first came out on an ancient media format known as broadcast television, and these podcasts tickled that same interest. However after listening to several of them I became suspicious. What if the real reason for right-wing interest in paranormal topics is not to be informative about these topics, but to mess with people’s minds? And then it hit me: they are purposefully destabilizing people’s belief systems as a strategy!

(Astute readers will notice my skillful use of the "What if...?" manipulation technique in the previous paragraph. Pretty sneaky eh?)

What is this strategy called you ask? I am of course referring to PsyOps, which is short for psychological operations. PsyOps originally refers to actual military operations designed to confuse and mentally destabilize an enemy. These operations can be as simple as dropping propaganda leaflets from an airplane or as wacky as playing spooky music at the enemy before an attack. But PsyOps is now more generally understood to mean any techniques designed to get people to question their reality.

Normally I would be in favor of people questioning reality. I think of questioning reality as a healthy spiritual practice. A lot of people are stuck in harmful views of reality, and something like contemplating a non-sensical Zen koan can snap them out of it. When people have an experience that makes them really question reality (such as a near death experience or a close encounter with aliens or having a convo with the Jesus) it can trigger a personality-changing process known as a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening is generally considered a good thing, especially if someone can be guided through it without ending up in the mental hospital. But getting people to question reality can also be a first step to manipulating them. Because once people start questioning their reality, it is like they have fallen into the deep end of a pool. They start grasping for a new reality, and this creates an opportunity for someone unscrupulous like a cult leader to hand the helpless person their own twisted version of reality, which often involves for starters giving the cult leader all of their money.

And so as a strategy right wing podcasters like Rudyard Lynch have created a series of videos that are stepping stones to more and more outrageous conspiracies. They might suck you in with an intriguing mystery such as “Who shot JFK?” Then they might step it up to holocaust denial and climate change denial. Then they’ll have you questioning who was really responsible for bombing the Twin Towers and wondering if the moon landing actually happened. They will encourage you to “take the red pill” and to “go down the rabbit hole”. At this point they’ve got you by the balls of your belief system and you will do anything they say. You will robotically repeat their insane ideas to your unsuspecting friends as if it were normal conversation and it will make your friends think you are fucking insane yes I mean YOU Dave.

Sure a little bit of speculation about mysterious things is healthy and fun. But because of the overuse of PsyOps techniques in today’s media, people’s belief systems are dangerously eroding on a national scale. People don’t know what to believe any more. The American people are experiencing mass delusions. And people are having spiritual awakenings. But an awakening outside a spiritual context without proper guidance can lead to disaster. For example it can lead to the incel violence mentioned earlier.

The Coming Geopolitical Crisis Caused by Incels’ Sexual Frustration

Rudyard closes his video with a prediction of a global clash between sexually frustrated right wing incels and the unsuspecting Left. He is certain that the Right will “win” against the Left:

This is all very chilling. But I was pleasantly surprised to hear Rudy say something that expressed concern rather than contempt for women: “For women in my audience, please be very very careful in the future. I’m not saying this as a threat but as a concern for something that I think will be truly horrible. But ironically for expressing this concern I will be called an evil misogynist.” Rudyard is also concerned that there will be a "rape crisis". Again at first I thought “Wow, maybe I misjudged you Rudyard!” However, when I thought about it more closely it occurred to me that pretty much the rest of the video makes the case that incels would be justified in the horrible actions that he warns us about. And I think "Aww your expression of concern is super sweet Rudy but your video as a whole is not a warning, it is a veiled threat." He is in effect saying “Hey bitches spread your legs for us or we will rape, torture and murder you as we’ve done before.” A woman or anyone with a sense of humanity watching this might not be able to articulate why they feel fear and revulsion. But I’m sure that they will not respond to this video with romantic feelings for Rudyard and his rapt audience of incels.

I was also pleasantly surprised at first to learn that Rudyard is a big fan of The Handmaid’s Tale, a science fiction novel by Margaret Atwood about how a right wing authoritarian government comes to power in the United States and creates a system of institutional rape. Yes I was pleasantly surprised until I realized that Rudyard identifies with the oppressive male villains in the novel, not the oppressed female protagonist. I see that he's made a video about The Handmaid's Tale. I am curious about what he says but I'm not sure I can stomach another Rudyard Lynch video right now.

In conclusion: Rudyard is correct that a large number of young white men in our society are sexually frustrated. But it is not because feminists have encouraged young women to be mean to them. It is not because people of color are taking away their jobs. It is not because Marxists have taken over academia. It is because these young men have unrealistic expectations about what they are owed. They need to look for a solution inside themselves, to understand who they really are, rather than blame others. They do need to experience a kind of death, but not the death of anyone else. They need to experience the dealth of their own egos. They need to do this in the context of a carefully spiritually guided non-partisan non-patriarchal coming-of-age ritual. But for reasons explained earlier in this essay our society no longer offers such rituals. The types of people who offered those rituals are either murdered or in hiding.

What to Do If You Are Dave

Sometimes I just wanted to slap Dave right in the face and tell him to wake the fuck up. But Quakers are not allowed to slap people. Then it happened that he did wake up. In a way.

“I feel strange,” he tells me one day as we are hauling our beer cans to the redemption center to collect the deposit. "I feel like my personality is melting. I don't know who I am." He staggers a bit as he says "I am nobody." As I stoop to help him back up he looks deep into my eyes and I perceive a weird glow around him. He makes me feel oogie.

"Dave I think you're experiencing what they call a spiritual awakening," I tell him. "Best be careful with that shit. You are in a state of mind right now that makes you very vulnerable to being manipulated by others. You need to stop listening to those toxic podcasts and instead find a spiritual guide to help you through this. Someone like Thich Nhat Hanh has some helpful exercises for what he and his fellow Buddhists call "hungry ghosts" which he describes in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3-aJON5780

Or if you still trust me after reading this snarky essay you can read about what I know 'cause I experienced something like a spiritual awakening myself a few years ago. I describe what I learned in my blog post here:"

https://www.wheelsoffire.org/post/dear-daughter

Dave looked at me with both fear and resolve in his eyes. Will Dave read my previous blog post which will tell him in great detail what to do to get through his spiritual awakening okay? Or will he let the toxic podcasters continue to pour their shit into his head so that he wigs out and ends up in the mental hospital or in jail? What will he do? The choice is up to you dear reader. The choice is up to you.