This is a pattern of violence that probably goes back as far as selling Europeans fake title deeds or shares in unceded land in the New World - the most severe victims are generally some third party who the con artist is selling a (potentially fake) entitlement to hurt to the nominal victim.
In all cases it relies on exploiting frustrated privilege and entitlement. But also leverage the con artist has over the mark (person being conned) in some way.
Just to emphasise - I don't think the third party victimisation can be ignored and I think the "we should treat these poor people as poor little beans who just need the care of people who find them icky" really is not the answer - that's just more entitlement and exploitation.
The new series “Adolescence” gives an example of this vulnerability. Basically, patriarchal systems oppress everyone, even those it appears to favor.
That show was *awful* and doesn't show much of anything of the sort.
Really? The dynamics of childhood masculinity/incel tension weren’t relevant?
chican3ry.medium.com/adolescence-...
I’m going to read the piece in its entirety. I’m sure it will present a perspective I’m ignorant of. Will circle back.
Yes. All this. But the film wasn’t attempting to fairly represent all perspectives, just the fact that this experience is not fringe, and occurring more commonly than parents are willing to comprehend.
Right but it doesn't reveal much about how, or why, or expose the abusive dynamics between predatory online creators and the populations they exploit and extort. In fact the main kid in Adolescence is himself mainly a predator (a killer!) in a way that is unusual for most incel subculture members.
It neither has much to say about the "scam" end that I've been talking about in the thread above, nor the "misogynist ideology" end that it actively colludes in (the cinematic frame doesn't just sympathise with the boy but the dad while sidelining the mum, sister and victim). It's bad *all round*.
None of that was the objective of the film. I didn’t feel sympathetic toward them (although that is likely the popular take-away) and the women (including the shrink) all seemed to resign themselves (in agony) to the facts of a system that is in backlash-mode to the egalitarian advancements made.
I do think we need to understand the economics of this kind of scam as a hierarchy of exploitation that is socially negative as a whole, and work on educating and redirecting people who might be vulnerable to being targeted. We need people to understand it as a common form of scam.
"You are being mugged off of the decency of human connection by pick up artists. You are being conned into treating your LGBTQ kids in a way that will mean they go non contact as adults. You are spending all your money on a non existent race war to enrich Alex Jones types" Is a solid argument.
"Vulnerable" and "exploited" does not mean those people are not also themselves abusers and exploiters. These are relationships with interpersonal exchange of social value and harm, not global and absolute identity states.