Playing the Devil's Advocate

In my previous and graph-heavy post in this series, I made a few inter-related points. Firstly, there has indeed been an unusually large increase in the percentage of young single men who report having no sexual partners each year within the last decade. Perhaps more importantly, this increase in incel-dom is largely confined to young single men, which leads us to the inevitable conclusion that young single women in same age group are likely sharing male partners (single or otherwise). It is also hard to overlook that this peculiar increase in rates of male incel-dom started at around the same time as the mainstreaming of internet dating and introduction of smartphones (starting mid- to late- 2000s).

Secondly, there is something interesting going on with the effect of race on rate of male incel-dom in USA. For starters, the rates of incel-dom in young non-white non-black (‘other’) men are almost twice those seen in their white or black counterparts. We do not see a similar pattern when comparing white, black and non-white non-black women. Why not? Also, do almost 40% of young non-white non-black single men have no sexual partner each year? Who are their female counterparts having sex with? Perhaps, it is therefore not surprising that the two poster boys of the so-called ‘incel’ rebellion (Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian) were neither white nor black?

Some of you might want to believe that this general and sustained increase in incel-dom among young men is a consequence of the decade-long financial crisis which started in 2008.. and there is some merit to the idea that young men with poorly paid and unstable jobs might not be seen as good candidates for marriage or long-term relationships. This should, however, theoretically not affect their suitability as sexual partners in casual or transient relationships. And yet it seems to! Curiously, the ongoing great financial crisis has not exhibited any worthwhile negative impact on the ability of young women to get laid. And this in an era where the percentage of young men and women in the workforce are almost identical.

The point I am trying to make is that the real rates of incel-dom in young men (living in North America) are significantly higher than those of women in their age group- in addition to being markedly higher that recent historical norms. While there is clearly a racial element in that non-white non-black men seem to be the most affected by this trend, there is clearly enough male sexlessness to go around. So.. what is going on? It is not as if society has suddenly become sexually conservative or number of venues for meeting potential sexual partners has gone down. In fact, the opposite is true and society today is less sexually conservative than before and number of venues (especially online) for meeting potential sexual partners has increased over previous ten years.

In the first part of this series, I made the point that conventional “common sense” attempts to address or solve this problem were guaranteed to be dangerous and highly counterproductive. I hope you are beginning to see why that would be so. For starters, the number and percentage of functionally incel young men in the population of USA is high enough that any attempt to identify or crack down on such men might be problematic.. to put it lightly. Making enemies out of over ten million young men is never a smart idea. But it gets worse.. much worse.

Many of you might have come across a number of articles, videos and podcasts (since Alex Minassian’s ride) which purport to highlight the “rampant misogyny”, “blatant sexism” and “open racism” prevalent in online ‘incel’ communities. Some of you might have also come across idiots.. I mean “experts” who suggest that we should “do something” about these incel “terrorists”. Well.. here is a newsflash for them. The aggregate of all online incel communities constitute an almost infinitesimally small percentage of young men who are functionally incel. Yes, you heard that right! Self identified incels account for less than 2% of those who are in that situation.

And this leads to two major problems with any attempts to address that issue. To understand what I am talking about next, let me ask you a simple question: how are the 98-99% of incels who are not part of the online incel scene coping with their loneliness? The simple, if unpleasant answer, to that question is that a combination of hoping against hope, online porn and then a gradual disengagement from society as it exists. It is important to note that regardless of their initial levels of hope they will end up disengaging from current social status quo. To be clear, I am not talking about MGTOW- at least its more well-known forms. I am talking about a scenario where a significant minority of men have no desire to maintain, let alone defend, the status quo.

But why does that matter? Won’t the almighty apparatus of modern nation states just keep on working. Well.. not quite. Large dynamic systems, such as modern societies and nations, are far more susceptible to the cumulative effects of slow-motion collapse from internal discontent than external aggression. To make a long explanation short, the ability of modern nation states to weather a host of inevitable and periodic external and internal problems is heavily linked to the willingness of its population to be cohesive and sacrifice for the “common good”. Such systems can remain reasonably functional only as long as enough people have faith in the ability of system to deliver a better future. As I have previously pointed out, the incel problem is way bigger and more widespread than idiots attempting to address it can imagine. In other words, it is not fixable within the current status quo and will only get worse with the passage of time.

If enough people lose faith, the system starts hollowing out from the inside and becomes exquisitely sensitive to internal and external problems. Many former state-communist regimes of eastern Europe collapsed quickly in the late 1980s and early 1990s because it became obvious to its common members that the system could not deliver on most of its promises. Conversely, the communist part regime in China is still going strong because it could deliver on most of its promises. Never forget that most people care far more about the delivery of material benefits, goods and services than lofty philosophical bullshit. And this is the second issue with any attempt to solve the incel problem.. the status quo is simply unwilling to deliver the necessary goods or services.

But what does any of this have to do with incels in north american societies? Well.. a lot. As I previously showed you, the sheer numbers and percentages of such men are far larger than counting the aggregate membership in some online communities would suggest. Also, every incel or mostly incel guy past their mid-20s is one more person who has no desire to prop up, let alone sacrifice for, the status quo. There is a reason so many male-centric movements from MRA, MGTOW, ‘Game’ and Jordan Peterson fanboys to all those online communities which outwardly have nothing to with incel-dom have flourished in the past ten years.

It does not take a genius to figure out that any political or social movement which succeeds in tapping into the desire of this substantial category of men to ‘see the world burn’ would be very likely cause irreversible destabilization of current status quo. If you think I am exaggerating, read a bit about how people like Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler etc got their core supporters. Here is a hint.. WW1 created a whole generation of poor, angry, frustrated and underemployed ex-soldiers in many countries. History may not repeat, but it often rhymes.

What do you think? Comments?