Ho-hum, another school massacre. But this one shares some connections with our neighbors to the north that merit exploration. One part of those connections introduced the general population to the term “incel”, for “involuntarily celibate.” On the surface, the term means just exactly what it says – one is presently non-sexual in one’s life, while wishing there was (in fact) someone there as a physical partner. This nominally suggests that one is single, but that is not a necessary condition; a person can be in a committed relationship in which the other partner, while present as a person, is not available sexually. (When such a situation is unilaterally imposed, it generally signals the end of the relationship, though bonds of loyalty and commitment will, among decent people, still take a while to break down.) Most people have, I am sure, spent significant amounts of time single and celibate when they’d much rather have been busily involved with one (or more!) other partners. But the notion of “incel” goes far, far, beyond this: it implies a profound injustice imposed from without, and (more importantly) a manifest entitlement to the sexual favors one is not receiving. Hence, “My Boner, My Selfⁱ”

Needless to say, such a collection of beliefs is almost exclusively limited to males. (One can hardly describe such self-absorbed snivelers as “men.”) Thus, both of the above mass murderers were motivated NOT by bullying, but by sexual frustration under the perceived rubric of male sexual entitlement. Dimitrios Pagourtzis stalked and harassed a girl for months before she finally had enough of his unwanted advances and publicly embarrassed him to get him to stop. Her reward for standing up for her own rights and the sanctity of her own person was to be the first victim Pagourtzis murdered. Alek Minassian explicitly identified himself and his murders with the incel “movement.” Both of these sociopaths believed themselves to deserve the sexual favors which they saw the world as unfairly denying to them, and believed that their murderous rampages were a mighty blow in the name of justice. In reality, of course, there are scarcely words in this or any other language capable of heaping upon these worthless excuses the measure of disdain, vituperation, disgust, and contempt that they genuinely deserve. Yet despite these obvious and indisputable facts, there are those who pose as “intellectuals” who variously present (whether explicitly or implicitly) Pagourtzis and Minassian as victims. Rather than say more about the incel infantilism, I want to address the movement’s enablers and apologists and, along the way say a bit about real men and real scholars. The emphasis on men is, again, because males are the overwhelming perpetrators of these crimes, as well as of the public mewling about their poor, neglected wee-wees. But before making any generalizations about “men,” as a collective plurality, let’s contextualize the discussion by establishing some poles between which we might hope to develop a spectrum. For one such pole, let’s start with Jordan Peterson.

Whatever Peterson’s qualities as a scholar at the beginning of his career, for the last many years he has devoted himself to making money by spoon-feeding twaddle to salve the entitled feelings of the butt-hurt privileged white males. His recent best seller, 12 Rules,ⁱⁱ makes “Aristotle for Dummies” look like a Harvard Ph.D. dissertation, while the drivel he spews about DNA is so devoid of basic logic, to say nothing of genuine scientific content, that in comparison Velikovsky sits at the same table as Stephen Hawking. It is in this context of “intellectual” “integrity” that Peterson’s opinions about male sexual privilege should be viewed.

And Peterson has a great deal to say about the privileged and the entitled, though he’s built his recent high-paying brand on the pretense that the tragically butt-hurt are really suffering monumental injustices. He’s argued for “sexual redistribution,” in which women (of course) are obliged to share their sexual favors “more equitably” (my term, intended to be read as dripping with contempt) with males everywhere (MEN, one should note, would never make such a suggestion) so that the blue-balled entitled don’t suffer such a big achy down below. He denies the existence of white privilege, which is one of those things that people reveling in white privilege do, and further argues that masculinity is about order while feminine qualities engender (so to speak) chaos. One might note that Nazism was also very focused on masculinity and order, though I’m sure that some (not all!) of Peterson’s enthusiasts would object to the analogy.ⁱⁱⁱ

And no, I’m not going to link directly to any of Peterson’s materials. I will not degrade myself or my blog by using this as a platform to direct people to such drivel. You can look it up yourself, if you feel the overwhelming drive to abuse your intellect.

For the other pole in our spectrum, let us consider John Elof Boodin. Born in Sweden, Boodin moved to the United states when he was 18, and attended college at several places before finally getting his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1899. Many of his books are readily available from the Internet Archive, and they are well worth the study by anyone interested in process metaphysics, and especially American philosophy influenced by Josiah Royce. Boodin’s work – always careful, incisive, and thorough – is sadly much neglected these days. Boodin faced a different kind of neglect during his lifetime – he was never a big hit with “The Ladies.” Much of his scholarly career was spent in places relatively far off the beaten path (especially in the early 20^th Century.) And while he spent his later years in Los Angeles at USC and UCLA, there were few enough romantic opportunities for an elder scholar of less than front page stature. (John Dewey, in contrast, married a woman 40+ years his junior, when he was well into his 80’s.)

So with these two individual academics (it is a bit too euphemistic to call Peterson a “scholar”) as the poles of our spectrum, what can we now say about the topic I demurred above, about men generically?

Well, being a male human, being a man, is not about getting everything you want, the instant you want it, exactly the way you want it. And this includes sex. (This limitation is obviously also true of female humans but, except for those who’ve blatantly sold themselves and their integrity to Trump and the right-wing media (I was going to say “whored,” but that would be an unfair insult to professional sex workers everywhere), female humans don’t seem to struggle so much with this notion.) Boodin led a lonely life, but not necessarily an unhappy one, for all of that. He never sold out his scholarship, never betrayed his own integrity by pandering to the lowest common denominator. Boodin led a life well lived – what the Greeks in general (and Aristotle in particular) called “eudaimonia,” a word misleadingly but commonly translated as “happiness” – even though it was not a life of endless revelry and pleasure. Boodin lived his life as a good Man, most likely occasionally ruing his loneliness, but never selling out to the lowest of his or other people’s natures, nor compromising his scholarship, nor blaming the world for the circumstances in which he found himself.

On the other hand, a great many males are drawn to Peterson’s work, because the thought of taking actual (as opposed to fantasy) responsibility for their lives is a notion too profoundly repugnant to entertain. (It is much easier to pretend that being told to clean your room and stand up straight by a self-appointed daddy figure is making a “real” difference, than actually doing something that might actually make a real difference.) The fact that these males don’t attract the sexual companionship they imagine they deserve couldn’t possibly be because they are sniveling babies. No, it is always because Apollonian “bros” are stealing all the choice tail, and the dregs left behind are dogs, or dykes, or (“of course”) both. (Remember, as you clean up your room, women only exist to distribute sexual favors amongst men, don’tcha know?)

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