Mass Shootings & Antisocial Violence: On Incels, Conformity, & the Crisis of Agency | S. de Beauvoir
a Short Essay for the Modern Existentialist
1 | Social Value & Normative Conformation
Human beings are social animals—beings born into a context: a given place, culture, and society. Thrust into the world as we are—thrown into our existence—we are thus confronted with this simple facticity:
Thus born with no prior knowledge of our world—of our selves, or our situation—we are liable then to first trust the established wisdom of our context; the laws, mores, logic, and rationality of our given society. Before we learn to ask questions—before we learn to think critically—we conform toward the knowledge passed down by our forbearers; after all, they have always been older, stronger, and wiser. They have always known better than we.
In our girls, our elders instill the idea that they are soft and weak—beautiful, and frail. Like the flowers of the meadow: pretty, fragile, and ephemeral in nature. Our institutions impart upon them the idea that their Value therefore lies only in their fleeting beauty itself—and thus, that they lack sufficient Power to act upon and to make change in the world.
That they possess no Agency.
What it means for Woman to conform to the standards of our society is, therefore, for her to embrace her weakness—her inability to perform any task with a degree of basic competency. What it means for Woman to conform… is to rely on her femininity to define her social worth, and to embrace in all other things a basic mediocrity.
In our boys, our elders instill the idea that they must be hard and strong—capable, and robust. Like the stones of the earth: sturdy, enduring, and unyielding. Our institutions impart upon them the idea that their Value lies only in how Powerful they are. That, to truly become men, they must hold, possess, and aggregate Capital.
That they do possess Agency.
Thus, what it means for Man to conform is for him to grow into his strength—his ability to perform any task given to him to a degree of exceptional competency. What it means for Man to conform… is to allow what he produces and creates to define his social worth, and to develop in all things an exceptional competency.
When these standards are met—both for women and for men—an individual will be considered “normal”; agreeable, and socially healthy. When one fails, however, to conform to these standards—when a woman demonstrates some form of exceptional competency, or when a man demonstrates some kind of basal mediocrity—that individual immediately becomes regarded as an aberrant exception. They are seen as something strange and uncanny; something which exists outside the bounds of the prescribed rules of our given society.
When an individual breaks these expectations which are placed upon them by their society, they thus become immediately considered a deviant—a failure. Something shameful and unworthy of acknowledgement—to be discounted and ignored, and thus forgotten; erased from social memory.
When girls attempt to conform, their path is flat and well-paved—laid out for them from their very beginning. They grow into women, and then become wives—and then, they become mothers. All they have to do to pass as normal—to be acknowledged as conforming—is to lay down and quietly surrender to their fate. To surrender their ability of self-determination—
To surrender their Agency.
When boys attempt to conform, the road is tough, painful, and backbreaking. They must labor in order to develop themselves—to grow hardy and strong. To lay down and quietly surrender has never been an option. After all, if a man does try… he’ll just end up all alone—abandoned, and left behind. In order to pass as normal—to be acknowledged as conforming—men must fight for and seize their Agency, defining themselves through exceptional deeds.
Put simply, we could say that, by the standards of our society:
The most “masculine man” is the most impressive achiever. The most “feminine woman” was born the most pretty.
And so, as they grow, we tell our boys that their Value lies in their Agency—their ability to produce and achieve great works for the benefit of our society.
2 | Incels, Ressentiment, & the Crisis of Agency
It’s not about sex—it’s about Power and control.
It’s not about sex—it’s a Crisis of Agency.
A mass shooting—or, more broadly, any form of violence committed against one’s own society—is Man’s attempt to redeem himself against the reality of his mediocrity.
In our society, men who fail to achieve—who fail to meet the standards laid out for the ideal of masculine Agency—are ridiculed and sidelined. Believing themselves to be abandoned, they reach out and form their own subculture—their own society—and begin to tell one another a new story. They tell each other that they were not wrong—that it wasn’t them who failed to meet expectations, but instead that it was society’s standards which failed to be realistic in the first place. They tell one another that they were given a promise—a promise of the good life in reward for their labor. And they have labored—and they have been lied to. They tried their best, but their best wasn’t honored. They tried their hardest—yet still, receive nothing. They were tricked, and their promise has been denied.
And so, they rage against their world—the social world, which they now believe holds them in oppressive chains.
Anti-social violence is toxic masculinity. It is a narcissistic entitlement—when a man denied what he believes is his promised and fair reward seeks to exact vengeance upon his society as a whole for its denial.
Anti-social violence is the way in which the man whom society has branded as a failure—whom society ridicules and attempts to erase—expresses his rage and dissatisfaction with the status quo. It is his rebellion against what he sees as standards which oppress him—which he believes hold him in chains of pressure and expectation. It is his attempt to reclaim his Agency—to resolve a fundamental contradiction in his being.
This is the Crisis of Agency:
The fact that Man has been told that he’s supposed to express his Agency in the way which he chooses… but has also somehow failed to do so to a satisfactory degree.
Within Beauvoir’s framework, an incel represents the emasculated masculine: a person who feels their lack of social Value like an unattractive woman does—but instead, as a powerless man. They feel promised an inherent, metaphysical self-value, and so inevitably feel Value denied to them within the social when they fail to meet the real-world standards of their society. And so, they lash out in narcissistic rage under the assumption that they’ve been denied their birthright—the right to feel valued and respected by Others, and to lead the good life.
3 | Conclusions
To solve the problem of rampant anti-social violence:
STOP LYING TO YOUR GOD-DAMN KIDS
To solve the problem of rampant anti-social violence, we must address the Crisis of Agency.
To solve the problem of anti-social violence, we need to stop telling our children that they are promised—that they are inherently deserving of or are entitled to—anything. After all, when we do—when we allow our children to believe uncritically in absolute promises and guarantees—then, when they grow up and stop being children, we will have left them abandoned, unprepared for, and unable to cope with a world in which that really is the case: a world in which no one is promised anything.
In the real, Darwinian, Dionysian world, everyone must make their own way.
We may hope for the best—but we must prepare them for the worst. We must prepare them for reality.
You love your children. You want to protect them—to shield them from the cruel and unpleasant dangers of the world. But you won’t be there forever. You can’t protect them forever.
The only way to protect your kids… is to teach them how to protect themselves.
So… stop teaching your kids to believe in guarantees—to believe in absolutes. Stop teaching them that they’re inherently supposed to become anything at all. Let them grow, and learn, and live, and explore. Let them be curious and critical by themselves. Don’t coddle and restrict them and allow them to become deluded—instead, let them go out and discover themselves and their world in their own way.
Human beings don’t want to be Slaves. From the time that they’re born, every Man, Woman, and Child upon the Earth dreams of the day when they’ll be free—when they’ll be the Master of their own fate.
