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<p>Yes it does. Maybe not to the same extent as the shooter, but the idea that you’re a loser if you’re a virgin, or have never had a significant other is pretty widespread. They even make entire movies about it (40-year-old virgin). To go even further, the idea that girls only go for douchebags and not nice guys is pretty prevalent too. I see it on Facebook pretty regularly.</p>
<p>Because he was SUCH a nice guy . . . that must be why he couldn’t get any</p>
<p>Well, that’s a slightly different take on the “our culture” thing. That’s probably true. But, that’s not anti-woman.</p>
<p>I don’t like going down the road of blaming amorphous cultural factors for an act of total madness. There are certain things - like hanging out on a message board full of maladjusted misogynsts who speak openly about how great it would be if they could punish all of the women who rejected them – that could reasonably be seen as incitement for an act like this. Rush Limbaugh making a nasty comment about Sandra Fluke isn’t one of them. </p>
<p>There is almost no end to the cultural messages, good and ill, that people are receiving on a daily basis from early childhood onward. The only way to root out all potentially negative ones would be to stop communicating altogether. Talking about how some of these impressions may exert subtle harm in a variety of ways is a valuable discussion to have, but not, in my opinion, in the context of an extreme act of violence like this one.</p>
<p>What I do think is a factor here is the ability of the internet to connect people inclined to harbor extreme views with others who will confirm them. Of course, college-age kids with radical tendencies were always able to leave home and find a more congenial group to egg on their worst impulses; it is the dark flip side of the opportunity college gives kids to develop away from the sometimes narrow values of the home. But the internet, I think, has ratcheted this up to the nth degree to the point where attitudes so extreme that they wouldn’t have found acceptance in any mainstream community can still find support in some dark corner of the web.</p>
<p>Of course, once you get to the point of mass murder, it helps to have been insane to begin with, but there’s still a difference between a nut and an emboldened nut. </p>
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<p>Last I checked, so what?
Last I checked, Fluke was widely supported by the country including getting a call from the President and Rush apologized. So what he has an audience of millions in a country with a population of 300M. I don’t know how they view themselves, I don’t know why you think you do. I don’t know if his audience accepted his apology and moved on. </p>
<p>Last I checked, politicians are elected in local elections, not by “our culture”. We had Reid and Biden make racist comments about Obama and their supporters moved on and still re-elected them. </p>
<p>But go ahead, keep smearing our culture by claiming it all about the views of extremists even though you admit that they are extremist politicians and since women don’t support those views it must mean men support rape.</p>
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<p>No our culture does not support the shooter.
Even if it were true that our culture thinks you are a loser if you are still a virgin, our culture does not support killing people because of it.</p>
<p>I don’t get this attitude here that “our culture” supports this, or other extreme viewpoints. The reason they are extreme is that they are extreme, ya, know, not at all mainstream.</p>
<p>I’ve read many of the posts on this thread, but not all. It’s a terrible tragedy, and one that happens way too often. </p>
<p>One thing that has boggled my mind from early on though with this case…is when the mom notified the therapist who notified police that she found alarming videos online in late April (not the same one he posted the day of the murders), and police went to check on him and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary…and I truly realize that hindsight is 20/20 and so on…but just because the kid was able to pull one over on the police that there was some misunderstanding and all was “fine”…doesn’t make it so. It just doesn’t totally make sense to me if the reason the mom gave to have him checked upon was concern over videos talking of suicide and killing. Just chatting with the young man might not bring any of that out. But she called authorities based on concerns over some concrete things she had seen. This doesn’t sound like parents who were ignoring signs and they did call authorities on their son. I just don’t get why it was so totally dismissed as the concern was pretty concrete with videos and all. If he had made videos discussing suicide for instance, wouldn’t they maybe check to see if he had bought any guns? I don’t know. I don’t want to blame police, but it is hard to swallow that just weeks ago, the police were notified with some serious concerns. </p>
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<p>And it seems he wants that “alpha male” status without having to lift a finger to work for it. </p>
<p>Even the wealth and Hollywood connections he plays up on his facebook page were not a product of his own efforts, but those bestowed upon him by his parents and family. </p>
<p>And in his rant, he states he “hates” the males who have more female friends, dates, and sex than he does in a bit of a snobby whiny manner. </p>
<p>There’s also many accounts from others who encountered him of his endlessly complaining about these issues. I’m betting one factor in why he had a hard time making friends is this endless whining tends to drive a lot of well-adjusted people away or if they try reasoning with him that such rants are counterproductive…drives them away by lashing out at them. </p>
<p>On the latter part, I’ve had some firsthand experience as the one who tried reasoning with folks who had such tendencies. Going back as to why most people don’t try to do so…it often results in a confrontational backlash and temper tantrums most people find emotionally draining. </p>
<p>Not to mention, asking someone who is not an older relative, mental health professional, or a willing & able friend or worse, implying it’s their obligatory responsibility is an onerous burden to place upon others. </p>
<p>I think a welfare check is a pretty routine police call. It’s not an investigation. Unless the family expressed a concern about weapons they would likely just pay a visit and make sure all is well. And, the guns were registered, although the stash of ammunition would have raised some eyebrows you would think. But, they didn’t have a search warrant and it doesn’t even sound as though they went inside the apartment.</p>
<p>You can’t arrest someone for what they might do tomorrow. The investigating happens after the crime. Sadly. </p>
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<p>Apparently the police did not view the videos before going to see him.</p>
<p>It is unclear how detailed those videos were. If they were detailed, then that is a huge issue. If it was a “woe is me”, “I hate life”, life is unfair, etc, then it is hard to think of what else the police were supposed to do. Even if they saw the guns in his room, he apparently purchased them legally. Perhaps they could have questioned him about them and if he started acting suspicious maybe they would have decided to have a longer, more detailed conversation.</p>
<p>We also don’t know how often the police in college towns get calls similar to this that turn out to be an over concerned parent (“he seemed really upset after finals”, “I haven’t heard from him for three days”, etc). They show up, see a kid who seems to have his act together, his room is in good shape, and they had no specific info from the parents (e.g. he threatened to kill people).</p>
<p>Cobrat, I think comparisons between people you claim to have encountered and a mass murderer are distasteful. Unless one of the people you are discussing has since gone on a fatal rampage, it is inappropriate to draw connections between the utterly ordinary behavior of your acquaintances and a severely disturbed killer. </p>
<p>^^yes, but it seemed beyond a welfare check such as “I haven’t heard from my kid and I’m worried.” From what is being reported, the parents took this step due to online videos that referenced suicide and killing people. Haven’t seen those videos or texts of them (again, not the one he posted on Friday). But that is more alarming then simply asking someone to check on their kid. And a therapist actually called police and not simply a concerned parent. I realize we don’t have a lot of information and what the police did or did not know and just how much they can do but still, it seems like this type of a report is more serious than the examples in the post above. </p>
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<p>I was drawing a parallel to an exhibited behavior others have witnessed in the murderer before he committed his act and what I’ve observed with folks I encountered who behaved in the SAME WAYS to illustrate how such behaviors could not only lead to social rejection from others, but also make it hard for others to try talking them out of such behaviors. </p>
<p>The latter part is partially to answer a question another poster asked about why didn’t someone tell him to stop the endless ranting and “get a life” in her words. </p>
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<p>YES! YES! YES!
We need to stop only dissecting the symptoms and start a larger societal discussion about the CAUSES of these continuing tragedies. THIS is what I have been thinking about all weekend.</p>
<p>Extreme violence is SO normalized in our society now. Think back to normal TV -and games- just 15 years ago (let alone 30 or 50…) Think about what people are being exposed to now. And for many hours a day, now that they can carry TV/games with them on devices and use them all day long.</p>
<p>Violence, blood, killing, misogyny, hate. To the extreme. It becomes SO NORMAL that it doesn’t even make us blink or look away any more. WHY is this okay? WHY do we continue to think this is a good thing (free speech, freedom or artistic expression???)</p>
<p>Part of living in a society, in a community, is that we’re supposed to benefit each other with our community, wisdom, support, yes? Yet now we have the internet where everyone can SO EASILY find a group to indulge, support, and goad on his/her deepest, darkest worst parts of their psyche. In this case, misogyny and feeling entitled to women. Other examples: the tumblr groups for anorexics or teens who cut themselves. One or two clicks and there you are in a deleriously romantic and appealing environment where people are ENCOURAGING you to fall deeper into such harmful crap. Or child porn or whatever. It used to be HARD to go there. You had to work hard, track down information, ferret out like-minded poor messed-up souls. Now it takes three minutes. WHY do we think this is okay?</p>
<p>YES it’s a cultural problem. </p>
<p>I agree, stacey. My son and I were just talking about this last night. In the past people with abnormal views of things were alone. They KNEW there was something “not right” about them, and their choice was either to live with it or try to get help. Now, in a matter of minutes they can find entire communities that validate their thinking and embolden them to become even more extreme.</p>
<p>Who thinks it’s okay? No-one. It’s is not normalized. Not even close. That said, I do think it’s more than a little coincidental that most of these cases involved 20-something young men who have been fed pills for some unclear emotional disorder or another for virtually there entire lives. They don’t understand human feelings. Why would they?</p>
<p>And, for the record he stated himself that he did not for the most part agree with the whacko women-haters. Still, I don’t really get how extremists online can be equated with our culture. They can’t.</p>
<p>Thus far I do not see what more the police could have done. The kid’s “record” was clean, therefore local and federal law didn’t prevent him from legally owning guns. And, the weapon he used to start his rampage (at the apartment) wasn’t a firearm. Think about this; if this fellow lived in Blacksburg, rather than Isla Vista in Santa Barbara, would the laws as they stand today prevented his armed rampage? I am not aware of any changes made in the aftermath of the Cho case (if there were any) that would have triggered some kind of proactive measures by authorities in California. It’s now clear Rodger was a madman. It’s also clear that he was also a pretty good actor in front of the police and his parents.</p>
<p>@fluffy2017 You said, “I find it offensive and harmful that people take some extremist views and claim that is what “our culture” is about” but I think you may misunderstand…</p>
<p>In saying that it’s a larger cultural issue, I don’t think people mean that our culture “is about” extremist views. But I DO think that our culture, our society in general is culpable to the extent that we allow high levels of violence, male entitlement, women as sex objects, etc to be a VERY LARGE part of of popular culture. I think we as a culture/society need to think about whether this stuff is beneficial or not. Surely there are other ways to make enjoyable entertainment that does not feed base instincts. I don’t know what the answer is.</p>
<p>We need to stop being like the doctor who sees a patient with a variety of aches, pains, rashes, insomnia, etc and simply prescribes a different pill for each thing without looking deeper to discover the root cause and treat THAT illness. Gun control, better mental health care, more parent involvement… whatever… that’s all well and good but there is a deeper issue here, a much deeper and more insidious illness that’s just going to keep bubbling up. </p>
<p>We need to have a broader discussion -as a country, culture, society- about that.</p>
<p>Just catching up on this thread, so apologies if this has been explained, but it isnt all that easy to get some one involuntarily hospitalized. </p>
<p>In most states, the person has to be ACUTELY dangerous to themselves or others, and thats not alway easy to prove. Even if the person is taken in for an evaluation, they may be able to talk their way out of hospitalization because the are not acutely dangerous. It may seem unfair but thats how it works.</p>
<p>Correct. For some reason people think you can just go around having adults hospitalized. Well, you can’t. And, if you do manage to accomplish an involuntary committment it’s pretty clear this one would have been released in 72 hours, angrier than ever. That’s typical. </p>