Yes, a phenotype of Asperger’s is an intense focus on one thing, and repetitive thoughts and behavior. Others are difficulty with social interaction and lack of cognative empathy. His youtube videos are like a showcase for these traits.
I don’t know if the distinction between mental illness and being a bad person is that clear to me. There was something wrong with his brain, almost certainly biologically visible. (Schizophrenics and people on the autism spectrum have different brain structure.) The interplay between his brain and his mental development resulted in him being crazy. Obviously there is not necessarily a link between mental illness and being a bad person, but in this case his disconnect from reality and inability to form a proper theory of mind for other people, were a major part of his problems.
I agree with this. It just seems so…I don’t know, fake?
His “manifesto” reads so much like a B.E. Ellis novel, it made me think that it’s almost like he invented a persona, made up a story.
Asperger’s is the disease du jour. Suddenly everybody has it. “Oh, hell, I have some interests in my life and I don’t like some people. It’s not my fault, it’s Asperger’s.”
In the end, the only person responsible for his actions is dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I disagree. I think his entire worldview was based on sick and twisted ideas about men. He had ideas in his head about what men should be and do which he measured himself against. Primarily focused on getting women into bed, it seems. If he hadn’t thought so little of men this may never have happened.
Just think, if he’d been a MGTOW this could all have been avoided.
All would benefit from a decline in sexism, but there’s no evidence that this incident involved sexism, or that if it did involve sexism it involved misogyny rather than misandry.
Again, for those of you who prefer your delusions to the facts: there are no such subreddits, or boards or mailing lists. He posted on a bodybuilding site where they made fun of him. He posted in a forum dedicated to hating Pick Up Artists, and even they didn’t like him.
He was a racist. He openly called white people “the enemy”. He also said that he thought Asian men were ugly. Yes, he was a racist.
As to why we’re debating this, it’s because there’s no real reason to believe he was a misogynist. Some people want it to be so because it would reinforce their prejudices.
Rodgers suffered from a lifetime of social awkwardness and alienation that seems consistent with an AS diagnosis. Of course AS does not typically lead to violence, but in Rodgers’ case, the years of frustration from failing to get the social acceptance he craved did. Had he not repelled others with his obvious weirdness – unnatural diction, inability to “read” others and respond in a socially acceptable manner, intolerance for even the slightest setback, inappropriate tears/tantrums – he would probably not have felt the need to lash out at the world like this. Clearly most people with an AS diagnosis do not become mass murderers, but that does not preclude it being a contributing factor.
There are plenty of good reasons to believe he was a misogynist.
He was also a whole lot of other things, too, including having a very warped view of masculinity. We shouldn’t gloss over his racism either. But he was definitely a misogynist.
I don’t know about that. Remember when you had to read an essay in front of the class? It was also a sort of a “going through the motions” way of talking. He was obviously trying to put what he thought was a compelling performance, but he was no actor, and in real life, people are way less natural than actors.
I’d say that he talked like the way a trillion youtubers talk. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t saying what was actually going through his deranged head.
In his manifesto, he wrote this: “Women are like a plague. They don’t deserve to have any rights. Their wickedness must be contained in order prevent future generations from falling to degeneracy. Women are vicious, evil, barbaric animals, and they need to be treated as such.”
Yes, there is plenty of evidence he was a misogynist.
Yeah, really, all the evidence he himself provides is of extreme misogyny being at or near the top of his considerable set of Major Malfunctions. (Top one being “homicidal psycho”. ).
People seem to be getting hung up on whether that was “IT” , whether it was THE ONE among those problems that really made the difference in this horrible denouement. I don’t know if making him the misogyny poster boy will just make the bulk of misogynist dirtbags feel that “hey, that’s not me, I can get laid and function in society”.
No, it was probably a combination of racism (hatred of asians), jealousy, and general assholishness that motivated those murders-of-men. In addition to his many, many other flaws, he was pretty clearly a misognynist.
It’s fake. We know because his father was assistant director on The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games was written by Suzanne Collins. Suzanne Collins – this was the fatal mistake by the conspirators – just happens to live in Sandy Hook.