New Stats Show Incels are a Far Left Movement

This episode challenges the common perception of the incel (involuntary celibate) movement, presenting data suggesting that many incels lean left politically, contrary to the typical association with far-right ideologies.

1. Incels predominantly identify with left-leaning ideologies, contrary to the stereotype of them being far-right.
2. The most extreme and violent segments within the incel community tend to lean right.
3. The incel ideology is rooted in a belief of entitlement to certain societal benefits, like government-mandated relationships.
4. Misconceptions about incels are widespread, including among left-leaning groups that often label them as right-wing.
5. The discussion highlights the complexity of political and social identities, challenging simplistic categorizations.

1: Introduction

Malcolm introduces the surprising findings of a new study on incels. Malcolm Collins: "Many commenters have suggested a link between incels and the far right."

2: Unpacking Incel Ideologies

Discussing the left-leaning tendencies within the incel ideology and the misconceptions surrounding it. Simone Collins: "It is an intrinsically far left leaning ideology."

3: Social Implications and Misunderstandings

Exploring how societal views on incels are shaped by political biases and cultural misunderstandings. Malcolm Collins: "They see these disgust when they're interacting with these men or even conceptualizing these men."

4: Closing Thoughts

Reflecting on the broader social and cultural implications of misunderstanding the incel movement. Simone Collins: "I think it's important to empathize with the plight of the incel because it is a real plight."

1. Question stereotypes and delve deeper into complex social issues to understand their roots and nuances.
2. Engage in discussions that challenge conventional narratives to uncover overlooked perspectives.
3. Consider the socio-political influences on individual and group identities.
4. Educate yourself on the ideological diversity within controversial groups.
5. Promote dialogue that encourages understanding and compassion over division.

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the world of incels, discussing a recent study that challenges the common perception of incels as predominantly right-wing. They explore the inherently leftist ideology of the incel movement, the dehumanization of incels by the left, and the role of female interests in shaping the left's stance on the issue. The conversation also touches on the historical context of how societies have dealt with incels, the potential dangers posed by the incel community, and the importance of addressing the root causes of the incel phenomenon. Join them as they offer insights on the complexities of the incel issue and its implications for modern society.

People

Malcolm Collins, Simone Collins

Companies

Pew Research

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Malcolm Collins
Hello Simone. It is great to be chatting with you today. I always love when statistics and new studies surprised me with information and help change my world perspective. And one such study came out recently on incels and what it showed. Many commenters have suggested a link between incels and the far right.

However, using Pew Research's ideological consistency scale, this survey found that incels were slightly left of center on average. The exception was those who agreed with violence against individuals that cause incels harm often justified. These individuals were right leaning, though not extremely so. They held right wing opinions for 60% of the items in the ideological consistency scale, compared to 45% for the rest of the sample. Would you like to know more?

And this is really interesting to me because, and this is one of those things where, you know, the left, they just take a group that's bad and then they pretend that they are overwhelmingly right leaning. You know, as we always point out, until Obama was elected by 538 polling, so mainstream eight silver polling, white democrats were less likely to vote for a black candidate as president than republicans. There is not a racist voting bloc on the right that doesn't exist on the left at about equal proportions. And it's the same with incels we're seeing here. Incels exist across parties.

Generally, they're slightly on the left, but when they are more violent, which I guess would make sense if they're interested in getting guns and stuff like that and using them, they're going to come up as more on the right. Well, I think that's the thing. This in I can't use the word people ending themselves stats where women are far less likely to successfully end themselves, whereas men successfully end themselves. I think a lot of it all comes down to group efficacy. And I think that conservative groups have higher levels of efficacy in following through on things that matter to them.

Simone Collins
So that's an issue. I think it's more than that. I think if you think about what incelism actually is as a movement, you think about the ideology of the movement. It is an intrinsically far left leaning ideology. So let's talk about this, and let's talk about why they're not showing up as far left in the data and just slightly left leaning.

Malcolm Collins
So, specifically, what an incel believes is that they are owed something by society that they are not getting from society, and that the government should play a role in getting them. That thing. If you look within incel circles, you know, what did they ask for? What they asked for is government mandated prostitution and government paid like they asked for. And you see this within social communities.

They want the government to find a way to deliver sex to them or to impose social norms like forced marriages and stuff like that, which would give them access to sex, which are both incredibly left leaning ideas. The idea that you are owed something by your fellow man and that those who have a poverty of that thing deserve the state to equitably distribute that thing or have a right to use the state to equitably distribute that thing. And, yeah, I mean, it's. It's like, how is that not obviously a lefty position? And so then the question is, well, then why are they showing up as moderates on these surveys?

And I think the answer is two things. I think that these surveys are wrongly, as I have pointed out, considering any racist views, right and leaning, when really they're not. And I do know that racism is really common within NSL communities. And they are counting anything that's pro gun as a right leaning viewpoint, which is also going to be common within Ncel communities, given their goals. And that's also why when they turn violent, they come off as right leaning.

But this gets even more interesting. Well, first, I want to hear your thoughts on this. It makes sense. And also, I learned that the term incel was actually started by a woman in 1997 who created a group for involuntary celibates, so didn't even have conservative origins. There's still this female incel movement, which is really psychotic, which we can talk about in the second half of this video is the female incels.

Who are they and why are they so crazy? Because it's completely unjustified. But yeah, it was started by a woman. And there is a growing movement of female incels today that primarily kind of use the term ironically, but not really use the term ironically because they still categorize themselves as this, because they see the incel movement as having, like, a number of things that they are. Like they're.

They're social outcasts who are nerdy and watch a lot of anime and write a lot of fan fiction. And they're like, that's me. Like, this is my broad set of social issues and I have trouble getting a man. And when they say a man, they mean a man in a relationship, which they'll often explicitly say like, they're like, yeah, of course I could get a guy to have sex with me, but what about a guy who, you know, wants a relationship or something like that? Hi, everybody.

Chloe
I am Chloe, aka boopcreate. For a period of time, I was actually the top Google result for Femcel. A femcel is a celibate woman. However, I think I recognize it's a little bit more complicated than that. I think there's a lot of people that do genuinely struggle in relationships and incels by kind of stripping down to like, oh, are you an incel or femcel by defining it as, can you get just sex with somebody?

Are you able to have sex with someone? Is really, I think, really productive and not, not what I think the term originally meant or really what it should mean. Because I'd argue a lot of people can, you know, kind of get those things. Even guys, I actually hear more so about guys getting offered that kind of somewhat randomly. A lot of guys that I know than women.

Malcolm Collins
And if you look at the women who identify with this community, they're often fairly attractive or like middling, which to me shows that this isn't what's happening. It's more of like a clout thing online that they're using for shock value and that is being reinforced on them. And so they, they get affirmation from taking these perspectives by thirsty and Sel Min, who are drawn to this because they think they have a shot with these women. It's like a specific type of being a pick me. But to correlate a guy who cannot get sex at all with a woman's experience, especially a woman who's not, like, incredibly ugly, is just like insane.

If you look at the data that they are not experiencing the same hardships at all, they do not have any understanding of what it would feel like to be a man in that situation at all. They are co opting another community's suffering for social points in a way that, you know, could be seen as, you know, like a dressing up like a Native American or something like that, right. Like this is a group that is genuinely suffering, genuinely has high rates of suicide, which is talked about in this study, genuinely feels wronged by society. And I think in a part, rightly so. Like, is society structured in a way that is systemically unfair to men who have low social skills and low attractiveness?

Yeah. Do they have a right to be angry because of that? I mean, if you think that you are owed equality by society, as most leftist positions do, then yes. If you think that, you know, you just accept that not everyone is born equal and that that gives us different roles within society, then no. And when I say equal, I mean equal in terms of competency where something like, or proficiencies, where the fact that some people are born less attractive than others and you actually see this within leftist fears, within women's fears, this idea of sort of banning even the concept of attractiveness, like everyone is actually equally attractive.

And the only reason why you see like fat women as unattractive is because of social norms. And then, you know, when incels are like, well, what about us? And they're like, no, what we mean by this is fat women should be allowed to have sex with conventionally attractive men and get those men in relationships. Not that we should have sex with men like you, of course. I think it's time for another adult pre k lesson.

What do you think? All right, turn your listening ears on. Zoo. Catch a bubble in your mouth. Good job.

Okay, here's the thing. Having a preference is something like, I'm looking for a partner who likes kayaking or wakes up early in the morning or loves pizza. But when your preferences exclude an entire group of marginalized people, that's problematic. Okay? That's not nice.

That's not a preference. If you lump all fat people in one group together as though they are not very different individuals, that's fatphobic. Just like lumping all black people in one group and saying, I don't like black people is racist. So, I mean, it's very delusional when you get into these far lefty circles. They don't really have any sense of like, of some sort of like real ethical core to them.

Malcolm Collins
They're just sort of, I want what I want and I'm owed what I want, which is a very easy sort of mindset to spread or disseminate. But this all gets interesting to me in framing because the left really dehumanizes incels constantly. Yeah. Which is weird because incels really represent that external locus of control and entitlement that epitomizes the left, at least per our perception. Yeah.

And so what's going on here? I don't, I think the left is anti male. Don't you think that's just the easiest, broadest answer? The left is not pro male at all. When's the last time a man has.

Been, the left will elevate, like, attractive men who they will, even if they're. Sometimes, okay, who give, give me an example of the left really backing up a guy. I mean, no, they don't back him up. They didn't bully Obama. They tolerate him.

Simone Collins
I'm talking about, you know, a not already famous leader. You know, I mean, a lot of. The leftist youtubers are men. Destiny, for example. Would you consider him leftist?

He seems just kind of his own thing. Famously leftist. There's some other ones. Vash is a leftist. Yeah, but are people backing him up?

Are people. Well, no. The left always attacks itself, but it attacks itself with its women and its men. You know, the only time that I've really seen the left will say stand behind men is when those men have been killed by police, like George Floyd or something. Well, I don't know if he was really killed by police, but you know what I mean, where he.

He's dead. Otherwise they would never really stand by a guy. I just don't. I think this is, it's an anti male thing. And so I think a little differently.

Malcolm Collins
I think that the left, the power circles within the left are controlled by female interests. Females have an intrinsic disgust towards men they see as being low sexual market value. This is just a thing. It initiates a disgust reaction. Most people, when they have a disgust reaction, they apply a moral negative to the thing that's eliciting the disgust reaction.

This is why, you know, historically, like, if you see somebody who is diseased or disabled, most people's natural response in a historic context, that they must have done something sinful or wrong. Right? Yeah. There's something wrong with them. We need to stay away from them.

Simone Collins
Well, I mean, it makes sense too. If someone was really diseased or something, you probably wouldn't be well served by reproducing with them or getting by listening to them. You know, it makes sense to listen to beautiful people. By that, what I mean is, historically. Speaking, on average, evolutionarily speaking, on average, et cetera.

Malcolm Collins
Yeah. So if I'm in a cultural group, right, and I am choosing which people I listen to for advice about, like, how I should prepare a type of food, right? And one of those people looks a little off or deformed in some way or did not perfectly facially symmetry something in that food may have been causing some sort of level of toxicity. And so I know that the people who are uniquely Adonis like are getting access to better health resources and better industry within society because they have more wealth and more power within society. So they are a better source of information.

And so societies that elevated those individuals organically out competed the societies that didn't in terms of how cultural evolution went within that society. And so of course, there's like a genetic reason to do this as well. So they see these disgust when they're interacting with these men or even conceptualizing these men. They associate the disgust with some sort of negative morality. And then they say, well, all negatively moral things must be rightest.

Because that's the way the leftist mind works is if something is bad, then it is right. And if it is left, then it is not bad. Definitionally, no matter how, like beyond the pale or insane it is, it cannot be bad if it's left leaning. Hmm. Yeah, I could see that.

Simone Collins
I could see that. It's also just another example of the left completely screwing over another audience that broadly thinks that they should be represented by them, which is weird, but yeah. Well, I mean, it's important to understand that all politics is like organically evolving opinions. This is our perspective. Like, it's not that I don't think that there are some malevolent groups trying to push politics in specific ways or that some foreign state actors have elevated specific political ideas.

Malcolm Collins
But I think when it comes to something like hatred of incels by the left or the dehumanization really of incels by the left, this is coming out of organic action based on the demographics that control leftist mind share and that what incels really are is like simpy men who simp for lefty women, right? Like, who are sort of in this dom sub relationship with the other side of the leftist movement, which is fascinating. Hmm. Yeah, but I don't know. I mean, so there have always been incels throughout history.

Simone Collins
We can see, genetically speaking, that incels have been around because there were a lot of men who didn't get to enter the gene pool. We see a lot more diversity, right, from female genes, indicating that there were a lot of men who just had a ton of partners, female partners, and then way more men who just had zero partners. So why do you think that incels are more of a thing now? Or have incels always been a thing? And they've played a big role in the rise and fall of civilizations.

Malcolm Collins
I think that different civilizations related to incels in different ways and had different cultural technologies for neutralizing the negative effects that can come from incels. Because you do see negative effects from incels. Typically, the more unmatched men you have in a society, the higher the rates of terrorism you're going to have, the higher rates of prostitution you're going to have, the higher rates of murder you're going to have, the lower rates of trust in business deals. There's been some studies on this. It's really fascinating.

And actually, if you see like bouts of terrorism in the Middle east, they often correlate to economic problems that prevented people from paying their bride price, which led to a bunch of unmarried incel young men because they're not having sex outside of marriage in these cultures. And so that motivates terrorism. And so it makes sense from a genetic level why it would, like, you go for broke. Your brain basically gets scrambled and you go for broke when it realizes it has no shot of reproducing, and then you're devalued by society. But in a historic context, we did not dehumanize.

Most cultures did not dehumanize incels to the extent that a lot of societies today dehumanize incels. So by this, what I mean is, you know, in catholic culture, for example, if you were an incel, you could always just join the church priesthood, right? As we've mentioned, the church's priesthood is predominantly same sex attracted. It's like 52% or something like that. So that was both their solution to men who were born same sex attracted and men who otherwise couldn't get partners and now can join this, like, high status thing which prevents them from.

And that affirms it within their community. Right. And it prevents them from taking negative actions because they're like, oh, this is why I'm celibate. I'm celibate because I'm, like a good person, right? Like, I've done extra.

This extra pious thing. Then there's other cultural groups, you know, like in Rome or something like that. Like, what happened to the incels? They joined the military right there. There's plenty of graping to be had when you are on the warpath or you die if you're unfit, you know?

And this was seen, and the military was lauded, you know, these men were seen as the best and the bravest and the best of the best and everything like that. So, yeah. Yeah. So what? We just don't have enough war and religion right now.

Simone Collins
That's our problem. Yeah, we don't have enough war and religion that historically would have, you know. Yeah. Provided an outlet for men who apparently weren't going to end up partnered. Oh, I guess.

Well, and religion also did something else, which was impose monogamy in many cases. So there were other ways where you could just, you can either give something for your incel population to do, or you can lower the proportion of your incel population by reducing functional polygamy. And I think that's the problem is that even in highly monogamous societies, if you have enough sufficiently wealthy men, you're going to get functional polygamy, which I think people don't realize even when you look at serial monogamy in the United States, like, both our fathers had children with multiple women, not at the same time, but I think that happens a lot more than you would think. So it's not even men having side chicks, but it's still functionally happening. So you have to create a society in which not only is monogamy normalized and encouraged, but also divorce is discouraged, apparently, or at least remarriage among men.

Right? Yeah. Well, and I think to highlight the danger from the incel community is 5% of the community did feel that violence was often justified against those who had harmed the incel community. And this was cross correlated with misogynistic views, feeling discriminated against and having poorer mental health, and a higher tendency to displace their aggression than other incels. So 5% is a pretty big number if you're talking about internally justifying harm.

Malcolm Collins
And then you get some sort of self reinforcing community, like, you can get within discord or four chan, and these beliefs can begin to, while other people are treating them jocularly, can begin to feel like things that you will earn status having within your community, and then you move to believing that you will gain status for acting upon them within your community based on seeing individuals. I mean, Elliot Rogers definitely, you know, is seen as a hero by some in the incel community, despite the horrible things he did. And that fact, which is just a fact, does motivate and justify other incels to commit acts like that, because they see that they will be lauded in the same way. And so I think the right approach to this is actually the Jordan Peterson approach, which is to say, you know, have compassion for the community. Point out that, yes, it is unfair.

I'm sorry, that life is unfair. There's nothing we can do about that except make future humans better. You know, make future humans less like you, which is a shame. But incel is. Realize this.

If you look in incel discussions where, you know, I've done some lurking and stuff like that, a common thing that you will see is cursing their mothers for allowing an unattractive man to sleep with her, because they see that as, like, what led to their existence that they should not have been born, that the relationship that their parents had should never have happened because it wasn't genetically high quality enough. Because in incel communities, there is a big belief in, like, genetics heritability, because it allows for this fatalism about their genetic state in the world. Like, they're. They're in a weird way, like, aligned with the pronatalist community, and that they see it as part of their duty to not have kids to improve as they would see it, the human gene pool, not as we would see it. I mean, I believe that there are many incels that likely do have something to offer the world and do have something genetically to offer the world.

But if you're going to adopt a fatalistic philosophy, those sorts of mindsets, like, actually, you should look for what you do have a value. And then when you see what there is to value in yourself, then other people will see what there is to value in you. But what you value in yourself can't just be self affirmation. It needs to be some form of genuine industry or creativity or ability to move the world forward in a positive direction, which is the thing that women want most in a partner. Like, it's not hotness or even social status.

Simone Collins
I mean, they like those things, too. Those are nice. Well, some women. Yeah, like those things, but often not the women you want to marry. That's not what they're.

Malcolm Collins
They're optimizing on. I mean, do you really want a thought? Like, do you really want a woman who's out there, like, banging chads instead of looking for somebody who she respects? And they're like, all women are like that. It's like, no, the techniques that you are using to engage women, disproportionately short for women like that.

I almost never met women like this when I was dating. And I, you know, for my dating career, dating five dates a week for, like, two years, like, very rarely did I meet these sort of vacuous women that. That incels talk about existing. If you are meeting them, you are in some way sorting for them in what you are putting out to the world. Well, yeah, I mean, to me, it seems that there are two types of incels.

Simone Collins
They're genuine incels, like, people who really, regardless of circumstances, are not going to be able to find a partner, given the dynamics at play in society and given what they've been dealt. But then there are other types of incels where they're just looking for love in all the wrong places, literally. And had they been raised in a different culture, had they taken a different direction, they could be happily coupled and happily married. Do you think that's accurate? Yeah, I do think that's accurate.

What percentage do you think we have in society now? I mean, I think the bigger problem and why we have an incel problem isn't that we have a bunch of men who really couldn't get married. It's that we have a societal problem. With fatalism and nihilism. Fatalism, nihilism, infantilism, external locus of control and looking and not knowing where to look, not being trained in dating and courtship, in relationships and in marriage.

Malcolm Collins
Yeah, you're right. Which is, I think, and perhaps another reason why there are so many leftist incels. If you grow up in leftist culture, you're more likely to suffer from those attributes. Right. You're more likely to have an external locus of control and be more nihilistic and not have a structured society that taught you how to date and marry and, and engage in social graces.

Simone Collins
I grew up in a very progressive culture and I was not taught how to behave a certain way. You were taught how to behave a certain way. Your parents told you this is how you eat at a table. This is how you speak to girls. This is how you date.

Malcolm Collins
Well, they also taught me that I was always responsible, like, you know, you know, when I get in trouble or something like that. And I'd be like, well, if things get really bad, you know, if I get kicked out of school lately and I don't have a place to stay, you guys love me, right? Like, you let me stay. And they're like, absolutely not like you. And I was like, well, what if it's not my fault?

And they go, it doesn't matter. A lot of things happen to people in life that's not their fault. You've got to figure it out on your own. Yeah, but I think it's an underrated factor here because that's a conservative cultural view, in my opinion is, but it's. Very healthy for kids to know that there is no backstop for them.

Their parents do not love them unconditionally. Their parents will not. And this is something, how dare you say that to your kids. So if your kid's like a serial killer, you're still going to be that mom who's like, I just don't understand. Little Tammy couldn't do that.

No, I love my kids based on them being good people. And, and I'm sorry about that, but I want to raise good people. And I think that when you take this attitude towards parenting, you end up with kids who are much more likely to become good people, to not become serial killers or incels for that matter, because, you know, or at least the fatalist type of incel. Yeah, I'm not particularly worried about any of our kids being the other type of incel. They would need that, you know, just genetically.

It's unlikely because, and I think the core thing that creates incels, I should note, is not that people are genetically unattractive. I think even very unattractive men can get women, which we've all seen. Even unattractive poor men can get women. It is that they are genetically have a very low social intelligence and are just very bad at interacting with them. It seems to be the correlatory factor because when we see photos of incels and maybe those are just the ones that are willing to share photos, they don't look that bad.

Simone Collins
So I totally agree with you, but I think that also has so much to say about society because, yes, you can have low emotional intelligence, but you can also know, you can be taught what to do. Just like through ABA therapy, autistic children are taught how to fake it in society and pretend that they have emotional intelligence. They're taught how to read facial expressions. On a basic level, at least. They are taught how to act empathetic, et cetera, because it doesn't necessarily come naturally.

Malcolm Collins
Yeah. Guys being like, oh, I'm too autistic for that. And it's like, no, no, you're not. Like, if you're watching this channel, no, you're not. You can get over it.

Simone Collins
You can get over it. You can't get through it. And I say it's like, if you're watching this channel, like, if you are a big watcher of our channel, probably autistic. Well, yeah, but there's also a bar of IQ that's required to really, I think, understand the content or engage with the content. Well, no, it's true.

Malcolm Collins
You know, you can see on YouTube, if you search for most watch videos, they are for a much less intelligent audience. Well, you mean the ones that I created before this channel became basecamp? Yeah, that would be an example. But even those, I think, were pretty highbrow compared to. I don't think so.

Simone Collins
Generally, making bunny shaped hard boiled eggs is exactly high IQ content. But nice try, Malcolm. I love you. I love you too, Simone. You're an amazing woman.

Malcolm Collins
And I am so satisfied that I found it you to marry. And who knows, in a. In a different reality, I could have been an incel. Never. No, sorry.

Simone Collins
I know. I'm sorry. But that's funny. I think it's important to empathize with the plight of the incel because it is a real plight. And it's not always their fault.

Yeah, no, especially if you have a sex drive, man. But sometimes it's their fault. But I think you already have their fault. I don't hate transmaxing as a solution. These are incels who are transitioning because they don't think they'll ever get laid.

No, dude, preach. I love it. Do what works for you in the end. Do what works for you. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins
Anyway, love you. Yeah, I love you too.

Simone Collins
Yeah, I love you too.