I have a cousin, 35, Male, who has always been susceptible to conspiracy. He listened to Rush and other right wing favs when we were younger, and after a mildly messy divorce, I’m afraid he’s pivoted to blaming women for everything (including, and especially, male urges).
Along with his heroes, he’s committed to anti-intellectualism. I almost miss the tea party days.
Recently he’s been reading self published books with titles like “Analyzing the ROI on Pursuing Women,” and “Why women deserve less.” They bizarrely juxtapose tidbits from economics onto ravings about value and gender that don’t make sense. Weird that he trusts random opinions and not researchers who at least provide rigorous reasoning for their theories, but I digress.
As a lady, it’s hard to care about the dude, but I do feel like I should say -something-. Does anyone have ideas?
The anti-intellectualism, conspiracy prone tendency, and dependence upon self-published stuff that can’t make real arguments suggests to me that he’s not a very smart guy, and I’ll bet, deep down, he knows that. And that can be true even if he’s wildly intelligent in one area.
My guess is that he wants to feel in control and in the know, and masks his fear that he’s not with crap like this. It’s been bubbling for a while, but it got nastier because of his divorce, so he’s reaching for anything that makes it not his fault permanently.
No fact, argument, or intervention is going to hit home, both because this is emotion based and because it’s been going on for years. If you walk out of a good session with him and think you’ve made a dent, he’ll soothe his angry and confused mind by falling right back into his unhealthy habits, because they make him feel better.
The most you can do isn’t to oppose, but to provide alternatives. He’s listening to these things in his car and getting mad all the time? Find some audiobooks on safe topics he likes and let him borrow them, and ask him follow up questions to engage him. He always reads some drivel right when he gets home from work? Tell him that you’ve started doing a fitness challenge and you want to see which of the two of you can walk more steps in a month. If he brings up a topic that’s going to be a problem, sigh or make a face and change the subject; ask about his kids. Talk up therapy and introduce it as a normal, healthy thing that has helped you or others out. The goal is to help him find peace and happiness and connection outside of his obsessions so he starts to rely on them less until he no longer needs to hate others in order to be happy as he is.
The biggest issue is commitment and time. It can take far, far more effort to deprogram someone than for they to get hooked, and ideally it’d be a family or community aid sort of thing, because it’s a huge undertaking for one person.
His parents are worried, visiting as often as they can, and trying to encourage him to develop some offline hobbies or join a church community (he’s religious, but recently rejecting “organized”religion).
Your suggestion about disrupting habits and offering other things to focus on sounds pretty practical! I’m going to see if I can find a podcast or two he might be interested in.
We are working on warming him up to therapy. I found seeing a therapist for a year pretty helpful and emotionally balancing after some issues with Covid isolation+ a move.
Wait… Rush is right wing? Like… the prog rock band? I never knew their music was super political to begin with.
Edit: it wasn’t the rock band. It was something worse :c
Anyway! As a guy who has seen some friends fall down that rabbit hole, unfortunately you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. A lot of the time those extreme and radical positions are a reaction to a skewed perception of reality. Perhaps he feels his wife wronged him and is projecting that pain onto other people (women in this case), or perhaps the reason his wife divorced him is because he’s so committed to his misogynist beliefs, he would rather let his marriage go down the drain.
In any case, he probably feels the need to always reaffirm his worldview because the alternative (that he can improve as a person and that his personal shortcomings can only be blamed on himself) is probably too painful to face.
Very frequently, these people probably need to build a safety net, a support group, and go to therapy, but they’re so off the deep end, it’s too hard to take any of those steps, so it becomes a vicious circle of blaming others because they’re alone, and staying alone because they always blame others.
The best thing that can happen to any of these people is an experience that fundamentally shakes their reality. Getting into Buddhism, or moving to a different country, or going back to college, basically anything that changes their status quo, because their status quo has been inherently built and curated around their own beliefs and worldview. They can’t leave it now.
If you want to help him, you have to find a way to disrupt his status quo and perhaps hope that leads him down a more positive path, but unfortunately, once someone has started buying into heavy incel theory, they feel more comfortable staying there than looking beyond their own noses. I’m not sure you could do much for him. I’m sure deep inside he knows blaming women for his own faults is stupid, but he also refuses to blame himself, so… someone like that won’t be likely to improve. Ever.
Wait… Rush is right wing? Like… the prog rock band? I never knew their music was super political to begin with.
Not sure if you’re joking but she probably means Rush Limbaugh, famous right-wing AM Radio dude who died recently. His words echo on and he continues to be a far-right wing icon.
I wasn’t joking, I legitimately had never heard that name in my life. And I’m thinking I’m lucky for it.
You were definitely lucky. I used to have to listen to his show when visiting a printer my work dealt with on a regular basis and it was vile.
Same, I like Rush too much to chuck out all my albums.
A business trip down south is where I first heard the term “militant gay agenda” unironically come from Rush’s mouth
This is quite excellent. Well said. I’d like to add that they really don’t like being looked down on, which complicates things when they’re being so stupid.
God I wish I’d never heard of Rush Limbaugh. Grew up with his trash 🤢
unfortunately you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into
Oof. Thanks for taking the time to write this out—it’s legitimately helped me see the situation more clearly. He does have 2 young kids, so that makes the situation a bit more complicated than accepting that I can’t do anything and moving forward, but maybe I should focus more on the kids directly. They live with their mom most of the time.
If you really want to help this person I’d suggest being a friend to him. Don’t talk about the stuff you disagree on. Every time he mentions it, be very clear that you emphatically disagree and that the positions that he holds cause you harm. Do not get drawn into a debate, just states how it negatively affects you and end the conversation. If he can accept that boundary then you can build a friendship, and that friendship will eventually provide you with the sufficient mutual respect to potentially begin to change minds with open and vulnerable conversation. It has to be a real friendship though, you can’t be faking it.
That’s all a lot of energy and effort, but it’s the kind of sustained relational support that can effectively promulgate change.
Most of these people can’t find any friends outside of their conservative echo chambers because of this, that is how they get so lost in it. Really the biggest cause of the increase in incel culture as of late is just because people (especially men) are more lonely then ever
Thanks, I do think a solid foundation of trust is a big part of changing hearts and minds. I speak to him on the phone with some frequency, but will try to think of some ways to make the conversations more substantive. I think he also has some social issues because he’ll call and then just remain silent unless I prompt him with questions (so I usually ask about work or the kids).
Social skills are just that, they’re skills. That means they can be learned and improved, and also that they can be lost with disuse. Helping him practice talking can develop these skills.
If, and this is a big if, you want to help, understanding is the best course of action.
You mention a (from your perspective) “mildly messy” divorce. Leaving aside the fact that I don’t know what value you assign to those words, it suggests an early dismissal of a, probably traumatic event.
Construed like this, a lack of desire for understanding might be implicit. People don’t just wake one day hating about 4 billion sentient beings just for shit and giggles.
You have to understand that, as you wish to be seen, understood and treated as a person and to people to act accordingly, this man, this family of yours also wishes to be seen, understood save treated as a person and for people to act accordingly to it too.
Do you best
Sounds like he is not well, messy divorce can push someone over that line of hate.
Question is what happened? No one just wakes up and starts hating women. That would count their mother, grandmother, sister, friends, colleagues… something happend (probably in the same order) and he ended up over the limit.
Therapy helps a lot. I don’t think you can fight irrational fear with with any kind of rational proofs.
I mean, a messy divorce can do that. I am not the same person after my ex-wife cheated on me and is now acting not taking good care of our kids when they are there.
Thanks, we are working on selling therapy.
💀
He’s a lost cause. Cut the loss and don’t waste your time. This is your life. He’s not your responsibility.
