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"Love the sinner, hate the sin" needs an update to the modern age. It's easy to get disgusted and frustrated with "incels", as they are constantly saying repre

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" needs an update to the modern age. It's easy to get disgusted and frustrated with "incels", as they are constantly saying reprehensible things. But ostracizing them from society doesn't fix them, it just results in worse problems like this. I think we need to focus on rehabilitating incels so they can rejoin society as healthy members, rather than ostracizing them. At a more fundamental level, I think that our culture focuses too much on blame. Identifying the person who caused the problem doesn't solve the problem. We should focus on fixing the problem, not on blame. Yes, incels' suffering is mostly self-inflicted, but they are still suffering, and if we don't address that suffering, the suffering spreads. Perhaps the answer is to start treating "incel-ism" as a disease. I don't know if the disease model really applies here, but I think it's at least worth investigating. There's a balance to be had here: we need to be compassionate, but not naive. Some incels can't be in society because they are a danger to society, and our current ability to treat their suffering has limitations.

aiphex 7y ago
I believe most good psychologists have the ability to treat incels. It comes down to the incel wanting it and having access to it. Unfortunately our society doesn't offer adequate mental health care to those in need but who are lacking in resources. Whether it's incels, drug addicts, or you name it, the answer is that we need to do a better job of taking care of each other. Unfortunately we have the greedy ultra rich on top who keep siphoning off the fruits of our labour and leaving everyone else to fight over the scraps. We could do better.
pizza234 7y ago
> Perhaps the answer is to start treating "incel-ism" as a disease. There is already! Although the specific incel issue is not classified in psychology (AFAIK), a person with such severe symptoms can be classified as suffering from relationship and/or social anxiety disorders. I think that the incel problem has a very specific issue in the fact that it's culturally ostracized; people who suffer from it are labeled as shy and lazy. I'm not sure from which angle the social problem (I refer to the ostracization) should be attacked. Research on this subject started in the 80s, but there has never been a (significant) following. The rational wiki has a good introduction: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Love-shy.com#Love-shyness_as_a_mental_condition https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Love-shy.com#Love-shyness_as_a.... If the condition was officially recognized, I think it would be a very good start, as probably people suffering from it would have a clear reference; right now, since there isn't any, it's very easy to fall into toxic subcultures.
- allovernow 7y ago
  >I think that the incel problem has a very specific issue in the fact that it's culturally ostracized; people who suffer from it are labeled as shy and lazy. The issue is that society has a fairly strict range within which social, psychological, and physical features are considered attractive, and some subpopulation will always fall outside of these norms - but how society values these outliers changes over time and given the consumer, status driven culture in the U.S. there may be more of them now and they're being rejected worse than ever...but this increase in the trend is just speculation in my part. Regardless, for some people, no amount of therapy is going to make them forget that they have suffered the collective judgement of society and weigh in at the bottom of the attractiveness scale, with little realistic hope of improving their rating without wholly changing appearance, personality, and or interests.
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    > Regardless, for some people, no amount of therapy is going to make them forget that they have suffered the collective judgement of society and weigh in at the bottom of the attractiveness scale, with little realistic hope of improving their rating without wholly changing appearance, personality, and or interests. Therapy won't actually solve the problem, in any case. Therapy doesn't magically procure a wife. Typically, this problem has been solved by sending lots of young men to go die in a war. Other times, a plague has helped, though that tends to kill more evenly.
    - allovernow 7y ago
      Perhaps war has a strong evolutionary pressure. Especially considering those who order populations to war don't tend to fight (and die) in them.
    - pmoriarty 7y ago
      "Therapy won't actually solve the problem, in any case. Therapy doesn't magically procure a wife." Not having a wife is not the problem. There are plenty of people who live their entire lives single but don't turn in to hateful, bitter, violent trolls and assholes. It's doubtful that getting married will turn these bitter, violent trolls around. There's an entire culture that these people are part of which encourages these sorts of attitudes and behaviors, and simply getting married is unlikely to change their culture.
gshdg 7y ago
> ostracizing them from society doesn't fix them But it can be necessary to prevent others from concluding that their viewpoints are acceptable and creating snowball adoption thereof.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  I agree with your goals, but I do not believe the strategy you are espousing will achieve those goals.

aiphex 7y ago

I believe most good psychologists have the ability to treat incels. It comes down to the incel wanting it and having access to it. Unfortunately our society doesn't offer adequate mental health care to those in need but who are lacking in resources. Whether it's incels, drug addicts, or you name it, the answer is that we need to do a better job of taking care of each other. Unfortunately we have the greedy ultra rich on top who keep siphoning off the fruits of our labour and leaving everyone else to fight over the scraps. We could do better.

pizza234 7y ago

> Perhaps the answer is to start treating "incel-ism" as a disease. There is already! Although the specific incel issue is not classified in psychology (AFAIK), a person with such severe symptoms can be classified as suffering from relationship and/or social anxiety disorders. I think that the incel problem has a very specific issue in the fact that it's culturally ostracized; people who suffer from it are labeled as shy and lazy. I'm not sure from which angle the social problem (I refer to the ostracization) should be attacked. Research on this subject started in the 80s, but there has never been a (significant) following. The rational wiki has a good introduction: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Love-shy.com#Love-shyness_as_a_mental_condition https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Love-shy.com#Love-shyness_as_a.... If the condition was officially recognized, I think it would be a very good start, as probably people suffering from it would have a clear reference; right now, since there isn't any, it's very easy to fall into toxic subcultures.

allovernow 7y ago
>I think that the incel problem has a very specific issue in the fact that it's culturally ostracized; people who suffer from it are labeled as shy and lazy. The issue is that society has a fairly strict range within which social, psychological, and physical features are considered attractive, and some subpopulation will always fall outside of these norms - but how society values these outliers changes over time and given the consumer, status driven culture in the U.S. there may be more of them now and they're being rejected worse than ever...but this increase in the trend is just speculation in my part. Regardless, for some people, no amount of therapy is going to make them forget that they have suffered the collective judgement of society and weigh in at the bottom of the attractiveness scale, with little realistic hope of improving their rating without wholly changing appearance, personality, and or interests.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  > Regardless, for some people, no amount of therapy is going to make them forget that they have suffered the collective judgement of society and weigh in at the bottom of the attractiveness scale, with little realistic hope of improving their rating without wholly changing appearance, personality, and or interests. Therapy won't actually solve the problem, in any case. Therapy doesn't magically procure a wife. Typically, this problem has been solved by sending lots of young men to go die in a war. Other times, a plague has helped, though that tends to kill more evenly.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Perhaps war has a strong evolutionary pressure. Especially considering those who order populations to war don't tend to fight (and die) in them.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "Therapy won't actually solve the problem, in any case. Therapy doesn't magically procure a wife." Not having a wife is not the problem. There are plenty of people who live their entire lives single but don't turn in to hateful, bitter, violent trolls and assholes. It's doubtful that getting married will turn these bitter, violent trolls around. There's an entire culture that these people are part of which encourages these sorts of attitudes and behaviors, and simply getting married is unlikely to change their culture.

gshdg 7y ago

> ostracizing them from society doesn't fix them But it can be necessary to prevent others from concluding that their viewpoints are acceptable and creating snowball adoption thereof.

kerkeslager 7y ago
I agree with your goals, but I do not believe the strategy you are espousing will achieve those goals.