Once in a while I do look at “inappropriate books” or
manuscripts that purport to become books.
Occasionally perpetrators of mass murder events have left “manifestos”
to be found, as if they were “on high” judging humanity. As a “rotten apple”, no commercial publisher,
even a self-publishing company, could list something like this today.
One of the most notorious would be Elliot Rodger’s piece “MyTwisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger” which came to light on the Internet after his 2014 killing spree
in Isla Vista, California. Yup, his name is in the "book title."
It’s well over 100,000 words and most of it, at a quick perusal,
appears to be like a detailed diary. It
would be emailed (unsolicited to be sure) to up to 34 people. It’s hard to fathom someone would recall so
much meticulous personal detail with such resentment.
There seems to be no particular comprehensive philosophy,
other than the hatred of women (because they always rejected him) or misogyny, expressed at the end, as he plans his “Day of
Retribution”. But what is most disturbing
should be taken note of. He seems to
imply he was “rejected” because he was half-Asian. Maybe it would be OK to be 100% Asian and in
a different, segregated world. But he had to compete with the “white boys” to
be desirable (at least to white women). That
has rather profound moral implications.
We’re used to the idea that we can be attracted to anyone we want and “reject”
anyone else privately. But in the past
few years, private choice has become public and mixed with ideas of
discrimination. I get this all the time
when I go to discos and people whom I don’t want challenge me to dance with
them and then question me why not. Milo
Yiannopoulos has written about this.
In some ways. Rodger seems like a straight version of Andrew
Cunanan.
In any case, having written a “manifesto” seems to get a bad
wrap. My own first DADT book (1997) was called “The Manifesto” but talks about
real policy problems through a personal lens.
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