One of the unfortunate side effects of national tragedies–beyond the sufficiently harrowing loss of invaluable human lives–is that there are always attention-seekers ready to take advantage of the event to further their political agenda.
Even while the bodies of the men and women slain in the Las Vegas shooting outside Mandalay Bay were still warm, Democrats leaped at the opportunity to push for gun control–without having all the facts about what weapon the killer used and how he obtained it.
But one liberal Twitter user went in a different direction, using the massacre as a springboard from which to take aim at another of the left’s pet boogeymen: the “patriarchy.”
Jonathan McIntosh is a Youtuber who makes “critical video essays focusing on the intersections of masculinity, politics and entertainment,” per his Twitter bio.
According to his Patreon account, McIntosh is currently making $1,892 per video thanks to faithful crowdfunding donors. His “critical video essays” involve culturally significant subjects like the Twilight movies and the cartoon Steven Universe.
The pop culture commentator delved into the political with a rapid-fire series of tweets focusing on the Las Vegas attack, in which more than 50 were killed and over 500 wounded.
For McIntosh, the worst mass shooting in American history has one over-arching cause everyone is ignoring: masculinity.
Mass shootings are overwhelmingly committed by straight men. We must interrogate how our culture links violence to ideas about masculinity.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
McIntosh goes on to create a straw man double standard to attack.
If mass shootings were mostly committed by women, everyone would be asking why women were killing people. Because it’s men, we get silence.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
No, Jonathan. The reason we don’t ask why men specifically commit more mass shootings is the same reason we don’t ask why men commit more acts of violence in general: the answer is obvious. It’s the same reason there are more male soldiers, firefighters, police officers, construction workers.
Biologically, men are stronger and more aggressive. It’s human nature.
Also, McIntosh’s line of reasoning oversimplifies complex events. Whenever a tragedy strikes, the public does stop to analyze what the cause of the violence was. But unlike the liberal Youtuber, most people understand that human beings are driven by multiple factors. All women don’t act the same way or for the same reasons, and neither do all men.
When terror strikes, a rational observer would stop to ask: “Was it religiously motivated? Was it a case of mental illness? Was it directly orchestrated by a terror network?”
But all of that is too messy for McIntosh, who seemingly prefers to think he’s found the supreme answer to all violence everywhere. One can imagine him sitting at his desk pondering the commonalities of every major mass shooting, rising to his feet with emotion as he exclaims “I’ve found it! All of these shooters were men!”
McIntosh asserts violence is perpetuated by a patriarchy in which “men and boys are socialized to engage in an endless competition for dominance.”
Pointing out that men are the ones committing massacres is obviously not a condemnation of men in general but men’s violence is an epidemic.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
Our society teaches men to be obsessed with control as a marker of manhood – especially control *over* others. The consequences are tragic.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
It’s critical to remember that male violence is NOT inevitable. Violence is taught and learned. We can stop teaching it. We can unlearn it.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
The ways men and boys are socialized to engage in an endless competition for dominance is dangerous and harmful for everyone in our society.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
The competition for male dominance leaves many men and boys emotionally and physically broken. It perpetuates cycles of violence and abuse.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
The competition for male dominance is part of a social system called patriarchy. Social systems are not set in stone, they can be changed.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
In order to transform a social system like patriarchy we must understand how it works and how it shapes our ideas about men and masculinity.
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) October 2, 2017
These remarks are no surprise from a Youtuber who made a video titled “Donald Trump: Lovable Sitcom Misogynist.”
It almost seems like McIntosh is so devoted to feminism, he’s upset women are unrepresented in cases of mass murder!
Most likely, however, he’s one of many well-intentioned liberals for whom combating simplistic imagined evil is more bearable than dealing with the complicated, uncertain, and unpredictable realities of tragedy.
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