We Are All Entitled
Bryan Christopher Kohberger, a 28-year-old white male Ph.D. student, has been charged with the murders of four college students in Moscow, Idaho.
There is a lot that is unknown about this case at this time. The police have not been forthcoming with information. As of this writing, the Moscow Police have not released the probable cause arrest warrant to the public. We don’t know what evidence connected Kohberger to the murders. And according to a segment on Fox News about the case, Kohberger asked police if he was the only one who had been arrested. This could mean absolutely nothing. Or it could mean that there were other people involved. Quite frankly, stabbing four people to death in the same house seems incredibly difficult for one person to do on their own. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more to this story.
Despite many unknowns here, I will proceed as if Kohberger is the main suspect and there was ample evidence for his arrest. The media have used reports by acquaintances of Kohberger, saying that he was socially isolated and bullied, to imply that he was possibly lashing out at women for being rejected. In that Fox News segment I mentioned above, Nancy Grace used the word “incel” to describe Kohberger.
Kohberger’s arrest is another instance of “young men behaving badly.”
What’s going on?
The Causal Chain: From Entitlement to Incel to Violence
When the suggestion is made that young men who commit violence are lashing out at a world that has rejected them, the response is to say these young men feel entitled. In my mind, rejection can be in at least three ways. There is rejection by peer groups. Being bullied or shunned is an example of this type of rejection. Or, rejection can be societal. A person does not feel the institutions in society - education, media, labor markets - represent and work for them. They have a “failure to launch,” as it were, and they still live in their mom’s house well into their thirties. The third form of rejection can be from potential intimate partners. They can’t get sex.
All three forms of rejection are explained by entitlement. The logic goes that they wouldn’t burrow into woman-hating incel forums if they weren't so entitled. This was the case for Elliot Rodger, a young man who killed six people in 2014. Or, if they weren’t so entitled, they wouldn’t gravitate to websites and forums that scapegoat racial minorities. The actions of Dylan Roof (nine killed in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015) and Patrick Crusius (22 killed in El Paso, Texas, in 2019) fit this pattern.
The causal chain explaining young men behaving badly goes like this:
Feeling entitled as (white) men -> the inability to achieve what you should have -> gravitating towards ideologies that scapegoat other groups -> committing violent acts rationalized by those ideologies
These young men have accepted a patriarchal view of society that tells them how their lives are supposed to be. They should be in positions of authority. They should have sexual conquests and sow their wild oats before they settle down. They must abandon these views, the logic continues, and their anger will subside. They may even see new ways to find meaning and happiness in the world.
This is a narrative that places all of the blame on men for behaving badly.
One cannot disagree with the chain of events. It is true these young men have had problems in life and are lashing out. It is true that for almost all of these instances, one can find in their internet history flirtations with incel and extremist content.
But I want to critique the first aspect of that causal chain - the feeling of entitlement. This criticism is not meant to justify the actions of these young men. It is meant to open up a space for a proper explanation of what is going on and how we can address it as a society.
We Are All Entitled
I do not find the claim that these young men are entitled theoretically compelling. We are all entitled if by entitled one means having certain expectations in life. The high school senior expects to go to college. The college graduate expects to get a job. The woman in her mid-30s expects to have children.
Are all these people “entitled?” Should they give up on their goals? Can the high school senior simply ignore all the signals telling him college is necessary, and instead live a minimalist life and go to work in Wal-Mart?
Interpreting a young man’s desire to develop an intimate relationship or do well financially as “entitled” and suggesting they rethink these goals blames those young men for being like everybody else and asks them to do what you would not expect from others.
Here is an explanation for a theory in sociology called “strain theory”:
Strain theory has gone through many iterations, and I am purposefully simplifying it. You can read more here.
The main idea is that people learn what they should achieve in society. As children and teenagers, we get signals about what adults “should” do and what makes an adult successful. These are the goals. Hopefully, society's institutions will allow people to reach those goals. Institutions - schools and universities, strong labor markets, consistent and fair policing protecting neighborhoods and families, provide the means.
Boys and men learn that society expects some degree of financial success from them. Achieving financial success is not simply the base need for food, water, and shelter. It is about the cultural expectations on top of that urge. Being a successful man means earning an income that makes you self-sufficient and working in a job that commands respect. This may rankle some readers, but I believe a man who has not attained a job of a certain status level is perceived more negatively than a woman in a similar economic situation.
Boys and men also learn that in the arena of intimacy, a man is successful when he has gained access to one or more sexual partners. Like financial success, this is not only about the natural hormonal response by young men to seek out sexual gratification. This is about the cultural expectations on top of that urge. These partners need to be considered attractive to other men. The relationship should also be non-economic in nature. No sex workers. And finally, one of those sexual partnerships needs to progress towards a public pair bond - an exclusive relationship requiring a change in status on social media, maybe living together, and ultimately marriage.
In many ways, these two goals are connected. An unsuccessful man in the labor market is often unsuccessful in the sex and marriage market.
You can call this patriarchy if you wish - beliefs that men are supposed to make a lot of money and boss people around in authority positions. But they did not create that belief system any more than our consumerist belief system, which compels so many Americans to go into debt to buy that big-screen television.
Nor can they can simply quit the patriarchy. That twenty-something young man who makes a living spraying for roaches can put food on the table and afford a few minor-league baseball games. He will likely be overlooked by many women, and he will not see himself represented favorably on television. It’s possible he could still be happy. But the signals he gets from society will not be positive ones, and it takes a special person to ignore that.
OK, So Why The Violence?
This is the causal chain we as a society have adopted to explain “young men behaving badly”:
Feeling entitled as (white) men -> the inability to achieve what you should have -> gravitating towards ideologies that scapegoat other groups -> committing violent acts rationalized by those ideologies
I hope I have given the reader reasons to examine critically the claim that these young men suffer from entitlement. Brothers and sisters, we are all entitled.
But there are more links in this chain, and more questions need to be answered:
Why can’t they achieve these things now? Haven’t men in the past and present gotten good jobs and developed meaningful relationships? They can’t very well be goals if they are not achievable. It’s not like the goal is to be Lebron James or something.
Why do they gravitate toward hateful ideologies? They could just as well gravitate towards forums and communities teaching young men prosocial ways of addressing their frustration.
I will be addressing these questions in future pieces. Thank you for reading!
Very thoughtful piece. I look forward to the follow up articles. It seems to me mental illness is often a factor. That wouldn’t necessarily change your argument. It’s just one more thing piled on these guys. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be much room in society for these guys.