Was Elliot Rodger a Magnificent Gentleman?

We all remember the Elliot Rodger shooting in California.  It was a horrific event to be sure but this time the killer was a lonely man, born into wealth, that struggled to meet any women and ultimately decided to take revenge on them.  He wrote a manifesto in which he sang his own praises as a “magnificent gentleman” and denounced women for desiring to mate with “brutish, alpha males”.  So he decided to take revenge on women for rejecting him.  The thing is, he acted nothing like a gentleman, and a person who calls himself a gentleman is not a gentleman.  Gentlemanly ideals could be misunderstood if gentlemen are associated with Elliot Rodger.

How do I know Elliot Rodger was not a gentleman?  Because gentleman first of all are not awkward, they are socially adroit, genuine, respected, and well liked by their peers.  Elliot Rodger on the other hand was definitely awkward.  I can’t find it now but I recall seeing a video of him with his father meeting some famous Hollywood types and there he was, awkwardly standing there with a blank expression on his face when everyone else was smiling.

As well, the videos he posted of himself aimlessly driving around in isolation and moaning and decrying the injustice of never having a woman approach him and ask him out are not gentlemanly let alone manly.

Yes, I recall him writing about his attempts to meet women.  His plan was to convince himself he was “the image of beauty and supremacy” and then go out and women were supposed to be so enthralled with how he looked that they would approach him.  He said “to my utter dismay, I saw that no one turned their head to look at me at all”.  He considered this to be effort.  His making an effort consisted of expecting women to approach him.

Lastly there was his story of listening to his sister have sex and becoming jealous that she had lost her virginity before him.  This is something no gentleman does.

My point here is this, there is a dichotomy that Elliot Rodger played into that I think is wrong.  The belief is that you are either a brutish, alpha male that gets the girls, or you are a polite and civil loser.  This isn’t true.  There are many who fall into a professional, gentlemanly group but they don’t have the same problems Elliot Rodger faced.  Elliot Rodger couldn’t be farther from a gentleman.  He was a socially awkward man and for all his griping about brutish people, he was an extremely hostile, jealous, narcissistic person who did some extremely violent and depraved things.  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that Elliot Rodger was right about anything.