r/uwaterloo
regarding the recent firing in the cs dept
A lecturer at UWaterloo and Guelph was recently cancelled for his manifesto against women. He was derided as an incel online. What is an incel? An involuntary celibate. I cannot have sex. Coined in 1997 as part of an online support group for the love shy.
Now, let’s consider the facts. Benyamin was a postdoctoral fellow at UWaterloo, originally from Iran, having completed his PhD here in the ECE Department. He enjoyed writing poems and giving his perspectives as a foreigner on modern culture. Did he ever sexually harass any of his students? No. Did he advocate for any inappropriate action against female students in order to secure a partner? No. Does he understand Western taboos? No, obviously not. I am as forgiving of him as I would be of any autist asked to comment on norms alien to their own, and you should be too.
So why was there such blood libel against him? “Sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money” – (Houellebecq, Whatever). Sex is a second-order class differentiator, and the incel is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Who hates the incel the most? The class-adjacent pussy poor. Given UWaterloo’s skewed male-female ratio across its engineering departments, one can imagine that many engineering students fall into this demographic. And if you can’t succeed sexually, you can still put down those lesser than yourself. It follows a Giradian framework:
- Memetic desire (tfw no gf): the love script to imitate
- Collective violence (PUA, game, manosphere): how to manipulate your way to sexcess
- Scapegoat (incel): the evil responsible for misogyny and rape culture
- Restoration of order (YOU’RE FIRED!): go back to your problem sets
He was cancelled. He wiped his online presence. Gone was the LinkedIn profile, the YouTube videos celebrating convocation. What remains are his lectures and some Reddit posts where he’s ridiculed as an incel. The last few years dedicated as an instructor, a waste. The online mob called for his dismissal, and the administration agreed. A now deleted apology video professing his love of women made no difference.
He is no Elliot Roger, Alek Minassian, or Marc Lépine. There was no call to violence. Benyamin was trying to understand and navigate the dynamics of dating and forming relationships in the West as an outsider. His language is clunky and commentary simplistic, but I do not think I would fare much better if the roles were reversed and I was to comment on courtship and arranged marriage in Iran.
When it comes to political expression, the instructor enjoys fewer protections than the professor, but it is a shame that Benyamin was purged for views that are milquetoast compared with what you might find online or even in the locker room. Benyamin did nothing wrong, and he should not have to live in exile.
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