On May 23, 2014, 22-year old Elliot Rodger, a student at the University of California in Santa Barbara, decided to deal with his depression and everlasting social problems in the most horrific and terrible manner.

On this day, which Rodger himself called „The Day of Retribution“, he first killed his three roommates in the apartment in Isla Vista, California. Then, he drove to the nearby Alpha Phi sorority house, with the intention of killing everyone in there. After being unable to enter the house, he opened fire on nearby bystanders, killing two female students and wounding the third.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the horror. Rodger returned to his car and went on a driving rampage throughout the nearby streets, trying to hit the pedestrians with his vehicle and shooting at them simultaneously. When the police forces reacted, a shootout between Rodgers and them followed, in which he was allegedly shot in the hip and injured.

After exchanging fire with the police, Rodger tried to escape, but after striking a nearby cyclist, he crashed on the sidewalk. When police approached the car, they found Rodger dead; he killed himself with a shot in his head.  The result of Rodger’s maniacal raid was devastating: 7 persons dead (himself included), 17 injured and many more lives shattered and ruined. Unfortunately, shootings such as these are becoming increasingly common in the United States nowadays. ⁽¹⁾Wikipedia – List of School Shootings in The United States

As always, two questions came to everybody’s mind: What could have caused something like that to happen and could have a tragedy such as this one been somehow avoided?

The first part of this question was partly answered by Elliot Rodger himself. You see, in the months before his death, he uploaded a great number of youtube videos on his channel. The most shocking and disturbing video is his last one, titled „Elliot Rodger’s Retribution“, in which Rodger’s explained his motives and announced that he will go on a killing spree. Although filmed a day before the „Day of Retribution“, Rodger actually uploaded it on May 23rd at 9.18 PM, just after Elliot murdered his three roommates and before he visited the Alpha Phi sorority house.

In the video, Rodger explains that the main motivation for the murders that are going to happen is his constant loneliness and feeling of rejection:

„For the last eight years of my life, ever since I hit puberty, I’ve been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires all because girls have never been attracted to me. Girls gave their affection, and sex and love to other men but never to me.

Also, just a minute earlier, at 9.17 PM, he sent his 107 000 word autobiography, titled: „My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger.“,⁽²⁾It is actually available online Elliot Rodger: My Twisted World to 34 individuals. In this manifesto, the words from his last video are echoed in numerous instances. While telling his life story, Rodger repeatedly points out episodes from his life where, according to his viewpoint, girls haven’t given him the attention that he allegedly deserved.

„I am an intelligent gentleman, and I deserve the love of girls more than the other obnoxious boys of my age, and yet they get girls and I don’t. That is a crime that can never be forgotten, nor can it be forgiven.“

 I would refrain from making a complete psychological profile of Elliot Rodger because:

A) I don’t presume that I am knowledgeable enough to do it

B) More knowledgeable experts have already done that. ⁽³⁾Mashable: Elliot Rodger profile

I would merely like to point out that, at the first sight, it is very easy to label him as a pathetic creep. And it is very easy to forget that Rodger had serious mental issues (which should be pretty apparent to anyone who read the manifesto or watched his videos).

According to his psychiatrist, Rodger was diagnosed with an Asperger’s syndrome when he was a kid. He obviously suffered from social anxiety and serious depression. I also think he most certainly had some form of narcissistic personality disorder. In any case, I think that the whole Elliot Rodger case contains valuable lessons relevant for all of us. In this post, I will try to extract those lessons and hopefully, by reflecting on episodes from Rodger’s life, as well as my own, come closer to the answer to the second part of the question mentioned above: Could have a tragedy such as this one been avoided altogether?

One more important thing has to be mentioned. I  don’t want to rationalize or minimize the importance of the atrocities he has committed by any means. In my book, murder is a crime that can’t be excused. I probably can’t even imagine what the victims and those close to them had to go through.

However, I think that there is something to be gained for all of us in trying to understand circumstances and to draw some conclusions from the shooting incidents such as Elliot Rodger case.

1.Nothing in life is White or Black

When I first heard about Elliot Rodger and his deeds, I was very quick to condemn his actions and judge him as a person. He must be pure evil,  Hopefully, he will rot in hell for what he has done, Lives such as his are completely worthless, It is a shame he didn’t kill only himself, were only some of the thoughts that went through my mind.

However, once I opened his manifesto and started reading it, the feeling of anger was completely substituted by a feeling of sadness. Because already from his early childhood Rodger had to go through a number of events that merely perpetuated his inferiority complex. Among other things, these events include:

• Moving from the UK to the USA at the age of five
• Divorce of his parents
• Being moved constantly between parent houses
• Spending a great deal of time being nurtured by nannies
• Parents giving in to his desires and buying him stuff he wished immediately (for instance, he writes about asking his father to get him a new laptop so he can play World of Warcraft and getting it the very next day. Also, his mother bought him a new BMW when he was already 21 and seriously damaged, probably thinking a new car will solve most of the issues)⁽⁴⁾Psychcentral: The Psychology of Elliot Rodger
• Getting constantly bullied at school
• Getting abandoned by his best friend from childhood

It might seem that I am exaggerating the significance of the “traumas” mentioned above. After all, most people whose parents were divorced don’t go around shooting people. As I have already pointed out, what Rodger has done is definitely a Black act.

But I think that considering the circumstances, it is hard to call Rodger’s actions 100% Black. 60 %, 70 %, 80% or 90 % maybe, but  not 100 %. I am pretty certain that he didn’t come out of his mother’s vagina and thought about murdering everyone around him. His mental state was among the worst possible hands he could have gotten in the poker game of life. With those cards and the way life treated him, he, unfortunately, chose to play that hand in the worst possible manner.

Now, we don’t need to think about serial killers in order to realize that life is more similar to Game of Thrones than to Lord of the Rings. Let’s be honest, we judge people around us and draw conclusions about them too quickly, based on their actions, on an everyday basis. The „Black and White“ conception is constantly present in our mind.

This football player played like crap? He surely didn’t practice enough, that lazy bastard. By no means is it possible that he had an injury, he fell ill the day before or he had problems in his personal life that affected his performance.

Your boss is yelling at you again? He is a bad person, it is not possible that he is under tons of stress, his wife left him, he has problems with his kids or he simply has a bad day at the office.

Our friend says he doesn’t have time today? He is surely a lousy friend, it is not possible that he is super busy, he is doing something important already, has something else planned or simply doesn’t feel like hanging with others.

You might have noticed that the main reason for the error in judgement is lack of information. Our initial reaction might or might not be justified; without taking everything into consideration, it is hard to tell. That is why it is essential to collect as much information as possible before bringing our final judgment. And this task is incredibly difficult nowadays when the world spins faster than ever before.

2. Your problems are not unique

At this point, I have a confession to make. While I was reading Elliot’s manifesto, I was very much disturbed by the fact that I could relate to him on so many levels. Many pieces of the puzzle were there – being spoilt a bit in the early childhood, not being the popular kid, having a social anxiety in new situations, not being terribly successful with girls, etc.

I was particularly struck by his way of avoiding problems. When he was 13 years old, in order to deal with his growing loneliness and anxiety, he started playing online video games and used virtual worlds as an escape route from reality:

„I became known as the weird kid at Pinecrest, and people started to make fun of me, but I didn’t care. I had my online games to distract me from the harsh realities of life that I was too scared to face. „

This sentence is very resemblant of 13-year-old Vjeko, who gave up all his hobbies and used Warcraft and World of Warcraft as an easy way out. And let me be frank; the ability to relate to someone who killed 6 people deeply disturbed me and scared the shit out of me. How is it possible that someone like that writes some stuff that is strikingly similar to something I would sometimes write. I was really bothered, but the sudden deus ex machina appeared in the form of the comments below Rodger’s Youtube videos.

Below almost each of his uploads, there is a vast majority of comments claiming exactly the same thing – that they were shocked how closely they could relate to some of the things written in the manifesto. Reading through these comments made me realize that not a single one of Elliot’s problems, of my own problems, is unique and special in any way.

Now, that doesn’t mean that your problems are less important. Just because someone else had (or has) the same problem as you doesn’t help you by itself. However, the realization that we are not unique might help us deal with our problems more easily. In his book Stumbling on Happiness, bestseller author Dan Gilbert explains in great detail that our emotions, intuition and memory can’t be trusted and that the best way of deciding what’s the best of us is by listening to the experience of other people. He calls this concept of problem-solving „surrogation“ ⁽⁵⁾Dan Gilbert: Stumbling Onto Happiness:

„ Our mythical belief in the variability and uniqueness of individuals is the main reason why we refuse to use others as surrogates…

The irony, of course, is that surrogation is a cheap and effective way to predict one’s future emotions, but because we don’t realize how similar we all are, we reject this reliable method and rely instead on our imaginations, as flawed and fallible as they may be.“

3.  You are responsible for your own problems

Even after realizing that my problems are not unique, I still couldn’t get rid of unpleasant feelings connected to my ability to relate to certain parts of the manifesto. However, after thorough contemplation about things I have read I have realized that there is obvious, yet very significant difference between Rodger’s perception of the world compared to my own.

You see, if we disregard his mental state, it is quite acceptable to say that Rodger was an entitled prick. In his manifesto, he even admits his entitlement, but he sees nothing wrong in this interpretation of the world around him:

„I was giving the world one last chance to give me the life that I know I’m entitled to, the life that other boys are able to live with ease.“

This entitlement led Rodger to believe he is more important than people around him. This is not strange when you remember that his parents assured him he is special when he was younger. Later, when they refused to give in to his wishes, he would blame them for not complying, instead of himself for demanding too much of them:

„I told her (his mother) that she should sacrifice her well-being for the sake of my happiness, but this only offender her further.“

 

Elliot Rodger is the best (or worst) example of the victim mentality. He was desperate about his own situation, yet he refused to embark on any concrete action that might improve it. He complained how girls never paid attention to him, yet he hardly ever approached them:

„I wished I had the courage to go up to them and ask one on a date, but they would have seen me as a creep. Girls are so cruel.“

Being unable to take responsibility for his own actions, Rodger had to blame someone. And he blamed everyone around him, females, couples, his friends, parents, etc. And blaming others didn’t really help him solve his problems; he still felt he is out of control and his anger and resentment grew on a daily basis.

Now, once again, we have to remember that Rodger is extreme. But the truth is that many of us deal with our problems in a similar manner. We avoid them, we pretend they are not that important and we refuse to take responsibility for them.

For instance, for years I have dealt with my sexual insecurity in a similar manner. I have pretended it is non-existent. I have pretended that it is not that important to me. I have blamed my parents for not raising me to be an alpha male. I have tried solving it by spending time with someone I didn’t fancy for ego purposes. And I have tried avoiding the problem altogether.

But none of the above solved the problem. The years went by and the insecurity remained. Only after admitting to myself that there might indeed be a problem and that it is nothing terrible because all of us had one, have I started feeling better. And I have also contacted a therapist, in order to understand and deal with my insecurities more efficiently.

It has to be said that taking such a dramatic step wasn’t easy for me. It involved a great deal of fear and shame. But no one said that taking responsibility is a pleasant task.

4.  External measures of success are becoming way too important

Another thing that was blatantly obvious in Rodger’s manifesto is how external measures of success were important to him. You might have already realized that sex was the most important metric in life. He based his whole worth, but also the worth of other people, almost exclusively on the number of women they have slept with.

However, this game of numbers was not the only external measure of success Rodger found important. He was also obsessed with status, attention and wealth. In his manifesto, he repeatedly states that all his problems would have been solved if his family had more money. In the final months of his life, before the „Day of Retribution“, his mother got him a BMW (which tells a lot about relationships in the Rodger family). In the manifesto, he excitedly claims  his situation will surely change now when he is driving a classy car.

In regard to this, his comment on the PUA forum bodybuilding.com is also worth noting⁽⁶⁾Storify: Elliot Rodger Bodybuilding Com Forum:

” Seriously, today at my college I saw this short, ugly Indian guy driving a Honda civic, and he had a hot blonde girl in his passenger seat. What on earth is up with that?!?!?!? I would climb Mount Everest 10 times just to have a girl like that with me. I drive a BMW coupe and I’ve struggled all my life to get a girlfriend. What’s wrong with this world?” 

I think it is not surprising that Rodger had such a distorted outlook on the world. Because nowadays, we are being told on every step that money, sex, fame and status are ultimate guarantees of happiness. Thanks to the social media, you have the opportunity to see successful entrepreneurs, 20-year-old millionaires, world-class athletes, people visiting 100 countries a year together with their smoking hot Victoria’s Secret model and spending their life preventing poverty and changing the world.

And all that in just one scroll through your Facebook wall.

It is easy to lose perspective when you are constantly exposed to someone who seems so happy and who seems to live a dream life. It is easy to forget that all those people are extremes. And more importantly, that despite them doing seemingly awesome things, that there is no guarantee that they are really happy. After all, the number of rich and famous people suffering from depression, failing in relationships and even committing suicide, is simply staggering.

There is another problem, even greater problem with placing things like money and sex on the pedestal. Once you base your worth on the amount of money you earn or amount of sex you get, these values become much more important than the others, arguably more important ones, such as compassion, honesty, integrity, etc. Once your goal is only to accumulate more, you want to accomplish your goal by any means necessary.

And „any means necessary“ don’t necessarily mean extreme measures, like in Elliot Rodger case.

For instance, I know a number of people who cheat on their wife/girlfriend and actually brag about that. They see zero problems in lying to their significant other or doing things behind their back; after all, „getting some“ is the only thing that matters, right?

I know a friend who is a brilliant engineer and whose boss fired him after he invented a revolutionary electronic device superior to similar devices on the market. Despite promising him a share in the company and despite the fact that he already has two successful companies behind him, which essentially makes him a millionaire, he was ready to get rid of a young person only to get a bigger slice of the cake. But hey, the only goal is to earn more money, right?

Is there a better proof that something has gone wrong with our society than this episode of The Weekly Show, in which John Oliver exposes a dialysis company that switched the patients so quickly, that they haven’t managed to disinfect the equipment properly between two treatments.⁽⁷⁾ Last Week Tonight:  Dialysis

Yes, you heard that right. Profit has become more important than human lives. But hey, 750 million dollars in last year!!

Naturally, I don’t want to say that external measures of success are completely irrelevant. But I do think that there is too much emphasis on them and that, by focusing on „things“, we have somehow forgotten to focus on something that really matters.

Something like other people.

5.Start fucking paying attention to others

I still find it amazing that no one realized what Elliot is really going to do. He did have a number of close friends throughout his life and an army of experts who had the task of helping him solve his problems. He went to the psychiatrist regularly, he met with life coaches and dating experts, but none of them realized the severity of the situation and the problem in front of them.

The psychiatrist simply provided him with some medication Elliot refused to take. One life coach openly talked about his sex life, while the other merely reinforced Elliot’s inferiority complex by saying that people on campus are terrible and there is nothing Elliot can do but leave. None of them showed understanding of Elliot’s mental state or the position he was in; they blabbed about their own experience and tried to give him advice from their own perspective.

I don’t want to point a finger at anyone, but I think that everything could have been prevented if someone had paid some serious attention to Elliot. I don’t think that people around him tried to hear him out and relate to him (you might remember this BMW purchase by his mother just a couple of months before the „Day of Retribution.“). Even if we assume he way beyond saving, someone should have reacted, probably even put him in the hospital, only to ensure the safety of the other people.

In the manifesto, Elliot cried for help on multiple occasions. For instance, he writes that:

„ No one knew me or extended a hand to help me.“

Also, I think that some part of him really didn’t want to commit and execute the „Day of Retribution.“ After all, he planned on taking his own life from the very start and it is natural that he feared it. He desperately wanted to find a way out, but unfortunately, was unable to do so on his own:

„I always wanted to exact my revenge on humanity for forcing me to live such a life, but I’ve also always had the hope that if I can do things in life to make up for all my suffering, then that in itself would be a form  of peaceful revenge.“

I think that in this era of individualism where we chase the external goals described above, paying attention to other people has become a forgotten art. It is no wonder that various authors suggest precisely paying more attention as the best way of prevention of similar incidents happening in the future. Mark Manson calls it empathy ⁽⁸⁾Mark Manson: How We all Miss The Point In School Shootings, the guy in this video calls it random acts of kindness, I would call it compassion, simply in order to be unique in my choice of words.

Elliot Rodger was certainly not the person you dream of hanging out with.  I am aware that paying attention and saying a kind word is extremely difficult.

Hell, just the other day, I went out with a group of friends, when this „creepy“ kind of guy approached us and asked us whether we consider him a freak. And my friend, without any particular reason, without knowing him deeply, without a sign of compassion simply answered: „Yes you do.“  The guy left with a depressed look on his face and we continued to have fun like nothing happened.

I didn’t do anything. I didn’t stop my friend. I didn’t talk to this stranger. I didn’t ask him what troubles him or why he asks us these kinds of questions in the middle of the night. With hindsight, I most certainly should have done something in the situation above. Because, sometimes, just one word, just one sentence or just one interaction might do wonders.

Sometimes, you never know, you might save someone’s life.⁽⁹⁾Man Reunited Stranger Suicide Attempt London Bridge – The Guardian