Let's Be Honest About the Montreal Shooter's Manifesto
Propagandists weaponized excerpts to push agendas
After the tragic shooting in Montreal this past week, the now-dead perpetrator's motivations were revealed in a 104-page manifesto. In Seth Hatfield's document, it becomes clear that his primary motivation was an incel ideology and a hatred of women. In a breakdown of the document by Nora Loreto, his confused jumble of explanations runs the gamut of capitalism, the porn industry and a crude and inaccurate explanation of sexual reproduction he declares "hypergamy." In short, the shooter was motivated by isolation, misogyny and alienation under capitalism.
There can be no doubt that this manifesto attempts to use communist and Marxist rhetoric to support its point. However, if examined honestly, it fails miserably. Hatfield rails that leftists love "the degeneracy the capitalism produces, i.e. obscene levels of mass immigration, rampant hypergamy, the encouragement and promotion of hedonistic bodily mutilation, et cetera." Solutions proposed point to the abolition of private property, nationalized industry and the prevention of women in the workforce.
As anyone who has studied the historical approach of fascism in the past knows, a rhetorical flourish and co-optation of leftist points in service of far-right goals is part of the package. In his act of violence, Hatfield targeted the Pornhub offices in Montreal. He did this not because of a twisted view of the pornography industry as exploitative towards its workers, especially feminized performers, but because he believed it was degrading the modern man. As will be explained later, he supports targeting women in the industry.
Considering the dire socioeconomic state most people find themselves in under the current capitalist system, there is a clear line between this alienation and Marxist explanations. The average young person's understanding of capitalism is far more developed than that of a young person 10+ years ago. However, it is not a refined understanding. Most tools used to understand this system are similar rhetorical flourishes; bite-sized clips simplifying concepts developed over hundreds of pages packaged for mass consumption.
Hatfield's citing of the communist manifesto is a hint towards this. It is the most famous work of anti-capitalist writing, but was ineffectual at the time and has only become important retroactively. The understanding of alienation has been explored more thoughtfully by Marx, specifically as a result of a capitalist economic system. Likewise, Friedrich Engels' Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State tackles these dynamics much more thoughtfully. Their absence in this document reveals the distorted and hollow references to Marxism deployed by Hatfield. Importantly, the explanations in these analyses move away from Hatfield's conclusion that women and porn are the main drivers of problems.
In case it wasn't obvious, even if there were thoughtful developed critiques attached to the violent shooting of Pornhub offices and the resulting murders, it would not justify the actions. Simply put, Hatfield sought to support his misogyny, hate for sex workers and violent fantasies with a theoretical framework. In all manners, it fails.
Of course, you wouldn't know that from those looking to declare Hatfield a communist, antizionist or whatever label most benefits reactionary narratives.
Scott Martin
Terry Newman at the National Post proudly declared Hatfield was a "revolutionary communist." It's truly bizarre to read Newman attempt to explain his motivation was "not lashing out against women" when he explains that Hatfield sees monogamy as "no longer prevalent at all." Hatfield similarly praises communist countries due to there being "little or none of the rampant degeneration of the west" in them, a fetishistic orientalist view of foreign countries.
In a truly abysmal sequence, Newman claims that Hatfield does not actually hate women, because he says their status is a result of a system. His targets then don't include women as a whole, simply porn stars. The fact that women are the public-face of the porn industry, and the subject of most misogynistic ire, does not matter to Newman. The fact that Hatfield writes there is an "unequal distribution of intimacy," leads Newman to conclude this is a transplantation of Marxist critique to intimacy. Despite the obvious fact that even non-Marxists admit there is inequality in capitalism, Marx's critique was not that capitalism distributed wealth inequitably, but how it was fundamentally structured on exploitation. After all, Marx did write three whole books about it.
As CBC News reported, Hatfield followed a mishmash of conspiracy theorists and far-right content. Among many Paul Joseph Watson YouTube videos on his "Favorites" feed, anti-communist videos by "Gott Mit Uns" and a White Army Russian song littered the list. Indeed, Hatfield's ideology was a muddled mess, pulling in many different grievances into his motivations. In an excellent CTVNews article, criminologist and professor Michael Arntfield explained "There’s no core ideology other than aggrieved men who watch a lot of pornography and think that’s how their lives should be." To this end, other grievances like support for Israel, filtered through an antisemitic lens, lace the supposed motivations. Targets include financial institutions and leaders, headquarters "with ties to Zionism," "pickup artists" and plastic surgeons.
It's important to understand the manifesto through the lens of misogyny and incel hatred first and foremost. These are far-right positions. Any justification for this purported in his manifesto must first pass through this. Yes, the conversation should include his purported justifications, but those like Jesse Brown claiming that he was an anti-Zionist terrorist are misleading you. If we are to discuss issues such as these, then we must do so in an intellectually honest way.
