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What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

washingtonian.com

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Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#91

Post by KODeKarnage »

vzcx wrote: post #78
gatherhunterer wrote: post #67

> Sam’s guidance counselor pulled him out of his next class and accused him of “breaking the law.” Before long, he was in the office of a male administrator who informed him that the exchange was “illegal,” hinted that the police were coming, and delivered him into the custody of the school’s resource officer. At the administrator’s instruction, that man ushered Sam into an empty room, handed him a blank sheet of pap…

Yes! This is an anti-public school administration article masquerading as an anti-alt-right article.

It can be both.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#92

Post by vzcx »

h2odragon wrote: post #23

I got removed from a different forum the other day for posting this link along with "people worked up over Nazis vs Commies just need to get outside, meet each other, and see that we're all just folks."

This is a little too... optimistic in my opinion. I dislike both nazis and commies, but it seems clear to me that there are deep and irreconcilable value and cultural conflicts at play in society. Ultimately, these groups do not "speak the same language of Good and Evil," as Nietzsche would say, and are potential precursors to new societies. They should be allowed to part ways, permanently, in my opinion.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#93

Post by meddlepal »

opportune wrote: post #61
i_am_proteus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fewer members of this generation are learning ethics through religion. I'm not religious and I don't believe that religion is necessary for ethics, but I do recognize that religion was a traditional vehicle for introducing young people to an ethical system. Grade-school civics is one solution, but I think there are some other family- and community-based ways (religious or otherwise) we can raise the next generation w…

There can also be secular ethics classes in early high school. I had one in my private school. We covered virtue ethics, deontological ethics, utilitarianism and briefly outline some modern material. Won't give people a great understanding but should at least introduce them to the concept and give them a foundation they can use to learn more

Teaching a particular brand of ethics (religion) over 18 years while a child is growing up as a member of their community is very different from teaching a survey about different ethical systems at a high school level crammed into a semester. The outcome of the latter is "there's a lot of different ways to look at things." No moral compass has been installed.

I say this as a Philosophy degree holder. Arguably I have a lot of ethical training and it shapes some very abstract thinking, but learning all these systems and poking at them does not make me an ethical person.

Personally I got lucky that my parents instilled some decent values in me and taught me to value critical thinking skills. I'm not really sure what the solution is, an awful lot people are not getting that today.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#95

Post by opportune »

davidw wrote: post #24
CalChris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in Italy and my boss was very conscious of the fact that his neighbor was a Fascist. I saw VV graffiti in the streets.

I lived in Italy for many years, and one of the more dismaying aspects of the culture is how much some people still identify with actual fascists and communists. They're both terrible ideas that should be widely repudiated by both left and right.

I don't really understand why you're writing as if people who want to eliminate minorities are as bad as people who want to eliminate inequality. It's not relevant

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#96

Post by Jotra7 »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #33
boapnuaput wrote: post #19

Fascism is seductive. It has little idological substance aside from that needed to apologize for promoting the ethnostate, and instead operates on style and spectacle. We let our teenagers become broadcasters, influencers, reviewers, and players, but failed to teach them how to avoid being parasocially suckered, influenced, gaslit, and used as pawns. Perhaps we need to craft an educational system which is more substa…

Fewer members of this generation are learning ethics through religion. I'm not religious and I don't believe that religion is necessary for ethics, but I do recognize that religion was a traditional vehicle for introducing young people to an ethical system. Grade-school civics is one solution, but I think there are some other family- and community-based ways (religious or otherwise) we can raise the next generation w…

[dead]

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#97

Post by ip26 »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #88

I was totally onboard with this article until the last sentence. I was enjoying this article as an exploration of emotional vulnerability, the connection between beliefs and belonging, the mixed blessing of internet anonimity. But if the (suspiciously articulate) kid goes from alt-right to antifa, I don't think that's any sort of progress to be applauded. I interpreted the article's point to be that alt-right is just…

Presumably the author & son are alluding to the middle-aged man holding the poster, which I should hope is obviously nowhere near the same as antifa.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#98

Post by traderjane »

hinkley wrote: post #36

> Sam prides himself on questioning conventional wisdom and subjecting claims to intellectual scrutiny. For kids today, that means Googling stuff. One might think these searches would turn up a variety of perspectives, including at least a few compelling counterarguments. One would be wrong. The Google searches flooded his developing brain with endless bias-confirming “proof” to back up whichever specious alt-right s…

But how does one respect the intellect and agency of one's peers when one feels the public can be "damaged" merely by the local maxima of YouTube or Facebook's recommendation systems?

It's like YouTube showed me too many spiritual videos, and now I give all my money to Scientology.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#99

Post by KODeKarnage »

ukulele wrote: post #13

> He would be offline for a month and would need other mods to cover for him. To ask for help, he had to out himself as a kid. I wonder to what extent the alt-right actually is a young teen movement, with adults mixed in (being the ones who show in person). Is there any at least semi-reliable data on this?

Almost every "movement" is a teen movement. They're the ones who feel most passionate about, well ... anything, the ones who have had the least life experience countering what's being "revealed" to them, the ones with time on their hands, the ones with few other distracting responsibilities, and the ones most likely to believe in simple solutions to problems they don't fully comprehend. Teens are the ideal foot soldiers for any movement. Yes, on both sides.

Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right

#100

Post by razakel »

sarcasmOrTears wrote: post #62
longerthoughts wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Truth is you're all a bunch of totalitarians who want impose your ideas and don't like free speech You can support free speech without supporting all of the things people choose to do with it.

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