General Discussion

usonian

(25,324 posts) Tue Jan 30, 2024, 04:34 PM Jan 2024

What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right (2019)

And found his way out.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/05/05/what-happened-after-my-13-year-old-son-joined-the-alt-right/#The-Crime-

Just a little from the linked article:

One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Sam laughed. A girl at the table overheard their private conversation, misconstrued it as a sexual reference, and reported it as sexual harassment. 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 paper, and instructed him to write a “statement of guilt.”
...

But the transfer, midyear, to a new school—after he’d been wrongly accused, unfairly treated, then unceremoniously dropped by his friends—shattered Sam. He felt totally alone. I counseled patience, naively unprepared for what came next: when he found people to talk to on Reddit and 4chan.

... long period of darkness for the kid ...

One night last fall, I left a stack of these articles on Sam’s bed when he wasn’t around. The story about how the alt-right purposely recruits depressed kids was on top. I walked back to my room, propped myself up in bed, and started catching up on e-mails.

...

“I hated myself,” he admitted. “I felt trapped. And now I feel so stupid.” He started sobbing, raggedly, struggling to catch his breath. “Why would adults want to do that? Why would they want to fool kids? How could I fall for it?” I explained that he’d been a pawn in a much larger game. At age 13, suddenly friendless, he couldn’t be expected to understand how he was being manipulated or how technology made it easier for the online alt-right to find him.

OPINION:
Long story short, he found that he had been taken advantage of. They didn't solve his discontent (based on a school incident, and who doesn't have bad incidents in their life?).

I've seen this happen to kids in a funk get recruited by religions that only offer more regimentation. Sometimes, people just need emotional support and respect, and find it, only to learn that it was not sincere. The recruiter just wanted dissatisfied people to join their own group of dissatisfied people on a downward spiral, and no uplift.

Apocalyptic thinking is common, since at times, people feel like just burning it all down.

Understanding how people fall for maga (and other) culthood offers us insights into how we as individuals and as a society can show kids positive ways to deal with distress, misfortune and loneliness rather than cults finding them first. It is my observation that cults (and that includes organizations like the Mafia, KKK and businesses run by tyrants --- you know one in particular) offer a feeling of "insider" membership, and usually with a "reward" of sanctioning something that's forbidden outside of the cult, such as overt racism, misogyny, antisemitism, theft, violence and so on. The cults are ultimately self-destructive for members, but that's masked by the emotional "kick" they get.

As for kids, who hasn't had a run-in with some kind of authority? In the 60's, we would blame "The Man" and take left-wing positions against a society that was mainly very conservative. So now, the right-wingers make like society has been taken over by the left-wing (it hasn't, not by a light year) but they create that image and attract the disaffected and rebellious to their downward spiral of denial and grievance.

See the references below, especially Anne Wilson Schaef for symptoms which were meant to describe addiction, but I find that the same mechanisms are at work in cult capture, indoctrination, perverse appeal and lock-in.

References:
Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia
Anne Wilson Schaef: The Addictive Organization
Anne Wilson Schaef: When Society Becomes an Addict
WILLARD GAYLIN, M. D.: Hatred - The Psychological Descent into Violence
David P. Barash, Judith Eve Lipton: Payback: Why We Retaliate, Redirect Aggression, and Take Revenge

In the end, the "big lie" is the one that's pitched: Your problems are the fault of such-and-such group, and here's the (cooked) proof, instead of telling people that shit indeed happens, so deal with it, and seek help from people who will build you up rather than tearing others down. In my life, I have found that bitching and blaming have done me zero amount of good, whereas strapping on the tool belt, facing the problem, and finding help and support from positive people and groups helps.

And in addition, I suggest that we encourage young people to read. Books.
The internet is full of disconnected snippets designed mainly to grab attention; disconnected kibble and bits.
A well written book has continuity, context, and flow.
And, in addition, despite changing times, people are people. Our psychology has changed little over long stretches of time.

People have had similar problems forever.

Weak people try to cut people down to their own size by projecting their fears and weaknesses onto others.
Strong people build others up. 🪷