the alt-right

I do think there needs to be more education not just on racism being a bad thing but the reasons that it is wrong and the problems it creates. Also an acceptance that everyone is racist to some extent and we all need to face up to it, not just "the racists"

But seems like this is part of a wider problem, of course.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, March 26, 2018 7:38 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean the whole point of the alt-right is to normalize racism among people who have been taught that it's taboo. So even MORE messaging that "racism is bad" is not going to be sufficient unless you can provide some kind of framework for why it's bad. The alt-right gets part of its fuel from the "thrill" people get out of breaking a taboo.

m bison from the sound of it you are putting in the good work that pays dividends and I really appreciate that, good on you

thanks! i kinda feel like as the lgbt student club sponsor i have to be extra vigilant about it or else i'd be pretty worthless.

many thanks to you bise for reals

They tend to be nice liberals who have received the right views but have no theoretical framework so they can't really get beyond "what you said is wrong and outside of the scope of what I normally deal with"

They get into this, but never actually mention the word “liberal”

"neurological" and "addiction" are getting at something imo. i know this is #trenchantsocialcommentary but i feel like in general everyone's dopamine cycle is fucked up from the internet and video games and twitter and facebook and politics and primo weed and craft booze and nicotine inhalers and fast food. i know mine is.

― had (crüt), Monday, March 26, 2018 7:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM

i think the thing to take away from it is to be patient, ask questions, correct gently, and be someone that they trust. most of my kids saying this stuff are picking it up from like gamer shit and memes so they really have not heard an educated presentation on the alternatives in most cases.

Good advice in general

m bison that sounds an ideal approach. i recently had a v rough seminar discussion myself with a bunch of young men who evidently got all of their opinions on gender from daily mail headlines and reddit memes, and one of the ways of getting through to them (maybe, a bit) was just pointing out to them that whatever yr position is, there are serious issues here that deserve attention and respect and generally a whole lot more nuance than the "you can't say anything about gender without being called sexist", "if you don't know 68 different genders you'll get yelled at" kind of positions they were trying to start the discussion with.

i shd say that its usually a productive conversation tho i did have one kid last year who was pretty deep in the alt right woods who was reading breitbart and was into g4v1n mac1nn3s and i think wore some Islamophobic sign on his back one time iirc? kinda scared to see what kind of adult he's turned out to be. again, common thread with him was gaming. it's really the ground zero for a lot of this shit.

Is it that gaming is ground zero or that finding relatively little social satisfaction or success outside of gaming is ground zero? From what I understand all the kids are gaming now all the time.

Oh look some hairs let me split them

true, gaming too broad a target here. sweeps in the gentle nerds who i play super smash bros with on thursdays after school who are dope.

maybe its first person shooter fanatics.

m bison that sounds an ideal approach. i recently had a v rough seminar discussion myself with a bunch of young men who evidently got all of their opinions on gender from daily mail headlines and reddit memes, and one of the ways of getting through to them (maybe, a bit) was just pointing out to them that whatever yr position is, there are serious issues here that deserve attention and respect and generally a whole lot more nuance than the "you can't say anything about gender without being called sexist", "if you don't know 68 different genders you'll get yelled at" kind of positions they were trying to start the discussion with.

― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Monday, March 26, 2018 8:59 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

man that sounds rough, its definitely easier in a one on one or two situation than one on a bunch.

also they sound like they are in a hurry to paint themselves as victims of the mob.

if schools have abstinence-only education, that also definitely doesn't help, because if your sex ed program consists of "don't do it" then it definitely isn't going to encompass "what your body looks like or has inside doesn't determine your sexuality or your gender."

From what I understand all the kids are gaming now all the time.

I think that's right, and that also includes tumblr social justice kids - though of course their tastes in games are gonna be different from alt-right kid's.

(citation needed)

That tumblr kids play video games or that the games they play are different from the ones the alt-right plays?

they all just play fortnite

^^ the games people play don't map up with their political beliefs that much, kids just play games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Cleansing_(video_game)

I don't think this was a runaway hit.

I mean https://medium.com/mammon-machine-zeal/ultraviolent-flash-games-after-9-11-b416b836f28e

^^ the games people play don't map up with their political beliefs that much, kids just play games.

Eh, I think there's definitley games that have a stronger following amongst kids who're right on than amongst those worried about white genocide - this doesn't preclude that there aren't a bunch of super-mainstream things the two overlap on.

Yeah, but that's the wrong way around, there's definitely games, such as those on katherine's list, but those would be played by about 0.1% of kids, or even of 'Gamers'. I'm definitely not saying there's not a toxic culture in places, but it's not actually coming from the games as cultural objects.

it's not coming from the games as cultural objects but there is a significant overlap between games communities/forums/etc and alt-right spaces. just like if you get really into certain fandoms you are probably going to encounter Tumblr/former Livejournal users at some point, the further you become a "fan" of games the more likely you are to come into contact with these people

(plus, with AAA games at least, there are so many people involved in so many often tiny roles that "coming from the games as cultural objects" is a steep ask)

yeah the emergence of the gamer identity is the most suspect thing imo, it's inherently defensive and ofc there has been proliferation of anti-SJW type memes and discourse among this crowd, but the overall percentage of gamers involved in these communities is small bc gaming is so fkn huge (>40% of americans, 17% globally, only going to go up (I'm sure you cld make a case for the popularisation of gaming as being one of the drivers of the gamer identity as a reactionary purist subgroup))

with the caveat that I haven't read all that much about it, the discourse around this game seems to stink more than the game itself: http://robertwguthrie.com/whats-racist-about-telling-the-truth-when-historical-accuracy-is-used-to-deny-agency/

Aye, I'm agreeing that it's a steep ask. But not entirely with the previous post - the 'certain fandoms' definitely includes games fandoms too.

in my experience it's different games. there's some overlap, but the overlap tends to be the games that are so big they're practically monolithic -- something like overwatch or pubg for instance

Oh yeah, kingdom come is disgusting. I’ll try to find another good article I read about it.

semi-related

This map of where fights start on Reddit (via @PulsarPlatform) reminds me, appropriately, of a large angry rash. pic.twitter.com/7azcxqokeI

— Tom Ewing (@tomewing) March 27, 2018

(oh duh it was on the casual racism / sexism thread on ILG)

i wanted to finally see what all the fuss was about so i listened to about 45 minutes of a joe rogan podcast w/ jordan peterson and i was struck by 1) how profoundly stupid and intellectually lazy peterson can be; 2) how ignorant dudes like rogan are about what college and universities are actually like; 3) how there is nothing remotely novel about peterson's ideas, they are the same conservative anti-PC trash that has been spouted for decades

with a splash of warmed-over Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I guess?

i'm assuming that when that map is extended to more dimensions the movies/pornography loop gets closed

like i've been feeling a little frustrated myself by the twitter environments i'm in and the extremism and mob culture of some identity politics stuff so i thought hey maybe this person has something intelligent to say but nope it is the same fucking garbage and ignorance

i've worked at five different colleges and universities over the past twelve years, and have attended two others at a student. how rogan and peterson were talking about them in terms of angry mobs pounding on faculty doors w/ demands to acknowledge 70 different gender pronouns and shit is so far from any reality i've seen. that reddit post from a philosophy professor mentioned how his colleagues' "research is generally very boring and unobjectionable" and that is so otm, universities really are these pretty calm and boring places with lots of boring administrative shit happening, faculty meetings w/ information from the sponsored research office, grant applications, bla bla bla it is not that salacious or violent. rogan hasn't been involved w/ any institute of higher ed since he attended college but jfc christ peterson as a professor has no excuse

btw salacious is the wrong word there i think i meant something like sensational lol

m bison's post upthread is just so heartening, thank you

what do you teach? (or was that during extracurricular stuff?)

angry mobs pounding on faculty doors

this did literally happen at the evergreen state college last year, I assume he’s still harping on/extrapolating from that

(not trying to contradict yr larger point, just noting)

Re: video games and angry young men shooters, Dylan Roof was reportedly obsessed with Dance Dance Revolution and the dude from Virgina Tech was remarkable for _not_ playing games

On a very related note, the review embargo on Far Cry 5, a game seemingly to deal with alt-right militia types is up, and the reviews aren’t pretty.

'Far Cry 5' tried to avoid being a game about politics and far right extremism. Instead, it became a perfect celebration of American nationalist violence. My latest: https://t.co/o572bgT1k0

— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) March 27, 2018

It looked at first as though the game would be a referendum on far right extremism. Instead, the writing waffles, politically. @austin_walker has the most clearly articulated article about this over at Waypoint: pic.twitter.com/PTk743GJgs

— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) March 27, 2018

what do you teach? (or was that during extracurricular stuff?)

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 2:09 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i teach government/economics, US history (that's when this most recent convo took place), and academic decathlon/speech and debate.

m bison's post upthread is just so heartening, thank you

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, March 27, 2018 12:27 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3

ah, ok. wonder how possible it would be to have that conversation in, say, a math course. probably not sadly :/

i had that conversation when i taught math, too. im not up at the front lecturing all day, so i circulate while they're working on stuff and we chat.

http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/03/27/alt-right-erupts-after-crying-nazi-christopher-cantwell-admits-hes-a-federal-informant/

work wont let me click thru on that -- salient deets?

Cantwell claims he's helping the Feds to hunt down the *real* criminals (ie, the left), Weev has strenously said otherwise on Gab, and generally horrible people continue to act horribly.

they're all still enormous assholes xp