As a political movement, of course, white nationalism is noxious and intolerable to polite society. But psychologically, the individuals can be modeled as socially stunted and often traumatized adolescents.
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I saw the documentary White Right recently. It taught me to see white nationalists as angsty teens going through a “fuck the world” stage. The main differences are (1) they never grew out of it, and (2) as adults, they’ve linked up into an awkward club.
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I find this very thought-provoking. If we take each case individually, they seem to call for compassion, support, maybe some therapy (like e.g. what we would offer to troubled foster kids). But the fact that they’re politically organized demands that we treat them as a threat.
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A teenage “fuck the world” attitude can be pretty ugly too. But it doesn’t have political teeth, so we just roll our eyes while extending empathy to the person behind it.
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Welcome to Leith hits this point home, too. ...but I think it's important to look at white nationalism as a whole meaning-to-life package: community, an enemy, a mission. Looking at lot of these people, I wonder how many other options they had for that
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There's also really no escape hatch once you take on an affiliation like that, especially in the internet era. Imagine trying to rebuild your life if there were footage of you proudly & casually using racial slurs. If you hadn't had options before... welp.
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Interesting. Goes against what I've seen. To me it seemed like they're operating on a sophisticated philosophical underpinning (of course it doesn't stand scrutiny). I'm talking about the Jared Taylors, Molyneux, etc of the world.
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Yeah I think this is true of some of the leaders. The documentary mostly focused on the rank-and-file.
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Yeah, I do think there's these moments where fluctuation in path people go down is in high flux. And for these people it gets cemented where for everyone else they naturally phase out and mature. network/community locking is a hell of a drug
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So we should be encouraging more video game communities, perhaps, as alternate status games with less social harm?
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And just like angsty teens, they love to signal their coolness by promoting "edgy" content and ideas.
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