Kevin Simler

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.

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.

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.

I watched a Netflix documentary and…didn’t go into a mind-numbing haze.

?

You’re “learning” from a topical Netflix documentary in which an attractive woman disarms men who clearly are acting different because of her looks which she admits on a podcast about it. This tells us just about nothing.

But that’s the whole point! If they can be coaxed out of their ideology by just a bit of attention from an attractive woman, it suggests they’re socially stunted rather than healthy citizens with serious philosophical/political commitments.

I’d be much more interested if you told me that she cherry-picked her interview subjects, and that they’re not at all representative of the bulk of white nationalists. Which for all I know is true