BS, I wonder sometimes about the most effective ways to reach people like this. Make more schools show American History X to their 9th graders? Seems to me that as attention spans have 'shrunk' in the modern world that media and such are the ways to show people the dark side of white nationalism in a way that also shows redemption? You're right on the money when it comes to the neo-nazi/gang connection there, but thats largely because the actual Neo-Nazi cells fit the same role that the gangs do in the inner city, right? I almost want to call your comparison cheating
Well, apparently the standard around here is whatever is most convenient for your argument - so I guess my answer should be "people not using the word 'racist' enough". You're the one who's proposed an explanation, back it up with evidence or retract it. Don't try to dodge the issue by asking me for one.
I'm asking because I suspect we have the same explanation for this violence: jihad is a reaction to the perception that the Muslim identity is under attack from Western culture. When at-risk Muslims feel this way, they seek out associates and media which validate those feelings and cut themselves off from the rest, consuming jihadist propaganda until they're ready to die for the Caliphate. When Westerners engage in "clash of civilizations" rhetoric or call Islam an evil religion or threaten to burn a Qur'an, they reinforce this siege mentality and serve as grist for the propaganda mill. Such behavior is to be discouraged. The key to deradicalization and to preventing radicalization is engagement, not demonization.
Gang violence is not all that different. Young men come into socioeconomic circumstances where prosperity through an honest career seems like an impossibility and the pop culture depicts men like them as thugs. If they end up in prison, they're surrounded by other criminals and come out hardened. Again, it's getting cut off from broader engagement and driven into an echo chamber that turns them into dangers to society. And efforts to get them out of gangs focus on things like education and trade skills that can enable them to rejoin that society. Just berating them for being criminals is far less likely to get them to stop.
But white nationalists... what? They're just born bad? I don't think so, and I don't think you think so either. Neo-Nazis get recruited the same way jihadists and gang members get recruited, and they respond the same way to the same sorts of carrots and sticks.
You're just moving the goalposts. Your statement wasn't about what makes people become extremists, it was about what causes people who are extremists to commit violence:
Extremists are more likely to commit violence when they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option.
You're just moving the goalposts. Your statement wasn't about what makes people become extremists, it was about what causes people who are extremists to commit violence
Where's the line between extremist and non-extremist? Because if one (reasonably) says it's a rough spectrum:
Gandhi Joe Schmoe
Average Joe Schmoe
Extremist Sympathizer Joe Schmoe
Extremist Joe Schmoe
Violent Extremist Joe Schmoe
... then the cause for moving one way or other on said spectrum could be the same.
Well, apparently the standard around here is whatever is most convenient for your argument - so I guess my answer should be "people not using the word 'racist' enough". You're the one who's proposed an explanation, back it up with evidence or retract it. Don't try to dodge the issue by asking me for one.
I'm asking because I suspect we have the same explanation for this violence: jihad is a reaction to the perception that the Muslim identity is under attack from Western culture. When at-risk Muslims feel this way, they seek out associates and media which validate those feelings and cut themselves off from the rest, consuming jihadist propaganda until they're ready to die for the Caliphate. When Westerners engage in "clash of civilizations" rhetoric or call Islam an evil religion or threaten to burn a Qur'an, they reinforce this siege mentality and serve as grist for the propaganda mill. Such behavior is to be discouraged. The key to deradicalization and to preventing radicalization is engagement, not demonization.
Gang violence is not all that different. Young men come into socioeconomic circumstances where prosperity through an honest career seems like an impossibility and the pop culture depicts men like them as thugs. If they end up in prison, they're surrounded by other criminals and come out hardened. Again, it's getting cut off from broader engagement and driven into an echo chamber that turns them into dangers to society. And efforts to get them out of gangs focus on things like education and trade skills that can enable them to rejoin that society. Just berating them for being criminals is far less likely to get them to stop.
But white nationalists... what? They're just born bad? I don't think so, and I don't think you think so either. Neo-Nazis get recruited the same way jihadists and gang members get recruited, and they respond the same way to the same sorts of carrots and sticks.
You're just moving the goalposts. Your statement wasn't about what makes people become extremists, it was about what causes people who are extremists to commit violence:
Extremists are more likely to commit violence when they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option.
Isn't that utterly obvious ?
What cause extremists to cause violence is to move further into extreme political/ideological spectrum to a point where ideological goals become more important then basic values such as respect for life, freedom and property.
BS, I wonder sometimes about the most effective ways to reach people like this. Make more schools show American History X to their 9th graders? Seems to me that as attention spans have 'shrunk' in the modern world that media and such are the ways to show people the dark side of white nationalism in a way that also shows redemption?
I don't think we've hit on a magic bullet approach for deradicalizing people, and unfortunately there probably isn't one. But we can be pretty sure what doesn't work, and that's telling these people they're monsters and they need to crawl in a deep dark hole.
(As for American History X... For people who are already receptive to the message, yes, it does show the dark side and redemption. But for skinheads and skinhead wannabes, it does too good a job of making neo-Nazis look badass. Remember in Jarhead when the marines cheered the napalm scene in Apocalypse Now?)
You're right on the money when it comes to the neo-nazi/gang connection there, but thats largely because the actual Neo-Nazi cells fit the same role that the gangs do in the inner city, right? I almost want to call your comparison cheating
I don't think it's cheating to point out that two very similar things are very similar.
You're just moving the goalposts. Your statement wasn't about what makes people become extremists, it was about what causes people who are extremists to commit violence:
Extremists are more likely to commit violence when they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option.
Not all extremists are violent. The jump from being racist to shooting up black churches is a significant one. Just like the jump from property crime to violent crime, or the jump from aggrieved Islam to suicide bombing.
Where's the line between extremist and non-extremist? Because if one (reasonably) says it's a rough spectrum:
Gandhi Joe Schmoe
Average Joe Schmoe
Extremist Sympathizer Joe Schmoe
Extremist Joe Schmoe
Violent Extremist Joe Schmoe
... then the cause for moving one way or other on said spectrum could be the same.
And the people on both ends are "extremists". Martin Luther King, Jr.: "So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?"
You're just moving the goalposts. Your statement wasn't about what makes people become extremists, it was about what causes people who are extremists to commit violence
Where's the line between extremist and non-extremist? Because if one (reasonably) says it's a rough spectrum:
Gandhi Joe Schmoe
Average Joe Schmoe
Extremist Sympathizer Joe Schmoe
Extremist Joe Schmoe
Violent Extremist Joe Schmoe
... then the cause for moving one way or other on said spectrum could be the same.
All you've done is plop violence on the end of an otherwise non-violent spectrum, and pretended that it constitutes a continuation of that spectrum.
Not all extremists are violent. The jump from being racist to shooting up black churches is a significant one. Just like the jump from property crime to violent crime, or the jump from aggrieved Islam to suicide bombing.
Yes, so the question is what makes someone who is an extremist turn to violence. Not what makes someone become an extremist. Do you really think neo-nazis are a peaceful bunch until they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option? Neo-nazis have never struck me as a "violence is the last resort" type.
Yes, so the question is what makes someone who is an extremist turn to violence. Not what makes someone become an extremist. Do you really think neo-nazis are a peaceful bunch until they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option? Neo-nazis have never struck me as a "violence is the last resort" type.
Yes, the question is what makes someone who is an extremist turn to violence. That question intrinsically requires looking at nonviolent extremists, to see when and why they drop the "non-" bit. So: what makes a nonviolent white nationalist, or a nonviolent street criminal, or a nonviolent Islamist, turn into a violent one? I've already answered the question: alienation and an echo chamber. If you say, "I don't care about these nonviolent types, tell me about the violent ones", you're moving the goalposts, and nonsensically so. What makes violent people turn violent? They can't turn violent. They're already violent. The matter is tautological.
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Yes, the question is what makes someone who is an extremist turn to violence. That question intrinsically requires looking at nonviolent extremists, to see when and why they drop the "non-" bit. So: what makes a nonviolent white nationalist, or a nonviolent street criminal, or a nonviolent Islamist, turn into a violent one? I've already answered the question: alienation and an echo chamber. If you say, "I don't care about these nonviolent types, tell me about the violent ones", you're moving the goalposts, and nonsensically so. What makes violent people turn violent? They can't turn violent. They're already violent. The matter is tautological.
I'm not saying "I don't care about the non-violent types", I'm saying I don't care about the transition from non-violent non-extremist to non-violent extremist. I care about the transition from non-violent extremist to violent extremist. The answer you previously gave to this question was, "they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option". That's not really the same as "alienation and an echo chamber", is it?
Does either of those answers explain the rise in hate crimes after Trump's election? Does it explain why Dylan Roof went from non-violent white supremacist to murderer? Roof wasn't in an echo chamber - his friends and associates were not supremacists. Instead, it seems he was driven to violence through online self-radicalization. He was turned violent by reading supremacist websites, and deciding to take matters into his own hands. He said he googled "black on white crime" and the result that came up was the CCC website. It was the ready availability of unchallenged racist literature that created him, not being attacked by anti-racists.
The answer you previously gave to this question was, "they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option". That's not really the same as "alienation and an echo chamber", is it?
Does either of those answers explain the rise in hate crimes after Trump's election?
Has there been a rise in hate crimes after Trump's election? Last I saw even Mother Jones was saying the evidence was anecdotal. Let's not fall prey to the same trap of letting anecdotes reinforce a preexisting narrative.
Instead, it seems he was driven to violence through online self-radicalization. He was turned violent by reading supremacist websites, and deciding to take matters into his own hands. He said he googled "black on white crime" and the result that came up was the CCC website.
So Roof for some reason decided to turn away from his offline non-racist friends and associates, and you say this isn't alienation? He turned to white supremacist websites where he was subjected to an unbroken stream of racist ideology, and you say this isn't an echo chamber? He googled "black on white crime" indicating some worry that white people were under attack by black people, and you say this isn't a siege mentality?
Has there been a rise in hate crimes after Trump's election? Last I saw even Mother Jones was saying the evidence was anecdotal. Let's not fall prey to the same trap of letting anecdotes reinforce a preexisting narrative.
I'm certainly willing to entertain the possibility that the trend is not the way numbers make it appear (perhaps due to reporting bias or otherwise), but I'm not sure it's true that the evidence is purely anecdotal.
So Roof for some reason decided to turn away from his offline non-racist friends and associates, and you say this isn't alienation?
I don't think it's true that he decided to turn away from his friends and associates. He lived with his friends right up until the murders. He made racist comments from time to time, but they shrugged it off. He wasn't driven away from them, he wasn't berated or made to feel embarrassed or ashamed.
He turned to white supremacist websites where he was subjected to an unbroken stream of racist ideology, and you say this isn't an echo chamber?
That seems like a bit of a stretch. Is it really the case that any reading of supremacist literature constitutes an echo chamber, regardless of whether you're also being exposed to other media and voices?
He googled "black on white crime" indicating some worry that white people were under attack by black people, and you say this isn't a siege mentality?
If the previous attempt was a bit of a stretch, then this is a huge leap. He googled that because of the Trayvon Martin incident, not because he felt he was under attack.
So are we supposed to challenge racist literature, or does engaging it in argument legitimize it? I can't figure out where you stand today.
You should challenge it with the perspective that it is illegitimate and unacceptable. Not in the manner one might debate, say, the capital gains tax, in which different perspectives are all potentially valid answers.
I'm certainly willing to entertain the possibility that the trend is not the way numbers make it appear (perhaps due to reporting bias or otherwise), but I'm not sure it's true that the evidence is purely anecdotal.
I'm not sure it is either. And my case certainly doesn't rest on what you say not being true. I'm just throwing out a cautionary note.
I don't think it's true that he decided to turn away from his friends and associates. He lived with his friends right up until the murders. He made racist comments from time to time, but they shrugged it off. He wasn't driven away from them, he wasn't berated or made to feel embarrassed or ashamed.
But he decided to take the opinion of some faceless weirdos on the internet over them.
That seems like a bit of a stretch. Is it really the case that any reading of supremacist literature constitutes an echo chamber, regardless of whether you're also being exposed to other media and voices?
I'm not exactly unique in calling online communities with strong ideological leanings "echo chambers". It's not just a matter of raw exposure, it's a matter of belonging and trust. Most of the diehards who frequent Stormfront or Tumblr or LessWrong or wherever are almost certainly exposed to other media, they just don't listen to them.
If the previous attempt was a bit of a stretch, then this is a huge leap. He googled that because of the Trayvon Martin incident, not because he felt he was under attack.
I was around for the Trayvon Martin incident too, but I didn't google "black on white crime" or climb down the rabbit hole of racism. Something within him primed him to be susceptible to this literature. And the phrasing of his Google query is, I think, extremely revealing as to what that was. If nothing else, there's the fact that the Trayvon Martin incident was white on black.
You should challenge it with the perspective that it is illegitimate and unacceptable. Not in the manner one might debate, say, the capital gains tax, in which different perspectives are all potentially valid answers.
If you're debating the capital gains tax, you don't think different perspectives are all potentially valid -- you think your perspective is the correct one and the others are incorrect. The difference is that "incorrect" in the case of the capital gains tax means "maybe a bit less economic efficiency", whereas "incorrect" in the case of racism means "moral evil".
But he decided to take the opinion of some faceless weirdos on the internet over them.
His friends didn't attempt to dissuade him, they just brushed his racist remarks off. There was no choosing the internet over them.
Even if that were the case, does that mean I am alienated from my conservative friends because I put more stock in the opinions of internet pundits I read over theirs?
I'm not exactly unique in calling online communities with strong ideological leanings "echo chambers". It's not just a matter of raw exposure, it's a matter of belonging and trust. Most of the diehards who frequent Stormfront or Tumblr or LessWrong or wherever are almost certainly exposed to other media, they just don't listen to them.
If this is your definition of being in an echo chamber, it applies to a huge number of people, not just violent extremists. How then can it be the explanation for violence?
I was around for the Trayvon Martin incident too, but I didn't google "black on white crime" or climb down the rabbit hole of racism. Something within him primed him to be susceptible to this literature. And the phrasing of his Google query is, I think, extremely revealing as to what that was. If nothing else, there's the fact that the Trayvon Martin incident was white on black.
Roof says he googled "black on white crime" and was "in disbelief" over what he found. If he felt white people were under attack prior to googling, why would he be in disbelief?
If you're debating the capital gains tax, you don't think different perspectives are all potentially valid -- you think your perspective is the correct one and the others are incorrect. The difference is that "incorrect" in the case of the capital gains tax means "maybe a bit less economic efficiency", whereas "incorrect" in the case of racism means "moral evil".
Blinking Spirit, I think you're missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. I grew up with someone who is literally a racist pedophile (same age, I was never abused, he's in jail now).
[...]
As someone who has actually seen some of the worst that humanity has to offer I really can't abide this "don't call them racist" crap. Allowing the ideology the chance to thrive only has negative consequences down the road.
That's an interesting story (not being sarcastic), but:
1. I think the fact that he's a pedophile hurts your case, rather than helps it. It introduces an extraneous variable. Most racists are not also pedophiles. This guy sounds like a pretty extreme case. It sounds kind of like you're saying, "I didn't call this guy out on being a racist, and now he's in jail for molesting someone."
2. Do you think most "deplorables" really are in this situation, where they had every opportunity to get a grip, but never took it?
3. If you had known that continuing to be his friend wouldn't help him, what would you have done?
His friends didn't attempt to dissuade him, they just brushed his racist remarks off. There was no choosing the internet over them.
I don't think we can make a claim like that without having video footage of his life and reviewing the interactions he had with his friends. What we can say is that friends generally have a profound influence on one's own worldview. I mean, I'd like to think that I'm anti-racist because the pure light of moral truth shines through that position to be apprehended by my superior rational mind, but the truth is more likely that I'm anti-racist because my friends and family are anti-racist (and that hopefully this network of people is spread wide enough to maybe catch the occasional glimpse of the pure light of moral truth). So when somebody takes a sharp right turn from their peer group, that's significant.
Even if that were the case, does that mean I am alienated from my conservative friends because I put more stock in the opinions of internet pundits I read over theirs?
If this is your definition of being in an echo chamber, it applies to a huge number of people, not just violent extremists. How then can it be the explanation for violence?
Lots of people smoke cigarettes without getting lung cancer, but if you want to know why somebody got lung cancer you should still start with the fact that their hobby is inhaling burning tar.
Roof says he googled "black on white crime" and was "in disbelief" over what he found. If he felt white people were under attack prior to googling, why would he be in disbelief?
Um... he pretty obviously did believe it.
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But I entirely reject the idea that his sins are somehow my responsibility because I decided that his actions could no longer be tolerated when he called me a race traitor on the night in 2007 when Obama was elected to POTUS.
They're not your responsibility. Nobody is saying you have to put up with those kind of people in your life forever -- you have a right to be happy and to choose your friends. But it's a very difficult situation, because the brute psychological fact is that your pushback, however reasonable on your end, probably did feed into his twisted worldview. I mean, "race traitor"? You actually "betraying" him by cutting him out is not exactly going to dissuade him from that narrative.
It's like how on one level, fighting ISIS terrorists is a perfectly justified response to them trying to kill or conquer everyone else, but on their level, it confirms the belief that America is at war against Islam. It's not America's fault that fighting terrorists often creates more terrorists, we're not responsible for the terrorists' crimes, but it is an effect we should be aware of, and maybe start thinking about how we can counteract.
The reality is that a lot of people who get trapped in these echo-chambers of extremism, who need a helping hand to get out ARE OFFERED THAT HAND and ARE SURROUNDED BY GOOD PEOPLE (at least some of the time) and REJECT IT. Because who knows why. Either biologically they're out of whack and can't make the right choices or they've been raised in a truly messed up mental system that they can't hack their way out of.
Nobody said there was a magic bullet solution. In fact, I believe I already said there wasn't.
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I don't think we can make a claim like that without having video footage of his life and reviewing the interactions he had with his friends. What we can say is that friends generally have a profound influence on one's own worldview. I mean, I'd like to think that I'm anti-racist because the pure light of moral truth shines through that position to be apprehended by my superior rational mind, but the truth is more likely that I'm anti-racist because my friends and family are anti-racist (and that hopefully this network of people is spread wide enough to maybe catch the occasional glimpse of the pure light of moral truth). So when somebody takes a sharp right turn from their peer group, that's significant.
You were willing to make the claim that Roof had turned away from his friends, but the opposite claim requires video evidence? Perhaps instead of video evidence, you'd accept the account of those friends?
For several weeks, Dylann Roof slept on the floor here. He played video games. According to the Meeks, he showed off his new Glock .45-caliber handgun, drank heavily and retreated to his car to listen to opera. And sometimes he confided in his childhood friend Joey, who wasn’t the type to ask questions.
When Roof showed up asking Joey for a place to stay, Joey says, he invited him in without hesitation. When Roof told him that he believed in segregation, Joey didn’t ask why. When Roof mentioned driving two hours to Charleston and visiting a church called Emanuel AME, he didn’t ask anything about it. When Roof said that he was going to “do something crazy,” as Joey remembers it, he and Lindsey hid Roof’s gun but then gave it back, blowing it all off as a drunken episode.
“I didn’t take him seriously,” is what Joey says again and again to the people who keep asking the same questions again and again, including investigators who arrived at the trailer after one of the most notorious mass killings in recent American history.
Lots of people smoke cigarettes without getting lung cancer, but if you want to know why somebody got lung cancer you should still start with the fact that their hobby is inhaling burning tar.
Somehow the lung cancer-smoking link seems a smidge stronger to me than the tumblr-murder link, don't you think?
Um... he pretty obviously did believe it.
That's not what he means by disbelief, and you know it. He means he was shocked at what he found - he didn't go in expecting to find it. He wasn't already convinced when he Googled.
You were willing to make the claim that Roof had turned away from his friends, but the opposite claim requires video evidence? Perhaps instead of video evidence, you'd accept the account of those friends?
I was making a general claim about how friendships work. You were making a specific claim about how these particular friends interacted.
Somehow the lung cancer-smoking link seems a smidge stronger to me than the tumblr-murder link, don't you think?
If anything, it's the other way around. Some people really do just get lung cancer out of the blue. But I have yet to find a violent white nationalist who didn't consume violence-advocating white nationalist literature.
That's not what he means by disbelief, and you know it. He means he was shocked at what he found - he didn't go in expecting to find it. He wasn't already convinced when he Googled.
If he were already convinced, we'd just be asking the tautological question of why violent people are violent again. But he was certainly receptive to it in a way that you and I obviously aren't. White nationalist propaganda may have a frog as its mascot, but it isn't Hypnotoad.
That's something I think you're not understanding here. There's something inside some people that allows them to live a duplicitive life where they are around people who don't believe like they do, who would never support extremism or who are friends to those sorts of people. But they have a filter on the way they view the world and they can be presented with a ton of contrary information & experience and still ignore it.
Dude, I get it. Did you notice how I talked repeatedly about how things look from our perspective versus from their perspective? I thought I even used the word "filter", but it looks like that was in an earlier draft of the paragraph or just in my head. In any case, a filter is exactly what they have.
I was making a general claim about how friendships work. You were making a specific claim about how these particular friends interacted.
No, you were making a specific claim about how these particular friends interacted:
So Roof for some reason decided to turn away from his offline non-racist friends and associates,
But he decided to take the opinion of some faceless weirdos on the internet over them.
I don't know. How often are these pundits telling you that you should commit murder?
Exactly as often as Roof's CCC website: never.
If anything, it's the other way around. Some people really do just get lung cancer out of the blue. But I have yet to find a violent white nationalist who didn't consume white nationalist literature.
That's because you haven't examined the reading habits of more than at most a handful of violent white nationalists.
If he were already convinced, we'd just be asking the tautological question of why violent people are violent again. But he was certainly receptive to it in a way that you or I obviously aren't. White nationalist propaganda isn't freaking Hypnotoad.
Being convinced that white people are under attack is not the same as being violent. That's not tautological in the least. Why is his apparent receptiveness proof of your hypothesis that he felt "under siege" and not indicative of, say, a lack of critical thinking skills and general gullibility?
I think it’s disingenuous to call “racism” any discrimination based on race, as measured by objective outcomes. I know that the intent of specific legislation (Civil Rights, etc) was to prohibit discrimination in certain contexts like the workplace, but I’d caution against looking at that like it’s racism. It’s not the dictionary definition, or the social definition.
I'm really having a hard time understanding what you're saying. Are you saying that discrimination in the workplace is not racism?
I think he means anti-discrimination laws are not discrimination except in the most literal reading of the word.
You're just moving the goalposts. Your statement wasn't about what makes people become extremists, it was about what causes people who are extremists to commit violence:
Where's the line between extremist and non-extremist? Because if one (reasonably) says it's a rough spectrum:
Gandhi Joe Schmoe
Average Joe Schmoe
Extremist Sympathizer Joe Schmoe
Extremist Joe Schmoe
Violent Extremist Joe Schmoe
... then the cause for moving one way or other on said spectrum could be the same.
Isn't that utterly obvious ?
What cause extremists to cause violence is to move further into extreme political/ideological spectrum to a point where ideological goals become more important then basic values such as respect for life, freedom and property.
(As for American History X... For people who are already receptive to the message, yes, it does show the dark side and redemption. But for skinheads and skinhead wannabes, it does too good a job of making neo-Nazis look badass. Remember in Jarhead when the marines cheered the napalm scene in Apocalypse Now?)
I don't think it's cheating to point out that two very similar things are very similar.
Not all extremists are violent. The jump from being racist to shooting up black churches is a significant one. Just like the jump from property crime to violent crime, or the jump from aggrieved Islam to suicide bombing.
And the people on both ends are "extremists". Martin Luther King, Jr.: "So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?"
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
All you've done is plop violence on the end of an otherwise non-violent spectrum, and pretended that it constitutes a continuation of that spectrum.
Yes, so the question is what makes someone who is an extremist turn to violence. Not what makes someone become an extremist. Do you really think neo-nazis are a peaceful bunch until they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option? Neo-nazis have never struck me as a "violence is the last resort" type.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
?
I don't understand what goalpost I've moved.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I'm not saying "I don't care about the non-violent types", I'm saying I don't care about the transition from non-violent non-extremist to non-violent extremist. I care about the transition from non-violent extremist to violent extremist. The answer you previously gave to this question was, "they feel like they're under siege and violence is the only option". That's not really the same as "alienation and an echo chamber", is it?
Does either of those answers explain the rise in hate crimes after Trump's election? Does it explain why Dylan Roof went from non-violent white supremacist to murderer? Roof wasn't in an echo chamber - his friends and associates were not supremacists. Instead, it seems he was driven to violence through online self-radicalization. He was turned violent by reading supremacist websites, and deciding to take matters into his own hands. He said he googled "black on white crime" and the result that came up was the CCC website. It was the ready availability of unchallenged racist literature that created him, not being attacked by anti-racists.
Has there been a rise in hate crimes after Trump's election? Last I saw even Mother Jones was saying the evidence was anecdotal. Let's not fall prey to the same trap of letting anecdotes reinforce a preexisting narrative.
So Roof for some reason decided to turn away from his offline non-racist friends and associates, and you say this isn't alienation? He turned to white supremacist websites where he was subjected to an unbroken stream of racist ideology, and you say this isn't an echo chamber? He googled "black on white crime" indicating some worry that white people were under attack by black people, and you say this isn't a siege mentality?
So are we supposed to challenge racist literature, or does engaging it in argument legitimize it? I can't figure out where you stand today.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
SPLC has numbers on it: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/18/update-incidents-hateful-harassment-election-day-now-number-701
I'm certainly willing to entertain the possibility that the trend is not the way numbers make it appear (perhaps due to reporting bias or otherwise), but I'm not sure it's true that the evidence is purely anecdotal.
I don't think it's true that he decided to turn away from his friends and associates. He lived with his friends right up until the murders. He made racist comments from time to time, but they shrugged it off. He wasn't driven away from them, he wasn't berated or made to feel embarrassed or ashamed.
That seems like a bit of a stretch. Is it really the case that any reading of supremacist literature constitutes an echo chamber, regardless of whether you're also being exposed to other media and voices?
If the previous attempt was a bit of a stretch, then this is a huge leap. He googled that because of the Trayvon Martin incident, not because he felt he was under attack.
You should challenge it with the perspective that it is illegitimate and unacceptable. Not in the manner one might debate, say, the capital gains tax, in which different perspectives are all potentially valid answers.
But he decided to take the opinion of some faceless weirdos on the internet over them.
I'm not exactly unique in calling online communities with strong ideological leanings "echo chambers". It's not just a matter of raw exposure, it's a matter of belonging and trust. Most of the diehards who frequent Stormfront or Tumblr or LessWrong or wherever are almost certainly exposed to other media, they just don't listen to them.
I was around for the Trayvon Martin incident too, but I didn't google "black on white crime" or climb down the rabbit hole of racism. Something within him primed him to be susceptible to this literature. And the phrasing of his Google query is, I think, extremely revealing as to what that was. If nothing else, there's the fact that the Trayvon Martin incident was white on black.
If you're debating the capital gains tax, you don't think different perspectives are all potentially valid -- you think your perspective is the correct one and the others are incorrect. The difference is that "incorrect" in the case of the capital gains tax means "maybe a bit less economic efficiency", whereas "incorrect" in the case of racism means "moral evil".
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
His friends didn't attempt to dissuade him, they just brushed his racist remarks off. There was no choosing the internet over them.
Even if that were the case, does that mean I am alienated from my conservative friends because I put more stock in the opinions of internet pundits I read over theirs?
If this is your definition of being in an echo chamber, it applies to a huge number of people, not just violent extremists. How then can it be the explanation for violence?
Roof says he googled "black on white crime" and was "in disbelief" over what he found. If he felt white people were under attack prior to googling, why would he be in disbelief?
Yes, that's what I meant.
That's an interesting story (not being sarcastic), but:
1. I think the fact that he's a pedophile hurts your case, rather than helps it. It introduces an extraneous variable. Most racists are not also pedophiles. This guy sounds like a pretty extreme case. It sounds kind of like you're saying, "I didn't call this guy out on being a racist, and now he's in jail for molesting someone."
2. Do you think most "deplorables" really are in this situation, where they had every opportunity to get a grip, but never took it?
3. If you had known that continuing to be his friend wouldn't help him, what would you have done?
Maybe.
Lots of people smoke cigarettes without getting lung cancer, but if you want to know why somebody got lung cancer you should still start with the fact that their hobby is inhaling burning tar.
Um... he pretty obviously did believe it.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
It's like how on one level, fighting ISIS terrorists is a perfectly justified response to them trying to kill or conquer everyone else, but on their level, it confirms the belief that America is at war against Islam. It's not America's fault that fighting terrorists often creates more terrorists, we're not responsible for the terrorists' crimes, but it is an effect we should be aware of, and maybe start thinking about how we can counteract.
Nobody said there was a magic bullet solution. In fact, I believe I already said there wasn't.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You were willing to make the claim that Roof had turned away from his friends, but the opposite claim requires video evidence? Perhaps instead of video evidence, you'd accept the account of those friends?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/09/12/an-american-void/
At what point should I expect this alienation to drive me to murder?
Somehow the lung cancer-smoking link seems a smidge stronger to me than the tumblr-murder link, don't you think?
That's not what he means by disbelief, and you know it. He means he was shocked at what he found - he didn't go in expecting to find it. He wasn't already convinced when he Googled.
I don't know. How often are these pundits telling you that you should commit murder?
If anything, it's the other way around. Some people really do just get lung cancer out of the blue. But I have yet to find a violent white nationalist who didn't consume violence-advocating white nationalist literature.
If he were already convinced, we'd just be asking the tautological question of why violent people are violent again. But he was certainly receptive to it in a way that you and I obviously aren't. White nationalist propaganda may have a frog as its mascot, but it isn't Hypnotoad.
I put "betraying" in scare-quotes specifically to connote that you weren't actually betraying him, but only doing it in his own mind.
Dude, I get it. Did you notice how I talked repeatedly about how things look from our perspective versus from their perspective? I thought I even used the word "filter", but it looks like that was in an earlier draft of the paragraph or just in my head. In any case, a filter is exactly what they have.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
No, you were making a specific claim about how these particular friends interacted:
Exactly as often as Roof's CCC website: never.
That's because you haven't examined the reading habits of more than at most a handful of violent white nationalists.
Being convinced that white people are under attack is not the same as being violent. That's not tautological in the least. Why is his apparent receptiveness proof of your hypothesis that he felt "under siege" and not indicative of, say, a lack of critical thinking skills and general gullibility?
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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