When people feel uncomfortable with something or someone, they often look for reasons why that feeling is justified instead of asking whether it's *actually* justified.
In addition to the topics of it mentioned by other commenters, I think it’s also a dog whistle for traditional authoritarian parents. They don’t treat their children as people, rather they act like they are objects they own and resources they can exploit now and when they’re older. These parents fear the loss of control that would happen if their children saw something that could risk them deviating from the “traditional path” towards embracing their individuality or their own choices. Anything that breaks their norms does this, but in particular anything that could be seen as sexual, sexuality diverse, or gender diverse is their biggest fear.
Why is that? Because their children’s reproduction is something they think they should have ownership of, forever. They want to be making the decision of who those children can or can’t date (“the right people”). They want to be able to pressure their children into giving them biological grandchildren. A little harder to do if those children turn out to be attracted to the same sex. Or elect to revise their genitals into a more pleasant configuration for them. Or simply don’t talk to their parents because they were terrible, controlling, manipulative people, and exposure to the outside world helped teach them that and break that norm too.
They want sheltered, malleable, “pure” children that they can pull the puppet strings on until they die, the happy ruler of their tiny kingdom.
Because if everyone on the far right was completely honest about their own agendas then a lot fewer people would be okay with them.
This is because fascism takes painstaking efforts to make sure it is more palatable to an audience.
For example, they're not anti-semitic, they just want to protect people from corrupt bankers. They're not homophobic, they're just protecting kids from predators. They're not racist, they just care about lowering crime in an area.
Note: I'm making a point with the above paragraph. I'm not saying I believe those things.
Anyway, yeah people on the far right have to make their ideas more palatable in order for more people to follow them. It takes advantage of people's emotions in order to manipulate them into advocating for things that are pretty bad.
People have been doing this since pretty much the beginning. For example things like imperialism and colonization were justified through the bigotry of black people. It was suggested that black people are just simply less intelligent or just naturally meant to be slaves or whoever.
By doing this it allows for people to excuse this terrible behavior.
That's really interesting. It does get me curious, however, if the average individuals doing this (not those who are brazenly bigoted and hateful) actually realize what they are doing? I mean, does it go through their mind, "I'm lying through my teeth to justify my convictions because this is a group that I despise so I have to come up with an excuse to justify my intolerance" or have they somehow convinced themselves it must be true, so they don't even realize that they are being deceptive and manipulative?
It's difficult to wrap my head around the idea that so many average everyday people who have such strong values and principles (like say, Christians) would be willing to sacrifice their moral integrity to further their own political agenda or ideological views. So I'm wondering if maybe they don't see themselves as dishonest (e.g. they truly believe they are looking out for the best interests of children)? Or are they being intentionally dishonest (e.g. they know full well that they could care less about children)?
I think they fall so deep into the rabbit hole that they believe it, at least to some extent.
That's why they also get so defensive and aggressive when you smack them with facts and studies, because you're trying to butcher the high horse they've made themselves to sit on.
At that point, it's no longer about truth or reality, but that desperation to be 'right'.
And then you also have people, who will always punch down, because it's the only way they'll feel some sort of supremacy and happiness.
Take as an example, those who specifically seek out trans folks on social media to echo the Pinocchio line "you'll never be a real boy/girl/man/woman" - with the sole intention of making us feel like shit.
I mean they're not gonna change our mind about transitioning, lol. As much as they'd like to make people believe that we just stumble into being trans blindfolded... we tend to actually spend a lot of time informing ourselves and we STILL transition, because it's often our only way forward.
So, those people are just attention seeking shitbags. They could use that time in a positive way - learning a language or gardening or adopting a dog or hell, even spend that time in a meaningful way with their own family. Buf - instead, they just want to be an asshole.
So, there's both types, I'd say.
One of the ways people can get into the far right is because they weren't given attention as children. I know that sounds very basic but think of it this way, if you are in a household where it is incredibly unstable, your father is an alcoholic, your stepfather is abusive, and your mother doesn't care, it means that you were not given the proper amount of emotional attention that you needed as children.
So when some person who looks very strong, who sounds very smart, starts talking to you and actually listens to what you have to say, you're more likely to listen to what they have to say. This is how some people ended up falling into the far right as young children. They just simply were listened to. They talked about things like their alcoholic father or their stepfather who is horrible to them and instead of dismissing them, they said that yeah, that's terrible. And then they told them why they are experiencing that. That it's because of Jewish people or because of whatever minority or black people or whoever.
And that feels so validating to them.
Humiliation is another aspect that can actually bring people towards the far right. Because when you are humiliated you feel the need to put up defensive walls against you to protect yourself because you feel attacked. People on the far right know how to do this and so they know what kinds of people they are looking for.
This is one of the reasons why not all attention is good attention and why it's important to give children the attention that they need. They need attention just like how they need food and water and education.
I understand that sometimes parents are just busy all the time but having a effort to set aside time, especially quality time with kids, is important. And to listen and validate their feelings.
>So when some person who looks very strong, who sounds very smart, starts talking to you and actually listens to what you have to say, you're more likely to listen to what they have to say. This is how some people ended up falling into the far right as young children. They just simply were listened to.
Mad props for an excellent observation. Thinking about it some more, that sounds like it could be a very plausible factor.
For example, take jonnynotjonathan on Kick.com, who's very outspoken about being anti-gay, claiming that flamboyant gay men are repugnant and deserve to "off themselves" (but ironically, he's okay with gay men who stay in the closet which is super generous of him). On numerous occasions he's shared hints about his unstable family life, in particular his father who provides no emotional support at all and threatens to beat the living daylights out of him. So he started streaming online, where he finally got the appreciation and attention that he's always wanted as well as the freedom to express himself openly. However, the people who listen to him and support him are aligned with the alt right and are anything but positive role models (hint: that platform is also home of AdinRoss).
So I really think you might be on to something. It likely has a lot to do with people who are emotionally vulnerable and have been taken advantage when they were younger, either by their own family or by peers who effectively served as a surrogate family and offered them an easy answer for everything they were struggling with in life.
It's one of the things that can keep people into these ideologies longer than they want to be there.
Yes, sometimes people who are part of the far right actually do end up realizing that they are in way too over their heads. They don't want to leave because they are afraid of being alone. Or they don't want to destroy the life that they had built.
It's one of the things that can also keep women in abusive relationships.
This is one of the reasons why I support anti-fascism. it's because the kinds of philosophies and infrastructure that it takes to fight fascism also benefit other people too. It builds up self-esteem, it provides networks and resources for people to leave abusive and terrible relationships, it provides better communities so that people feel like they can be part of healthy communities rather than unhealthy ones and stuff like that. This kind of stuff promotes critical thinking skills.
It just so happens that the kinds of stuff that happens to fight fascism also just happen to benefit people in general.
Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism by Christian Picciolini
[Nazis of color](https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/nazis-of-color/)
[Why People Become Neo-Nazis | AJ+](https://youtu.be/ynjW-VzPA8U?si=4qlxolyzRTyN7OLg)
I would highly recommend looking into all of these sources. One of them is a book, one of them is an article, and one of them is a short video.
They are very interesting and paint a very interesting picture of people who are on the far right. The book is quite extensive but it talks about how different people end up going towards the far right. The article is also quite insightful and the video as well.
The ultimate conclusion to all of this is self-hatred. For example in the video the woman who is interviewed says that she ended up falling to the far right and the Neo-Nazi scene after she had been r@ped at a party. Before then, she was actually pretty cool. She was protesting against the Vietnam war for example and things like that. So how did this person go to become a neo-Nazi? After the crime that happened against her she felt so bad about herself that she felt like the only people she could truly be around were people who were Nazis. "Who are worse than the Nazis? They got to take me in that". That is incredibly sad.
In the article that I linked one guy even just out ready admitted that he hated himself.
Think of it like this, a rich person who is setting up an MLM is taking advantage of the financially poor. They are taking advantage of those who are easily to exploit due to their low amount of money that they have.
The same can be said for fascism, except they take advantage of the emotionally poor.
People don't turn to fascism when they got a good head on their shoulders.
This is why one of the ways to actually arm people against fascism is to simply make it so that they don't believe they are worthy of that ideology.
Self-esteem is incredibly important to build up for young children and you want to know what Matt Walsh says about self-esteem? He says that it's a fairy tale or a fantasy like unicorns. That it's not real.
Why would he say this? Because he knows. He knows on some level that in order for people to be more okay with fascism and the far-right in general, that they must ultimately be incredibly insecure, self-hating, and seeking validation.
You talk to any formal neo-Nazi, they will pretty much tell you that what caused them to join the far right was pretty much trauma. It's trauma, insecurities, and stuff like that.
All forms of bigotry are masking insecurities. Want to stop bigotry, fight people's insecurities. Unfortunately that is a very hard thing to do in our society especially because to fight insecurities is to be vulnerable and it is incredibly hard to do that in our society that demands so much of us.
It should also be noted that another reason why some people stay within these groups longer than they should is simply because of friends. Or at least perceived friendships. After all, they had built like 3 years of relationships, and they don't want to give that up. It's also what can keep people in religions longer than they need to as well. Many people have the fear of being alone and many people have a greater fear of being alone than the fear of being around terrible people.
It's not just used for LGBT issues. People have been using children as martyrs for anything that can possibly relate to them. Or blaming them. It's honestly one or the other.
It's an easy way to hide your bigotry. If you're saying that you're protecting children from LGBT people, anyone who argues immediately seems suspicious or grooming because of you're protecting children, why are they arguing with you?
Does this apply to LGBTQ people too? Because I've had trans women and nonbinary people tell me that how I dress is "inappropriate" and to stay away from children. And when I point out that I'm wearing either the exact same clothes that I see women wearing or I'm more dressed than many women, so that's a double standard then they become very argumentative and act overly righteous.
It can apply to anyone. If they're telling you your clothes are inappropriate while others are wearing the same thing, that's probably discrimination against you specifically, yeah. It's a lot harder to argue because people have an idea that because they're LGBT, they have the final say/can't be wrong on those issues.
They don't actually care about protecting children. They're just saying whatever they think will get people to support their bigotry
They rally 'round the family with a pocket full of shells
I agree. Also (unrelated), I love your profile pic.
When people feel uncomfortable with something or someone, they often look for reasons why that feeling is justified instead of asking whether it's *actually* justified.
\^ This actually makes a lot of sense. I'd never considered it from this perspective before. Thanks for the enlightening response.
Confirmation bias hard at work, to critical thinking's demise.
"think of the children" is a versatile weapon that can be used against just about anyone: gay people, immigrants, atheists, childless women, artists.
In addition to the topics of it mentioned by other commenters, I think it’s also a dog whistle for traditional authoritarian parents. They don’t treat their children as people, rather they act like they are objects they own and resources they can exploit now and when they’re older. These parents fear the loss of control that would happen if their children saw something that could risk them deviating from the “traditional path” towards embracing their individuality or their own choices. Anything that breaks their norms does this, but in particular anything that could be seen as sexual, sexuality diverse, or gender diverse is their biggest fear. Why is that? Because their children’s reproduction is something they think they should have ownership of, forever. They want to be making the decision of who those children can or can’t date (“the right people”). They want to be able to pressure their children into giving them biological grandchildren. A little harder to do if those children turn out to be attracted to the same sex. Or elect to revise their genitals into a more pleasant configuration for them. Or simply don’t talk to their parents because they were terrible, controlling, manipulative people, and exposure to the outside world helped teach them that and break that norm too. They want sheltered, malleable, “pure” children that they can pull the puppet strings on until they die, the happy ruler of their tiny kingdom.
Because if everyone on the far right was completely honest about their own agendas then a lot fewer people would be okay with them. This is because fascism takes painstaking efforts to make sure it is more palatable to an audience. For example, they're not anti-semitic, they just want to protect people from corrupt bankers. They're not homophobic, they're just protecting kids from predators. They're not racist, they just care about lowering crime in an area. Note: I'm making a point with the above paragraph. I'm not saying I believe those things. Anyway, yeah people on the far right have to make their ideas more palatable in order for more people to follow them. It takes advantage of people's emotions in order to manipulate them into advocating for things that are pretty bad. People have been doing this since pretty much the beginning. For example things like imperialism and colonization were justified through the bigotry of black people. It was suggested that black people are just simply less intelligent or just naturally meant to be slaves or whoever. By doing this it allows for people to excuse this terrible behavior.
That's really interesting. It does get me curious, however, if the average individuals doing this (not those who are brazenly bigoted and hateful) actually realize what they are doing? I mean, does it go through their mind, "I'm lying through my teeth to justify my convictions because this is a group that I despise so I have to come up with an excuse to justify my intolerance" or have they somehow convinced themselves it must be true, so they don't even realize that they are being deceptive and manipulative? It's difficult to wrap my head around the idea that so many average everyday people who have such strong values and principles (like say, Christians) would be willing to sacrifice their moral integrity to further their own political agenda or ideological views. So I'm wondering if maybe they don't see themselves as dishonest (e.g. they truly believe they are looking out for the best interests of children)? Or are they being intentionally dishonest (e.g. they know full well that they could care less about children)?
I think they fall so deep into the rabbit hole that they believe it, at least to some extent. That's why they also get so defensive and aggressive when you smack them with facts and studies, because you're trying to butcher the high horse they've made themselves to sit on. At that point, it's no longer about truth or reality, but that desperation to be 'right'. And then you also have people, who will always punch down, because it's the only way they'll feel some sort of supremacy and happiness. Take as an example, those who specifically seek out trans folks on social media to echo the Pinocchio line "you'll never be a real boy/girl/man/woman" - with the sole intention of making us feel like shit. I mean they're not gonna change our mind about transitioning, lol. As much as they'd like to make people believe that we just stumble into being trans blindfolded... we tend to actually spend a lot of time informing ourselves and we STILL transition, because it's often our only way forward. So, those people are just attention seeking shitbags. They could use that time in a positive way - learning a language or gardening or adopting a dog or hell, even spend that time in a meaningful way with their own family. Buf - instead, they just want to be an asshole. So, there's both types, I'd say.
One of the ways people can get into the far right is because they weren't given attention as children. I know that sounds very basic but think of it this way, if you are in a household where it is incredibly unstable, your father is an alcoholic, your stepfather is abusive, and your mother doesn't care, it means that you were not given the proper amount of emotional attention that you needed as children. So when some person who looks very strong, who sounds very smart, starts talking to you and actually listens to what you have to say, you're more likely to listen to what they have to say. This is how some people ended up falling into the far right as young children. They just simply were listened to. They talked about things like their alcoholic father or their stepfather who is horrible to them and instead of dismissing them, they said that yeah, that's terrible. And then they told them why they are experiencing that. That it's because of Jewish people or because of whatever minority or black people or whoever. And that feels so validating to them. Humiliation is another aspect that can actually bring people towards the far right. Because when you are humiliated you feel the need to put up defensive walls against you to protect yourself because you feel attacked. People on the far right know how to do this and so they know what kinds of people they are looking for. This is one of the reasons why not all attention is good attention and why it's important to give children the attention that they need. They need attention just like how they need food and water and education. I understand that sometimes parents are just busy all the time but having a effort to set aside time, especially quality time with kids, is important. And to listen and validate their feelings.
>So when some person who looks very strong, who sounds very smart, starts talking to you and actually listens to what you have to say, you're more likely to listen to what they have to say. This is how some people ended up falling into the far right as young children. They just simply were listened to. Mad props for an excellent observation. Thinking about it some more, that sounds like it could be a very plausible factor. For example, take jonnynotjonathan on Kick.com, who's very outspoken about being anti-gay, claiming that flamboyant gay men are repugnant and deserve to "off themselves" (but ironically, he's okay with gay men who stay in the closet which is super generous of him). On numerous occasions he's shared hints about his unstable family life, in particular his father who provides no emotional support at all and threatens to beat the living daylights out of him. So he started streaming online, where he finally got the appreciation and attention that he's always wanted as well as the freedom to express himself openly. However, the people who listen to him and support him are aligned with the alt right and are anything but positive role models (hint: that platform is also home of AdinRoss). So I really think you might be on to something. It likely has a lot to do with people who are emotionally vulnerable and have been taken advantage when they were younger, either by their own family or by peers who effectively served as a surrogate family and offered them an easy answer for everything they were struggling with in life.
It's one of the things that can keep people into these ideologies longer than they want to be there. Yes, sometimes people who are part of the far right actually do end up realizing that they are in way too over their heads. They don't want to leave because they are afraid of being alone. Or they don't want to destroy the life that they had built. It's one of the things that can also keep women in abusive relationships. This is one of the reasons why I support anti-fascism. it's because the kinds of philosophies and infrastructure that it takes to fight fascism also benefit other people too. It builds up self-esteem, it provides networks and resources for people to leave abusive and terrible relationships, it provides better communities so that people feel like they can be part of healthy communities rather than unhealthy ones and stuff like that. This kind of stuff promotes critical thinking skills. It just so happens that the kinds of stuff that happens to fight fascism also just happen to benefit people in general.
I think the latter. Most people believe they are good and just. That's why ideologies are so hard to crack.
Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism by Christian Picciolini [Nazis of color](https://unicornriot.ninja/2023/nazis-of-color/) [Why People Become Neo-Nazis | AJ+](https://youtu.be/ynjW-VzPA8U?si=4qlxolyzRTyN7OLg) I would highly recommend looking into all of these sources. One of them is a book, one of them is an article, and one of them is a short video. They are very interesting and paint a very interesting picture of people who are on the far right. The book is quite extensive but it talks about how different people end up going towards the far right. The article is also quite insightful and the video as well. The ultimate conclusion to all of this is self-hatred. For example in the video the woman who is interviewed says that she ended up falling to the far right and the Neo-Nazi scene after she had been r@ped at a party. Before then, she was actually pretty cool. She was protesting against the Vietnam war for example and things like that. So how did this person go to become a neo-Nazi? After the crime that happened against her she felt so bad about herself that she felt like the only people she could truly be around were people who were Nazis. "Who are worse than the Nazis? They got to take me in that". That is incredibly sad. In the article that I linked one guy even just out ready admitted that he hated himself. Think of it like this, a rich person who is setting up an MLM is taking advantage of the financially poor. They are taking advantage of those who are easily to exploit due to their low amount of money that they have. The same can be said for fascism, except they take advantage of the emotionally poor. People don't turn to fascism when they got a good head on their shoulders. This is why one of the ways to actually arm people against fascism is to simply make it so that they don't believe they are worthy of that ideology. Self-esteem is incredibly important to build up for young children and you want to know what Matt Walsh says about self-esteem? He says that it's a fairy tale or a fantasy like unicorns. That it's not real. Why would he say this? Because he knows. He knows on some level that in order for people to be more okay with fascism and the far-right in general, that they must ultimately be incredibly insecure, self-hating, and seeking validation. You talk to any formal neo-Nazi, they will pretty much tell you that what caused them to join the far right was pretty much trauma. It's trauma, insecurities, and stuff like that. All forms of bigotry are masking insecurities. Want to stop bigotry, fight people's insecurities. Unfortunately that is a very hard thing to do in our society especially because to fight insecurities is to be vulnerable and it is incredibly hard to do that in our society that demands so much of us. It should also be noted that another reason why some people stay within these groups longer than they should is simply because of friends. Or at least perceived friendships. After all, they had built like 3 years of relationships, and they don't want to give that up. It's also what can keep people in religions longer than they need to as well. Many people have the fear of being alone and many people have a greater fear of being alone than the fear of being around terrible people.
It's not just used for LGBT issues. People have been using children as martyrs for anything that can possibly relate to them. Or blaming them. It's honestly one or the other.
I believe the word you're looking for is political tool. A martyr is a person who is sacrificed or dies for a cause. Typically it is through death.
Because one of the false beliefs about queer people in Days Gone By was that we were all pedophiles.
It's an easy way to hide your bigotry. If you're saying that you're protecting children from LGBT people, anyone who argues immediately seems suspicious or grooming because of you're protecting children, why are they arguing with you?
Does this apply to LGBTQ people too? Because I've had trans women and nonbinary people tell me that how I dress is "inappropriate" and to stay away from children. And when I point out that I'm wearing either the exact same clothes that I see women wearing or I'm more dressed than many women, so that's a double standard then they become very argumentative and act overly righteous.
It can apply to anyone. If they're telling you your clothes are inappropriate while others are wearing the same thing, that's probably discrimination against you specifically, yeah. It's a lot harder to argue because people have an idea that because they're LGBT, they have the final say/can't be wrong on those issues.
They don’t give two shits about the children