The people radicalizing these vulnerable “losers,” yes they should be torched.
Starting with: I have found a great many of “those people” to be highly insecure, living in denial and fear that they themselves may be such a “loser” but are putting on the bully face for the world to misdirect people away from the fact that they themselves are very much the same as the people they are bullying.
True, but there’s a line and once they’ve crosses it, they’re the bullies.
Where exactly that line is and how to draw it is a matter for debate. Maybe there’s another line where “This person is a bully, but still redeemable if he demonstrates willingness to change.”
But anyone who’s unapologetic and unwilling to change obviously needs to be shunned at the very least, and see consequences for the harms he’s caused.
That still doesn’t mean the majority of those vulnerable and radicalized people are irredeemable. Some are just uncritically following the trend. Which is wrong, but not as bad as being ideologically devoted to it, and their redemption can be as simple as showing them there’s a different way to be.
The main focus should be on helping vulnerable people before they become radicalized, but at this point I suspect everyone has already been corralled into one camp or another… Unfortunately no one was willing to listen to my soap box years ago, back when it was still possible to avert this calamity, at least to the same degree.
Oh, hey, you’re much more forgiving than me. Exposing the bullies for being exactly what they are using as an excuse to bully other people is just the first part of the “torching.” Forcible restraint, treble-damages penalties, and public shaming are top of my list for responses to bully-bad actors.
However, you are right that reconciliation and acceptance of all people, not exactly for who they are when they’re bullies, but for those aspects of themselves that are compatible with a society in which we at least don’t harm each other is always important to do when possible.
Based on my childhood experiences, until those compatible aspects are found and the incompatible aspects removed from their expressed behaviors - forcible restraint and removal from the situations in which they are causing harm to others should be the norm, not the exception.
Not particularly. Like I said, unrepentant bullies should receive no mercy. I left “torched” undefined on purpose, to keep it open-ended. It’s only the ones who demonstrate self-awareness and willingness to change who deserve a chance at redemption. Because they’re the only ones who can be redeemed. Redemption can’t be forced on anyone unwilling.
But blanket-shunning everyone including those who want to be better is self-destructive. It gives the enemy a larger recruitment pool, and it dwindles our own.
Many of those people were simply victims in their own ways: bullied and ostracized until they internalized the toxic patterns that were being used against them, and then projecting it onto others as they’ve learned to view it as the “norm.” Those people are redeemable, they just need to be shown a better way. What they’re missing is self-compassion. It’s not possible to love others when deep down, who you truly hate is yourself.
I know, because I was bullied and ostracized throughout my childhood as well. To this day, I have very little patience with bullies and abusers. I often get myself in trouble with my open contempt for them.
But it took me well into my twenties to unlearn the patterns that had been ingrained in me by that toxic environment growing up. It didn’t happen overnight, and it was painful, uncomfortable, and a lot of work. It would have been so much easier had I found a healthy support group or mentor, but everyone rejected me because I “should have already known” the social scripts and how to avoid the faux pas.
I’m not surprised that most people don’t do that work on their own, that many who start don’t see it through to completion, or that most of them end up taking the path of least resistance: moving to the echo-chambers full of people like themselves with similar qualms, who validate what they’re feeling and accept them for who they are. Those are the same echo-chambers where right-wing extremists poach their new victims for negging, manipulation, and eventual radicalization.
If I didn’t hate right-wing abusers and machismo culture so much, more than I hated suffering in isolation and constant rejection by the people on the left whose ideals I actually aligned with, then I may have been tempted to fall back into that trap, too.
But yes, the people orchestrating these right-wing radicalization funnels need to be forceably stopped. I’m not disagreeing with that. We just need to acknowledge that there are degrees of involvement, and not everyone who falls for their grift is a grifter themselves. And when their social structure is dismantled, we need to provide them with an alternative or else new grifters will simply take the place of the old, like a hydra.
Starting with: I have found a great many of “those people” to be highly insecure, living in denial and fear that they themselves may be such a “loser” but are putting on the bully face for the world to misdirect people away from the fact that they themselves are very much the same as the people they are bullying.
True, but there’s a line and once they’ve crosses it, they’re the bullies.
Where exactly that line is and how to draw it is a matter for debate. Maybe there’s another line where “This person is a bully, but still redeemable if he demonstrates willingness to change.”
But anyone who’s unapologetic and unwilling to change obviously needs to be shunned at the very least, and see consequences for the harms he’s caused.
That still doesn’t mean the majority of those vulnerable and radicalized people are irredeemable. Some are just uncritically following the trend. Which is wrong, but not as bad as being ideologically devoted to it, and their redemption can be as simple as showing them there’s a different way to be.
The main focus should be on helping vulnerable people before they become radicalized, but at this point I suspect everyone has already been corralled into one camp or another… Unfortunately no one was willing to listen to my soap box years ago, back when it was still possible to avert this calamity, at least to the same degree.
Oh, hey, you’re much more forgiving than me. Exposing the bullies for being exactly what they are using as an excuse to bully other people is just the first part of the “torching.” Forcible restraint, treble-damages penalties, and public shaming are top of my list for responses to bully-bad actors.
However, you are right that reconciliation and acceptance of all people, not exactly for who they are when they’re bullies, but for those aspects of themselves that are compatible with a society in which we at least don’t harm each other is always important to do when possible.
Based on my childhood experiences, until those compatible aspects are found and the incompatible aspects removed from their expressed behaviors - forcible restraint and removal from the situations in which they are causing harm to others should be the norm, not the exception.
Not particularly. Like I said, unrepentant bullies should receive no mercy. I left “torched” undefined on purpose, to keep it open-ended. It’s only the ones who demonstrate self-awareness and willingness to change who deserve a chance at redemption. Because they’re the only ones who can be redeemed. Redemption can’t be forced on anyone unwilling.
But blanket-shunning everyone including those who want to be better is self-destructive. It gives the enemy a larger recruitment pool, and it dwindles our own.
Many of those people were simply victims in their own ways: bullied and ostracized until they internalized the toxic patterns that were being used against them, and then projecting it onto others as they’ve learned to view it as the “norm.” Those people are redeemable, they just need to be shown a better way. What they’re missing is self-compassion. It’s not possible to love others when deep down, who you truly hate is yourself.
I know, because I was bullied and ostracized throughout my childhood as well. To this day, I have very little patience with bullies and abusers. I often get myself in trouble with my open contempt for them.
But it took me well into my twenties to unlearn the patterns that had been ingrained in me by that toxic environment growing up. It didn’t happen overnight, and it was painful, uncomfortable, and a lot of work. It would have been so much easier had I found a healthy support group or mentor, but everyone rejected me because I “should have already known” the social scripts and how to avoid the faux pas.
I’m not surprised that most people don’t do that work on their own, that many who start don’t see it through to completion, or that most of them end up taking the path of least resistance: moving to the echo-chambers full of people like themselves with similar qualms, who validate what they’re feeling and accept them for who they are. Those are the same echo-chambers where right-wing extremists poach their new victims for negging, manipulation, and eventual radicalization.
If I didn’t hate right-wing abusers and machismo culture so much, more than I hated suffering in isolation and constant rejection by the people on the left whose ideals I actually aligned with, then I may have been tempted to fall back into that trap, too.
But yes, the people orchestrating these right-wing radicalization funnels need to be forceably stopped. I’m not disagreeing with that. We just need to acknowledge that there are degrees of involvement, and not everyone who falls for their grift is a grifter themselves. And when their social structure is dismantled, we need to provide them with an alternative or else new grifters will simply take the place of the old, like a hydra.