"Where were you radicalized?"
In all the discussions about whether "alt-right" should be tolerated, I tripped over the curiosity rock about what causes people to form or change political beliefs, what constitutes extremism, whether or not people come to realize they hold an extreme position, and how we can restore balance.
I got caught having a bad knee-jerk reaction here, and while I don't think my conclusion was wrong, it's taking a bit of work to unpack all of the knowledge, experience, and ideological biases that underlie it.
So, Tilders, was there a formative moment in your life (or close family/friend's experience) that set you on a course to uphold and defend a particular ideology, or did your position evolve over time?
Do you feel your adherence is "radical" or "extreme", and/or have others told you that you're an extremist/radical/ideologue?
What (or who) does your position make you unable to tolerate, if anything (or kind of person)?
Has your belief changed over time, or what do you think would change it?
People tend to discount the symbolic impact OWS had on so many people. One one hand it was one of the first experiments on how new technology could impact western-style protest after the Arab Spring and demonstrated that the grip the state has on its people spanned beyond their technology, unlike in Arabian protestors - on the other hand, it demonstrated how ineffective protesting is in the modern age.
There was a time when communities could organize against perceived harm and impact change, but OWS showed that even if communities across the country organized under the same cause, they still could no longer change things in the ways they once had. The state, the banks, the corporations, the institutions - all these things were shown to be bigger than too big to fail. They were the new world, and average people had been left behind.
It only makes sense that in the face of such hopelessness that people would start treating politics like sports. None of it matters since they're going to be left behind anyway, so of course, people would reduce politics to mere spectacle while ignoring its very real implications. You're not the only one have hope shattered after OWS.
Eh, the Arab Spring had more impact to it. Sure, in the long-term the Arab Spring has failed since it couldn't create institutional support for itself and got stuck in a revolutionary mindset, but that mindset was truly revolutionary in the sense that the people called for fundamental change such as new constitutions and Western democracy, not just new leaders. At least for a little while, those countries had some semblance of hope because their foundations were new.
That same revolutionary mindset wasn't really in OWS. People were calling for the same systems which established widespread corporate control to now curtail it, and that just doesn't make sense. OWS had no new proposals, there were no calls for amendments or even new governments that people rallied around. The whole thing just felt like a campaign outside of an election year, and movements like that are inherently doomed because you can only demand the same thing for so long. An impactful movement is one that forges new ground and sustains itself off hope for the future found from exploring new ideas. Without that, movements will fade away.
I feel like that was just how it demonstrated the new power people had to organize due to new technologies. It was a hollow movement - virtual both literally and figuratively.
The problems people unite around should never be vague, or else their solutions will be vague as well, and nothing will be accomplished. But still, OWS was a pretty demonstration of newfound institutional and state power over its people, and the hopelessness that created, rather than a failure on the part of its organizers.
Wow, I haven't thought about Aaron Swartz in a while. I don't think his death was exemplary of a machine he helped build crushing people's hopes for the future, though. Instead, I think his death shows a machine collapsing under its own weight. The article mentions how Swartz was revered by the then-nascent online community almost as an innocent child who hated having power over people, and the end of his life parallels with the rise of online superpowers.
His work on Reddit led to the creation of a news-aggregator, social media platform that was used to exploit fundamental democratic institutions. If that isn't power, I do not know what is - and Swartz seemed like the kind of person that wanted to avoid power on that scale. The same can be seen on other sites like Facebook or Twitter or even Google.
Swartz helped develop a machine which consumed and consolidated power until it just couldn't find any way to manage that power anymore, which we are only just seeing now as Facebook stock drops and Reddit becomes a platform for rising autocracy. Swartz's death was a violent glimpse into a future where the thing we once revered for equalizing a socioeconomic playing field is instead the very thing keeping people separated, divided, and wrathful. He helped build a powerful tool to use for good, and when he realized the tool was no longer his and that he could no longer guarantee that its immense power would be used to save the world, which he said he wanted to do in his blog, he saw no other way to escape it than death.
A lot of Swartz's life seems to revolve around his feelings towards power and how technology can facilitate its equal distribution, or consolidate it around one person. His death is a tragic glimpse into the soul of the Internet: all-consuming, all-powerful, and self-destructive. God, thinking about Swartz right now is making me realize how much I would love to just speak with him about what he thinks of the rise of the alt-right, the Russian hacking story, and similar stories where power and politics meet technology.
Great quote man, thanks for sharing it.
Do you know much about how governments work in western European states? I feel like much of the very American anti-state ideologies are missing that a whole bunch of countries are manage to have relatively sane and responsive government.
It's a nice case study in the differences in outcomes, cultures & systems. Particularly Neatherlands, France, Germany, Belgium and Denmark. I mean there are certainly problems see VW & Siemens but in terms of impact on everyday people it's nothing like the US.
In my view FPTP & the US's inhumanly populus constituencies concentrate power so it's too easily usurped.
Ok but by what method to you propose stopping anyone centralizing any power anywhere?
It's not like there is some kind of sharp cut off between an abusive relationship, a small cult, a manipulative company and a repressive government right? The abuse is inevitable with imbalances of power and shitty people. Neither of which seem like they're going to go away any time soon.
Given the topic of this thread, I think it's important to realize that the core ideology you are pushing is not a new one in America. Indeed, a large portion of the founding fathers were avid believers in the writings of John Locke.
Even before the start of the American Revolution, one of the uniting ideologies among the founding fathers was that the power of government is inherently corrupt. I've included a link below to a relevant chapter in John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government that speaks to the inherent problems with government. However, it also makes an interesting argument that some kind of "politic system", as he calls it, is a necessary evil.
There are two evils in conflict here: a systemic evil, such as government, and a more subtle evil: human nature. Without government, much of the global infrastructure we've come to rely on would not survive the year. Largely because no individual is going to take it upon themselves to fund and coordinate such a task.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm#CHAPTER_IX
Companies employees often carry out violent coercion against outsiders and other employees with employees generally viewing this as justified. Look at any big US companies union busting activities or wage theft. The history of enclosures & land theft by state/corporate entities.
Cult members enthusiastically carrying out violent coercion on each other or even committing suicide at the behest of their leaders is practically part of the definition.
And all this happens under our current system without wider society viewing it as legitimate and despite the violently coercive & surveillance mad state trying to stop it.
The point I'm making is that violent coercion is pretty much normal human behaviour without the restraining power of the states monopoly on violence. You see it across cultures, through history. More importantly violent death has decreased as state power increased. If your plan revolves around tearing states down how can you be so certain that new violent groups won't form?
Anonymity seems rather hopeless given people and property have to exist in physical space. Your bitcoins might be totally safe from appropriation but that's not much use if your house and food has all been nicked.
In my view modern northern European states:
Offer the best qualify of life for the average citizen of any system that's been made to work. How can you possibly be so certain that the plans you've bought into so enthusiastically are workable? What separates you from all the academics of the past who were similarly certain that ideologically pure communism was workable and would result in a vastly better society without any testing.
Right there with you. I can recognize all the faults of the state resulting from a capitalist society, but I’m uncertain about the logistics of alternatives.
Why do you pin this on capitalism? I believe history has shown it to be the most viable economy and there is a reason it didn't die in the 20th century. Its been around longer than we can keep track of. Obviously it could be moderated better and I believe countries like sweden and denmark are testaments that it works as long as companies are kept in check. Its important to remember that the capitalism we see in the US is not representative as the system as a whole.
I don't think enough people realize that capitalisim vs communism isn't and one or the other kind of thing. It's a spectrum.
To me, capitalism vs communism is a binary argument, and an antique one at that. I really, really hate it.
In my mind the answer is pretty simple, and it’s what the USA has practiced since The New Deal. It’s often called the Social Market Economy. Google just started to define it via search as well:
Now in the USA, we have been moving away from that as the entire political spectrum has moved right over the last few decades. Even Nancy Pelosi says “sorry, Democrats are capitalists” with no qualifications. Really Nancy? A capitalist is someone who has capital, and invests it. For example, a commercial banker or VC. By definition most Democrats, and Americans in general, are not capitalists.
I blame the effects of Cold War propaganda which made the entire argument binary in the minds of baby boomers. The sooner we are rid of these folks, the more balanced and in-line with the rest of the world’s politics the USA will become.
I mean even educated Americans think that Scandinavian countries are socialist, which is factually incorrect. Right wing propaganda has really worked to frame the discussion. Without color on this from Democrats you have people who simply believe in the tenants of the Social Market Economy calling themselves Socialists, which they are not.
I feel like I must be taking crazy pills when talking about this stuff with most Americans.
I absolutely believe we can be moderated better, and that's probably our most realistic goal as a global society. Regardless, I can still lay the blame at the feet of capitalism for reasons you touched upon: "it works as long as companies are kept in check". Capitalism will perpetually push back against attempts to hamstring it in favor of guaranteeing certain rights, programs/services, protections, etc. because of class conflict arising between capitalists and the labor force. That is the natural order of things.
Even if we can reach a society that guarantees an equitable baseline of rights/programs, the force of capitalism is still present, trying to unravel that progress. Does that help explain where I'm coming from? I wouldn't say I'm ready to give true socialism a chance yet maybe because I'm afraid of the upheaval and uncertainty. Hell, my entire professional livelihood would go out the window without a capitalist society. But serious changes need to be made in the US to make progress within the context of a capitalist society, and unfortunately, many of those changes would require an extremely unlikely constitutional amendment to realize.
I would argue that capitalism is not to blame here but rather negligent, or corrupt CEOs/government officials. We need to remember that these systems are made up of people and that they are not some abstract concept. By blaming everything on capitalism, socialism, communism etc. you are failing to clearly define the enemy. People make systems, and therefore people are at fault not the system itself. That being said some systems are more conducive to bringing the best out of human nature than others.
Again its people that are trying to unravel that progress. Thats why we need trust busters, and strict anti-monopoly laws like we see in the EU. People are trying to unravel that progress and we need other people to keep them in check.
That seems much easier than overthrowing our current system in favor of a less tested one.
I do recognize that point - human nature certainly predates capitalism. I'm trying to wrap my head around something here, so help me out. If human nature inspired capitalism and thus it is to blame for the faults of capitalism, are you saying that human nature prevents civilization from implementing an alternate form of society? Have we reached a point where it's too late to change now? Do the failures of socialist-inspired revolutions/governments of the past motivate your opinion at all?
See my last paragraph. Although, you also reinforce my point that it requires what is basically constant vigilance to keep capitalism in check. I agree that there's a ton we could be doing.
And this is why I harbor fear over transitioning to that kind of society. I see numerous faults with our current system but still believe in attempting every possible half-measure and mitigating tool before resorting to more drastic options.
I mean to say that communism and to a lesser degree socialism have historically brought out the worst in human nature.
Of course not.
Yes. These nations failed for a reason. I see them as experiments deviating from the most natural form of economy there is. Unfourtunately they weren't able to create a sustainable economic system that can be considered as a viable alternative. Because of these repeated failures, it makes me wonder whether there is a irrepairable, fundamental flaw in the system.
Radicalized? Really, really early. Lots of religious-right propaganda at church, dinner-table discussions the few times we ate dinner as a family, constant lectures while watching TV or when I wanted to do much of anything fun. I was largely a "good kid" (til I wasn't), so I bought it all hard for a while. It's kind of insane how many things were absolute sins & should be feared & looked down on. (For scope, my stepdad was incensed that GASP this great show about a novel was pushing "the gay agenda." A broadway musical, The Scarlet Pimpernel, was a tool of Satan, pushing the gay agenda because.. the heroes dolled themselves up to save people from the French Revolution, or something, IDK, I can't make sense of it either anymore.)
Naturally I rebelled against that as a teenager, but I still thought he was right - I wanted to piss off my parents like most of us, but I was still bought in to the idea that everything fun was a sin, people who didn't think that way were hurting America, blah blah blah.
To get away from that, I took the kind of dumb measure of trading that authoritarian system for another: joined the Army. Got me away from home anyway, with some financial independence. At first I really fit in there, bought in all the way, got in great shape, accepted the ideology since it wasn't that far off what I'd grown up with.
Getting de-radicalized is the thing I have a harder time explaining. Most of it was reading, learning, questioning, & meeting different people who weren't that scary & seemed moral/grounded/awesome, despite not being evangelical or far-right. Critically studying history is enough to shake anyone's faith, and a summer in Israel/Palestine made me realize very little was as simple as it'd been portrayed. I was pretty much questioning everything on my way out of school, though had a hard time getting all the way "deprogrammed" because... reasons. Then I got deployed to Iraq, and obv that changed my perspective a good bit.
So now I'm kind of a sad trope from too many bad movies, the vet who believed in The Cause until too late & now loathes the war, the reasons for it, the system that enabled it, the insane assumptions required to still think it was a wonderful thing (which many of my family still do - for America & whatever End Times nonsense, it's hard to explain).
I miss being certain of anything. Really. It's nice, that pure sense of purpose & assurance that you're on the side of the angels - literally or figuratively. I can't say I'm happier now. But I'd rather be miserable & skeptical, than voluntarily be used serve whoever's weird agenda anymore.
There are a number of factors that have contributed to my current ideals.
First and foremost, I grew up poor. I'm not talking about "I don't get to eat out at my favorite restaurant this week" poor, but actual "my family has to choose between electricity and food this week" poor. Additionally, I got to see first-hand how my parents would try their hardest to earn a living and continually make no headway (or, as was also fairly common, to be knocked down a peg). Naturally the result of this is a fundamental sense of empathy for the poor and working class, and anger at those who accuse them of being "lazy" and suggesting that we should take away welfare benefits which are often the only thing keeping them afloat.
Second, I was pretty isolated growing up and ended up going through a very, very long period of depression that this isolation only served to exacerbate. On top of that, there were a number of other problems that were going on which didn't exactly help, either. This, again, built a strong sense of empathy for others, particularly those dealing with mental illness or problems in general that are difficult to "just get over" (e.g. loss, other health problems, etc.). It also made me keenly aware that a lot of people simply don't have the means or the support network to get through tough times.
Third, I used to be a bit sexist, racist, and homophobic. The racism was squashed very early on by good education and my mother, the sexism was squashed by a combination of my mother's influence and some very good friendships that I'd developed later in high school, and the homophobia was squashed by the eventual revelation that someone I knew was gay and the subsequent realization that everything I thought I knew about gay people (and the LGBTQ community in general) was wrong.
Fourth, education has covered everything from economics to history. Understanding, for example, why minimum wage ever became a thing in the first place made it obvious to me why it should be properly maintained. Understanding how inflation works and the fact that it's going to happen regardless of whether or not we increase wages has made it clear to me that minimum wage increases are a necessity. Understanding that certain social programs generate more money than what we invest into them makes it obvious to me that we need to be investing in those programs. Understanding basic arithmetic in the sense that an increase in taxes to cover certain social programs like universal healthcare will be offset by the lack of costs in e.g. healthcare premiums and co-pays makes it absurd to me that people are complaining about the prospect of a tax increase. Understanding the significance of mass surveillance from a historical perspective naturally makes me concerned for the safety of the general U.S. population.
Nearly every stance I take is informed by some combination of education and first- and second-hand experience with real-world issues. For those that I lack formal education or experience in, I rely on extensive research and the opinions of experts. For those stances where facts play a minimal role or no role at all (boiling down to primarily philosophical arguments), I rely on the best reasoning I can muster and prefer those stances which adhere to Occam's razor or which favor the perspective of an involved party over those of outside parties (e.g. in the case of abortion).
The thing is, though, that I'm not really "radical" in the strictest sense of the word. When I'm proven wrong, I admit it and my viewpoint changes, as was the case with e.g. my prior homophobia. But if you try to change my mind about something with reasoning that either falls apart under scrutiny or doesn't seem to hold up well enough against my current viewpoint (from my perspective, anyway), then I'm going to firmly reject it. I am, however, "radical" in the sense that I refuse to do things any other way. This is the process that works for me and that won't be changing even if every other viewpoint I currently hold suddenly reverses :)
Edit: @go1dfish and I ended up having a bit of a misunderstanding due to the structure of part of my post. For the sake of preempting any potential future misunderstandings, I would like to clarify that my fourth point regarding education has a list of examples, and that these examples are intended to be distinct and separate, not tied together in any way (e.g. my point about "certain social programs" is not meant to tie into my point about universal healthcare).
I forgot to touch on one important aspect in your questions, which is the what/who I can't tolerate. And the answer to that is really quite simple: I can't tolerate assholes or asshole behavior. That has been consistent from the very beginning. I know what it's like to be mistreated by others and I've seen how it affects others time and time again. If there's anything that I feel genuine hatred over, it's people being assholes.
I can deal with disagreements. I can deal with stressful life circumstances. I can deal with feeling isolated. I can deal with pretty much anything you throw at me. But if you're an asshole to me or someone else, my patience ends up wearing very thin, very fast. I used to at least be able to tolerate assholes--in the sense that I could grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut about it, anyway--but that tolerance ended up fading very quickly not long after I got out of high school.
Mind you, I make a distinction between direct assholery and indirect assholery. Those who say or do asshole things in ways that seem ignorant or unintentional (e.g. just being inconsiderate) don't earn my ire--it's those who clearly intend to be assholes that make my blood boil.
Keep in mind that I'm oversimplifying a lot of things here for the sake of avoiding the need to write an essay's worth of description for a single viewpoint. Arguing that a summary is only "good intentioned on a surface analysis" isn't exactly fair because a summary is, by its very nature, not supposed to be more than a surface-level description.
As for your concerns with the restrictions government can impose on the individual, those same restrictions are a problem with private insurance e.g. in cases of being denied for preexisting conditions. A private insurance company is beholden to shareholders and thus has an incentive (or, more accurately, a responsibility) to keep costs at a minimum. Protections against those restrictions are handled at the government level regardless of whether you're taking a privately- or publicly-funded option.
This is literally what insurance is already, anyway. It's just a bunch of people pooling their money together and you end up paying for someone else's accidents or poor lifestyle choices. That's the entire purpose of it. By removing the current insurance system in favor of single-payer, however, it's possible to reduce the amount each individual is paying and remove a frustrating and often adversarial middleman.
I'll step in and say that I'll happily open another thread on healthcare and insurance - it's obviously a rich vein of opinion, concern, armchair politics and philosophy.
Leading back to OP, I'm a little bit surprised that a healthcare event and/or inability to pay (in the U.S., at least) hasn't been mentioned yet as a radicalizing, if not extremism-provoking, stressor.
Alright, I don't understand what you're saying at all (or how things could reasonably be set "right" without gutting modern society & all its current assumptions), but I'm not going to argue for the sake of arguing. Be well.
Again, my argument here is being overly simplified. I have no intention of having a full debate about health care at the moment, otherwise we're likely to be spending hours discussing the finer details and more subtle nuances of our stances on the matter. I don't feel like this is the appropriate place for such a debate because this thread is only supposed to touch on how our ideals were developed or how they evolved. The point I was trying to illustrate is that there's quite a bit more to my point of view on the matter than a summary description entails.
Except I didn't use the term "obvious" with regards to health care, so it's disingenuous to suggest that I did. I did use the term with regards to the vague "certain social programs", but that's a completely distinct and separate point.
No problem, I suppose I can see how that could be misinterpreted. I'll just clarify real quick: all of those are intended to be distinct, individual points. I probably should have spaced those two points such that an unrelated point was positioned between the two to avoid that kind of confusion. I'll try to be more mindful of that in the future :)
Wow, I really did not expect this level of response and detail. In the spirit of full disclosure:
My parents were die-hard activists: old-school Jewish New Dealers, starting from a time when you could be jailed or blacklisted for life for even the slightest hint of "communist" sympathy. Anti-racist; secular humanist; internationalist... all of the radical heat that eventually fizzled into modern milquetoast American liberalism. [They both have very interesting FBI files. Mom did get blacklisted, and Dad's near-death confession was that he had turned informer against an actual Soviet cell.]
It extended to their decision to "integrate" a white Christian community so lily-pure that a neighbor greeted us with "Welcome to Plymouth, this is a great place because the town has some rules: no blacks, Jews, Catholics or dogs, in that order." We got a dog, perhaps just to drive the point home.
The turning point came when I was about 7 or 8 years old - our mere existence, and the folks' political outspokenness, got us in such hot water that the town planning commission rerouted a planned state freeway interchange on top of our house.
I can laugh about it now, but there was no mistaking what a hostile act it was because the entire route went through miles of cornfields and scrub in every direction, and ours was the only house which would be demolished. That weird little snakebend of road, extended solely for the purpose of forcing out one irritating Jewish family, exists on maps to this day. The folks wore themselves out after two years of court battles over eminent domain, and that was pretty much the end of their fight to live the life of their ideals. [It does not help at all that Bernie Sanders looks exactly like my Dad at the same age. They also have in common that by the end, neither of them were socialists, strictly speaking.]
Thus happened one very angry 10 year-old girl, who's been keeping whole spreadsheets of scores ever since. I've had ideological flux over time (it's like an old fashioned pulp novel, "I Was A Teenage Spartacist"), but I've always been somewhere in the bottom left of the Political Compass. The current political philosophy is basically utilitarian human rights-centered socialism.
I have been called a "radical" feminist, mainly because I stubbornly chased my interests and talents into a career surrounded by men. I pretty much ask to be treated exactly like them, up to and including hauling my own equipment and crawling around or climbing over things, not to mention being paid commensurate to my relative effort. This leads me to believe that "radicalism" may just be a matter of acting in expectation that justice will be done.
I believe my political position is extreme only to the extent that it isn't fashionable any more. I'll consider open capital markets and private ownership of some or even most means of production, but generally think capital needs regulatory leashes to keep the dogs from biting, and harnesses of taxation to ensure its productivity is distributed in service of the many, not the few. The leftward side of existing Scandinavian social democracy or Spanish syndicalism aren't bad targets, with Green-ish guiding principles from Doughnut Economics.
Liars. I have a great big stick up my butt about people who distort, defame, dissemble, confabulate, falsify, cheat, elide, propagandize or otherwise poison the well of truth. Doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with their intent, it's a Big Bad Thing. [I'll submit that racists and fascists are liars to themselves and everyone else.]
Changes have happened as noted above, but around a pretty well-defined axis. For me to accept an opposing ideology, give me data that shows both stability and maximal human benefit. I have yet to see an example of laissez-faire capitalism that I would want to live with. Won't say it can't happen, but even the most vibrant potential examples have very heavy-handed states keeping order in the background, because they make people so miserable. Anarcho-anything appears to have the half-life of particles with triple-digit atomic numbers, before turning brutal or feudal. As much as @goldf1sh spins pretty pictures of libertarianism, the people benefiting are basically neo-feudalists.
That's my wall of text for the day.
I don't know if I can identify a breakthrough moment where I broke into the ideology I now (mostly) hold. I would probably say it's a combination of upbringing, the friends I had, and the history I learned (in the order I learned it).
Growing up, there were always three key stories that I latched onto. First, the story of John Brown's role in both Bleeding Kansas and the raid on Harper Ferry. It was a story of when institutions weren't worth defending, and the price some were willing to pay to overthrow it (euphemistically "the ultimate price"). I saw it as a bit tragic, really--maybe the view of a typical northerner whose ancestors were also exclusively northerners. The political failure was generational. Leader after leader failed to adequately resolve the obvious disconnect between the values professed in the constitution and the people born within its borders who were necessarily excluded from it. I didn't understand their failure growing up (and I still am not sure I understand it), but knowing that leaders can and have failed dramatically and then were followed by more leaders who failed even more, that struck me. We had compromises, back when compromise wasn't a poisoned word, that did little but postpone the conflict another few years until another point arose demanding more compromise. And the largest tragedy of the whole affair was just how tied slavery was to the concept of southern identity, slave holder or not, combined the decreasing benefit the South would get from having slaves as industrialization shifted the economic needs of the South. As a cultural issue rather than an economic one (for those not in chains), it would always be more of a regional conflict rather than a more honest wrestling with moral wrong.
So from that story, I learned first that there are going to be issues in life where the stakes are high, where the blood price may need to be paid, and where a good person (as John Brown was regularly portrayed to me) would be willing to pay it.
Second, also from the 1800s, the story of the Trail of Tears was a regular drumbeat of my childhood. Whereas John Brown could show that a government could potentially be on the right side of a moral issue, the Trail of Tears showed that it often wasn't. Authority is only as good as the people in charge. Here you had a president, notoriously rude and aggressive, who was so thorough in his prosecution of native peoples that he would force even the peaceful tribes into a death march to land that few white people wanted (yet). The precedent was being reinforced that this was not a country that would deal fairly between inhabitants. There were biases. Some people benefited; some people were killed or pushed into what was to them foreign land.
The last story I was taught growing up was about responsibly consuming media. My grandfather was a chemist, and he consistently refused to listen to any American media. Whenever he was asked why (and I wasn't always or even usually the one who asked), he would talk about a time when he had been interviewed by a local station to talk about some story. When he watched how they edited the questions and answers, he felt that much of the context he had given to his answers was cut out entirely for the journalist's angle. It wasn't quite the muckraking of the early 20th century, but in his view it wasn't much better, and certainly wasn't worth giving his attention. Any time I was over at his house, we listened to the CBC (which we could pick up from the Canadian station just across the lake).
Where does all that leave me? It started me off with a respect for institutions, but a deep distrust of the people running them (and a fear of abusing power if I ever had it over others). We can't escape some of these institutions in the modern era, but we can control how we react to them. The pain we would suffer if we wanted to completely obliterate them would be almost total, but we can work to meaningfully reform some aspects of these institutions (and just as importantly, get wise and responsible people in more positions of authority).
In middle school, I'd watch CNN's talking heads while I got ready in the mornings, I knew nothing but at least kept up with the events of the day. I was in 8th grade when 9/11 happened. I fell into the same vapid knee-jerk conservativism that a lot of adults around me did too. They played that stupid "we'll put a boot in yer ass terr'ists" song over the morning announcements, if that gives you any idea of the environment I was in.
The Iraq war happened and I supported it because I could not comprehend a President that didn't have the country's best interests at heart. I reflexively clung to a lot of those conservative causes.
As the war dragged on and it became obvious it was a giant mistake and we'd all been lied to, I started to examine my beliefs. Then one day my politics teacher offered up some extra credit to research something or other and I, pasty white suburban nerd, looked into the Black Panther Party. I was really amazed. My ideas of socialists at the time were whiny Starbucks and NPR stereotypes. These people were taking control over their lives and creating programs to address the ills that they saw in their community. I learned that a lot of what I thought I knew about them was just straight up false. It didn't change my politics over night, but I look back and think this is where the seeds were planted.
I went on to university and studied business right around 2008. I'd be sitting in class learning about market fundamentals, then walk out and see on the news how those markets were breaking down. I saw the government under Obama bow down to the banksters and even protect them. When Occupy Wallstreet started, events in my life aligned such that I could spend a lot of time in the local camps, which is where I was really radicalized.
In my opinion being a 'radical' has more to do with the way you choose to uphold your beliefs more so then the beliefs themselves (to a certain point, I mean if you're trying to convince people we should be gassing the jews then I would call that person a radical). Being a strong believer in communism or socialism or capitalism or any other *ism , does not necessarily make you a radical, even if some of the beliefs you hold would seem ludicrous to the other side. What makes you a radical is intolerance to any other point of view. I don't think your comment could really be considered radical just because you held a firm belief, I would consider it radical if you were completely uninterested in arguing your point in favor of starting a riot against the bourgeois or whatever. Radicalism is when you become completely unconcerned as to whether the other side is even making a valid point
The usual way of slicing the terminology is that "extremism" is a matter of belief, and "radicalism" is a matter of action. It is possible, on a practical basis, to be a radical centrist, or a conservative (in the original sense, disinclined towards change) extremist.
Seeing the utter hollowness of all aspects of life under modern technocapitalism and realizing that it was all a consequence of the mode of economic organization. The corporatization of higher education, the uselessness of many modern jobs, the destruction of the planet in search of profits, the huge number of unethical industries, the wastefulness of consumerism, etc. But those could hypothetically be solved by regulation, what really started tipping the scales was questioning why, for example, there were hungry people in a country were food was an essentially non-scarce resource? From there it was a rabbit hole of realization: the arbitrariness of things like "the nation", how the state was a human construct not an inherit fact of the world, that private property* didn't have to exist, etc. Now I'm a /leftist/.
* "Private property" refers to the means of production, and is distinct from "personal property". I don't want to redistribute your toothbrush for the greater good.
I suppose others would describe it as extreme but I really don't think it is. From my perspective liberalism is the extreme ideology.
I hope not, I try not to believe in something just because it's considered part of an ideology I associate with.
In descending order: fascists, libertarians and friends, conservatives, tankies, liberals.
"Tolerate" is a strong word though, of those only fascists would I refuse to civilly interact with.
I'll probably oscillate between various forms of leftism, but I'll never leave. It's just too self evident.
I’m in my 40’s and I have recently become radicalized against radicals of all political beliefs.
I am really sick and tired of anything that ends with -ism. The world is much more complicated than that. I believe that -ists, people who 100% believe in their -ism, find comfort in their dogma as they no longer have to think and analyze things on a case by case basis. I don’t really blame them, it is a pain in the butt, however I am really tired of holier-than-thou ists.
So the one thing that I truly believe, is that no single group or dogma has all of the answers.
Agreed. Its a very difficult worldview to have, but its the only thing that can prevent you from falling into an ideology.
I can't really say when I was "radicalized". I honestly don't remember ever not thinking that people who hold power over others and abuse their power should be assassinated.
Happened in high school for me. Before then I was pretty much on board with my parents' beliefs, which were/are vaguely libertarian, in that they were all for drug legalization and gay marriage (at least as far back as the early 2000's), but tended to vote republican.
But then I started getting involved with the free software community, and the related free culture movement, which really did a lot to open my eyes to corporate abuse of power, while also demonstrating the power of like-minded individuals working towards their goals without the need for a profit motive or power hierarchy. Around the same time, I started to read books like Iain Banks' Culture series, which definitely played a part in shaping my views. Those two factors more than anything are responsible for my views today, which though I'm hesitant to self-label, could pretty accurately be described as libertarian socialist.
Have you read Cory Doctorow's Walkaway yet? I'd like to think it's possible to make abundance technologies that available and portable.
I haven't, but it definitely looks like something I'd like. Sounds a lot like a cross between two of my favorites, Red Mars and Manna. The latter's freely available at the link and I'd definitely recommend a read if you haven't already.
Manna is fun, though the writing is execrable. The whole Mars series is a favorite.