At a time of personal confusion and pain in my life, Jordan Peterson and the alt right gave me direction and purpose. I eventually realized that purpose was spreading a cruel, antisocial worldview — but not before I inflicted that cruelty on those around me.
the left isn’t unified enough to ever do this.
i’m a progressive leftist type… and half the time i feel alienated from my own politics because so much of it is basically anti-male anti-white hate jerking where i am told that anything i may say is oppressive to those of ‘marginalized identities’.
i seriously don’t blame young guys for being so hopeless. nobody will give them any positive direction or reinforcement other than charlatans who are looking to exploit them. it’s fucking dark.
i’m so glad my wayward 20s were 20 years ago when social media was not a thing. i had to sort out my shit in person with friends, not on the internet with strangers.
but as a 40 something guy now, i can tell you that NOBODY wants me involved in anything anymore. even my own social groups have taken to being like ‘we have too many white men, they are bad, we need to attract more people of color and women and trans people because they are special and good by default and white men are bad by default’. it’s infuriating and depressing that i’m basically told to f off when I want to contribute to my community.
i should also say i’m working-class, and that is just like… insta banned/hated if that ever comes up from my leftist people. who are typically upper middle class people pretending to be working-class for fun.
I don’t doubt that you find the left’s current politic alienating in and of itself (lord knows it can be bewildering), but I have SERIOUS doubts that reality is anything like what you’re describing here. I’m a gun-toting, outdoor-type leftist whose predominantly queer/non-white friends (I live in a big city) always find me more of a novelty than a threat. They look at me like through the walls of a fishbowl, unable to understand a lot of what I believe but also appreciative that I’m an ally on core issues that matter to them. Not once has anyone ever looked at me or any of my other cis white male friends and told them to fuck off unless it’s someone coming in with a chip on their shoulder who feels like they need to prove something by being a confrontational asshole. I suggest you reflect less on what you feel like people believe about you when you’re not around and more on how they treat you when you are. They’re not nearly as threatened or upset by you as you think.
The way you phrase this tells me you’re gleaning many of your conclusions from online spaces, rather than face-to-face real life. That’s probably why you feel the way you do. I actually have serious doubts that you have any meaningful personal relationships with leftists who aren’t cartoons or provocateurs. Perhaps the way you’re received online has to do with the fact that your stories are so over-the-top and on-the-nose as to seem deliberately hyperbolic.
Thank you. That comment felt like something that escaped from r/walkaway, just totally made up, and I didn’t want to respond. You’ve done so beautifully!
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That’s because he’s using pretty much every trope/straw man that we have come to see from bad actors. He starts off with the classic “As a leftist…” then goes on to lament his social group becoming too woke, then finishes strong by declaring that he is just a working class Joe that actual leftists wouldn’t understand.
So I’ll say it. He IS a bad actor.
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Everyone else is also entitled to their opinion that he’s acting in bad faith.
No. Are you not reading? Unless he conforms to societal expectations, he don’t get none
Sounds like I was right all along.
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I didn’t say they do. My charge was that either he was lying, or he’s an asshole. He proved the latter.
Ok?
We should all take this textbook example of sock puppetry to heart. I’m sorry, but there just aren’t “progressive leftist types” who are also “it’s the working class, straight, middle-aged white men who are the <real> oppressed minority” types. Like point me to one thing progressive about anything in this comment if that’s who you are. Point me to one thing you said other than “I’m a lib, promise!” that couldn’t have come straight out of Jordan Peterson’s or Scott Adam’s whiny ass mouths. Get outta here with that bad faith “I’m liberal but all the trans and black and female people are mean to me and don’t listen and don’t want me around” boohoo nonsense
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