Always interesting to see how many liberal angels Douthat can count -- not on a pinhead -- but in an algorithm.
I want to feel Douthat's pain but Republican conservatives have had their brains eaten by Trump who has proven that the intellectual measure of modern reactionaries is no more sophisticated than the Dow Jones average or the veneration of Old Testament patriarchy marching to a fetal heartbeat.
Previously the devil made me do it. Now it's just YouTube.
This is Douthat's yelp from the heart of darkness:
"Moreover, there is no better example of the technocratic spirit’s moral idiocy than the idea that, with a social crisis in the hinterland and ideological calcification at the heart of educated power, what we need is a better algorithm to prevent people... from getting too restless or rebellious or extreme."
A closer look isn't revealing: "social crisis in the hinterland and ideological calcification of the heart of educated power" describes Trump's deplorables and the feckless obsequiousness of GOP leaders singing hosannas and pledging their loyalty to the Man Who Would Be Emperor more than "enlightened media curation."
Douthat's angst is simple and explains his desperately lunging about for something that's the equivalent to Trump on the left and the best he offers is YouTube's crunching of big data to anticipate what would grab and hold a YouTuber's attention.
Douthat's crisis of faith isn't that God's on his side. It's that Trump is.
9
The radical right is rapidly taking over the nation.
3
You have to appreciate Mr. Douthat's sense of humor, even if he often doesn't seem to be aware of it.
"Humane conservatism", good one Ross.
Not sure if we should file that under, "Fantasies", like unicorns or "Extinct Species" of perhaps "Oxymorons".
But then Ross lays on the killer punch line: "But if conservatives would be unwise to commit themselves to the defense of some inalienable right to sell crackpottery..."
Ross, wake up, look around. The 'Inalienable Right to Sell Crackpottery' is the Conservative ideology. Look at your President, your Republican Senators, the Conservative views on Climate, Forcing women to bear their rapist's children, the desire to refuse medical care to most of the population, endless wars, Christian florists, accepting weekly school massacres, tax breaks for millionaires and, of course, Fox News.
Conservatism is all about "the inalienable right to Crackpottery". Crackpottery is the bedrock of American Conservatism. It is who they are, it is what they believe in.
Thanks for another column of tortured moral and linguistic reasoning that constantly reveals itself to be unintentionally hilarious. It is a rare talent.
7
The comment stream has already made the point that traditional conservatism has much to answer for in the hollowing out of places like Mr. Cain's West Virginia. It also has given us a destructive operation to lower the taxes of the rich and corporations and trash the environment and the safety net. Others have fleshed out this argument more fully.
Absent though from these comments is any recognition that certain attitudes, verities, and rules of conduct arising from our side's control of culture and social attitudes can have their own destructive impact on vulnerable young people. If any part of "Sam's" travails are true, such episode is shockingly improper, devoid of basic fairness, and abusive at a basic level.
You don't have to be a conservative R.C. like Douthat to strongly suspect that episode was driven at its core by a certain quasi-religious doctrinaire view of things centered on the critiques of cutting edge feminism and gender politics with a dollop of political correctness in the mix. Teenage boy as predator, and an episode like the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" barking: "Sentence first, trial afterward!".
If I was "Sam's" parent the notice of claim (pre-suit legal requirement) would be in the process server's hand immediately. "Sam" was a 13 year old for heaven sake not Harvey Weinstein.
1
It would be refreshing to hear a conservative voice acknowledging their complicity, even their authorship of the hollowing out of our reddest regions.
Unlikely, alas, because it has proven an effective way to gain electoral control, even as a minority party.
Look at the McConnell-throttled post-2008 recovery efforts, because Obama might have gotten some credit if things actually improved.
But even a voice of relative conservative reason like Douthat has to take a potshot that makes this somehow the fault of liberals.
How about we all stop worrying so much about messaging, and work together to make things better for all of middle (and yes, lower) class America? Do something we can be proud of, and then we don't have to worry about bad internet seeds propagating - because the soil will not be fertile through neglect and worse.
5
How terrible, our Sovietized mass-media has an antithesis--more power to YouTube, but sans the Stalinist web-censors, e.g., Google-FB, working more for profit than for free of speech.
With the exception of all the How-to videos--critically important to us all--YouTube is not much different from any large public university library--well, before the Cultural Marxists showed up with their post-Modern decadence.
The real difference is that one required a certain level of education and literacy and persistence, while the other, instant access, democratic, no real thinking required, just basic typing skills, an iPhone, and a willingness to look uncritically at whatever might float by--like watching SNL or Colbert.
We are returning to where it all began--painting on the walls of caves. Hopefully, when this is over, there'll still be a fire burning in the cave to keep us warm through the starry night.
1
Ross, why did you stop your quote from the Washingtonian article at the word "liberalism", when the mother said a good deal more about both the investigation held at the school and how that effected her son.
For example, you said nothing about the sexual assault training that occurred right before the incident and how the staff overreacted, at least according to the principal, yet still held her son largely responsible.
In other words, what happened to her son existed outside of politics, yet he bore the burnt of that overreaction.
Furthermore, she goes on to explain how this effected him. How he was traumatized and angry. How he was let down by a system he trusted. How he was withdrawing from life.
It then becomes understandable that a movement like the alt-right, a movement that thrives on both alienation and despair would become appealing to a 13 year old. It gave him an outlet for all that anger, alienation and frustration.
There were even worries about suicide.
But again, I ask, what does this have to do with liberalism if the alt right sprung from the ashes of Reaganism?
We can argue about our responses on both sides of the political and philosophical equation and I agree that censorship is not an answer, but stop looking for ways to blame liberalism, when it is clearly a conservative problem.
4
Once again trying to equivocate the right to the left. It’s no contest that the right is the whole reason the far left exists and not vice versa. Airless liberalism? Why hurl insults.
The definition of liberal is open minded and tolerant.
Yes a stupid overreaction by a hyper sensitive teenage girl caused unnecessarily inconvenience and possible a small amount of psychological damage to a 13 year old; but to blame liberals ideals or to limp that in with stupidity is an overreach in itself
4
So racism is perfectly understandable and excusable based on social and economic circumstances, huh Ross? Remarkable in so many respects, including its hypocrisy.
5
You WANT young people to be "... getting too restless or rebellious or extreme. What you DO NOT want is young people to lack intensity, be complacent, or buy into dogma, especially religious dogma.
Youth is when the mind should fly around, delve into the odd, the strange, the impossible and the obtuse. This is absolutely key to having a broad mind when you are an adult. Conformity advice is no surprise from this author, even though he is himself a double convert to religious fundamentalist ideologies.
3
Media makes it available. That does not explain why people want to see it, why people want to participate out there on the far right.
Availability does not explain the desire, the "need" to do it. It only explains how they can do it.
For pedophilia, the desire is a complex subject, and eliminating the ability is one partial remedy. That does not work for political ideas or political speech.
For politics, we have to understand those who go to the margins. They have actual reasons. At least some of them can be understood and a better offer made. The more people going to what are perceived to be the margins, the more that is true.
The current hot topic is The Orange One. Yet the fulmination simply refuses to face the question of why the alternative offered was so unacceptable. Instead, it pushes another alternative as much like the last as can be found.
Don't do it again. Only people like Douthat profit from that mindlessness.
Please, start to understand the distress of those left out of the thinking that lost last time.
3
Many comments seem to have missed Douthat's point: that online radicalization is not caused by the online environment, but echoes the real-world dilemmas of Internet users. That makes obvious sense. It was once thought that reading novels corrupted feminine morals--when of course, such novels as may have had such an effect merely articulated the longings of women for greater autonomy and the right to live their own lives. Attacking the online world without repairing the real world puts the cart before the horse.
4
We're still discovering how the internet works (a futile exercise, incidentally, since it mutates faster than we can discover). For this reason, it's scarcely fair to construe the attention paid to the YouTube algorithm as merely a "technocratic" argument that we just need safer algorithms.
Nor, incidentally, Ross, is it only the left that retreats into "soul-destroying" nostrums. I read you because you are one of the very few ideologically-committed columnists who isn't 100% predictable. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find writers who can reliably make you think??
2
R. Douthat is the smartest and most observant of the NY Times columnists. If what he writes seems driven by ideology, non-sensical, or deluded, go back and read the article he links to as "cultural hegemony." Written just before Trump's election, it seemed completely against the grain at the time, but, in retrospect, one of the rare predictions that comes true. We liberals always want conservatism to be an error, an aberration, something blamable to the Kochs, or Fox News, or YouTube, or some other unnatural conspiracy. That may be part of the story, but the core truth is conservatism exists in all cultures and every liberal revolution will be met with a conservative counterrevolution. Every era where liberalism seems ascendant will be punctured. R. Douthat does the thankless work of repeating this truth again and again and his predictions seem to come true more than most.
2
I've read the comments. Mr. Douthat should. He might become less defensively pompous and ponderous. Or not. Makes you think that the other great leaders who Mr. Douthat doubtless respects and admires are on to something with their re-education resorts, oops, camps.
Ms. McNamara, another bow is yours if I have anything to say about it.
Mr. Douthat, please weave into your next attempt at forging a legacy that there are "good people on both sides". Trump has their names. They're right next to the "secret deal" doc.
Where they belong.
This:
"as an example of how the alt-right’s promise of “secret knowledge” about gender, race and sexuality finds a ready audience among young people primed by aspects of their own progressive education to suspect that the system is enforcing ideology rather than imparting truth."
Bravo again to you Ross Douthat for stating so succinctly what needs to be said.
5
I'm afraid Douthat is badly misrepresenting Sam's sad "origin story" as a consequence of "elite liberalism". If you read the full Washingtonian story, you'll see that later, the male administrator met with his parents, "implying, with undisguised hostility, that Sam and his friend were gay".
"He declared that it was his primary duty, as a school official and as a father of daughters, to believe and to protect the girls under his care."
An official who invokes something about their personal identity ("a father of daughters"), rather than rules and principles, as they go about using their institutional powers, is reflecting the very opposite of "liberalism".
What Sam encountered was the personalization, the thrill of personal enforcement, that characterizes authoritarianism. It's the gift that people like Trump and Orban offer their followers: you may have to submit to my power over you, but I'm going to give you power over other people in exchange.
5
Some in my family consider me left of liberal, and sometimes I do too, but I'm all in favor of "humane conservatism" just as I'm in favor of centrism and liberalism and progressivism and any other ism out there when its adherents look for nuanced analysis rather than quick fix silver bullets whether analog or online.
And for the record, the liberal elites in the institutes of higher learning that I've attended would never let their students get away with simplistic aphorisms, let alone sanctimonious pot shots at the other side. And neither would the conservative professors *that were not an endangered species* at any rate.
4
We need to update Mark Twain on lies, with the three kinds now being lies, damned lies and algorithms. Algorithms, unlike now-honorable-mention statistics, are routinely kept hidden from scrutiny by the public whose lives they help rule.
1
Not once did Douthit examine whether the Washingtonian juvenile would likely have slid into the hands of the on-line alt right without the supposed precipitating event, but hey the low hanging fruit of the facts as presented by the Washingtonian was too good to pass up.
1
True, while you can blame algorithms, the main thing that has "red-pilled" me is reality.
4
Mr. Douthat's argument might be persuasive, were it not for the fact that conservatism in the Trump era is no less airless than its liberal counterpart. Cutural hegemony and increasing ideological conformism characterize the right (e.g., anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-militarization of police, anti-science) as much if not more so then they do the left. Wait, you say, we have many stripes of conservatism. I'm sorry, but for the purposes of this argument, the ones you see in urban orthodox synagogues isn't really that much different from those you find in rural Baptist churches. Furthermore, the centrist Republicans that used to hold power across the country have largely been purged from the federal levels. More importantly, however, the left has something essential here that the right ceded long ago that will always prevail over conformism and that is critical thinking, which renders citizens the capacity to find the just, sustainable, and well-reasoned paths for public policy and governance.
But just as food for thought, tell us Ross, what would a humane conservatism resemble in the post-Trump era, when all that remains of its former Reagan/Bush-era glory lies smoldering beneath the foot of a foul-mouthed man with pungent orange hair and a proclivity for porn stars?
4
My goodness, the verbal acrobatics Mr. Douthat has to perform to keep from calling white supremacists exactly what they are must have been quite the challenge. "White-identitarian". That's a new one for me.
7
Yes. Mr. Douhat often loses me in his layers of justification, but this piece seemed like the most convoluted yet. I honestly couldn't make heads nor tails out of it other than "maybe not all alt-right people are the same as Nazis. " I already knew that. They are the bridge to Nazism.
3
I don't know.
I don't know what the future holds, and I don't know of a way to get us to a wise, decent, loving culture that holds some incentives as important to keeping things together, but also understands that we are all equal, we all deserve a good education and national health care.
But I am still capable of saying I don't know, and I am willing to listen and yield to good ideas and the passion of the young.
But I do know something of great importance, that wealth destroys all empires, and America is at that point. We either stop pandering to the American oligarchs like Gates, and Knight and Trump, or we find ourselves in...just another Banana Republic.
"Conservative" has usually, traditionally, just been a polite way of saying "suck ups to big money", by the way.
Still is.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
74
@Hugh Massengill. Everything you say is true and underlies the overall mood of depression amongst nearly everyone in the middle class.
9
George W. gave us eight years of compassionate conservatism. Whatever that label was supposed to mean, it only made things worse for those who needed compassion the most.
80
@William George W Bush entangled us in the most disastrous conflict since the Peloponnesian Wars. Compassionate Conservatism was neither, it was cruel and radical.
5
I went back and reread this writer's article and still find it impossible to reach his conclusion. It's obtuse. And I went to other articles and write-ups about the author and don't find them illuminating. My own conclusion is that this person is simply defensive rather than persuasive or informative.
5
@R. Anderson Mea culpa. My bad. I didn't mean this 39 year old writer was "obtuse." I meant he was abstruse (virtually impossible for me to understand).
1
You will find a different account of the societal drivers of the anomie you discuss here in Transhumanism, Nature, and the Ends of Science.
It is certainly the case that abuse of authority/power is not a conservative monopoly. It is wrong from either (or no) political point of view. It is also the case that YouTube and both politcal parties are often eager to "Lead us into temptation", and unwilling to "Deliver us from evil."
Ross is getting hard to read because his Catholic based political perspective seems founded on the reactionary Catholic church rather than the (apparently liberal) actual words and teachings of Christ. The practical effect of Republican politics is to ensure that unless you are wealthy and live in a "high resource" location, you will face an uphill path to get an education, earn a decent income, stay healthy, and (if female) control your own reproductive outcomes.
While fatalism was once the only viable option, much better outcomes can be made much more likely--but it will cost the most affluent amoung us one of their private jets from their fleet, and other similarly "harsh" penalties. Ross much prefers putting lead into the water of "those people" (to save a few dollars in taxs) than acting like the follower of Christ he claims to be.
3
Democrats and Republicans who trash the golden mean in politics, the sensible middle, clearly drive some people to make a choice between the far left and the far right - not a good choice, not a good development,
One most effective way of supporting pragmatic democracy, rather than the far right, is to support centrists when you vote.
Beware of extremists of the right or the left.
2
Another equivocating essay from Mr. Douthat. For a number of years, he has made "but" and "on the other hand" his favorite words. Somewhere in his op-eds, there is an opinion uncluttered by this-side-that-side-good-and-bad. Unfortunately, I have not found one.
2
He does have a tendency to attempt to explain both sides of an argument. It's as if he went to a good college and wrote essays that required "compare and contrast"....That required an introduction to explain the purpose of the column, facts to support it and facts against it. And a conclusion that attempts to prove the allegations stated in the introduction based on the facts and arguments presented...
I can see why this type of analysis confuses many NYT readers...Most of the other columnists here don't waste time explaining alternative arguments and facts that cut against their points of view and those of their readership....Not being an urban liberal Democrat, I enjoy an article that argues both sides.... But I understand that most readers that subscribe to the NYT prefer political statements not political argument. Less thinking, more fun!
Maybe the next time, instead of giving $1.5 Trillion to billionaires, let’s try giving it to everyone but the billionaires to see how that works.
Or maybe put it into infrastructure, or healthcare.
6
That take on Sam sounds more like the administration of a school abusing their power over a child, and that is certainly not the first story of a minor being held in a questionable situation unable to contact an adult, nor is that situation restricted to a liberal ideological takeover.
3
@Sara
Actually, it is pretty much the process that got the fake confessions from the Central Park 5.
3
young men are supposed to rebellious and extreme; that's an engine of social progress and personal mobility. what they are not supposed to be, en masse, is alienated, alone, and suffering from intractable, despondent hopelessness. there are few outs truly available, all unlikely to be much good: leave the place they know and try someplace else more promising, leaving friends and family behind as they have been left behind (assumes at least the price of a bus ticket); join the military (if qualified); stick with education somehow, then leave for greener pastures; get saved and throw themselves into the world of the church; figure out a way to make a remote, dying region into an asset instead of a curse; get lost in the oblivion and doom of drugs. what would you choose in their place?
2
Reading Douthat’s columns, I always get the feeling he’s not saying or taking the far-right positions he wants to take (because, well, it’s a New York Times audience, not FOX news), so instead he obfuscates and dances around the issues, prettifying them with pseudo-intellectualism, then ends with some vague and hollow notion that Trump is bad but it’s really liberalism to blame. I’d love it if he were direct for once, but that would mean owning up to a red-state conservatism he seems to consider beneath his own elite dignity.
8
@Ernest McLeod
You nailed it.
No mention here of the profit motive that drives YouTube extremism. The "I'm an actor" defence offered by Alex Jones in his court case(s) says it all. The more extreme the sentiment, the more clicks it generates, and the more income it brings. Rampant capitalism and greed is vastly more dangerous than Liberalism.
4
Mr. Douthat says, "Whatever role the structure of the internet plays in radicalization, the root causes are still primarily sociological and political, ..." Wrong. When you talk about the root causes of radicalization, they are genetic, from evolution. In other words people were born that way and prone to being radicalized. It is thus unconscious, automatic "thinking". Nothing is more important than educating everyone on why we think the way we do because today, almost nobody understands it. What differentiates people along the political spectrum and the root cause of those prone to being radicalized is a part of the brain called the amygdala. The larger it is, the more fear, thus the further right on the political spectrum until you reach a point where healthy fear begins to resemble symptoms of paranoia. It is not complicated, an inconvenient truth perhaps, but until everyone understands this, we are a risk of destroying ourselves because evolution is a slow process. The amygdala is considered to be evolutionarily extinct today, useful during the first 50,000 generations of humans, but not the last 500. This should be taught every year beginning in middle school until it becomes common knowledge.
2
this column is headed in the right direction, despite starting from the wrong assumptions and ending with the wrong villains.
i have a PhD in behavioral science and did social research as part of my career; i was an internet entrepreneur and executive. science training and career experience has taught me the futility of using jargony abstractions about human attitudes -- "amorality" and "populism" and "identitarian" and so on -- to analyze human behavior.
after genetics, human behavior is mostly shaped by the environment, and for modern humans the environment is mostly the infrastructure. by analyzing algorithms, we are limiting the discussion to a tiny slice of the big picture. the infrastructure is the origin of the social problems that concern all of us.
and the culprits are not the "elites" (C.W. Mills qualified that they are *corporate* elites, meddling in politics) but the profit driven growth of the global corporate infrastructure.
"elites" are merely the plug and play human processors in this infrastructure: disposable, interchangeable, vanilla. they are not villains, or heroes, but tools -- in all senses of the word.
where is our global infrastructure headed? profit motive has already decided that question: more resource depletion, more surveillance and control -- and, as adam smith said -- a continually growing population.
look to the infrastructure for your questions and your answers. "algorithms" and "elites" are the crutches of lazy thinking.
2
What Ross Douthat leaves out of his analysis--as does every other "reasonable" conservative--is that right-wing zealotry often leads to murder--New Zealand, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Charlottesville, Parkland, Toronto, and so on.
But, of course that would spoil his argument--and the argument of every other "reasonable" conservative--that the real problem in American society is too much liberal political correctness--which then stimulates gullible youth to burn crosses, threaten female gamers with rape, wear swastikas to picnics and, eventually take up arms.
What liberals want to do to homicidal right-wing zealots is take away their guns.
What conservatives want to do to homicidal right-wing zealots is give them more guns.
If anybody is still buying the false equivalence sold by "reasonable" conservatives, I'd like to sell you my Datsun.
7
Many (most?) human beings are capable of becoming obsessed and even compulsive if our predilections are constantly nourished. The use of algorithms feeds on this and can lead to places a person would not go on their own. This approach treats us like lab rats looking for pellets.
3
If I were Douthat, I'd take the DC story with a lot more skepticism. So "Sam" was as innocent as a lamb and driven to aggressive anti-feminist and all-right nonsense by Gestapo-like treatment by school administrators -- according to "Sam's" mother! Methinks there is what the Times editors might call another side to that story. Also, the mother might want to look more closely at herself and her family to figure out Sam's behavior at 13 and 14.
38
Dear Mr. Douthat,
Because anecdotes feel personal, I realize it is tempting to use them as compelling inroads to describing the whole. But here you are using an account of a child being subjected to institutional bullying and the systematic criminalization within our schools of minor infractions as what? Evidence of liberal political shortcomings in culture??? One more time?
Let's describe the actual broad political motion in America: what was founded as a flawed representative democracy is struggling hard against authoritarianism--from the GOP. You use the words "...respectable conservatism," without a sense of irony, but sir, it no longer exists. When the party abandoned empirical arguments and policies constructed to benefit as much of the population as possible, is began its undoing. Today's GOP lies extensively about its intentions (e.g. the tax cuts for corporate America; gerrymandering; "fighting for the middle class"; religious "liberty"), while actually working hard to cement minority control over the nation's levers of power.
When confronted with electoral backlash (2018), they work all the harder to cram wingnuts onto federal benches to, they hope, quash popularly enacted legislation for a generation.
Mr. Douthat, to have "respectable conservatism" in America, conservatives must stop lying about their intentions, their actual policies, and deign to represent more than the interests of the 1%.
144
@John
Population of the US as of a moment ago: 329,041,549. Surely people do not fall within one party of the other. Of those things that are NOT binary in this world, that's got to be one of them. If you can't detect a difference between Douthat and say Mitch McConnell, we're in a world of hurt. Please, try to analyze the complexity of our world outside of the scope of current political either/or.
5
Ross ignores the corrosive effec of "conservative" economic poilcies that reduce the economic security and opportunities of most Americans, while enriching the top few at their expense. e
Economic stress and despair lead to populism and radicalization AND the breakdown of social structures. It should be obvious feom the last three centuries of western history. Marriage, involved parenting, social mores, and stable households thrive in the upper income levels, while breaking down in the lower ones, as people scramble to survive in chaos and desperation.
Ross has it completely backwards. If he wants to build a better-functiong, stable society, he needs to start by rebuilding our national commitment to a better-functioning, stable society.
168
@Naomi
Every comment should begin with your line “Ross has it completely backwards.”
For every column of his.
6
@Naomi
Yes, backwards. As is his wont.
But, really, you contend "marriage, involved parenting, social mores and stable households thrive in the upper income levels."
Then shouldn't everyone have a shot?
And I don't think the Trumps are poster children for this. Or any of his cohorts. Or all of this cohort.
I don't see the prep schools, nor any of the other bastions of the upper income being without sin. Can you say more about why you do?
Thank you.
3
The internet provides a lot of anonymity to those that want to use it to mask who they are vs what they project. As such.. it is a ripe environment for unchecked rhetoric, hatred, racism, and any of a wide range of partisan agendas (on both ends of the ideological spectrum).
For far right extremists.. who are more prone to use internet anonymity as they ply their trademark hatred toward others.. this means they no longer have to wear actual hoods to hide who they are as they attack and predate anyone or anything they do not like. THIS is the negative side of the internet... unchecked use of the "virtual hood" to mask who you are while you peddle what you believe. Bascially.. as was true with Clan members decades ago.. they are cowards.
At least progressives tend to be out there and public with who they are as they fight back against what bothers them.
Personally, I would prefer that both the right and the left refrained from weaponizing the use of the internet. I would prefer they use the internet as a common virtual town hall to actually get to know and understand each other and each others perceived issues and then actually enter into a discussion about reaching common ground somewhere in the middle. I have no illusion that this will actually happen... as the nature of the aggrieved human mind is to harbor resentment and demand revenge.... the primitive reptile portion of our brain in action.. and clearly the internet is where the reptile brain thrives now days.
3
It is unsurprising that economically-struggling young straight white males have not embraced the message of the progressive left: that society’s great problem is the continuing existence of a corrupt power structure which favours straight white males. Of course they are looking elsewhere.
3
Wow! This may be the best Douthat column ever! Nailed it. Draws on the sociological traditions of Tocqueville, Durkheim, Robert Nisbet, Robert Putnam. Roots of this loner/alt right issue are in the waning of family, community and religious bonds that are ignored by well-educated, well-heeled financial and political elites. David Brooks has been hinting at this but doesn't confront elite politically-correct blindness on this topic as does Douthat.
1
All I want to say is that I think this article is so important. It’s refreshing to read something that is genuinely trying to understand the opposite side. It’s much easier to label the Right as people whom we are justified in despising, maybe even hating. Listening and empathizing is what we are in great need of in 2019. It would be a shame for our children’s children, able to see us with that 20/20 hindsight, to recognize that the Left, known most of all for compassion, would not even try to understand the way they can make other people feel sometimes.
The D.C. story shows that progressives can be as intolerant as religious conservatives, who often have similar reactions to expressions of ideas that question the faith.
3
While I agree in general that the root causes of radicalization are sociological and not YouTubes algorithm per se, the algorithm absolutely throws gas onto already existing flames. Furthermore, Mr. Douthat's fundamental conclusion appears to be "it's all liberals' fault anyway" which is entirely laughable. Conservatives have been exploiting the same basic radicalization game with Limbaugh and worse radio programs and Fox News many years before YouTube became dominant in the political fringe and worse.
Also, in the story from the Washingtonian, the description of "the crime" is incomplete. It's written by the boys mother and tries to excuse the child of any blame...his friend mentioned a "meme with a suggestive name", but the girl is blamed for listening to their "private conversation". Without knowing what exactly was said (although to me it's telling that the mother didn't put the words in the story), who can make a judgement over whether the reaction was overly harsh?
Even if one accepts that it was an over-reaction (without all the facts), there are many black children who get charged with actual crimes (this child wasn't) based on misbehavior in school and conservatives don't seem too sympathetic to that. Or how about trans children that become withdrawn and depressed like Sam did? Are the conservatives concerned about that?
None of this is to say that Sam deserved the treatment he got, but I just don't see how this is a "progressives destroying America" thing.
8
Reactionary is the word for those we need to focus on. The conservative who is humble and builds their life with honor are not the ones running today’s Republican Party and they’re not the ones whose behavior is frightening.
1
You call out airless uncompromising liberalism as carrying part of the blame for online radicalization. The conservative alternative that exists right now are not supportive or compromising.
Republicans went from distain for Trump to 100% supporting him, enabling him to do so many questionable and illegal actions. Under Obama their goal was to obstruct absolutely to make him fail as a president. And conservatives supported that. Not much compromise there.
The extensive Republican gerrymandering at the state level lets republicans enact draconian laws, voter suppression, and attempts at theocracy while greatly cutting social safety nets. How does that support the community you talk so much about? I agree with it’s importance but Republicans actions say they don’t care.
I believe that compassionate conservatism carries blame too. Conservatives rely heavily on faith. The Catholic Church chose to protect itself rather than care for the victims of its abusive priests. And Evangelical Christians unquestioningly embraced Trump, ignoring or rationalizing away his moral failings, after criticizing for decades the moral failings of liberals. Are they to be trusted for moral guidance?
The people in the profiles may have run from, as you call it, airless liberalism. When they turned to the conservative communities they live in they found hypocritical, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, uncompromising conservatism with no safety net. So they turned to the radical right on YouTube.
11
Seems to me that the real problem is corporate culture and capitalism: advertisers say give me more eyeballs to see more ads and buy more stuff---even if it is not good for society, it's good for us.
1
@Bill P
Let's simplify, yet broaden what you stated:
The problem is one of self-interest to the exclusion of consideration of any other possibility.
Humans are selfish by nature, and since everything in society has a human origin... human selfishness prospers and thrives everywhere. Humans have to actually fight back against their native selfish-nature in order to reach out to other humans in a more human way. In this regard the meme 'corporations are people too" actually makes sense.
1
You decry the “bubble” Washington, DC, Mr. Douthat. Well, I live in a bubble called Ohio, where I, and my entire family, have a long history of being liberals. We’ve worked, reared families, and cared for our communities while espousing progressive values. I call your attention to the mayor of Carbon Hill, Alabama, who recently suggested that LGBTQ people should be “killed out.” If anyone needs to get out of a bubble, it is this man. Please buy him a ticket to DC, where there is sufficient diversity that he may see someone who doesn’t look like himself. However, if you think that’d be too much of a shock to his system, we can start him off in Ohio.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/07/us/alabama-mayor-homophobic-facebook-comments/index.html
12
@I have Christine Bieri
Mr Douthat taking issue with the "DC bubble" is actually the height of hypocrisy in action.
Every editorial he produces is all about working the "DC bubbles" actions and agenda, from a strictly right wing point of view.
2
Another in Ross's string of columns on the failures of "liberalism" to offer leadership and solace, a viable alternative to "Trumpism." And what does he mean by "liberalism"? The trouble is, if we saw his list of the main ingredients, the things that lead him to complain of its "airlessness," no liberal would subscribe. Too much reliance on "-isms." Today it is "increasing ideological conformism," as if all liberals, and only liberals, were prone to rigid beliefs. In another column, recently, the problem was "proceduralism," whatever that is -- something like playing by the rules, or insisting on the rule of law?
13
@Jon Quitslund Excellent point. Conservatives, including Ross, love to rely on beating straw men -- ie, attacking liberals for sins they impute to liberals.
2
Youtube did not exist when young Germans, unemployed, degraded, and humiliated in the aftermath of WW I and economic collapse gravitated to a figure of strength offering hope and reassurance that the failure of their lives was not their fault. Blaming the internet is like attacking the symptoms of a disease rather than the disease itself.
The hubris of the societal tinkerers remains unfettered and, as usual, misguided. They seem to believe that but for garbage on the internet there would be a lessening of extreme radicalization, that vast segments of the public are too weak and feeble minded to discern reality from propaganda. The disaffected and those with a boiling anger over their plight, whether real or imagined, will always look for something on which to hang for comfort, for explanations, for a raison d'être - and if the internet disappeared today, other sources of radical ideas would fill the void.
Liberals preach the First Amendment as Holy Scripture, but, when those same freedoms bight back firewalls become the rallying cry. This is not to say the disinformation should be tolerated, but I, for one, do not trust computer scientists to decide for us what is disinformation and what are ideas and views that are simply not palatable.
8
Of course Ross is right, in the abstract, that developing a "better algorithm" will solve nothing and truly epitomizes the technocrats' moral idiocy. But Ross: that's all they've got. It's their only trick. From the algorithm comes all their power, money, and control over our behavior. They will never admit that their business model can't solve the problems it creates, or even that it creates problems in the first place. So they'll double down on the algorithm-tweaking, and issue a soothing statement about how they're really committed to making the world a better place.
4
@Mito
His entire run at a "better algorithm is simple pretexting on his part to launch into the real right wing message he is fixated on. he's not even very clever about it.
Maybe this approach helps him sleep a little better at night.. because he can bask in "whataboutism" on par with the likes of Hannity, et al.
As a member of a Catholic church that has spent decades protecting men who raped and abused children, it's rich that Douthat lays the blame for the disintegration of community and family life at the feet of the supposed liberal elites.
321
@dan
A few columns back he blamed the Catholic sex scandals on... you guessed it, liberalism!
33
In Sam's case, it's remarkable that the "administrator" was not disciplined. It's too much to ask that a 13 year old girl always get it right on what is and is not sexual harassment. The administrator was fresh out of a mandatory training on the subject, and should have known at least the definition, as well as the definitions of harassment, and of bullying, because he/she appears to have demonstrated both. And Sam demonstrated a typical reaction to trauma.
But most people signing up to be alt-right on the internet are not 13 year olds, or shouldn't be. So what is the story of a typical 35 year old who goes dark? As long as this culture categorically dismisses the troubles of anyone older than a teenager as of their own making or as indicative of latent hate, we'll never know.
The problems stem from the deletion of nuance and the demand that all people need to decide with whom they stand. The internet media play a big part, and not just as an amplifier. But so do the traditional media, the lawyers, the businesspeople, the techies, and academia.
Dimensional reduction is a great idea if you're a computer algorithm looking to distill out a correlation. For the seven billion people in this world trying to live together, though, it's deadly and should be avoided at all costs. And that is a problem on both the right and the left. It's easy to see when someone has dehumanized you to a caricature. It's not so easy to see when you've done so to somebody else.
4
Mr. Douthat -
Do you want to be understood by the vast majority of your readers (that is, do you want to - you know - do your job), or do you want to come across as some kind of superior genius whose vocabulary and locutions are on another level? I suspect it’s the latter, inasmuch as read your columns. If it’s the former, why don’t you dumb down your language just a hair, and then maybe your readership might be able to grasp your meaning. Or maybe that would embarrass you, given what passes for your philosophy.
8
Not fair. I like complicated arguments that create more questions than answers...Ross isn't great at it. His conclusions don't always match his facts and argument. But at least he tries.... If you want simplistic statements rather than argument read Goldberg or Blow. They just tell you what they think without all facts and contradictions that make political argument so messy and sometimes annoying to the brain!
"Humane conservatism?"
I believe those conservatives are building for profit "camps" on our border and around our country to put dehumanized brown people in. Women are being forced to undergo intrusive medical exams in Missouri on orders from the Republican government. Humane conservatives also failed to expand Medicare in their states because they're so humane.
There is no such thing as humane conservatism anymore Ross. How could you have missed that as a supposed "observer" of politics?
23
@Jenifer
"Humane conservatism" = the oxymoron meme of the day.
1
As usual, a "tradcon" tries dressing up their world view in pseudo-intellectual babble, in particular, the false-equivalency kind. (See also "What-aboutism," Ad Hominem," Weapons of Mass Distraction, etc.)
Whatever may help you sleep at night, Mr. Douthat, will not and cannot change the facts: Conservatives and the "right" have had their fears, insecurities, and anger monetized for many years.
You can try to rationalize shared blame on the liberal "elite" all you like, but it's your fellow "tradcons" that are so easily manipulated, for so long.
17
It's so cool how cons preach the ideology (gospel?) of self-reliance and bootstrapping... right up to the moment when it doesn't fit their victiim narrative of blaming the libs for the failures of American society.
24
Conservatives love to blame liberals for the failures of conservatism. Red states did not become red states because of the breakdown of rural economies, the epidemic of opiate abuse, the loss of communities and a sense of family. Those things happened as a direct result of the failure of conservative, Republican policies to address a world of social, economic, and technological change.
Radical, right wing, domestic terrorists (why is it so hard for conservatives to call them terrorists?) did not arise because of a liberal cultural hegemony. They have always been there, but they are now rising to the surface and wreaking havoc because of the conservative, Republican embrace of white nationalism--from Steve King to Donald Trump.
I am an unabashed liberal. I would love to see an intellectually honest, traditional conservatism to restore a semblance of multi-party diversity in our political space. But all I see is rich people wanting tax cuts, white people supporting putting brown children in cages, and men denying the rights of women and the LGBTQ community. Often in the name of religion. And I see apologists like Ross Douthat refusing to admit that the current, conservative Republican party is at fault.
46
@MEM.... I could not say it better!!.... i also "see rich people wanting tax cuts,...." etc, etc.... So bizarre that Mr. Douthat has to continually justify this so obvious shifting of power to the ever more greedy (& ever more self-justifying) white patriarchy!
Great comment!
4
@MEM
Drug abuse, and the disintegration of families and communities is the result of a triumph of liberal cultural values over traditional values that began generations ago. It wasn't conservative Republicans who said "turn in, turn on, drop out," who celebrated drugs and sexual promiscuity, who encouraged "if it feels good, do it," and made having children without being married a perfectly acceptable choice. Etc., etc.
Nearly every social policy since the '70s has been about mitigating the damage brought by a radical overturning of values and traditions which humans had relied upon for personal, familial and social stability. If it's all due to economics then why, for instance, didn't families disintegrate en masse during the Great Depression?
If you don't want to return to the Ozzie and Harriet days, fine. (Neither do I.) But let's not deny *why* we are in the fix we are in. It's almost entirely due to our values, mores and culture, not our material conditions.
6
@Livonian
I disagree, there was never a time when our society wasn't being damaged by substance abuse, unwanted pregnancies and other social vices. These problems are part of the human condition and politics have nothing to do with it. What liberals did was recognize these issues and moved to address them.
4
It is true that the problem is about a lot more than algorithms; but looking for the deeper roots should take us first to the Republican Party, its allies, and especially its current leader, and their explicit attempts to fear-monger and divide the country based on racial divisions and other issues (note the NRA's infomercials where it tells its right-wing adherents that an actual shooting war is imminent between liberals and true American patriots - no algorithms needed). But no, Mr. Doubthat thinks progressives are to blame. Yeah, whatever.
11
The linked Washingtonian profile is excellent. I urge everyone to read it.
3
One thought immediately occurred to me when reading the Washington Post story—-this minors rights were violated. The school should have called his parents, heard both sides of the story and, ultimately, let the parents decide on punishment. Obviously I am a liberal because I go right to whether rights were violated. I am also a grandmother who told her 4-year-old grandson that the sheriff deputy (in uniform) was his friend and that any police officer would help him if he was hurt or threatened. The officer in question thanked me and told me that parents in our small, rural, conservative county threaten their children with the “cops” for all kinds of things, even not eating their veggies. Wow, if their parents are doing this, and their schools are doing it, these kids are going to grow up hating “cops” and believing they have no rights except on paper.
1
Lost me at "respectable conservatism."
10
@JMG It used to exist.
3
Predatory monopolies have sprung up with the internet. They take advantage of the entertainment craving ennui of people. People's tastes evolve over time with these algorithms entice one to more extreme entertainments to keep the person searching.
1
While we wait for Youtube to ban alternative voices, thankfully we have ms media-people to radicalize people into wanting to kill school-children, as with the Covington Hoax the msm perpetrated. Or to stir yet more race-hatred with the Smollett Hoax. Or to stir more violence by calling Trump & his followers after a German dictator - Trump with his Jewish daughter & grandchildren. Lol.
These ms media-people are apparently our natural teachers, with all their lack of qualifications to do so, and through having assumed authority over us with untested quality of character - & they will never be banned by Youtube.
4
Once again, a NYT conservative columnist finds an example of people being idiots and turns it into a column in which those idiots stand in for all liberals. The right blogs are full of this bullpucky.
I will tell you exactly when the watershed moment arrived: When McConnell and the Republicans refused to accept the election of President Obama -- a president who made a good faith effort to reach across the aisle, and was even accused by his own party of "negotiating with himself" because of his efforts to find common ground.
For many of us who are liberals but willing to accept compromise, that was that. You can criticize us all you want, we aren't hearing it any more.
We now have a "democracy" in name only. The majority is being ruled by a minority. The Republicans have weaponized the checks and balances in the Constitution through various shenanigans to impose their will on issue after issue in which polls show the majority does not accept their beliefs. They welcomed the intervention of an enemy power and are afraid to put a stop to it lest they lose in 2020. Dems are going to have to mount a superhuman effort to wrest democracy back. But one thing for sure: We are not responsible for white nationalism. That belongs to the Republicans now.
29
The "airlessness of liberalism"? I guess that jingoistic phrase would only work if your ideal breath of air including a healthy dose of good ol' fashioned Anglo-centricism, with a fair dose of white nationalism and hints of the Aryan Brotherhood. That PC air seems pretty fresh out here in CA ...
Funny how the Times runs columnists like this: I guess the search for intelligent voices on the right is getting a little more desperate, now that Buckley, Hitch and Krauthammer are gone, and writers like David Brooks (and Jennifer Rubin) no longer toe the line. So rather than identify ideas to debate, we get umbrella phrases which synopsize more general fears. Thus, identity politics is the dog whistle of the right. Or perhaps the last knell as their ship sinks ....
10
His opinion columns should be in the humor section. Perhaps with illustrations. Their simplistic and broad brush strokes are too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
It is sometimes fun to watch him contort his thinking to Cirque de Soleil proportions to defend conservatism as it continually descends into Trumpian hypocrisy. And as the Republicans look worse his attacks on Democrats become harsher.
4
@Dev
With "airlessness of liberalism, I believe Ross was describing liberalism's impulse to aggressively enforce its ideology. Liberalism has become very, very rigid and punitive, if you haven't noticed.
2
This column is nothing more than a school ground "you made me hit you" taunt.
The fact is, many people other than white males are suffering terribly in this country, and they don't turn to extremist groups like the Proud Boys, or the likes of the marchers in Charlottesville.
And it is columns like these that enable our Bigot in Chief and his rabid base by absolving them of responsibility for their actions.
The fact is, those who are to blame for the rise in far right extremism are those who firmly believe in its bigoted tenets and act on them. No one else "led them" to the place they've gone. They wanted to go there, and have taken every means, online and offline, to act out their viciousness. Hate crimes are up exponentially since Trump took office, and the vast majority of them are done by whites against persons of color. And exactly how is liberalism responsible for this?
It is now way past time for liberals' gloves to come off, and to start fighting back. As long as we remain passive, we'll see nothing but an increase in the strength of the far right. We'll see increasing attacks on minority communities.
We've tried "reaching out." It was a waste of time. The far right, which Douthat coddles here, needs to be stopped. They will not stop at their current level of violence. It will only escalate. They'll continue to see that they are unopposed, and this will lead to only one thing - more hate crimes. And our continued passivity will be our downfall.
16
It's amazing how poorly analyzed this article is.
"...what we need is a better algorithm to prevent people — young men, especially — from getting too restless or rebellious or extreme."
The algorithm is called having opportunities. The algorithm is doing away with the economically elite, the 1-percenters or billionaires whose fortunes have drained opportunities from 99% of Americans. It's so simple if you are willing to accept that your glorious conservatism is a hypocrisy (WWJD with the top 1%, unwed mothers, the poor, the hungry, the immigrants?) and has become over the last few decades the root problem in America.
Mr. Douthat, your hypocrisy is matched only by your hubris.
10
@james actually, Douthat is not saying that we need a better algorithm... he is condemning the idea of a "better algorithm" as "moral idiocy".
1
Did you actually read the article. You agree with him!
So the premise is that "elite liberalism" drives alienated youth into the arms of alt-right white nationalism courtesy of YouTube?
That's a pretty tall claim. As I read this, all I could think of was some youth and even adults have always been alienated and isolated (goes with the territory of adolescence, especially prolonged). Before YouTube or the internet in general they joined gangs, or cults of all stripes, even ending up in suicide pacts with flamboyant leaders.
But society today has simply accelerated things with more tools available for folks to seek community in diverse places.
The cases Ross cites seem extreme, which is why they likely ended up in profiles. And I'm not trying to minimize individual alienation in a country and culture that so values money, things, and achievements (genuine or not) over all else.
America has long had this survival of the fittest ethic that leaves many at the margins, starting with school, and ending up in larger society. But if you're going to politicize things, I personally still opt for a liberalism that helps the weak over conservatism that protects the strong.
187
@ChristineMcM
Yes, Ross's columns lately seem to show how the "failures" of liberalism are the cause of our societal problems; that somehow trying to solve them make them worse.
Will a tax cut, the free market, and a return to catholicisim solve the problems?
58
@Rob: his is a world view I simply can't understand. I find it fascinating that he writes his columns in such a ponderous, information-stuffed way, but at the heart of many of them is, as you say, a pretty simple message: "elite" liberalism is bad, conservatives are the only ones who see the light of morality. I find it astounding, as a reformed William Saffire Republican who joined the Democratic party in 2010, that Ross would find moral a political ideology that so crushes the soul and the spirit, while giving free reign to wealth and privilege.
90
@ChristineMcM
Christine, I so agree and have followed the same path from the Republican party of my grandfather (which still had heart) to the Democratic party that nominated Obama; and an America that elected him twice!
Maybe for Ross ponderous writing equals profound thinking... all those heavy thoughts.
P.S. Thank you for your caring enough to comment on a regular basis. I always look for them.
38
Others will note that most of the people who read this and call themselves "liberals" or "progressives" will have plenty of proposals besides messing with algorithms. Many will indeed note that the capitalist/neoliberal consensus caused many of these problems.
One party, for all its many failings, has spent 30 years trying to create more national service opportunities for young people like these. Markets have signally failed in giving young people positive ways to engage in something bigger than themselves, and the not-for-profit sector is overwhelmed, so this would seem an important part of the solution.
Unfortunately, the other party has done all it can to destroy opportunities for civilian national service -- and continues to do so (witness the Trump administration's recent destruction of the rural Job Corps program). Yes, as usual, that party would be yours.
I don't always agree with commenters who say you're making straw-man arguments. But you sure did today.
336
@Bill Camarda
Completely agree. I don't know any progressives that think algorithms are going to be the primary solution to problems like deepfake videos (yesterday's NYT) -- outside of those that work for media giants that would like to solve their problems internally and without government interference. This goes beyond straw man to almost willful mischaracterizing the progressive position of Warren and others. All in order to be able to use the phrase "airless liberalism."
35
@Bill Camarda
Our daughter's former boyfriend went through Job Corps in MA, studying the electrical trade. He got a job installing solar as a temp and now has a great job as a licensed electrician. He is recently married and doing well.
Obama's Americorp was labeled by the right as indoctrination and likened to the Hitler Youth Program. Every effort was made to destroy it by the republican party.
This attitude illustrated in the two articles, one of which I read, is not owned only by the down and out. My husband works in a public utility with strong union representation. There is no worker who doesn't make close to or over $100K a year but he is one of the very few liberals employed by this company. Even though these workers have guaranteed yearly raises, a no lay-off clause, gains-sharing, a pension, generous vacation time and very generous sick time, and decent health care coverage, most of these workers are among the most bitter, angry people he has met. How does Ross explain this? They're married, they own homes, motorcycles, boats, go on cruises or vacation in Europe, yet they align with the hatred, fear and victimhood that trump promotes.
I refuse to take the blame for this. Yes liberalism has problems, pc goes too far, the knee-jerk reactions are unwarranted but why not discuss the flip side of this; the black child who is punished far more often and much more severely than the white child for the same infraction, the severe punishment of blacks for similar crimes?
70
@sharon, One of my daughter's friends helped fund her college education by participating in Job Corps. In the thirties, my uncle had a similar experience with CCC camps. Government is well placed to help our young people get a start in the world.
20
Ir's true that a better algorithm is not going to fix things. But for sure neither will removing health care, cutting social services, increasing corporate tax cuts, impeding access to abortion, promoting shoddy for-profit colleges, and defunding government job training and civilian service programs -- all of which one party is avidly pursuing with open glee.
417
@michele True. But telling people you despise them while making that case doesn't win voters. Until Democrats show they don't want to slur and smear these voters, they will keep getting beat by people who like the have-nots (or act like they like them).
10
@Tim, Interesting. And Republicans aren't smearing immigrants, blacks, women, and anyone who disagrees with them! Wow!
32
@Tim This is way overblown by the right (and by the way the right hurls insults at liberals with far greater frequency and alacrity than the left). Where in Michele's comment was the insult ? That the left sometimes denigrates these people is due to exasperation at their self defeating political choices. However I always remind fellow liberals to save their scorn for the republican "elite" who cynically manipulate vast numbers of Americans into voting against their betterment.
21
While agreeing with most of your piece I found myself left to wonder when a "tradcon" sense of responsibility for the breakdown of community in rural America would show up. Yes: strong communities would be more resilient in the face of the addictions of both YouTube and opioids. But how can communities remain strong when their jobs have been automated, deskilled, or shipped overseas and the government that might have helped to retrain workers or to provide them the tools to live a dignified life has been redirected, by conservatives, toward generating tax cuts for the wealthy? No amount of conservative indignation over the moral failings of poor Americans is going to create conditions in which strong communities will thrive; that will require a source of material support that Republican leaders have been choking off for the last forty years.
442
@Wren Nice Dunk! I can't wait until a real left emerges that actually cares more about helping people than dunking on the opposition. It may come from the GOP because this century's tech billionaires are buying D politicians - Biden's first stop was to Comcast to raise money from a company enduring a strike. This isn't your Daddy's Democratic party.
19
@Wren
Ignorant extremism is rooted neither in economic status nor in subjective morality. All humans are inherently tribal and take the path of least resistance.
The root problem is that so many individuals don't bother researching subjects with objective primary sources, which are concerned with demonstrating a provable truth and not with reinforcing subjective beliefs.
If all the partisans from all the political color-teams would simply read wikipedia articles and their cited sources, none of the misinformation that is invariably bundled with monetized talking heads on youtube would be able to take hold in their minds.
The most effective response to the willful ignorance of partisanship is not the opposite flavor of partisanship, it is unimpeachable objective primary sources. And the most important skill to utilize those sources (the only type of sources that matter), is attention span and the motivation to learn for learning's sake.
17
@Tim And I can't wait until critics of the "left" have substantive responses instead of resorting to denigration and insults. Your post, of course, is just another disappointment.
22
I have to laugh out the term “humane conservatism “. Haven’t seen that in decades.
1
Liberals, elite liberals excuse me, do disturbing things. They marry women, and men. They're celibate. They have sex all over the place.
They go bowling with others, or alone. They think about God, or not, decide what's life-affirming.
They prefer not so many starving families, not so many productive minds shelved by greed, automation, lack of education or opportunity, communities so well supported that one would have to seek out a crack and crawl in to slip through.
A world where they could paint or write poetry or trap unendangered, unendearing animals.
You won't let them, Ross. You steam and fume and trumpet and ignore the facts of the matter.
Liberals want to be liberal, accepting, open.
Conservatives define their comfort level, their security by the ability to tell others what to do, and make them do it.
Its Rossian Conservatism, religious and political. You whine and stomp about the "airlessness" of liberalism, the death of community, morality, family, but that's not what you mean.
You mean everybody, every liberal anyway, is doing stuff. And you do not like it.
Proclaiming allegiance to a cozy past defiled by conservative elites, you defend those who wish to crush the ground, salt the earth, bury the memory of Erst-America.
Your argument is "If you're so liberal how come you won't let me beat people up? If you're so tolerant how come you can't tolerate my intolerance. If you're so liberal, why don't you let me tell people what to do?"
8
The Left and it’s enforcement agents in the media, politics, education establishment, and Hollywood have succeeded in creating a state religion. A religion both strict and strident. Worse it has a racial component. (Read any Charles Blow column). So, of course, there are heretics and these heretics have rabid followers. Some of whom are dangerous to themselves and others. That’s where we are. And, it won’t get better. I believe the educational establishment is the most dangerous of the enforcement agents.
3
Liberalism didn't send stay at home moms into the workplace to shore up their husbands flat wages...that was capitalism
Liberalism didn't create porn, sex trafficking, video gaming, gambling, guns worship or child porn...that was capitalism
Liberalism didn't cause stores to open on Sunday, Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas...that was capitalism
Liberalism didn't put more bodies in stadium seats than church pews on Sunday..that was capitalism
Liberalism didn't cause universities and churches to hide sexual abuse of it's members....that too was capitalism, protecting the moneyed, powerful interests of the church
Liberals didn't cause the opioid crisis...that was capitalism
Liberalism didn't create the saying "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas"..... that was capitalism's signal that money knows no religion
Sorry Ross, liberalism has tried to alleviate the human suffering that capitalism has created. It is conservatism that cultivated the American myth that that human suffering is caused by personal moral failure. That's the kind of social rebuke that creates depression, isolation and radicalizing.
8
What I got from reading this is that rather than looking at how the rise of militant white nationalism which the author tries to sanitize by calling populism is all the fault of liberals and progressives. The party that once said they were all for character and personal responsibility once again blames others for its worst impulses. Blaming others for his failures and frustrations, unable to engage in self reflection and outright manipulation through distortion and lies; Trump, the leader and culmination of all things Republican is the role model for the angry who prefer to blame their misery on others instead of taking responsibility.
5
Nothing worse than an elite right-wing pundit claiming the supposed high ground over "elite liberalism". Substitute the work "fanatic" for elite (both sides) and you have the root of the problem. These elite fanatics do as much to reinforce the devolution of society into camps as YouTube videos.
One does not draw a sweeping conclusion of the airlessness of liberalism (airlessness = suffocating?) from two profiles. Two data points do not a meaningful study make. This is the same kind of approach that created the vile idea of "welfare queen." Just because one extraordinary woman (who happened to be black) exploited welfare, not all poor people can't be trusted. Likewise just because two people fell into the alt-right world due to circumstances, not all alt-right folks are absolved of their own actions.
So-called "tradcons" always blame the parents and the communities of wayward youths. If Mr Douthat identifies as a "tradcon", he should start there. Unless he blames the victims only when the victims are "them" and blames everyone but the victims when the victims are "us", which seems another hallmark of a "tradcon".
Not a word about the greed of conservatives.
Here in Seattle every young person I meet who is not in the tech industry works two or three jobs, just so they can share an apartment.
Rents doubled here, citywide, all districts, in eight years.
And you want to talk about what? Some aberration of YouTube?
The simple problem is that conservatives don't believe in sharing any kind of burden or responsibility. It wants all the wealth and doesn't want to share anything. It wants to hoover up more dough than it can spend.
Conservatives haven't yet graduated from the grade school child who wants all the cupcakes. Its that simple.
Your philosophy is based in the delusion that the wonderful resources of this planet and this life belong to a lucky and entitled few. Its what makes it all so fun, I guess.
Greed is at the root of all of this and the philosophies which justify greed are boring, dull, idiotic, stupid, childish, not worthy of print.
Grow up, share, as if you had a heart and morality were self evident, because it is.
6
A couple of points.
First, I am old enough to remember when the paradigm of socio-economic dysfunction was "the problem of the black underclass." Much ink was spilled over the (alleged) fact that a whole generation of African-Americans lacked the skills and habits that might recommend them to their prospective employers. Liberals located the root cause in a shortage of government investment, conservatives in a culture that no longer valued work and effort.
20-30 years later, the paradigm has shifted. Now it's "the problem of the white working class," especially in rural America. And how do our pundits respond? Liberals continue to lament a miserly government. But conservatives have shifted their tune. Suddenly the problem isn't cultural, but economic and political---- there's nothing wrong with these white folks, it's corporations and politicians who take their jobs and give them to brown and black people!
Ironic, isn't it?
Second, the "airlessness" Mr. Douthat describes has no special connection to liberalism or any other creed. It's a symptom of ideological monopoly. I grew up in the rural south in the 1960s and '70s. I was summoned to the principal's office because I didn't stand for the pledge of allegiance, and again because I had been heard criticizing our Lord and Savior. Talk about airlessness!
If you grow up in a place where most people are of one mind, the intellectual air thins out in a hurry. It isn't liberalism--- it's human nature.
4
@Kim Messick
I was told to "repent" by an angry high school principal because I skipped a football pep-rally. Expelled for a week. Grew up in Texas, graduated in 1970.
The philosophy class that the students petitioned for out of genuine intellectual interest was discontinued after one semester, because the administration decided it was "subversive". I was also threatened with expulsion for wanting to observe the first Earth Day (also subversive) and for asking that the flag be flown at half staff after Martin King was assassinated (also subversive).
Talk about suffocating.
I saw Bill Maher on CNN last night and he was saying that polls are now showing that even liberals think political correctness has gone too far. People become radicalized because they view the other side as radical.
I know several ex-liberals who are now right wing extremists. And I watched how they became that way. They have beliefs about liberals that are not necessarily true and they view liberals as radicals.
We live in a tribalistic world. People tend to go along with their tribes. Few people fit neatly into any political category but they feel they have to choose a side even when they may not agree with all the political correctness their side espouses.
Meanwhile the moderates are stuck in the middle feeling left out of the conversations so some of them become cynical and turn to extremism.
3
I learned a long time ago that neither the right nor the left (at least at their ideological ends) want anyone to think for him or herself, and try to impose ideological purity on the rest of us.
That said, the major difference between the modern political parties is that the Republican Party has been taken over by their purists, with less pure folk (David Brooks, Michael Gerson, et al) reduced to desperate-sounding pleas for moderation. The Democratic Party, that has its fair share of purists, has not (yet?) been completely taken over by those who wish to silence other voices. That’s enough reason to vote Democratic.
1
So many blindered right-wing talking points to address in Douthat’s latest “ mean old liberal elites are ruining everything” partisan Republican column. First, he ignores the reality that it is right-wing lies, hypocrisy and hate that drives so many lost souls to right white reactionaryism. The Republican game plan has for decades been to disinform, frighten and herd its base into a fetid mass of easily lead angry idiots through right-wing talk radio and Fox News. Spend a little time perusing right-wingers comments on social media and you will see angry claims that Obama is a Muslim who hates America, founded ISIS and destroyed our economy and military together with nonsense about Hillary Clinton killing dozens of people.
Second, he uses typical Foxpublican talking points to blame liberals for the breakdown of families and social norms, refusing to acknowledge that red states and Republicans have, in fact long been ahead of the curve in divorce, broken families, unwed and teen pregnancies, and permanent welfare recipient status.
Third, in using such Republican-Party-approved projections as the “airlessness” of liberalism, “its cultural hegemony” and “increasing ideological conformism”, all undeniable hallmarks of Republicanism, Douthat betrays either a frightening ignorance or a dangerous dishonesty.
It isn’t reaction to progressivism fueling violent radicalization of the Right, it’s growing up on a steady diet of Foxpublican dystopian lies and hate.
15
Mr Douthat, once again it needs to be said, by a rural, white male in his 50s. The modern American conservative movement is deeply rooted in racism and bigotry. It is racist and bigoted. Period. From Goldwater's opposition to civil rights to Nixon's southern strategy to Reagan's presidential announcement in Philadelphia, MS, to Trumpian white supremacy. It takes no algorithms to spot this. What makes certain people uncomfortable is being called out for their bigotry. There are no great secrets. The very fact an exploration of conservative commentary on the web quickly leads to white supremacy is obvious. I wish you guys could admit to yourselves what I have known since I was in high school in the 80s. Your "movement is racist and bigoted at its corrupt heart. The Democrats and progressives are far from perfect, but it was an easy choice for me on who to support politically since my first vote. I won't support a structurally racist party or movement, the modern conservatives/republicans.
47
Very well stated! Despite the many explanations and insinuations at the very heart of the “conservative movement” being defended here is something very unsavory. If only we could move past that because I do like several of their fiscal and even social ideas on how to improve the communal well-being.
Of course there are many conservatives who are not bigoted by any stretch of the imagination but they do vote with rest of the conservatives most of who are too prideful of their ethnicity/religion/gender/culture to fully embrace equality of all Americans.
This could be solved with a third or fourth majority party. Hope to see that happen in my lifetime.
@C D
And why do you suppose this has escaped Mr. Douthat's notice? And why does he anticipate and blowoff any who might point out his "ponderous" pontificating as another reader so incisively has.
Take a bow, Ms. McNamara
1
Always an interesting column.
But based on a somewhat cursory knowledge of what internet personalities "trigger" left-wingers, they aren't just white supremacists.
You could say many are basically traditionalist conservatives of the type similar in some ways to the author. Like I haven't read Jordan Peterson's book, but understand his thesis is something like "traditional society worked well for thousands of years for a reason".
And based on liberal and mass media antipathy to this viewpoint, you get the feeling that the end goal of contemporary liberalism isn't to foster a debate but to shut it down.
2
How/why is improving health care, bolstering social services, reducing corporate tax cuts, facilitating access to safe abortion, calming down on shoddy for-profit colleges, or funding government job training and civilian service programs - all of which the GOP openly abhors - crazy left-wing?
11
"With all that said, though, a humane conservatism should still be able to thrive in a world where white nationalists have trouble monetizing their extremism, in which YouTube algorithms are built to maximize something other than addiction."
And a humane conservatism might be able to explain why people who live in areas that reflect primarily conservative, small-government ethos are not thriving out away from the liberal bubble, and aren't thriving as their elected officials fight against helpful programs from the big, evil federal government.
Rather than blame liberalism, Mr. Douthat, why not explain why areas, or entire states, that reject liberalism aren't doing well with that?
6
Isn't Hope the better algorithm to prevent people from getting too restless or rebellious or extreme? This was the central message of Obama and we see how this was crushed by the 'powers that be' due to partisan politics. We keep looking in the wrong place for solutions. I don't see a lot optimism for solutions coming from inside the Washington belt-line or big tech. Go talk with anyone younger than 30; they understand that our entire system is fundamentally flawed, corrupted, and rigged against them. Maybe a little bit more restlessness is what should be on the menu to really bring about fundamental change.
1
"Liberals are likely to argue"?
Does Douthat actually listen to anyone, such that he doesn't have to surmise what "liberals" (Hillary? Bernie? Noam Chomsky?) *do* believe?
Is there some reason he feels compelled to speak for an opposition he won't name?
Love of argumentation is dandy, but when you're playing both sides of the net, both of which are your creation, the results tend to be, well, "airless".
5
Re :" populism is a reaction to the breakdown of community outside the liberal metropole,"
And :" the root causes are still primarily sociological and political, and they will perdure and manifest themselves "
Correct on both, but the social and political causes are the consequence of economic developments that INCREASED
INEQUALITY
Click here, to see the data
https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/downsample150to92/public/atoms/files/11-28-11povf1.png?itok=aj15cjs5
The increase in inequality coincides with the increase in global, tariff free trade.
Trump is the political consequence of INCREASED INCOME INEQUALITY in the US, not the cause.
The cause, is that wages in the US, for those exposed to global competition had to move down, towards the global average.
6
Sam's experience was outrageously wrong but yet too "proper" in what the school's "protocol" might entail. That incident showed that the school was no longer an institution of education but a mere oversight authority. Sad.
Information is not wisdom. Algorithm is definitely not wisdom or even intelligence. But alienation and radicalization of young men is not a liberal or conservative issue per se but that of a world run away with technological advances we don't know how to safely live with.
Although people in tech might be more left leaning, I doubt they went into it for social change. It was their career and livelihood the way bankers and doctors make theirs. It is therefore a mistake to expect them to be our conscience and vanguard of our morality.
I think this is a very confused time that requires all of us to try harder to keep an open and honest mind and think for ourselves. It is important to remind ourselves we all want happiness. Taking that as a starting and end point, what would the in between look like?
I think Douthat is well meaning but blinded by his insistence on a "conservative"lens. Why does conservatism need to be prefaced with "compassionate"? Is it otherwise not compassionate? If so, why is it more "moral" than the so called decadent liberals?
Lets understand our problems and find solutions to them as living beings and not get hung up on ideology or party politics.
3
I feel your pain Mr. Douthat. It must be increasingly frustrating and depressing to attempt to construct cogent arguments that explain how all our current political, social and moral crises are somehow the fault of “liberal elites”. Reading your tortured logic is painful. When paradigms change, it’s unsettling: the pendulum swings back and forth further than anyone would like for a time, and we live in such a time.
What we are experiencing, I believe, is the transition from a Western-oriented, gender- and race-based, elitist power structure to something new, something that is genuinely populist in that it allows previously disempowered people — all of us who don’t happen to be male and white, a.k.a. “the majority” — to rise. Inevitably, this isn’t always pretty. It isn’t even always fair at the level of individuals. But it is inevitable. Welcome to real life. Sorry it’s not strictly conforming to your perspective as a conservative, elite, white male. Please be comforted by the fact that there will always for you in a more pluralistic society.
6
I actually kind of liked this article because I thought the article about the 20 year old was a bit heartless and kind of ignored why the videos exist in the first place. No one is forcing anyone to watch these videos and I watch plenty of joe Rogan clips but do not get any conservative videos recommended to me. Instead my feed is mostly wild foraging videos, gardening and landscape videos and the occasional short history clip. In order to find these videos that the article calls out, you have to go looking for them. Why would anyone go looking for them? Because they are sick and tired of what they are fed at school all day. To some mildly intelligent young men it’s plainly obvious that the public school system is not benefitting them. There is a lack of hands on vocational training that isn’t at some other school far away from their community and a lot of the stuff taught at school is just straight up useless in terms of actually generating wealth! For instance, the AC guy that fixed my AC yesterday misspelled a word on the bill sheet but, my AC works like a boss and he got paid well. Not everyone is a sports star or a scientist but that all our public schools care about producing it seems like. Start giving them real hope and real training and we might see the disappearance of counter culture videos enticing young men with forbidden knowledge.
6
Another tortured attempt from Douthat to lay the blame for our current malaise at the feet of progressives.
Conservatives blame our social ills on the “breakdown of community.” Community is important. But Douthat refuses to see that the traditional ways of creating community – religion, traditional family units, slavish adherence to tradition, individualism - have failed miserably. If they were effective, we wouldn’t be experiencing their demise.
What has contributed to their erosion is another conservative element that has been extremely successful – capitalism. But Douthat can’t acknowledge that the free market, with its emphasis on financial profit rather than social profit, is the source of much of our problem. Fifty years of conservative neoliberal economic policies has enriched a few,
impoverished much of the rest, and destroyed communities.
The technology that capitalism creates has only one motive – profit. Algorithms are products of this free-market system; they don’t come with a conscience. There are no algorithms that factor in ethical consequences of their decisions.
Thus, it is the free-market that the radicalized young men have interacted with. Facebook, Youtube, etc. are just a monetized exchange of ideas. Monetization is how the free market works – god forbid that we mess with the market, with meritocracy and the freedom of individuals to exploit others for profit. So says the conservative ethos.
But Douthat would rather blame the progressives.
8
So here we have Douthat attempting to define liberalism as the worst excesses of left wing identity politics and the critical theory academic mob while simultaneously obscuring the origins of hinterland social decay in four decades of ascendant right wing political dominance. His rhetoric is a polite version of the fear mongering used by the coarser of his ideological peers to persuade vulnerable populations to ignore what actually threatens them and embrace the very political forces that are wrecking their communities.
"Respectable" conservatives have always been happy to tap the energy of darker right wing forces in electoral struggles, confident that practical containment was possible after the votes were counted. Now this has failed, and history suggests we are in dangerous territory.
13
@ Frank Knarf:
This thoughtful, succinct post saved me some typing on my too small mobile device. Hyper-liberal silliness and toxic, broken families are to be found in every country. Here they are a minuscule influence compared to the depths of racism, sexism, nativism and bigotry that have always existed in America but are now potentiated by social media, mass media, and demagogic leadership. If Douthat, the putative Catholic, had been around for the 1960 election, he would have experienced a taste of what every minority group have always faced.
At least the southern Democrats and the liberal Republicans could keep the Calibans under a rock. Now the rock has been lifted.
3
For his next act, Ross will explain how the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic church is the fault of "liberalism".
On Thursday, stay tuned for a riveting explanation why the broken garbage disposal in his kitchen is proof that liberalism is failing.
Then on Monday, Ross will explain how liberalism is responsible the poor box office performance of "Dark Phoenix"
13
@Richard E. Willey There are those who attribute the sex scandal in the Catholic Church to relaxed morals in the 1970s when these priests were young. The Church was unable to vet them properly as the hedonism of the times reduced the number of interested candidates. It's plausible, but whether it's true or not I can't say. Ditto on the garbage disposal and Dark Phoenix.
Liberals are to blame for the extremes of racism and violence that define the alt right’s devotees. Got it. So, do “Islamic extremists” get the same free pass?
7
Why does Ross Douthat persist column after column in seeing the entire social landscape in terns of liberals and conservatives, with liberals being generally wrong headed (after a kobuki-like faint but damning praise). It reminds me when I was a kid of setting up on a table my green toy soldiers against my blue toy soldiers and systematically knocking off the blue ones. Conservatism doesn't have to be defended with the rhetorical equivalent of a child playing with plastic figurines.
6
The headline of Doiuthat's piece uses the phrase "The offline roots" and that's a good metaphor. Naturally I try to prevent noxious weeds from taking root in my garden.... but when they do I certainly do not encourage their growth with fertilizer the way that Facebook's algorithms encourage radicalism in our society.
5
The headline of Doiuthat's piece uses the phrase "The offline roots" and that's a good metaphor. Naturally I try to prevent noxious weeds from taking root in my garden.... but when they do I certainly do not encourage their growth with fertilizer the way that Facebook's algorithms encourage radicalism in our society.
We were doing better before Donald. Start there.
2
Social fantasy runs wild/upon the internet/Fools and egomaniacs/now treat it like their pet/Delusions all are reinforced/and sanity retreats/Our ragged social fabric shows/we're reaping the receipts.
Mr. Douthat makes a few interesting points, but he recapitulates the same indexical logic employed by the writers who spotlight alt right formation among the young by focusing on single cases. Mr. Douthat does not seem concerned about one of the sentences he quotes as follows: "The internet was an escape. Mr. Cain grew up in postindustrial Appalachia and was raised by his conservative Christian grandparents." A conservative Christian upbringing? Hardly a bastion of liberal "proceduralism." The issue here, it strikes me, is how conservative Christianity as much or more than American liberalism fails to offer a sense of community -- probably because it weaponizes a puritanical and punitive mindset at the expense of intellectual curiosity, solidarity, and solace. Your counter-example showcases deficiencies of intellect -- the inability to recognize ambiguity and complexity -- that abound in all bureaucracies. Perhaps such a horror show is "indexical" on that count rather than as still more evidence that feminism has ruined America.
5
This reminds me of a sociological study that was reported some years ago. It was one of those that confirm the pretty obvious.
The finding was that we think of other people's behavior as original while thinking of our own as reactive. In other words, I'll call a spade a spade where your aggression is concerned, but I'll call my aggression a counter-spade.
No doubt that's the subtext of the running argument between conservatives and liberals: "This has gone far enough. It's time we rebelled against you people." "Oh, yeah? We're the rebels here. We're just pushing back." "Sez you. Why, you've been pushing for years...."
4
Modern leftists hold that people are either Gods or Unicorns and as such exist in a magical world where belief replaces logic or evidence. How different they are from their founding fathers who had faith that reason would solve humanities’ problems. I wonder what Marx, Trotsky, Debray, Fanon etc would make of their modern replacements?
1
I'm getting a little tired of conservatives explaining to me what I believe.
7
Do not Fox TV/Hosts and Talk Radio radicalize their viewers/listeners?
It's not just the internet, you know...
12
A nuanced essay like this from Ross will elicit vehement, personal attacks from all those who believe this paper should be a safe haven for the Resistance, liberals and their discontents. Nothing like hitting liberals outside their comfort zone.
2
@Wine Country Dude
Hitting Conservatives outside of their comfort zones is something; it's also much easier than hitting most liberals outside of theirs. Conservatives have always had such a tiny comfort zone, being as they are preternaturally opposed to most everything and everyone they confront on a day-to-day basis.
1
Media platforms that cannot curate themselves in real time should be delicensed by the FCC, period. Bye Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, et. al. Would we be less better off? If you want to spew your hatred from a real soap box in the public square, go ahead. But you can't use a device that can reach everyone to project your swill on the entire globe without first meeting the ethical standards governing traditional media. Problem solved.
7
@Anam Cara The civility and general thoughtfulness of forums like this one, which are moderated real time by human beings, demonstrates how good the internet could be with a modicum of leadership and guidance. Not by algorithm but by smart, well-paid moderators.
2
In defending his tradcon label, Ross seems to miss that the radicalization catalogued the reports veers towards anti-semitism, islamophobia, nationalism and white supremacy.
2
Are you actually arguing that white supremacy and other far right ideologies are somehow causally related to a young persons reaction to elite liberalism? Political correctness gone wild has turned youths into hate spewing, racists? Please. While the pendulum may have swung a little too far in reaction to decades of women being afraid of and intimidated by males who have victimized them with seeming impunity, I can’t see how the rare case of a false accusation of an isolated male could account for the birth of a misogynistic racist.
9
@Gary Stokes It seems pretty clear to me. If you are branded as a racist and a bigot and a sexist for even daring to say a vulgar sexual joke in public, and you feel attacked by people that label themselves feminists and liberals, you will invariably 1) not want to identify with "feminism" and "liberalism", 2) find community with people who dislike feminists and liberals, 3) naturally lose sensitivity to being called a racist/sexist and over time even to racism/sexism. If everyone calls me a nazi for years, I won't have the same reservations I otherwise would have for talking to and associating with people that are being (perhaps more legitimately) called nazis.
For every young white male that is being told to shut up and "check his privilege", there is one young white male that feel alienated by the left and by feminists and liberals and that is all the more likely to levitate to other people who feel a similar way, even though they may be much more extreme. It's literally radicalization 101.
1
And so yet another conservative refuses to take responsibility for the hate and filth being spewed in right-wing media, at right wing churches, and in right-wing online communities.
If there is one trait that best characterizes the modern conservative mindset, it’s the ubiquitous victim-mentality. I have yet to see a prominent conservative voice step up like a man, and take responsibility for the fetid swamp of fear and hate that they’ve been nurturing and peddling, yes: peddling, for years...
Now, when the monsters they created are increasingly acting-out off-leash, they want to blame it on some tv shows and video games....pathetic....
8
Ross has put his finger on it. Average Americans sense that elite progressivism is the leading edge of a nascent Soviet-style police state. Brought up on ideals like "the land of the free" and "sweet land of liberty," they naturally rebel.
4
@James Ribe What is elite progressivism? I personally find that average American's listen to Fox News etc and find it the eading edge of a nascent German-Nazism military state. I would like to edge towards a style of government in Norway.
@KT B Norway is nice, but it has a population of 5.3 million. Get real.
The "airlessness of liberalism"? This is straight out of the projection notebook that conservatives and Trump have been using for years. Just trying to read this tortured, self-serving, inverted column leaves one gasping for oxygen.
8
The complex social issues described in Cain’s background struck me as very similar to those which propel African-American and hispanic kids into street gangs. Perhaps their situations deserve the same sympathy as that of a white kid.
However, in blaming liberalism, Douthat relies too much on what appears to he Cain’s own, slanted account of his upbraiding by school officials; I strongly doubt that a school administrator would use the terms he puts in their mouths.
3
The real reason people get red-pilled with liberalism is because liberalism increasingly ignores even basic scientific facts (fetal heartbeat, male/female differences, even the crossing of the Bering Strait!) and so opens itself up to mockery. This happens on the right too, but never before has the ever-present phenomenon of liberal shaming (which is a characteristic through Robespierre, Marx, Lenin, to Carl Sagan to today) been so removed from ordinary, common sense discourse and so explicitly religious and cultic in character.
1
@Ben W I wouldn't say that scientific facts are being ignored, rather that they are being desputed or argued to be misinterpreted. Of course, as you imply in your post these basic truths that people feel very connected to make people feel that the people disputing them are lacking any sort of realistic world view. For example, hearing someone citing that there is no biological difference (or less extreme, advantage) betweem males and females sounds so instinctually and deeply misguided that it makes a person question other political beliefs the same person has, as a sort of reverse halo effect.
@Ben W the real reason why people get red-pilled with conservatism is because Conservatism has increasingly ignored a woman's right to chose what is best for her, a human's inner self and being true whether it's male or female, and so this opens them up to mockery. So take care of this side and then the other side will have nothing to mock. Liberal shaming in your world is first amendment right to speak my mind, Carl Sagan is dead btw. This ever present conservative gerrymandering and white privilege is so removed from ordinary common sense discourse and explicity religious and cultic in character. Separate church and state? yup, Churches should pay taxes also.
The article was good until you decided to bring party lines into it. The title even mentioned 'liberalism.' Online radicalization is a problem, why associate it with party lines? Why do you reference 20-something year olds, they are adults, yet you reference their parents watching them crawl out of radical rabbit holes..?
As is so often the case with the media, I think you are conflating leftism with liberalism and rightism with conservativism.These are not the same things. As has been born out by history there is darkness in both leftism and rightism. Liberalism is the impulse to freedom and progress, whatever those exactly mean changes but speech control and thought control is clearly illiberal; it would however be found in left or right thinking. Conservativism would be about maintaining culture and tradition, resisting change. Sometimes a good idea sometimes a bad idea. Right and Left are about specific political structures and policies that often end up looking the same when you hit the extreme ends. The fact is that leftism has bled into many Liberals thinking and rightism has bled into Conservative thinking, but lets try not mix up our terms, because then we will certainly be lost.
5
I enjoy YouTube and spend a lot of time there. It's not all trash. Yesterday I watched two informative videos on vegetable gardening. The music programs are also splendid. Stefan Molyneaux has been mentioned frequently as a bad-guy trickster who deflects innocent youth (which I am not) from the true centrist liberalism we all should love. He's a libertarian who decries war and the many degrading people who profit from sending other people to die in them. What's wrong with putting out this message if you're not the Pentagon? True, he also loves capitalism and free markets so long as they work to his advantage. That said, many students who slept through high school social studies wake up when they encounter him on YT. In a world of free speech, people get messages that cause them to rethink what they previously believed. In a word, YouTube is both liberal and educational.
Many of us confuse conservative with moral. Conservatism isn't about family values, morals or fine people. It is a ruse. Conservatism is just more for me and none for thee.
Don't get all caught up in the distraction of culture wars - that is how they hook you to their policies that benefit the wealthy and no one else. There is nothing moral or just or supportive of families that includes reducing access to healthcare, education, housing while ignoring our responsibility to maintain infrastructure, clean air and water.
18
@Deirdre
Do you have any conception that many thinking people believe that liberalism is all about the destruction of organic concepts like the nuclear family and the essential nature of human life? That there is, in fact, another way of looking at the destruction of our political discourse?
I didn't think so.
2
@Wine Country Dude: The problem is you think you know what the essential nature of life is. But it’s a construct that largely serves white straight men and the wealthy.
3
We’re not really polarized as a nation due to political parties. We’re divided into liberal and conservative based upon how we consume information.
Some of us consume lies, gossip, anecdotes fed to us by friends, family, and our preferred network and allow the garbage to create our opinions. Others of us are good students who look at a multitude of ideas, cultures, information sources and then ponder that to which we have been exposed and form a unique opinion. This latter group cannot be defined; they are not polarized. They are individuals. Their ideas are not stereotypical and they are the most disrespected group of all. Both political parties disown them and cast them as belonging to the opposition. When this last group speaks out, they are drowned out by the cacophony of know nothingness masquerading as experts who became experts by finding everything they needed to know on the internet and not by life experience, formal education (and doing hours of homework and testing) or, in the case of blue collar workers (who are educated in the “how to”) educated by good old fashioned elbow grease. We have too many lazy minds and bodies in the USA and they are getting lazier thanks to technology.
4
I'm sick and tired of the progressive discussions of health care and living wages and ending corporate rule are met with discussions by those on the right who are disgusted by all this identity politics. WHO is fixated on identity politics again? The right exists to defend the old power structures. The left plays identity politics as defense.
The main problem with the right is that it does not care about principles, only power. Family is very good as long as it is traditional and patriarchal. Freedom is good as long as women don't get a hold of it. Get some actual, broadly applicable, principles (translation: they must apply to everybody) and then we'll talk.
32
@Carla, interesting that you're sick of the phenomenon, and then resort to identity politics as rebuttal, and even prohibit rejoinder unless people see things your way.
The answer to your WHO question is, "YOU".
And that's coming from someone who is believes in discussing health care, living wages, and ending corporate rule.
Successful diplomacy never includes the phrase, "...and then we'll talk." It's more of a precursor to war than a mark of someone interested in positive change.
@Carla: Agree. They act as if “straight white male” isn’t a political identity.
1
I have no idea why the Sam’s story has anything to do with liberalism but nothing to do with conservatism? One can easily put it in the context of both, even though sexual sensitivities are more acute on conservative side.
5
Even from a this man's liberal-to-centrist perspective, your column resonates with common sense. Tinkering with the machine is nothing like engaging and illuminating those who built and claim to run the machine with pure hearts.
2
Arresting a kid for laughing at a dirty joke with a lady present is due more to systematic mindlessness than any left right political lopsidedness. Such could be as readily spurred by old testament Puritanism as liberal ideology - or most likely a blend of the two.
Which leads me to conclude the problem is the ignorance of the hoard rather than its political stripes. And ignorance reinforcement being precisely what social media algorithms are under attack for, action really is due.
The only solution I can conceive is to borrow the idea of the human rights committee, in my experience a quasi judicial volunteer oversight group that meets periodically to review incidents in the care of the mentally handicapped. It consists of relevent experts and representatives from all interested groups.
The independent board I propose would provide a similar moral compass for digital systems with public impact.
Not that such oversight will suddenly raise the national humanitarian, mental health or love thy family and neighbor quotient. But it would be empowered to resist the worst undertow in the digital current sweeping us all irresistably along.
Thanks for your article Ross. Asocial media (this is not a typo) simply amplifies the bad (evil) as well as the good of us humans. At this time in our human existence, we once again are experiencing a resurgence ( or it seems so) of evil in the world and it is exemplified by the top leadership and the disparity in wealth and opportunity for the "haves and have nots." It is a complex problem and we are all connected in this potential repeat of "1932" or pre-WW I. It may all end badly unless a majority of the population "wakes up" to see that we can head into an abyss or start being decent to each other.
2
It is a stuffy room!
Living in the Bay Area - there is an overwheening confidence here that there are no human problems that better application of IT technology and some new godforsaken algorithm can’t fix. Scratch that veneer and underneath it is the old American Horatio Alger myth that ‘my’ new app will bring me untold wealth and good fortune - one hopes with a few years of hard work one can monetize the app through sale to a venture capitalist and presumably join the technosnob aristocracy. Airless - and barren - indeed.
I find myself betwixt and bothered - I agree with Ross that this is a fix we’re not going to get out of with algorithms - but the prescription of even principled conservatism which maintains the privileges of the old guard seems a poor remedy.
As a step in the right direction - how about talking about a universal service requirement for all youth - bringing our diverse backgrounds and ethnicities together in common cause. We’ve got a target rich environment to focus projects on and youth that are thirsting for meaning. This seems neither conservative nor liberal in the larger sense - but just common sense.
9
@Peter Stuart
Agree completely. This would also help bridge the yawning divide between the haves and have-nots in this country. It's like two separate worlds.
2
There's a lot of criticism in the comments here, so I'll just add my broad agreement with what Douthat says even though I'm a far-left progressive.
We need to face up to the fact that our Stalinist insistence on identity politics and political correctness just isn't working. Moreover, it is serving to create vast stretches of fertile ground for stridently (and sometimes actually justified) reaction from the right.
Does anyone seriously think that applying ever more exquisitely refined and angry application of these tendencies will eventually lead to nirvana?
14
@Pelham
Let me add just one more thing: Even as a progressive, or left-populist, I have to say that I find that Douthat far and away the most insightful columnist at the Times. I seldom find the left-leaning writers here worth reading. They're predictable and superficial. Douthat isn't.
And this is odd since there are a number of thinkers and commentators on the left -- Noam Chomsky, Matt Taibbi, Thomas Frank, Seymour Hersh, Glenn Greenwald among them -- who have plenty to say but somehow find little outlet in mainstream media in their own country.
That's telling.
The anecdote about Sam’s experience in school is not an example of progressivism. School administrators locking students in offices for minor offenses has nothing to do with progressive ideals.
Otherwise I agree that we have to look to broader failures on the part of our political system to look out for the well-being of all as the root of some of this virulent extremism. YouTube is amplifying it, yes, but wouldn’t have an audience if it weren’t for some alienating provocation offline. This fault lies not with liberalism or progressivism, but with the system as a whole.
16
@Kathy My thoughts, also. School administrators behaving badly can't be laid at the feet of "airless liberalism."
1
Agreed: the solution to this social crises isn’t revised algorithms. However, it isn’t liberalism that is pulling the rug out from under the nations struggling population. Time and again, conservative policy eats away at the basics that provide higher standards of living for middle America while perpetuating a fallacy of some untrustworthy liberal elite that intends on forcing on everyone “out-of-touch” notions such as education and health care and decent wages. Conservative policy however clearly sides with the wealthy elite and corporation well being over worker stability or the well being of those socially disillusioned. Healthy corporation need healthy consumers who make informed decisions. Morality exists outside of religion, and understanding certainly does not exist within science denial. Undermining the press as fake, undermines the ability to make informed decisions and ultimately empowers a different kind of elite to limit our choices and strip us of our freedoms and further fuel disillusion. Certainly there are many factors here, but the current brand of conservatism offers few if any solutions. Liberal democracy is why we are where we are today. Given an accessible education, wages that can sustain a family, health care that doesn’t bankrupt individuals, clean water, air and food, maybe we can find a path to happiness.
13
Is it as odd to others as to me that those like Douthat, who are death on identity politics when the concept can be interpreted as ameliorating four hundred years of tightly focused oppression against Afican Americans become the concept's avatars when they would explain away destructive behavior by people who resemble them?
Odd? Or inevitable?
11
I love the mythic community and family that existed in such pristine and socially positive forms prior to what ever generation is currently complaint from the right.
last I checked, families and institutions from this ur-epoch fell apart, harboured horrible crimes, allowed countless injury, were full of unfulfilled hope and promise and multitudes of cover-ups and power plays benefiting some and harming others arbitrarily.
as someone from the south, I know what family, God, church, community mean in practice and, yes, stability and order are two of those things. the things stabilized and ordered are monstrous and selective in their reward.
I'll gladly take the present without gilded dreams of a past that never was
20
Perhaps I'm missing something, but the heart of your argument appears to be that liberalism has let down those living outside the elite aeries of liberal thought. However, much of the disfunction in rural and lightly educated America can be traced fairly directly to "tradcon" policies that have been dominant in America for 45 years.
Attacking "public education" and "government" have gut-shot two traditional paths forward. Attacking immigrant populations has provided convenient targets for the rage of those on the perimeters of the American dream.
And before going any further with criticism of smothering liberalism, please recall what happened to one of country musics most popular acts, the Dixie Chicks, when one member criticized a Republican president.
Perhaps tradcons have seen the enemy and it is them.
23
@Debbi Performers should not make political remarks unless they know their audience very well. The Dixie Chicks also expressed an opinion on the perp of the Robin Hood Hills murder.
Douthat's complaints about "elite liberalism" in a sense is telling, and implies that it is difficult for "conservatism" to be accepted by well educated people, who deal in facts and logic. The statistics show what Douthat is implying with his label of "elite liberalism" that political liberalism is in general a result of a good education. This to me is the most telling indictment of conservatism, and is apparently accepted by conservatives who use this label, which enables them in their own minds, to avoid coming to terms with this reality.
23
Whenever social media cracks down on hate speech, conservatives everywhere complain about how unfair social media is to conservatives. They say it is because of a liberal bias in social media companies. Now Ross is saying that those conservatives who are going radical are doing so because of liberals. What ever happened to that personal responsibility that conservatives used to talk about. It seems as if radical conservatives are now actually radically conservative only because liberals make them so.
Look, those who are are selling the wild wild west of free speech in social media are "libertarians" not "liberal". These libertarians feel that they should be able to make money off the Internet in any way possible without any restrictions by the government. These libertarians are much more closely aligned to conservatives than liberals.
22
@Glenn
Who gets to define "hate speech"? You? Someone just like you?
@Glenn Just *once* it would be nice for a conservative to hear that Twitter's most brilliant data scientists can't figure out how to write algorithms that reliably distinguish white nationalists from GOP politicians...
...and worry about that *just a tiny little bit,* rather than blasting everyone else for being biased against them.
2
@Pelham
Typically it is the social media company itself that gets to decide. They are private companies so they get to decide. If you don't like that, you have every right to create your own site.
1
This an age old maxim, and not necessarily something that falls onto any point of the political spectrum (although it almost exclusively falls on those on the right to far right ), and that maxim is that there are many that feel that they can only feel superior (or even good) if they are subjugating (pushing down) others.
It is that simple.
Human rights are automatic the first moment that you take your first breath in this world. (in fact they begin somewhat sooner than that in the womb - but that is a whole other discussion) It does not matter what gender you are, or where you are born on this planet, or anything else.
There are still many that are taught (mainly at home, but also among their peers, and in the schools - now online) that ''jokes'' at the expense of others is quite fine. They laugh and laugh and feel a part of the community that bullies.
It is hard sometimes to give respect to another that does not look like you, talk like you, act like you, and so on. However, it is the only course of action if we are to make this world a better place, and will be enforced, whether people like it or not.
Again, we are born with these rights and no amount of action, trying to go back to the past to make anything great again, or any algorithm is going to change that fact.
We are just in the last throws of the backlash.
4
Liberal elites, the Clintons and the Bidens offer don't offer a progressive platform. Instead they stand for slightly improved versions of the status quo. The result is an excruciating incrementalism stripped of almost all economic content and combined with a bit of virtue signalling about minority rights.
Meanwhile conservatives seem to feel that things would be better if even this minimal virtue signalling were left out and we all pretended that everyone was white, cis and hetero. Such a choice.
9
Someone should do a study on the average IQ of people who find Charles Murray to be insightful. That would be some fascinating research.
That said, any attempts to built a better ‘algorithm’ would be like asking God to improve upon Satan - mathematically speaking, of course.
1
This column has the peculiar feel of a piece that is designed to be impenetrable. Write as though you had readers, Mr. Douthat.
24
He does have readers. Apparently, you don’t like them either.
@Valerie Bayley . I have no objection to conservative points of view. Bret Stephens is interesting and worth reading. Douthat seems to have no interest in being understood. Expressing complex matters clearly is possible. Read Thoreau.
1
Of course, progressives are focused on the algorithm.
There is a progressive impulse to control information and propaganda. It comes from the notion that the words we use support or subvert power structures and rigid categories, and that language policing is the way to effect desired social change. If something that reinforces an undesirable power structure is published, spoken, or read, then a harm is being committed.
Orwell understood this 70 years ago; the politically intoxicating idea that we can produce our desired ends by redefining acceptable language. I've been surprised by how progressives have embraced this tactic without hesitation - maybe they don't teach "1984" in public schools anymore...?
5
We dont think you're a tradcon, Ross, you're a card-carrying Never Trumper.
But "humane conservatism?" Kinda of an oxymoron, isn't it?
8
This is not about the "airlessness" of liberalism, which might be more buoyant had it not been under vicious attack from the right for the better part of 40 years. Instead, this is about the allure of the nihilism of the alt-right, the fact that it's more fun for the child to knock over the blocks than actually build something. It is also about some people responding better to authoritarianism. J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" contained a dichotomy he never directly addressed in his book: He disdained those who took government aid, but was more than happy to have a Marine Corps sergeant order him around regarding exactly what car to buy and how to finance it.
I suppose the young man in the Washingtonian profile should not have been treated that way in school (I will note the old-school conservative typically sides with the administrator anyway). You don't just walk out of a meeting when you think it is running roughshod over your child; you challenge the administrator directly, then go over their heads, and if it's an egregious enough issue, go to the local media. That got my daughter out of being harrassed for not wearing a uniform at her public middle school, and forced a principal into retirement when she suspended a friend's daughter for hiding under a desk on the first day of kindergarten. But since the Washingtonian piece was written in the first-person, I'm sure it is obscuring some key facts about that incident -- much like your column did today.
15
These days the the counterculture is the alt-right. I would say this young man explored the counterculture of his time rather than right -wing extremism. Progressivism didn't speak to his condition, as it doesn't for many psychologically normal people. Young people are seeking something authentic, not the stale ideas of washed up hippies males with grey hair and pony tales. Gee I wonder why he doesn't find these men as attractive models of masculinity.
7
This column is an example of the saying "For every complex problem there is a simple solution. And it is wrong".
Firstly Cain grew up in Appalachia and lost the genetic lottery in the place where he was born and the gene pool of the area.
Secondly, he was raised by his grand parents who were evangelicals. Why no mention of the fate of his parents?
Thirdly, he was shy and awkward, made few friends and dropped out of a community college.
And Douthat expects us to believe the principal cause of Cain becoming a populist, ultraconservative is YouTube!
Case closed.
9
The US has abandoned education, has decided that a learned population is unnecessary, that only wealth and greed matter. When you abandon education, prioritize STEM over critical thinking and liberal arts, this is what you get.
6
I'm confused. I shared a similar experience at 13 years old. I quoted a sexual reference from a Cheech & Chong movie to a friend. Nothing explicitly or especially vulgar but definitely inappropriate for an 8th grade lunchroom. Someone overheard and reported me. It didn't help that I was in a fight with that someone at the time either.
I got in a whole heap of trouble. Sent to the principle's office. Meetings with parents. Detention. Threats of suspension and expulsion. On and on. All of this for a quote I heard from an edited movie on Comedy Central.
None of this experience sent me spiraling off into the dark netherworld of alt-right extremism. I've never associated the tyranny of junior high with some sort of liberal hypersensitivity. If anything, I went home and watched Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and stewed in my rebellious pubescent hatred for authority of any kind.
Fact is though: I said something wrong and I got in trouble for it. The administrators were unreasonably blunt in their administration. However, the system was actually working as intended. What finally got me out of trouble was telling the truth. I was quoting a Cheech & Chong movie as a joke to a friend. I didn't mean to offend anyone.
Something is weird if the Washingtonian kid couldn't communicate the same thing to his school at 13. This is not a broader metaphor for liberalism's declining attraction among young voters. We're talking about an outlier. I might add conservatism is doing much worse.
10
@Andy You can't possibly believe that "getting in trouble" for foul language back then is comparable, socially or legally, to an accusation (for a boy) of "sexual harassment" today.
Back then: quiet slap on wrist.
Today: complete assumption of guilt (you're a toxic moral monster), online threats, huge public shaming, forced confession without due process, accusation never comes off your record and you are forbidden to defend yourself.
One makes for a bad day, the other ruins your life such that suicide or joining Nazis seems like only options.
@keith
Yes. I can possibly believe that the relationship is similar. Did you bother to ask how long ago my story took place?
"Back then" is relative dude.
@Andy Good point. The Cheech and Chong reference said 70s or 80s, but of course one can quote a movie anytime. Oops.
Now get off my lawn.
I have experienced the radical breadcrumbs first hand. Youtube had always been a great place for me to get information to fix or create things, but one day I clicked on a political commentary video and very soon began receiving suggestions for ever more outrageous viewing. It was useless to not click on them, they just kept coming. I did a little research on this problem and discovered as the author indicates: outrageous generates more engagement and it was best to simply ignore this new content. It was only after a very long time that the platform went back to sending me fix or create suggestions. I can only imagine the susceptibility this pattern could have on someone young and impressionable. The desire for clicks (read money) has caused Youtube to lose its way...
4
I knew I wouldn't like this article, and despite all the erudition offered by so many words, I'm left confused as others note.
Young men particularly those who haven't set down roots (career, education, family) as they say have been a problem since the dawn of man.
Part of our country's education plan in its early days was to get young men off the streets and into schools to be educated and more importantly socialized to society.
Nothing has changed, young men still join gangs, whether street, motorcycle, KKK, Incel, or terrorist groups; all for the same type of reasons - belief their community has failed them or protect themselves for real or imagined threats.
6
This will only get worse. As more and more people lose work to automation in the next decade, more people will listlessly turn to youtube and social media to fill their bored days. The rate at which disenfranchised people climb down these rabbit holes toward radicalization will only increase.
3
I knew this was all somehow the fault of liberals, but I really need Mr.Douthat to make the connections for me. I would like to apologize to all the residents of blighted areas of high religiousity and low education for the terrible productivity of the major urban areas.
15
@John - I read Mr.Douthat just to find out how he would blame liberals for the problem of-the-day!
4
if we ban Ross from using the word Liberal for maybe 1 week, 2 Opinions, is it possible he could come out the other side without being on life support? It really gets tiresome for someone who spends his days reading books & journals who thinks he has a handle on what influences young males in poor locales of this country. Take a trip Ross, spend 2 months there on a limited budget and then maybe opine again.
1
You’re compliant is not with liberalism - that’s just a convenient ideological punching bag for a self-identified conservative like yourself. Words matter: your complaint, e.g. from the case of the boy charged with sexual harassment, is the authoritarian social control caused by a (any) cultural hegemony. It’s the same problem facing gays in the church, trans people in the military, Muslims in America, and blacks in a white-dominated world; you simply chose today to focus on conservative white men in schools and cities, the liberal strongholds.
I get it - people are upset when they are told to believe something they don’t, to act in ways they wouldn’t, and otherwise see their liberty abridged by a hegemonic crowd. This ain’t a problem with liberalism that enables you to stand high and mighty as a savior - this is a problem of humanity. The whole reason we have governments is so the hegemonic crowd can have its way without us going to war. Only generations removed from war, especially those who believe they would win a war where they don’t win in government, will entertain those violent delights.
The question is not a question of excesses of liberalism, but of excesses. Of dominance and power in the social realm where the government only loosely defines the rules.
4
Through this wall of words I'm reminded of the same thing that prompted me to comment on Mr. Douthat's op-ed from just a few days ago. We live in a corporate-fascist state. The dystopia is fermented by this pocket zeitgeist. Trump is a grotesque caricature in a mind-bending avatar of reality where his unapologetic and sycophantic lunacy is more real than the world of "Fake News" he is the ultimate product of. Humans are easy. If nothing adds up, people will find a way to make it make sense. When integrity of the legal system and media dies from the business model, the outcome seems inevitable.
1
‘Left wing’, ‘liberal’, ‘right wing’, ‘conservative’, from thirty thousand feet they all look pretty much the same to me. Stop the identity politics and the name calling folks - it’s much, much later than you think...
3
The stew of racism is not just on the far right edges of conservatism Ross. It infects your entire party the GOP. From Steve King to Donald Trump we have overt racists in the white house and congress. Naturally Ross being Ross will find a way to blame this on liberalism. I would have thought a Harvard graduate like Ross would be capable of adapting to new information but for a decade or more now he has beaten the same wrong drum. Perhaps I am the fool since I continue to read him hoping I might see something else.
8
Here’s a solution: pay people enough so they can afford to go out, socialize, maybe travel, and meet real live people instead of holing up in front of their devices and watching endless YouTube videos.
10
Dear Ross - there's a plain as day truth here that as a "tradcon" you simply refuse to acknowledge...online radicalism to the right almost always results in the radicalized being stoked with hate and oftentimes acting violently on that hate toward minority communities. But radicalized liberalism leads to what exactly, the so-called 1st Amendment crisis on college campuses (which has been overblown enormously by the right). The last time groups of radicalized liberals deliberately went out with weapons of war to hurt people was when exactly...when the Weathermen were active. Puhleeze
4
Sorry Mr. Douthat, but your attempt here (and in most verything that you write) of creating false equivalences between the egregious wrongs of the Right with the temperate wrongs of the Left is blatantly obvious.
Yes, what happened to "Sam" is wrong. But he wasn't killed like Heather Heyer was by radical Rightists in Charlottesville.
And the economic hardships and social unraveling of poor White communities in Coal Country isn't really much different than the conditions that many urban Black communities faced over many decades throughout the 20th century; but we're supposed to accept it as a "rationale" for Whites turning to racial violence, even though they've exhibited racial violence towards Blacks all along?
And while what happened to Sam was wrong and disturbing, is that really equal to the blatant systemic racism that Blacks (and others) face every day? Cross-burnings? Random beatings of LGBT people? Voter suppression in Red states?
It's taken a very long time for Douthat to acknowledge the deep sins of his beloved Conservative/Rightist movement. That's a step in the right direction.
But your lame attempts creating false equivalences weaken your epiphanies, and do little to stop the stream of lies and hatred that supports the evils of the Right.
Mr. Douthat, go read the comments posted on Fox News. Then compare them with the comments posted here on the NYTimes. Then write a column comparing them; I bet you can't conjure up false equivalences from them!
4
Mr. Douthat can rant about "liberal airlessness" when he adequately explains the benefits of "tradcon" religious organizations suffocating the thoughts, emotions and freedoms of individuals (raped children and nuns,to start with) and targeted groups (women, followers of other religions, civil authorities) who defy their "loving discipline".
And if he wants to condemn the lack of opportunity and destruction of traditional ways of life in rural areas, he'd best look at the economic, ecological and social policies of his beloved Republicans, who have rushed to give corporations every possible tool with which to offshore jobs, strip value from small businesses and destroy the social nets that have helped so many struggling families.
No, "liberals" are not perfect and are, like every other power group, prone to absurd over reach. But the "tradcons" and Republicans of this century have abandoned all responsibility for assisting or nurturing the very people they rely on to clutch power while lying, abrogating the Constitution, breaking the law and undermining the "values" they like to pretend to support, all in the name of rampant, insatiable self interest.
19
@Shar those Conservative principles and ideas created the greatest country in the world. Those values avoided single family households and rampant gang violence. Those values literally were strong enough that virtually every person had access to a firearm with considerably less violence than most major cities.
Men like me who hold a J.D. and an M.B.A. are Conservative because we realize that liberalism is actually contrary to human nature and will eventually fail. It increases misery notwithstanding its good intentions.
1
@Matthew So Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, and their inspiration, John Locke, were promoting conservative principles? That's news to me.
5
@Matthew Prove it. Provide evidence for your claim. Your J.D. surely taught you how to argue properly.
2
It will be observed that Douthat’s argument is the same that the Right always offers regarding gun control after the latest mass murder: guns don’t kill people, people kill people, and anyway we need to put more morey into the mental health services we keep attacking, and don’t you dare pay the slightest attention to what advanced capitalism is doing to families and communities.
Here, have a Bible. Can I talk to you about how them lib’ruls done made this happen?
11
Mr. Douthat, too much word salad (and I enjoy salads a lot). I'd like to summarize your column and perhaps the thinking of many others by saying that what most of us need is better critical reasoning skills. They ideally should be taught at home and at school but we are living through an unusually toxic environment that poisons the ability to think clearly and know better the difference between facts and fictions, honest discussions and emotionally driven hyperbole.
15
@A Goldstein Amen!
@A Goldstein
Indeed, good instruction in what distinguishes rational thinking and critical reasoning would be a starter.
1
@A Goldstein you mean where there is no objective right or wrong, but how it is perceived by the individual? I agree that is an asinine philosophy. Remind me which side advanced this as nonsense such as micro aggressions.
The problem is not in any technology, the problem is in people.
Mr. Douthat should write a column defining two words he uses all the time: “populism” and “elites.”
That column could turn into long-term therapy, which would do him a world of good.
18
Simple: ban all advertising.
The difference between Real Americans and immigrants of the past and present is the ability of said immigrants to make the decision to leave economically unviable communities to seek out a better life.
7
@William Mansfield
You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots.
So why is it Liberal "airlessness" that results in these youth seeking some meaning in their lives? The one boy was raised in a conservative christian household...why is it not conservative "Soullessness" that leads these youth on their search for meaning? Neither of them were exposed to the community-building progressivism that Iand so many others believe in, but they were steeped in conservative ideas growing up and found them wanting, lacking commitment to anything greater than the almighty "marketplace".
23
Allow me to translate Douthat for you today: young men become horrible online harassers and abusers because the left, in their misguided attempts to protect people from harassment and abuse, sometimes wrongly accuse those previously innocent young men of harassment and abuse. Make sense? Good, then here’s your red pill to swallow. See you on 8-Chan.
41
“ a humane conservatism. “ This self styled arbitrator of all the World’s ills is a prime example of affirmative action. And not in a good way. Exceedingly repetitive, tiresome, factually bereft and increasingly bizarre. But maybe that’s just me, who never, ever is “ allowed “ to post comments to this persons “ work “ they are actually published. Coincidence ?????
3
The Internet is just a type of community. All communities, whether online or offline, help ideologies spread. This is nothing new—studies of Weimar Germany have shown that Nazi party support increased faster in areas with more community organizations like sports clubs, as Nazi supporters used those organizations to recruit and convert their friends. If alt-righters have strong offline communities, they wouldn’t be more moderate; they’d just have another avenue to organize and spread their ideology.
4
Youtube is a great time-waster. How foolish do you have to be to not realize this the first time your burn thirty or forty minutes hopping from one video to the next and finding little that is anything more than clickbait? If you searched for a certain topic, watch a video. Don't peruse the column of chaff on the right. Stop pushing the perpetually shrinking reward button like a rat wired to a brain electrode.
Ross writes: "But an elite that tries to manage them away with more enlightened media curation deserves to inherit nothing but the wind."
So, I guess you're OK with Facebook's allowance of the fake, distorted Nancy Pelosi video manufactured by the Trump propaganda machine?
In which case, disinformation campaigns shouldn't be the subject of any fiddling by the "elite"?
Just think what Joseph Goebbels could have done with Facebook ...
10
@JH The loudest conservative voices, like Rush, Bannon, Miller, Franklin Graham, Falwell Jr., Carlson, O’Reillyt, & Coulter to name but a few are shining beacons of compassion in conservatism.. /s
2
You can come up with all kinds explanations and rationales and philosophical analyses of this phenomenon. But the hard fact remains that the economic foundation of this country was taken out of that vast area between the coasts, and downsized, consolidated, shipped overseas, and transferred into the pockets of hedge fund managers, private equity firms, and other men of money, as their representatives in Washington played nice with these big moneyed boys, in effect telling them they were on their own, no long part of the great wealth producing America.
There is no great secret to the social breakdown, opioids crisis, high rates of death and disability, and growing disillusionment among youth. Add on top of this pundits selling hate and anger (and getting rich doing so). . . . .
Dress it up any way you like, blame anything you like, but when people are cast aside and see they don't matter, can't find a decent, secure job, and have nothing to offer their kids, you have a perfect recipe for radicalization.
Serban in the comments below is absolutely right: preaching individual responsibility is merely an excuse to be selfish and divorce yourself from the human community of which we are all part, like it or not. And the right has been selling this for far too long.
20
So tradcon policies gut the economic life of small town America by moving the jobs to Silicon Valley or out of the country while moving the cash to the bank accounts of the .1%.
Rural American responds with radicalization which they manifest by continuing to vote Republican. Uh, what?
I grew up in Pennsylvania coal country and, incredibly, that's exactly what happened.
15
@Dave no jobs were "moved" to the Silicon Valley. People followed innovators, innovators inspired other entrepreneurs who not only wanted but NEEDED access to brainy people, who for a variety of reasons congregated in Nor-Cal. Reasons that include a welcome mat to diversity, a secular lifestyle, great university systems, near-perfect weather, beautiful surroundings, powerful work ethic, etc.
Am I the only one who finds it incredible that your takeaway was that YouTube CAUSED the radicalization?
I think this is how it goes: maladjusted boys who have had an unhealthy upbringing that did not prepare them to be mere equals with their peers are looking for validation. They want to be told they are special without doing anything to actually BE special.
Enter YouTube’s right wing cesspool of “white identitarians” (a new label, because “white supremacists” hurt their feelings, I guess). Did they create the primed losers who long to feel superior when they truly aren’t? No, I don’t think anyone suggested that. But does YouTube’s algorithm funnel these man-children toward extremist content that panders to their insecurity and lies to them about their mediocrity? Yes.
To the extent that you mean to say that the idiocy of these idiots was not created by YouTube, I agree. To the extent you are trying to twist commentary about a real problem (online right-wing self-radicalization accelerated by YouTube’s algorithm) into a “yeah, but” criticism of liberalism, and its failure to appease these brats, I think all liberals will dismiss this out of hand. As they should. We will my shoulder the blame for Trump and Trumpism. We are done hearing how it is our fault for letting white nationalists feel left behind.
Trump is not our fault. Right wing extremism is not our fault.
Man up and take responsibility for what YOUR political ideology has created.
21
I would agree with Ross analysis of the lost of place and dignity for rustbelt America, but how do we fix the economic issues that support neglect some areas of the country. Would he support Elizabeth Warren's economic polity, if not what?
8
There's as much far left material on YouTube. Lots of it is simplistic, and easily digestible.
Most have little to do with understanding anyone who has a differing opinion or with facts that may be uncomfortable to those who are the audience for the this stuff. When your mind is set, you see the world that way and I'll bet that most readers here approach any comments that challenge their belief system as "amoral", or "less humane" than their own. Hate the "other" (anyone who doesn't think as you do), somehow works for far too many people.
7
I found the Washingtonian profile of Sam to be very alarming. So alarming that I began to wonder if it was an accurate description of the actual events or a second- or third-hand description of them.
1
I don't believe Ross has dared to ask himself why the Nazis and KKK support conservatism and republicans.
He can use all the convoluted excuses he wants to point the finger at liberals, but he still can't point to liberal Nazis because there aren't any.
20
@Medusa
Godwin's law.
I always enjoy reading Ross's work. I think he has a unique ability to cut to the heart of the matter as it relates to the failures of movement conservatism and progressive liberalism to solve contemporary socioeconomic issues. However I'm also disappointed that he doesn't offer a path forward. No one can describe more cogently how modern politics arrived at this moment, but he can't put together a more compelling prescription for how to move beyond it. It's analogous to the modern GOP's decade long campaign against Obamacare. The GOP has a good point that Obamacare is fraught with many flaws, however they have never proposed a real alternative other than the status quo (wildly expensive insurance, and many folks without coverage). It is exactly the condition that gave an opening to the proponents of social medicine. The GOP has many center-right folks that are abandoning its ranks daily because the GOP sold them out to their billionaire handlers, quid pro quo, less taxes for campaign contributions. Donald Trump is the manifestation of the inevitable backlash to that arrangement when followed to its logical conclusion. The modern left doesn't offer any real solutions that are palatable for the center-right. What is needed is for the GOP as it is currently organized to purge it's ranks of the grover Norquist's tax puritans, realize that taxes are an effective lever in governments and get to work making legislation that can improve the lives of folks in blue states.
12
@Jeffrey
You presume Republicans care about improving lives. That seems to be in error. Name one policy that Republicans successfully spearheaded that improved the lives of poor and middle class voters when they had the reins of power. The Republicans are past wanting to help. They have been since they decided frustrating Obama was their highest ideal.
4
Last night I attended a discussion by Cornell West and Robert George titled "Deep Friendship across Deep Differences." George is a conservative professor at Princeton; West knows no intro here.
West (who, surprisingly, speaks with the inflection and sentence structure of a southern preacher) spoke about the danger of passionate embrace of political stances leading to a dogmatic vision of political others as enemies. George highlighted intellectual humility.
Although they did not engage in specific policy differences and therefore the discussion didn't provide a material model of remaining civil across differences, the presentation was a great reminder that for a republican democracy to function, a certain amount of patience and spiritual generosity must be exhibited by both sides. Demonizing leads to devolution.
It's worrisome to me that so many commenters respond by dismissing Ross' columns or launching into attacks of white nationalists and the orange haired guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, mocking Douthat's faith or otherwise personally attacking him. Few commenters engage with his critique of liberalism. (And, yes, I look forward to more and more substantive critiques of conservatism from Douthat. But that is truly an aside.)
Of course, in the WSJ's new moderated comments section, I'm sure there's plenty of personalized dismissals of Krugman, Blow and other NYT oped writers.
This is not a way forward.
8
The author’s arguments about the alienating consequences of overreach in censorship, the real-world causes of radicalization, the inability of revised algorithms to fix all of our problems aren’t wrong. But neocons’, (radcons’, whatever kind of cons’) license to address the societal ills at hand has long been shaky, and with Trump as their figurehead is entirely forfeit. Conservatives don’t get to tell us how to fix the problems conservatives cultivated.
17
I'm not the least bit surprised that the defensive retorts of the mostly liberal/progressive commenters have missed the point entirely.
If there is something "airless" in the foundational "story" (the 'myth,' if you will) of modern liberalism, it is not likely that a liberal wholly absorbed in the myth is going to see it.
"Those who identity with the myth find it almost impossible to know it's a myth."
Exhibit A for this difficulty, our commentator Socrates, seems to have, implicit in all his comments, this view:
"You (the bad guy conservatives) are chained to alternative faith based facts because you have give up your capacity for critical thinking for the sake of a bronze age superstitious faith. We (the good guy liberal/progressives) don't have beliefs, we don't have myths. We respect facts, and base our political choices and actions on facts."
We enlightened moderns tend to think the "story" of the cosmos and of evolution is not a story; it's just how things are.
So we have no rejoinder to Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg when he says, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”
Progressives, of course you're correct - both about the racism and sexism of the far right, and the horrors inflicted on the world by the centrist neo-liberal onslaught of the past 4 decades.
But you have to offer something beyond the **airless,** pointless, foundational modernist story.
A shift in consciousness is the only way out.
2
@don salmon - What does that mean, "a shift in consciousness"?
Here is how Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee describes the shift in consciousness we need:
"We are present at a moment in our shared destiny when the Earth is crying out to us to help Her in this time of crisis that is destroying Her ecosystem, the fragile web of life that supports Her multihued unity. All around us [are the warning signs....] the unprecedented species depletion.. the oceans filling with plastic at a rate unfathomable a few decades ago, and accelerating climate change.. And, on a different level, though just as painful, is the loss of wildness and wonder, a diminishing sense of the sacred that nourishes our souls. Many of us are responding with action and ideas, even as our governments and corporations... focused only on economic growth and materialism—are unable or unwilling to make this a real priority.
This was forcefully articulated at the recent UN Climate Change Conference by the teen activist Greta Thunberg, who spoke truth to power when she said
“We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.”
1
Douthat's argument about algorithms not solving our problems is spot on. However, when he rambles on about "elites" and the "airlessness" of liberal culture, I wonder how he can stomach the hypocrisy. One group of people is trying to solve America's problems through better education, access to healthcare, safety nets, and inclusion. These tools pool the resources of the community to help the community. Another group of people desire to end safety nets and enforce a "you're on your own" culture. This attitude doesn't breed community spirit; it destroys it.
Oh, and Douthat's mention of the moment when "respectable conservatism" (oxymoron?) becomes dangerous extremism? I would say that was the 1960s. The deal was firmly cemented when the GOP nominated Trump.
Again, there's plenty of finger pointing going on here, but most of the other fingers are pointing back at self.
23
@MerMer
"Again, there's plenty of finger pointing going on here, but most of the other fingers are pointing back at self."...
I think that applies to both parties involved actually.
4
This child was bullied by adults in positions of authority into thinking he would be expelled from school and possibly sent to jail for an off-color remark to a friend.
No 13 year old has any idea of his legal rights, and schools have essentially unlimited authority to suspend or expel their students for any reason, or no reason at all (in other words, students have essentially no protection against abuse).
Reader: You're an adult, but you'd be intimidated by being detained and interrogated by authority figures, including a policeman ("resource officer"), for several hours and ordered to write a confession of a "crime" whose nature you didn't understand. If you don't panic, you might insist on contacting an attorney and refuse to answer questions without that attorney present. The majority of adults wouldn't have the self-confidence and knowledge of their rights to do that, and would fear reprisals ("if you don't cooperate, it will be worse for your") for asserting them.
Now imagine this happening to a 13 year old.
5
@Jonathan Katz
What I don’t understand is why liberals are to blame for bullying school administrators who (according to the parent’s account) implied with hostility that the 13-year was gay.
What do conservatives wish the school administrators had done? The conservatives I know are not big on due process rights for teenagers. Expulsion, suspension, and corporal punishment are, in their minds, what made America great.
4
Simpler language might disclose better the vacuity of thought here. I would suggest we stick to the facts. An eco-holocaust heralded by climate change is taking place and Americans are at the same time buying SUVs in record numbers. Washington is ripe with corruption- spread headed by the very political and religious leaders and right-wing pundits that fuel their follower's fire. Americans realize this is not the 1950s- and with the global economy in rapid transformation- they will not be paid a good wage making the Model T circa 1919. In fact, the extremism in the US politic is making the US look less and less attractive for longer term stable economic investment. Civic participation is being replaced by assigning blame and evasion of responsibility. Science is condemned when it doesn't serve the purposes of the state. And the society seems immersed in a sense of broad entitlement and anger that wanton material consumption may have an end.
I would suggest Douthat visit the intellectual and spiritual terrain of David Brooks- who will lamenting the divisions fueled by the Left and Right- seems to have introduced the novel argument of compassion for life.
1
"Humane conservatism"? What exactly does that contain Mr.Douthat? How can an ideology that says your ability to access medical care should be contingent on the depth of your pockets be considered humane? How can it spin as "humane" the forcing of women to carry their rapists' child to birth? How can it portray itself as humane when it supports the death penalty? How is it humane when it locks kids in cages at the southern border? Like it or not, these ARE the positions held by the leaders of the conservative faction
16
Your description of Sam's abusive treatment by school administrators, concerned about a possible sexual harassment episode, could just as easily be ascribed to ridged conservative thinking .
The described school administration's handling of a non violent 13 year was child abuse plan and simple; not a result of any particular political ideology.
7
When did conservatism become the sole proprietor of community, family, and connectedness ... while liberalism is "airless"? In practice, conservatism only speaks for christian, white, hetero community, family, and connectedness. Liberals are not throwing these ideas out. There are many communities today trying to redefine these terms and, more importantly, their living structures - without losing the value and purpose of family, community, etc. While I see this as inclusive progress - maintaining the American ideal while making it truly inclusive - conservatives see this as "social breakdown". But, frankly, far-left liberals are willing to throw out the American ideal if the outcome is inclusivity - which is also foolish.
3
I find that I turn on Youtube quite often to watch right leaning entertainers. I know they are preaching to their audience, creating videos that are 99% on the side they define themselves on.
But here is where I go when I get angry about the Jussie Smollett case, or when I see my city, Los Angeles and other cities turn into homeless encampments, or when I want to laugh about the ridiculous gender/sex/bathroom/pronoun hysteria, or when I think that it's possible, not imaginary, that all the migrants marching north might eventually get free health insurance in California.
Youtube for me is childish rage, but it has, honestly, replaced conventional news broadcasting. Turn on ABC "World" News with its 13 minutes of handsome model reporters reporting on the latest (American, always and only) weather, celebrities, and domestic stories intertwined with pharmaceutical ads, turn it on and tell me it's any better or any more informed than Youtube.
Not only liberalism, and Trumpism, but culture in general is so devoid of substance, so lacking in depth that we are now looking for nourishment in the empty calories served up on Youtube.
8
@Harding Dawson listen to BBC News or NPR if you want substance and depth. Why decide that empty calories are the only alternative when there is sustenance at your fingertips?
1
@Harding Dawson
What you need to do is actually watch real news and documentaries, not funny propaganda.
Try NPR, CBC and BBC for a start.
Please come back in a year and let us know what you think.
You've at least started off in a good direction by subscribing to this paper.
The same things that once lead kids in inner cities to gangs is now what leads kids everywhere to radicalization, be it the alt right or the extreme left -- absence of parental oversight, little economic opportunity, and a desire to 'belong.' If you give these kids an alternative, perhaps they'll find something else to do.
2
Before the internet, I read a book by Noam Chomsky. One was enough. I didn't agree with his manipulative style and while criticizing both the left and right he would swing to a far but more virtuous left. It was his conclusions I disagreed with most of the time. When he declares all, that is all, US Presidents were war criminals he's wrong but when he talks about Medicare for all I could agree.
I'm familiar with many of the right-wing internet characters the nytimes wrote about last week. I don't find them that right wing at all unless you consider pipelines and belief in Western Civilization fascist. On subjects like Medicaid they aren't being fascist but libertarian. They could be fun to listen to. One of these characters slant on modern architecture was hilarious and certainly not left wing or correct.
The problem is most people think those who listen to Fox News are Fascist and others think the nytimes Editorial Board reflects what the Democratic party represents. Tucker Carlson made a good point (yes that Tucker Carlson). He asked that if they shunned the hot button issues of the day something might get done. He then went on saying how great Senator Warren would be if she shed her left-wing talking points, most Republicans would vote her. I think he's right.
What's a poor boy to do?
3
@JoeG so if Elizabeth Warren would just give up her ideals and think like a conservative they would vote for her? That's supposed to be incisive thinking from Tucker Carlson? Elizabeth Warren would not get votes from many Republicans because since Gingrich they have been taught to hate all things liberal, all Democrats and any person who didn't toe the line. Many of us have been trying to get rid of the "hot button issues" of the day and get to policy making (as Warren has done) to improve schools, communities, health care, etc. The right, unfortunately, offers little in the way of policy and focuses on abortion, immigration, sexuality, and other hot button issues to keep its voters fearful. Listen to Warren. She's critical of Trump as she must be but she talks a lot about solutions. Tell me one Republican in office right now who actually proposes legislation unrelated to these hot button issues. You'll be hard pressed to find any.
4
@Fairway
My point is she should and we all should give up on our precious ideals and attack the real problems the country faces. Those Republicans will start listening. Remember people who voted Bush also voted for Obama.
She's really too far left for me.
Every time Douthat writes a column I ask myself the same question: what does he want?
Does he want a world that progresses towards fairness and equity for people regardless of their socio-economic background, sexual orientation, or race? A world that would include healthcare for all, better access to colleges and universities, less mass incarceration of young black males, the right for women to decide whether to have an abortion or not, etc., etc.
Or does he want such progress to stop? Or at least remain static?
He sometimes seems to have an almost medieval view of the world and medieval times were not nice at all!
10
So a boy spent 6 hours locked in a room and they sent him home on the bus? Really? With all the other kids that he was too dangerous to be around all day? Really? There are no facts here, no names and no real places. None of this is real.
4
The fault dear Brutus is not in our algorithms but in ourselves that we are underlings.
1
Many of my fellow commentators engage in a mental gymnastics that would make Simone Biles blush.
Progressivism IS the dominant cultural force in America.
Its gatekeepers DO push the envelope, moving the goalposts each month on what is "problematic" and excommunicating those who transgress the new boundaries.
(The reason is that liberals whites are the vanguard of the movement and are quite conscious that their intersectional role is limited and pretty high up the pyramid...)
Regardless, kids will always rebel against suffocating conformity, even the conformity of diversity. Sam's story should make every parent shudder.
6
Good argument but you failed to mention how many guns the Alt groups have, this is what keeps me up at night.
1
The story of Sam is a horrible one indeed. Having just watched the first episode of “When They See Us” I see direct parallels (and obvious large differences) between these two stories. But like the boys accused as the Central Park Five, Sam’s story is one of miscarried, misapplied justice. It is not one of liberalism run amok.
I think of the young girl. She does actually have a right to not feel sexually harassed in her school library. There is an all too prevalent dismissal of her rights to have her presence shape the shared space. And the boys needed that lesson. So it was not her speaking up that caused the problem, nor should it cause an eye roll.
The problem was in the institutional extreme misunderstanding and execution of the teachable moment.
6
Pesky liberals. If your best example of a far left-wing radical is Elizabeth Warren, Bernie or ACO, then by God (!), I think I'll take the comparison. Why is is that "traditional conservatism" always seems to take two generations to turn into over-entitled and embittered guys hiding behind white hoods for a weekend of spreading some hate -- or use the euphemism "far-right". Being poor, or white, or poor and white is not an automatic ticket to the gutter of the far-right cess pool - which means that for those that head there, something else is wrong. And that deserves to be called out, even it makes apologists like Mr. D uncomfortable.
4
The Roose piece said that Caleb was raised by his grandparents without bothering to find out why he wasn't raised by his parents. It seems to me that that was a crucial issue in understanding his alienation / radicalization. I don't know what the issue was with his parents, but from my experience as a juvenile dependency lawyer, that happens when the parents are using drugs. Roose should have asked some questions about Caleb's parents in order to better understand his alienation and radicalization.
4
Rightwing radicalization is a result of the exploitation by "traditional" Republicans of racism, religious bigotry and nationalism to divert attention from how their economic policies increase inequality. Of course people who tend to be racist resent the increasing enforcement of racial equality and other liberal objectives - encouraging this resentment has been a mainstay of Republican strategy since the 60's. It is not something invented by Trump. If Republican politicians could invent an algorithm to increase divisiveness among America's working people they would use it. Perhaps they already have.
6
Ross, I cane to this column with my usual expectation that you would provide an articulate description of social ills on the right wing of the political spectrum, avoid or fail to address any cause of the ills that could be attributed to those on the right (for example, 40 years of economic policies that have destroyed the industrial base, tax cutting such that public education and job training have been eviserated in many places so people aren’t prepared for the jobs that are or will become available, tax policies that have sucked the wealth upward, leaving all but the very wealthy treading water at best and going under at worst, fighting tooth and nail to make sure health care is a privilege for the wealthy few, fighting any sort of sensible gun regulation such that we are awash in gun deaths and suicides, fighting any sort of environmental regulation such that whole communities are displaced by pollution and natural disasters caused or intensified by climate change, etc.) and somehow blame all the dysfunction and right-wing radicalization that results from these right-wing policies on liberals by citing a couple of outlandish examples of not terrible things done by liberals (if those kids you cite had been black, conservatives would already have labeled them “thugs’’ and been justifying their imprisonment or shooting by law enforcement). As usual, you never fail to disappoint in your quest to avoid all responsibility on the right and blame all social ills on liberals.
11
@Clare exactly what I was thinking. Every column is the same for Mr. Douthat: no matter what extreme the right goes to in pushing its views it is somehow the fault of liberalism. His contortions are always interesting and sometimes amusing but it would be great if he recognized that the right, including commentators like him, rarely takes responsibility for the results of its ideological positions. It's always the fault of liberals.
3
What does conservative mean today? Policies supported by today’s conservatives are selfish, mean spirited, racist, sexist and misogynistic. The only thing they are for is less taxes on the wealthy, less regulation on business, less autonomy for women and more guns. What is conservative and moral about any of that?
7
I’m starting to think that Douthat might be an autonomous journalist, a machine learning AI that has become adept at blaming liberals for the disaster that is modern conservatism and the entire Republican Party. It’s HMMs are highly tuned, but it does have a large set of Republican insanity to work with.
6
It is natural for the mainstream press media, who have lost their crucial gate keeping power over what issues reach the public agenda, to resent and dislike the new social media that have taken this power from them. But this typical depiction of the public, as idiots and fools who must be protected by experts like themselves from dangerous ideas, does reveal their anti-democratic bias.
2
Your writing style is a little too un-grounded for me, but I kinda get your point. Once upon a time there was a man named McCarthy. His libido/ego required constant jolts of "I am holier than thou" juice and made history by both his rise and his fall. The liberal half is just as capable of making a mess as the conservatives. It is called bad personal judgement and maybe a kind of psychosis we have not named yet. It arrises from desperate need for the safety of black and white, wrong or right, style of thinking. I agree with another commenter, some very inept (maybe ill?) people teaching in that school system to railroad that young man.
1
Whatever the problem, Douthat has the explanation: liberals are to blame. But at least today he came up with a variation on the theme. Now liberals are to blame for conservative excesses because they are the devil that makes them do it.
09:40 EDT, 06/11
8
Average lifespans are declining.
The median household income is declining as inequality increases
Hopelessness and division are increasing.
Conservatism offers nothing but more of the same minus rights for women. Neoliberalism offers nothing but more of the same plus some scraps and cheap concessions.
Something radical is about to happen. It will either look like socialism or fascism. Fascism seems to be winning.
3
I think what Mr. Douthat is failing to address is the likelihood that YouTube IS the body politic now. People who spend ten hours a day on YT are simply different from a social and political perspective than the culture he seems to be describing. But that does not mean the sky is falling. Radio did not destroy our grandparents and television did not destroy our parents. Culture absorbed the function of those technologies, as it will do with social media.
2
This is frightening stuff.
In the past two years, I have watched my mother, sister and aunt go down this bat-stuff crazy rabbit hole where they ended up believing the US president was a Putin/Russian operative. They don't believe the top 3% pay over half the taxes, they don't believe kids were in cages under Obama, they don't believe there is a crisis at the border, they don't believe polls that show racism is at all time lows, they don't believe that progressive activists on twitter are in a bubble and don't actually reflect reality.
They don't believe the NYTimes has told reporters to avoid sensationalist TV shows.
They have gotten angry, mean and divisive towards 48% of our fellow Americans, slurring them with the worst kind of bigoted smears.
I don't know what to do??? Help!
6
@Tim
What you might want to do, Tim, is check your facts and assumptions in context. For example, Yes, the top 3% pay over half the taxes, but the top 1% alone owns 39% of all equity in the US, and that was as of 2016. In that same year, they owned as much as the bottom 90% of the US and it has only gotten worse since. You need to check your sources on Obama keeping kids in cages, find out the circumstances, find out how long they were detained, and find out if they were separated from their parents. There is a border crisis, but it has been exacerbated by Trump policies and a lot of it is of his own making. You might want to dig into that a little too. And finally, the Mueller report did conclude that there was no collision regarding the election, but to misunderstand his relationship to Russian, North Korean, and Saudi Arabian leadership is to go down the same rabbit hole you accuse your relatives of doing. I'm jus sayin.
23
@Tim
When you say “over half the taxes,” I assume, like most ring-wing cranks who have been fed that lie by the Fox propaganda machine, that you are referring only to the federal income tax? And not to any other taxes levied by federal, state, and local governments—especially the payroll tax?
Because the payroll tax alone accounts for 35 percent of all federal receipts. And there aren’t many in the top 3% who are working for wages.
So there may be a reason that your loved ones don’t listen to your lies.
6
@Steven Devan I don't disagree with anything you wrote but you aren't making the case that there is a bigoted group of people who are trying to smear half the voters.
I doubt most leaning significantly right have had much significant contact w. any sort of developed 'liberalism' or discussion of 'political correctness' --outside of curated right-wing sources. There is also a long history of rootless and disaffected youth-- particularly men-- steering towards radicalism across many cultures-- including Islam-- fairly outside of the internal dynamics of US culture.
Ross presents an unfounded, under-evidenced and cherry-picking 'just-so,' story that provides ample cover for the tremendous power of internet sites to guide eyes and influence behavior. This position ignores the ample evidence (eg 'The Age of Addiction') regarding behavioral economics and more concerningly-- allows the power behind such tech off the hook (many of whom refuse to let their own children have unfettered access to such content).
10
I think Douthat needs to define "humane conservatism" and how that is supposed to work in communities that are destroyed by the opioid crisis and lack of meaningful jobs. Historically, at least in the US, conservatives have been defined mostly for what they are against: Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights legislation, business regulations, in short anything that requires government intervention. What they offered instead was the free market and individual responsibility, ie people are responsible for their own fate. Preaching that to people in need of help will solve their problems instead of providing help is a way to absolve one self of any social responsibility. I was not the one who discriminated against blacks or latinos, who created the violence that drives people out of Central America, or who got people hooked on drugs so why should I pay taxes to solve those problems, it is their responsibility to get themselves out of their pickle. Where is "humane conservatism" in all this?
56
@serban - entirely agree. I've often asked what social program(s) have conservatives ever supported? One might point tenuously to Nixon and some of Reagan, but who else? They've been naysayers regarding initiatives to build community and social - there's that word - constructs to benefit all Americans.
3
Yet another story about how the "left" has proven to be Ayn Rand's worst nightmare, bent on robbing us of all dignity, identity, and humanity. No wonder kids are lashing out with alt-right extremism!
The problem is, it's not the "left" that's doing this. Everything the "right" insists on identifying as the "left" is far to the "right" of Nixon! (Nixon, who proposed guaranteed minimum income...) The "left" in America sold out its credentials long ago, with Bill Clinton as the standard bearer. Call it "left" if you want, but it's just a machine that redistributes wealth upwards, from the middle class, to the one percent.
Yes, we have lost community. Yes we fail to educate our kids. Yes, we fail to provide adequate health care. Yes, the middle class is disappearing. Blaming this on the left is crazy talk. Let's call it for what it is... Our friend the big bad wolf, herding sheep onto the blue side of the pasture, slaughtering the middle class.
But failing to call it truthfully is part of the game plan on the "right". Blaming everything on the "left" is still that same old wolf, chasing after the sheep who ran over to the red side of the pasture. Well done, Mr. Douthat. Perpetuating myth is always better than identifying the problem.
33
One major problem with this column, and the underlying news account, is that we are not told what Sam's friend said. We are told that the meme had "a suggestive name" but that the classmate "misconstrued it as a sexual reference ." How "suggestive" was the meme's name and how much of a stretch was it for the classmate to construe it as a sexual reference? How can anyone determine the extent of the school's apparent overreaction without knowing that information. That said, the school's Inquisition-like approach to dealing with the issue was extremely problematic for any type of school, especially if it was a public school. In addition, what evidence is there that the incident represents a growing, negative trend in liberalism - except in Mr. Douthat's mind?
25
@Alex, as a former teacher, I had the same reaction to the school's treatment of Sam. No principal I have ever worked for would have handled the situation in that manner. It doesn't matter what Sam said, it was the wrong way to proceed. It was a typical move from an arrogant, authoritarian school leader. That is certainly not a liberal treatment of a student!
10
Thanks for two revealing descriptions: "the breakdown of community outside the liberal metropole," and "a social crisis in the hinterland."
Conservative politics has long demanded the "bootstrap" trajectory of people lifting themselves out of poverty no matter their starting point or the existence of very real impediments. Now the strap is on the other boot. Once privileged segments of a stable society have lost their privileges and are angry. Suddenly lifting oneself out of a bind is out-of-fashion and government in general, and Washington in particular, is again expected to accomplish what people are not willing to work for: personal and community salvation. It would appear that mainstream conservative thought has failed to persuade.
20
This editorial misses an essential point. Rather than radicalization being about a political leaning, it is about a search for belonging and being validated. You Tube offers seductive messages for those who are in need of an alternate source. I do think Progressives could do a better job finding a way to speak to those who feel powerless. There needs to be an anti violent alternative.
11
@ellen luborsky I don't know any Progressives who advocate violence so not sure what you mean. Progressives tend to talk about hope and renewal through legislation and building communities: farmers markets, after school programs, inclusivity are some examples. The heartland has been devastated by loss of community. Many of their young people move away to find jobs. Those that can, anyway. Those that have welcomed immigrant families and expanded their communities have done better. Unfortunately, rather than look toward building stronger, more inclusive communities they are driven by fear which is fueled by rhetoric from right wing media and politicians. Communities that have weathered down turns tend to be more progressive. One only has to look at those facts to decide how to proceed.
2
You've got to wonder how many of Donald Trump's supporters would have also supported Bernie Sanders. All they wanted to do was shake up the system, get rid of the existing political dynasties.
The Republicans were the lucky ones because their candidate was the wild card that won. Liberals still crying because Hillary didn't win don't get it. It was Bernie people wanted.
4
@Carl Hultberg
What people reject is corruption, what they want is integrity. Bernie fits the bill. Rejection of Clinton sadly spilled into support for Trump who managed to channel dissatisfaction but even so, Clinton did win the popular vote.
9
" I have some doubts about categorizations that purport to define the moment when respectable conservatism becomes dangerous extremism. "
Whenever a gun is involved?
19
I’m fascinated by this idea of “humane conservatism” and would dearly love to see some examples. Most conservatives I know believe that misbehavior is best treated with a father’s belt or a large paddle displayed on the wall of the vice principal’s office (labeled, perhaps, the “Board of Education”). To them, sitting a miscreant in a room and talking through how certain conversations may have offended others is mollycoddling, not torture.
Do conservatives really believe that they have traditionally never censored anyone? That censorship and oppression of thought is some newfangled, left-wing mania? That ideas of all types flourished in small towns in Appalachia? That diversity of thought was celebrated?
I mean, I understand that it’s easy to point to current examples of extreme over-reaction. But before I buy a ticket on the MAGA bus, I’d like to see some clearer examples of what, exactly was so great—and more precisely, for whom.
91
@kkseattle
I will take a stab at providing examples of "humane conservatism," at least in southern Pennsylvania.
We have our share of "extreme over-reaction" neocons around here, and that is not to whom I am referring.
Most of the governing boards at leading social-service agencies here are made up of conservative businesspeople. These are people who also serve meals at homeless shelters, bake things for fundraisers at schools and youth soccer sales, get up at 4 in the morning to provide breakfast for day workers gathered outside a jobs agency. Our leading "humane conservative," who sadly passed a few years ago, mentored many minority entrepreneurs and helped them get their businesses started, and gave millions to our leading African-American led community agency.
Their main point of separation from the liberal stereotype is "big government," which, in their view, is expensive and inefficient, failing to create much of the results promised.
You probably won't meet many of them on the MAGA bus. They are too busy trying to build up business, hire more people and supporting their communities.
My gripe with this group is that they have been way too blinded by the GOP theme of "if its a Democrat, its really socialism" schtick to be objective about politics.
Of course, the more the Democrats play toward their own extremes, the more ammunition they hand to the GOP to keep the humane Conservatives in line.
Hope that helps.
9
@kkseattle "Humane conservatism" was my spit-take, too. All I have ever heard out of conservative friends has been advocating mandatory sterilization of welfare mothers, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and contempt for anyone who disagrees. Contempt for anyone less fortunate than they are. I'm a Matthew 25 Christian but these folks have made their Christianity into an exclusive club and a vehicle of hate and judgement. So, I will wait with you for examples of humane conservatism but I think we will be like the famous cartoon of a skeleton on a bus bench...waiting...waiting.
10
@Steve Feldmann. When economics fails on a truly large scale as during the Great Depression and our 2008 near Collapse — these small efforts are nice, but they do not solve the problem of cyclic capitalism on the downward slope causing huge unemployment. For that you need the total energy and reserves of the government of the nation.
5
I wonder if Ross ever asks those involved what they think happened. I look at the events around Sam as illustrative of not the failures of progressivism, but of a protectiveness towards children that allows for no errors or slip ups. We scrutinize everything far too closely. And then I think of the environment for teachers (and others who take care of kids) where any single event could be taken out of context.
Maybe we just suffer from a world where cameras are all around and everyone with apparent authority is frightened that they might lose their job if they don't clamp down on every little thing.
Some portion may be attributable to women wishing to be heard, and in that way can be blamed on the left, but the rest is just the result of times that have changed because of technology.
If this helps - when I have my dogs in the car, I am temped to make a quick stop for a quart of milk or loaf of bread - on a cool day - but dare not, because I fear that someone will become alarmed and report me as an animal abuser. We are just too concerned about everything.
11
Perhaps the breakdown is better located in the failure of American consumer capitalism, rather than in the communities that have been hollowed out and destroyed by its winner-take-all mentality that rewards the capitalists while destroying the people who actually created the wealth. Only Elizabeth Warren seems willing to address the systemic failures in our economic model and she is widely discounted as being too radical.
112
Progressivism does not foster alienation: the culture of shaming does (admittedly the left does far too much of this lately, but they’re not the only culprit).
I embrace free speech and don’t savor the idea of allowing companies, government or anyone arbitrarily to decide what speech is dangerous, hateful or disallowed (the old slippery slope of censorship).
It is one thing when people seek out specific content for their own consideration. However, when tech companies start recommending content—even with the dispassion of a computer AI—they step into the role of curators and influencers. They guide people toward content that tends to be more thematically extreme, even when not explicitly sought. Once that happens, unwittingly or not, they become complicit in polarization and radicalization.
Government moves slowly by design, so as to be stable and not hijacked by the whims of the moment. Technology, with instant global communication, has accelerated to a point where government has trouble keeping up. Society, cultural dynamics, the traditional sources of education, also have fallen behind and lack the sophistication to help us process, verify, contextualize and cope.
Myths and misinformation have always persisted in society, but never have they been spread with the speed, ease and reach of today. Whole new ontologies are constructed around faulty or false information, in echo chambers, without accountability or a bilateral forum to digest, debate and dispel.
17
It's not a chance to rebel against hegemony or conformity that the right is offering, since the right requires far more conformity than the left ever has (even still today, with excessive shouting and silencing happening among liberals too) -- for example threatening to assault and even kill people who leave its ranks.
The right is offering the same thing it always has, a means for white Christian men to feel better by feeling superior to other groups. Truly, same old same old.
Community is indeed critical -- instead of asserting that liberalism is against it, or can't provide it, why don't you tell us how you imagine it could be built without sacrificing women's autonomy and possibilities, without denigrating gay people in the name of 'morality', without requiring adherence to a particular religious dogma... in short, present a potentially useful argument/essay, for a change.
36
This article is very confused, hard to read and make sense of. The problem, as I see it, is that Douthat, like most conservatives, wants to have it both ways. No government, no 'social engineering,' but simultaneously no help fiscally or otherwise for communities at risk. You can't have it both ways. You can't continue to take what little safety net and support is still available and expect a different outcome. We are in a country in crisis because of a decline of opportunity and hope - these things can be engineered by regulation and wealth redistribution and enforcement of antitrust law, 'liberal' ideas. Where's your counterargument?
251
@Jack. His counter argument is that belief in God and traditional religion can solve these problems. Of course, in 1929 when the market crashed, ushering in over a decade of hurt and harm to ordinary people who still believed in God and the church, neither of those made much of a difference. People then didn’t turn to more religion; they turned to Marx, Engels and socialism because capitalism had just failed them — as it is doing now without guard rails!
13
The problem with "movement conservatism" is that its ideas are so deeply unpopular that to maintain influence and power it is necessary to align itself with every conceivable form of bigotry and insanity that manifests itself on the fringes of society. Perhaps some thought should have been given to this when Nixon and the Republicans adopted their Southern Strategy, or every time the Republican establishment rushed to defend the rights of lunatics to own assault rifles immediately after one of our many, many massacres.
103
Why is the POV of this article so binary? People are either conservative or liberal? Populist white power freaks are traditional conservatives? People who believe in the possibility that government of, by, and for the people can be a force that mitigates the excessive extremes of capitalism are all air-headed libs?
The people I know are complex, although many suppress that by self-identifiing with one or another belief set. Modern tribalism, Lib or tradcon, evangelical or atheist, etc. is stepping backwards from the enlightened sophistication that began in the 18th century and has spread ever since. As binary options increase, complexity expands exponentially. Our brain cells each have many connections. That complexity is the basis of human intelligence, such as it is.
31
I did not know that You Tube algorithms are designed to maximize addiction, as is implied here. That's shocking. Most hyperbole is.
3
That’s not the purpose of the algorithms but it is the effect (ie, the effect of promoting what seized and holds people’s attention), as has been well documented in many recent books and articles in the Times and elsewhere. Read them.
2
@W O While what you said was perhaps a little tongue in cheek, the algorithms simply feed into what we have already seen. I have noticed over time that whether I look for furnace filters or restaurants or a new car, cultivated advertisements are delivered to me in steady stream. The same is also true with what one watches on YouTube, enabling this rabbit hole phenomenon. The real travesty is that individual people long for a point of connection and contact but feel increasingly isolated in our modern era. This guided engagement is problematic. YouTube is not a substitute for real people giving of their time and talent to a younger generation.
The tale of Samis the one indelible aspect of this essay. Here we get the prototypical Conservative PC story that will be repeated millions of times and has been ever sense Roger Kimball and Denesch D'Souza introduced these accounts in the 1990's, the kind that have given birth to the South Paqrk Conservativism that is also related to the rise of an "Alt" Right among young men. Let me just note several thing; 1) We have no way to evaluate whether this story is accurate, we are not told the nature of this school nor it's name nor the name of the appaling "administrators" who were responsible. 2) We are told that the young boy greatly feared that he would be expelled, but we never here what ultimately happened. Readers should look for this the next time they read a PC story, we are told that a speaker was threated with some horrible consequence but then we are never informed about whether that consequence took place. 3) Note that neither the source from the Wash Post nor Douthat makes it clear that making a joke to a friend in a school cafeteria is not sexual harassment nor is it ilegal in any way. A reader could come awayfrom this essay believing that their sons could be carted away to Rykers for the least degree of a naughtyjoke. The fact that some on the Me Too movement may also expand the definition of sexual harrasment to absurd dimentions does not excuse Douthat for doing the same form of miseducation.
27
@Greg Jones All excellent points. Additionally; Since when is incompetence the same as liberalism. The entire episode, if it's even factually reported here, points to the incompetence of, basically, everyone involved.
Of course if you don’t pay teachers a living wage the chances of having incompetent teachers rises dramatically
3
In Douthat's world, women are to blame when boys are radicalized, and when men become "incels" because women won't date them.
Follow the misogyny.
63
"Moreover, there is no better example of the technocratic spirit’s moral idiocy than the idea that . . . what we need is a better algorithm to prevent people . . . from getting too . . . extreme."
Well said, and I could not agree more.
Is the "technocratic spirit" an expression of liberalism? Of capitalism? Of greed?
Is the rabbit-hole of YouTube different from rabbit-hole of Fox & right-wing media, with their relentless provocation & exploitation of emotions--even if we admit that fascism is not necessarily inherent in, say, the ideology of the Manhattan Institute? If you grant Mr. Trump the compliment that he is a political extremist, as opposed to a lucky idiot, was the road that took his followers to his church one of economic neglect by politicians, or one of professionally mediated anger? Are they two 2 sides of the same coin? Or is the president just a lucky idiot, whose followers found him through the rabbit-hole of "reality TV". But how did the hegemony of cultural liberalism give us "The Apprentice"?
Are the excesses of cultural liberalism comparable to the excesses of racist or homophobic conservativism? Why is one usually found on campuses, and the other in statehouses? Is there a common cause in the way we have commercialized our politics & turned it into entertainment, shopping for our beliefs & our enemies in the media, rather than in our lives? If we categorize people instead of talking to them, who benefits?
12
@Martin Well said (or rhetorically asked). I would add another key element to the virtual, market-bred community you point to: the expansion of screen culture, which constitutes a form of virtual reality, particularly when viewed in isolation. (Remember sitting in a theater with a crowd of people, to watch a documentary? Last month? Last year? And newsreels?)
1
Hate and bigotry have always lurked at the heart of "traditional'' conservatism. The godfather of conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., was an anti-Semite who opposed civil rights. Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign in Mississippi to signal his solidarity with southern bigots. Steve Scalise, a House leader, attended white nationalist meetings. YouTube and other social media platforms are not creating or radicalizing gullible citizens; they are simply exposing, without filters, the ugly face of conservatism that right-wing pundits had tried to hide behind pseudo-intellectual veils like "state's rights'' and "original intent.''
81
It is the radical right that is harnessing the power of YouTube to radicalize, far more effectively than the left.
2
@Frank Couldn't agree more. I regularly watch content from the hip conservative sphere (Prager "University", Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, etc.), and it has become plain that supposedly "fringe" right-wing ideas -- white nationalism, dehumanization of trans people, colonial apologia, obtuse and opportunistic denial of climate science -- are very solidly in the mainstream (albeit under different names). Marginally self-aware, reasonably compassionate columnists like Mr Douthat are a tiny fraction of the conservative ideasphere. The National Review and the WSJ aren't any better.
2
@Amos
In what way is Douthat not espousing the supposedly fringe right wing ideas you mention?
They underscore and provide the foundation for all he writes.
2
I'm not sure the Times article was calling for algorithmic fiddling, was it? Maybe it was. What I got out of it, other than confusion at why Philip DeFranco and Milton Friedman were so prominent in the hate collage, was 1) conservatism is a gateway drug to Nazism, or maybe just a lite form of Nazism itself. And 2), there are some unpopular progressive YouTube channels I should patronize.
3
I have no idea what "tradcon" means. Well Ross does give a definition. Does trad mean traditional. Or something else. Does it mean when respectable conservatives move from talking about "Welfare Queens" to fanatics talking about "Mexican rapists".
23
The Washingtonian profile (read it!) is alarming not least because some cruel school administrators trying to be politically correct drove a nice normal kid to embrace neo-nazism. He needed a group with the power and tactics of the administrators who had tried to destroy him, and he found them.
I missed the part where they ( the admin) were fired and prosecuted for child abuse. I hope to God none of them are still in education.
4
The points made here are, as usual with Douthat, worth careful consideration. There are a lot of moving parts and cause and effect are not easy to identify. It seems the basic premise is probably true: on-line radicalization, while facilitated by big tech's money grab, starts with social alienation and a search for an accepting community. The secondary thesis hiding here that the recent tendency of social liberals to aggressively call out anyone who doesn't publicly signal appropriate virtuousness regarding race, gender etc. is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
That still leaves the question of where it begins. The extreme right has embraced the libertarian ethos so completely ("... pry it from my cold dead hands", "don't tread on me" , "stay off my lawn") that it leaves no space for "community" except in the negative sense of what and who they hate. And it seems to me that self alienation and othering are cause and the effect of each other in a mutually reinforcing circle. Why? Who knows why some people, men in particular, find it fulfilling to seek out isolated individualism and then desperately look for validation from others while pretending they don't actually "need" anyone.
11
@greg, "stay off my lawn" reminds me of a discussion on my online neighborhood site. One person correctly reminds dog owners to pick up their poop. Several others agree. It is the law in our city. Then the "get off my lawn" people started chiming in that anyone who allows a dog to poop in "their" yard is guilty of trespassing! The law doesn't say, no dog pooping in another person's yard, it just says to pick up the poop. Nevermind that we have rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and deer wandering and pooping wherever they roam. Whatever has happened to being neighborly and to community spirit? That is where community breaks down and hatred of neighbors begins, with trivialities., and those trivialities grow into great divides. How do we rebuild community with small-minded people hating their neighbors.
2
I divide liberal from conservative by their intent. Liberals see a problem that has abroad impact on the population, and want to fix it, e.g. global warming, healthcare availability, and low wages. Conservatives are preoccupied with conserving wealth for the private sector and concentrating its distribution to the well to do. Thus combating liberal efforts to fix things, and thereby diverting wealth to the public sector, is a key priority.
As far as disorienting our youth, and devaluing their future, what could be more provocative than the conservatives/Republican Party resistance to combating global warming, while the rest of the world and nearly the whole science community agrees that it is a grave danger to large segment of global civilization.
15
"Silicon Valley has monetized amoral slippery slopes in all kinds of arenas (with pedophilia being the latest grim example)"
I just couldn't read any more after this, from a major Catholic convert and apologist. Get the beam out of your own eye--and church--before you attack liberals and progressives. I can't take your columns seriously anymore.
194
@LS
I regularly find that Whataboutism never furthers any discussion. This here is about online radicalization and not sexual abuse in Catholic institutions. Your comment reads like those who cry "And Assange!" whenever somebody in the "West" reports about journalists being thrown in jail in Russia on fake charges. So can the opinionist only offer some opinion on liberal algorithms (or the lack thereof) after (or while) he decries all possible misdeeds somehow attached to his "identity group"? Wouldn't that be daft as it would make stuff generally unreadable? For my money, Catholics (even converted ones) are generally allowed to target Silicon Valley pedophilia peddling. Everyone should.
Everyone also should give the Pope hell for his un-enlightened handling of abysmal abuses.
7
@Andre Welling
Yes, everyone should “target Silicon Valley pedophilia peddling”, but not beause they are catholic. It is Douthat’s constant confusion of morality with religion that grates.
16
@LS as I said to a previous anti-Catholic post. Sexual predators have been found in every subgroup, including Boy Scouts, university physicians, rock stars, Democratic presidents, team coaches ... to single out Catholics for hate on this matter is telling and irrational. And yes we are getting the beam out of our own eye and have been doing so for years. Now do Silicon Valley.
4
Is "identitarian" even a word? And if so, it only illustrates the bombast of the author, who apparently assumes his intellectual prowess, as illustrated by his tossing around words such as this lends weight to his argument. It doesn't. It only reveals his condescension towards those who dissent with him, and detracts from the force of his argument. There is certainly something to be said for the fact that the disaffected, the the castaways from a changing economy and the alienated are turned off by liberal thought, especially when it calls on all of us, including those who are feeling cheated of success by our American economy and culture are asked to sacrifice for the greater good. Liberalism can have its share of intolerance, to be sure, but its intolerance is born in part from the stubborn insistence by the right on theorems at odds with reality: e.g., global warming is a hoax, gun control will not reduce mass shootings, lowering taxes on the wealthy will increase our prosperity, abortion is never right, and immigrants are ruining our society. How are these kinds of "arguments" to be accorded respect, when they are clearly born of misinformation or frank prejudice? People join cults because it resonates with their issues: the radical right resonates with those who are angry and disaffected. It has but little to do with liberal's overweening solipsism, which is more Mr. Douthat's issue, I'm afraid to say, notwithstanding his intelligence.
23
I think that readers here really ought to read the Washingtonian profile. Ross was pretty selective about what he quoted.
The profile about a 13 year old who becomes part of the alt-right, at least until he actually meets some of them in person, isn’t about online computer algorithms at all. “Sam,” the boy in the profile, was mistreated by school administrators, no doubt. But the author goes on to demonstrate how adults in various alt-right chat rooms targeted him and used his emotional turmoil as a recruiting tool. Sam seems to heal and moves past them.
Ross took the most emotional part of the story and quoted it without context to make a different point.
YouTube’s online algorithms identify an emotional response and try to find more videos to feed it so you’ll stay captivated and watch more ads. It’s creepy, can be used improperly, and I’m not defending it. But the algorithm used by the alt-right commenters described in the Washingtonian profile is insidious and designed to capture young people when they’re vulnerable.
Read both the NYTimes piece and the Washingtonian piece and make up you own mind. I think Ross is playing games here.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/05/05/what-happened-after-my-13-year-old-son-joined-the-alt-right/
12
Another essay in which a conservative author attempts to blame liberalism for all of conservatism's sins.
Conservatives love to lecture others about taking personal responsibility, but when it comes to their own failings, it's always someone else's fault. The reality is that liberals' standing up for the rights of non-white minorities does not force conservatives to become white nationalists. That's the conservatives' choice and they are completely responsible for it. And liberals should never be expected to abandon what's right because conservatives choose to embrace what's wrong.
156
@617to416
Yes! Well said.
Billy on.
2
This piece is yet another attempt to force the country into a binary demarcation, progressive and conservative. Reality is much more nuanced and people who generalize about either and claim to know what "liberals" think are misinformed, or lazy.
9
How do you define the term "increasing ideological conformism," which you claim characterizes the airlessness of liberalism? You impliedly adopt the conservative distortion that liberals want to control conduct (ban meat, furs and soda), an untrue and extreme misrepresentation. If your interpretation is that liberals seek laws that allow all to exercise freedom regardless of age, sex, sexual persuasion, religion (or lack thereof) race and belief, there is less distortion and more reality. I suggest that right wing attempts to "escape" this philosophy is based upon a desire to impose conformity in race, religion and a way of life.
11
@Disillusioned
I'm trying to figure out what "airlessness" means when applied to a political philosophy.
1
@Disillusioned from Wikipedia definition of "projection":
Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude.
1
Who supplies the ideologies to the lower middle class? I think these same old ideologies have been floated before, whether the anti-semitic ideologies or other racist ideologies. They're meant to improve the lot of the rich and upper middle class who disseminate them to the lower middle class and poor so they have a "common enemy." Hate is not instinctual, nor is it the province of the uneducated solely. Online it is now an industry. But in the minds of men, it is an idea, one that has uses for extending the power of certain groups.
5
PS: Since Trump won’t support or fund investigation and defense against Russian Cyberwar and psy-ops attacks on 50-140 million Americans ala theft of FB, Instagram, Google profiles and the Trump friends at Cambridge Analytica the worries evoked in this column are trivial.
Mitch McConnell will not permit investigation of the Russian cyberwar. What does this mean?
Russia spent 6 years demonizing Hillary Clinton, as did the National Enquirer which featured close to 100 covers of Hillary dying or killing.... Russian bots targeted disgruntled Bernie supporters to stay home or vote for Jill Stein or stay home, and targeted Hillary haters to vote for Trump or Stein or stay home. Trump lost the popular election by 3 million and won enough electoral votes by 77 thousand votes in pivotal electoral states. The Federal bureaucracy and state governments insist that Russia did not succeed in giving the election because they referenced voting machines which they say were not compromised. Perhaps Republicans feel that they need the help of Russia to win in 2020?
12
If anyone believes every word of that account of the persecution of a 13-year-old, I’ve got a bottle of snake-oil in the shape of the Brooklyn Bridge to give him—for free, just for making me laugh!
13
Over the past few years in drives from Atlanta to NY, I’ve stopped in numerous towns, primarily in Appalachia, where the main shopping outlet is a Dollar Store, the grocery is a dilapidated Food Lion, and the best restaurant in town is Applebee’s. It’s depressing for the 12 hours I stop to sleep at an off-the-highway chain hotel (which is likely one of the best employers in town); I cannot imagine having to live in such a place. It is no wonder to me why people turn to opioids and the Internet to escape such a place.
Why don’t people move? Because moving itself is expensive, the cities where jobs are located are expensive, and if you lack the education to get a high-paying job, it’s probably better to stay where it’s cheaper to live.
It’s no mystery why people radicalize, whether it’s a young Muslim in the Paris suburbs who becomes enthralled with ISIS or a white teenager in the exurbs of Cincinnati who falls into the AltRight: lack of good paying jobs & opportunity, feeling isolated & worthless, with a need to blame someone for it all. Rootless, bored young men turn their anger toward the nearest target, resulting in racism, xenophobia, and inevitably misogyny.
It comes down again, as it always does, to income inequality and if we don’t correct the course we have been on for the last 50 years, we will continue to pay with violence and lives lost and wasted.
53
Politics and sociology vs. media? Why not integrate them all as a source of the problem? When some investigative journalism can only be done in the comments section, don't you think we have a problem with thinking that the lower-middle class cannot handle certain information? What is the content of that information? Oh yeah, "secret knowledge" that would get the right wing in a lot of trouble.
1
I have a very distant relationship to algorithms.
I think of them all as nonsense squared.
2
@A. Stanton
Algorithms are dope. Don't get confused by all the algorithm fear mongery lately. Most people only know about "algorithms" as those internet thingies that exploit and deceive us. Algorithms, they are all over Social Media! What if they are Russian algorithms?? Anyway, in reality, inventing algorithms was the best thing happening to humankind after they got fire. Cooking recipes are algorithms. The best of them are bliss squared.
Most people who are radicalized become that way because they feel they have no future thanks to the present lack of socio-economic opportunities or because of their religious beliefs. As an example, the attacks on September 11, 2001 were performed by desperate men who were told that if they accepted Allah’s mission, their families will be taken care of and the men would go directly to Paradise.
This is what happens when people are desperate. And right now, with the Republicans refusal to make sure there is equal opportunity in education, there are protections in our social safety nets, that every voter registered will be allowed to vote, equal opportunity for all genders and all races, that women can have the same control of their bodies, just like men, we are facing radical upticks.
It is not Social Media that is the problem. It is the increasing insecurity that citizens feel when our freedoms are threatened and the economy is not stable for the middle class on down.
Until the Leadets of this country get their act together we are left with incredible instability in our society.
They have a moral obligation to the citizens and an Oath of Office that they took take care of all citizens. They are failing miserably.
After all, we are supposed to be a country “of the people, for the people and by the people. It doesn’t matter what party you belong too. We are ensured of our “inalienable rights”
7
We must not miss how pervasive social media really is, and what a great weapon it is for those who might destroy civil society. Excellent example: the recent office cooler discussions about the "New York State Law that allows doctors to euthanize healthy babies at birth" with a terrible description of how a criminal might do this. This is a rumor that originated somewhere (Russian bots, perhaps?). The purpose of this obvious untruth is to manipulate. How will this affect a young (or even an old) mind? It obviously affected someone enough to repeat an obvious lie. These extreme lies plant the seeds of doubt about reality, and these are methods of radicalization which can be measured, but for some reason, are freely allowed. When countered with the obvious truth (that no one could kill a healthy baby without committing a mortal crime), mature persons (even Trump voters) might realize they have been "had", but would a young mind that might have difficulty filtering out reality? What "courses" or programs might help the young when the old are clueless, too? Of course this is ridiculous, correct? If no one reads the Mueller report, than who will take the time to understand how we are being manipulated by an amoral media? Is there any "program" that can help the young when they are bombarded with free media all day long?
5
@et.al.nyc
The problem isn’t social media. The problem is that these ridiculous rumors are given credence by an extremely powerful Republican Party that cares little for truth so long as they preserve wealth and power. Trump’s ridiculous lies (Mexico secretly agreed to buy agricultural product from our Great Patriot Farmers? Huh? Sounds like a North Korean press release) are, for the GOP, a feature, not a bug.
Last week Ross wrote about an intellectual movement among many Republicans to reject democracy and embrace imposing Christian theocracy on the rest of us. This week he writes about right-wing provocateurs who use YouTube to convince teenagers that the only solution to America's ills is a white supremacist ethno-state.
In neither case can he bring himself to reject blatant anti-egalitarian and dare I say un-American ideas, because in the end they are coming from his fellow-travellers and he knows this. Instead he desperately tries to claim that the toxic ideology pouring from his own allies is excusable because it's just a reaction to, uh, "elite liberalism."
This is modern American conservatism in a nutshell, folks.
23
If the wealthy and advantaged in this country wanted to make it a better place for anyone else but themselves, their family and their clique - they would. Politics increasingly makes dupes of us all. Platforms, positions, outrage - they all play to the public about issues of real concern - but it is about telling people what they want to hear for money or power. Some people are crass about it. Like Trump. Others are sneaky about it. Others dumb about it. Like a 'Resist' sticker on a BMW. But they all do it. All do it. I know we will want to say that our chosen group are different. Of course we do. It just feels better to feel you are better people even if you aren't. But as I say. If it was in our hearts to make real change, we would have done it a long time ago. For someone to become radical, invariably you have to become so hopeless or impotent that you become like a frustrated rat in a mean spirited lab experiment and act out. Take a look around. Can we honestly say we don't see the roots for frustration in a world that talks one way, and walks another. That is, walks away.
16
@Jen-- This may be the best comment I see on a NYT piece all week. Maybe all year. Too many people commenting here exempt themselves from any problems.
6
The New York times also has algorithms. It offers to customize news for us, creating a rabbit hole for each one.
Another essay in which a conservative author attempts to blame liberalism for all of conservatism's sins.
Conservatives love to lecture others about taking personal responsibility, but when it comes to their own failings, it's always someone else's fault. The reality is that liberals' standing up for the rights of non-white minorities does not force conservatives to become white nationalists. That's the conservatives' choice and they are completely responsible for it. And liberals should never be expected to abandon what's right because conservatives choose to embrace what's wrong.
9
@me
No we don't. That's what conservatives say we do. That doesn't make it true.
1
You’re only half right.
YouTube banned my video 4 times and each time I appealed, I won and immediately following the appeal, the same video was banned again.
What was so offensive about my video?
I asked people, metaphorically to, ‘make jam.’ A reference to a TV program on PBS about England at the outbreak of world war 2 and its never give up attitude.
I didn’t even tell people to take a side, I just wanted people of every political persuasion to become more involved and the video was repeatedly banned.
I have said it here once before, a huge contributor to radicalization is due to the algorithm.
Algorithms are not smart, they are dumb and don’t have inherent morality and therefore should not be used to determine what content a user ‘should see.’
I wonder what the internet would be like without algorithms...but they are there to drive clicks and make money so we will never know.
1
@Rob E Gee
We do know: The internet would be, like, "no internet" without algorithms. All software is algorithmic. An algorithm is simply a series of steps (including loops and branches) to achieve a certain goal. Like generating prime numbers or displaying a pixel on your screen. Even old ENIAC who did not even dream of talking to other computers used algorithms. It's only the IT-illiterate media man-handling this ancient term to imply algorithms only come into play when it's about stealthily manipulating someone or something. That's bad. But now people hate algorithms which is also, um, double-plus-ungood. I'm sure we now have already people allergic to algorithms and some "algorithm-free" certification logo in the making.
1
Get outside and listen to what nature has to tell you. And learn to do something useful with your hands.
7
It's all Eve's fault. Predictable Ross Douthat. I was waiting for it from the start. And, sure enough, it came. At the heart of this column, Douthat would have us believe that if only women could take a joke, leave men-boys to their own state-of-innocence, yuk-yuk misogyny, all would be well, for the root of the rise of alt-right extremism is Eve -- women taking up public space that should be the private preserve of men among men, boys being boys, and insisting that they be treated respectfully in it. If only liberalism, but feminists especially, had not taken that bite from the Tree of Knowledge, virulent patriarchy would not be so bad. Who would know?
20
"... a better algorithm to prevent people — young men, especially — from getting too restless or rebellious or extreme."
Algorithms have no redeeming social value. How about college, trade school, and national or military service, instead?
Realistically, pornography is the most effective detractor from extremist propaganda on the internet. And, wouldn't you know, YouTube has always tried to suppress it!
3
Before the internet there was Rush Limbaugh modeling and calling out the angry white male. His commercial success leads in a straight line to Donald Trump, a shouting, sneering, mocking serial liar who evokes wild cheers from live audiences who especially love his cruel attacks on the disabled, the weakest among us, and anyone who can't fight back. Social media magnify the powers of darkness, but it takes widespread public approval to generate the force behind them. Before we start engineering our technology, we need to know ourselves.
9
It seems like whatever technology appears the first major use of it is for pornography, anti-semitism, and crime. Photography comes to mind, and then the internet.
As a user of computers before the internet, I was only slightly surprised at the plethora of pornography available almost as soon as some got connected and how many neo-nazi sites were easily available. It is not new.
Second, while the destruction of the manufacturing economy has many roots, I do believe that the majority of those who benefited mostly were not left wing, liberal, radical unionists, but somewhere in the capitalist diaspora.
And while liberal totalitarianism in the form of "political correctness" (or perhaps a misguided attempt for people to be nice to each other), the illiberal totalitarianism emerging from the right in the works of such folks as Sohrab Ahmari, does have a more lengthy and frightening aspect.
Would you not agree?
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@Marc Pardon, I left out moving pictures, which gave pornography a real boost, and the overall racist use of the internet from day 1.
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New technology usually invented by and for the military then marketed and sold by pornography. Strange “bedfellows”.
This strikes me as yet another nebulous social problem (pathology) for busybody liberals to sink their teeth into. What is needed? For openers, how about academic studies, then probably lawsuits, congressional hearings, government programs (spending), guidelines and training sessions for school counselors, awareness clinics for parents--all of this pushed forward by exasperated bloviation by the liberal media. How about a real 'conservative' solution to the problem, you know, leave it alone; that's right, ignore it--wait for it to just go away. Does anyone remember how dangerous to youth TV was thought to be in the 50s? Do kids even watch TV today? What did Calvin Coolidge say? Something like, 'Of ten problems you see coming down the road, nine may never arrive'. Now, there was a sensible man for you!
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@Ronald B. Duke
Rampant speculation in stocks on 10% margin accounts. What could go wrong? Pesky liberals with their “rules”!
Perhaps the unfortunate overreaction of school administrators to a young teenager’s casual, joking remark — if it actually happened as related in the Washingtonian story — drove one teen to seek solace in radical supremacy . . . but our president’s highly publicized, thoughtless remarks supportive of the “good people” promoting violent, hateful extremism in Charlottesville likely did far, far more damage.
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Re: Faults Beyond... Curious how everything today is partisan, is there an end somewhere where one can be a conservative liberal or visa versa. Seems not. Robert M. Sapolsky talks of this brain choice. And see 'Jordan Peterson | ContraPoints' on Youtube. Fascinating stuff.
The real threat is the religious status of algorithms and u-tube. They are creatures of individual programmers, who fantasize realities of their own making and disguise them as creatures of math and science. We have been brainwashed to worship them as gods. If recognized for what they are, their impact would be greatly diminished and they could perhaps be worthwhile tools, rather than holy vessels.
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Missing from this piece imbued with outraged conservative sensibility: the Holocaust-, Sandy Hook-, women's rights-, racial equality-, gender equality-denying lies flooding the internet and destroying the foundation in our society.
The truth is conservative, lies are alt right. Take back the truth.
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When we will the NYT find a columnist who has respect for the English language? Conservative and liberal are not opposites they are supposed to convey different ways of confronting a rather complex world by a hominid that has the audacity to call itself Homo Sapiens.
The opposite of conservative is progressive and I cannot think of three more conservative Americans than Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who were all attuned to the conservative nature of their society and had little desire to make any radical changes to the world's richest most powerful nation.
The opposite of liberal is autocratic and somehow a nation that has lead the world in fighting autocracy became the bastion of antiliberalism.
I remember William F. Buckley Jr he was anything but a conservative like his father he was a fascist. I remember Bill Buckley well, and English provided many words that allowed nuance which is the cornerstone of intellectual discussion. My father a Jew whose Jesuit education provided him with a fluency in ten languages and a love of an intellectual milieu taught me well.
Buckley was a Sophist and seeing him in discussion with much wiser beings like Rand, our own Rene Levesque and Chomsky I understood Buckley's claim to fame was based in self delusion. Buckley was Trump with a vocabulary and an education.
Please stop calling anti Americanism conservatism we have real problems to solve. America defined liberalism and is being destroyed by would be autocrats.
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As an old geezer, age 78, I wonder just what radicalized the fools in the generation before mine, in the 1930s, who joined the "America Firsters" and the Deutsche Bund" [The German American Association], in the years before WW II.
Once the war began, "poof", they disappeared very quickly.
I remember that as I grew older, a number of generationally identifiably radical movements that came and went.
More "poofs".
I believe that this current "radicalization" too will pass, go "poof".
Causation is a problematic business. But pundits must have their causes.
Who knows the bigger picture? Certainly I do not. I see certain periodic phenomena and I do not see a common thread of causation.
Radicalicalization seems to me to be, metaphorically, a virulent social virus that breaks out periodically with causes and forms that seem different but express themselves with a similar vigor and similar nastiness.
Radicalization too, despite the vigor and virulence, can be expected to go "poof".
To be sure lives can be shaped in unpleasant ways.
Are the French in the streets again?
What is the issue this time?
Well, actually, "being in the streets" is just a part of popular French culture with variable justifications.
The French understand this very well.
So, I believe, it is with the current form of American "radicalization".
Wait for the "poof".
Is all of this leading to a similar denouement, war?
God help us! I hope not!
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I's nothing more than peer pressure.
Adolescents need to mature. Statistics show that men are highly vulnerable to peer pressure until about age 30. That's why the military is able to recruit people who are willing to die for someone else's cause. They want to be part of a team, regardless the consequences. Jerks will be jerks. The worst tactic is to play into to it.
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It’s all about the attention and the power trip that comes with it. Positive attention, negative attention, works either way.
I mean, if you’re a “traditionalist Faithful Catholic” (TM) why write an angry letter to your bishop about someone you disapprove of, when instead you can post a screed calling him the moral equivalent of a satanist, and by the way here’s where he lives.
Now you’re national news, you get lots of likes, how cool is that? If you’re really lucky a media figure will take issue with you and now you can claim persecution, even better! Heads you win, tails everyone loses.
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Veering a notch off the subject here: May I suggest that we use the term, "Crackpotness", or some other compound word, instead of "crackpottery?" Pottery is a craft -- often an art -- and should not be used to describe the nasty, insane, rotten, ugly, insane garbage floating around YouTube and the entire internet. Please.
How about Media Studies courses that have been axed in education systems this past decade. You have to learn how to ‘read’. But then we would be able to discern. God forbid that we discern our circumstances.
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It would also help if the mainstream media were less obviously biased. As demonstrated by communist countries, a media that is seriously compromised by bias leads to flourishing conspiracy theories, not ideological conformity.
@Z97
Biased? How specifically? Can you provide evidence or examples?
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Ross’ piece resonates, at least for this one (older) liberal who often feels like a refugee from his own tribe.
The observation that “the system is enforcing ideology rather than imparting truth” is a growing phenomena on the Left (and,yes, on the Right, too.) And not just with the enforcement of ideology, but with the enforcement of the proper vocabulary, tone, identifiers and the like.
Similar to the critique of the social media algorithms, this ideological enforcement attacks the form but often ignores the substance. The unintended consequence of which is the shut down or muffling of any contribution, understanding or perspective that percolates from a life’s experience because it cuts against the grain of obtaining the ideological objective. Any semblance of conversation or understanding is lost in the ideological heat.
A net loss. A huge one, at that.
In light of the common challenges and problems we collectively face today we cannot afford not to figure out how to reverse this vicious cycle....or fiddle while the world burns.
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It's not YouTube that is radicalizing the young. It's a lack of direction. Children's parents can provide such direction, but often fail at it. Don't forget their are no requirements for being a parent. There is no training necessary, no parenting achievement licenses required. As a matter of fact it's conservatives who have been working to outlaw abortion, to require that every fertilization lead to a birth regardless of the ability of the parents to love or afford the child.
Given that reality, what Douthat should be supporting is some form of public education that gives direction to children. How about a national service program that teaches children the value of giving back to society, of sacrificing for the greater good, off imparting a sense of civics, of one's responsibility as a citizen? A side benefit for such a program would be it would create a new pool of potential future leaders. But the right wing has always pushed back against this idea. It has always resisted a strong, centralized public education. I guess they are too obsessed with brainwashing their children to be like them, to resist being progressive. And that is much more the cause of the radicalizing of children than any YouTube video.
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Some may remember a case when a couple of employees were discussing an episode of "Seinfeld" where Jerry couldn't remember his girlfriend's name. All he could think of was that it rhymed with a woman's body part. Although no foul language was used another employee overheard at least part of the conversation and reported it to management as sexual harassment. The employee who told the "Seinfeld" episode was quickly fired. This happened when the internet was in its infancy and YouTube, with its algorithms, was years away. So maybe Mr. Douthat has a point that we don't need YouTube to foment radicalism and changing it won't solve the problem either.
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@Dr. OutreAmour I never heard that story (although I did see the Seinfeld episode). Could you please point me to some proof--a newspaper article, maybe--that this actually happened? I could look it up on Snopes, maybe, but I'm too busy right now.
Where is this all going? I am very concerned.
The internet has become a place where, for the first time in history, a crowd can gather with no purpose. (Apologies; I forget where I first heard that bit of wisdom.)
The implications for society are clearly profound and yet we have no consensus on how to proceed in the face of this challenge (aren't all challenges threats, really?).
Worse yet, because of the highly personal, isolated, even knowingly shameful ways we participate in the internet, the only effective control that does not smack of tyranny is self-control. We need only look within and without to appreciate how breathtakingly slim are the chances that self-control will save us from a future whose potential to delivery myriad forms of catastrophe must give us pause.
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@Hugo Furst
The only peek I dared to take at videos on the internet were cat antics. One day, however, there was someone offering cat torture scenes. I no longer look at YouTube. All those horrible people out there have found a way to force their horribleness in our faces.
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The phrase that Mr. Douthat uses that jumped out at me was:
"There is an integrated relationship between socioeconomic conditions in downscale America and the appeal of redpilled YouTube, between changing personal and material conditions and the appeal of virtual white-identitarian “community.”"
The most important take-away from this article is that we all, left- or right-leaning, must stop accepting simplistic, one-dimensional answers to this, or any other, socio-political problem. We must gather a multitude of information from people themselves (codeword: relationship!), listen to what they have to say and hear their ideas. We must ask questions, not spout monolithic ideas. Then we can form policy and actions that seek to address those problems and integrate those ideas. It is very significant that both of the young men in Mr. Douthat's subject articles moved away from extremism after they got out of the cyber-world and actually met people who were touting their wares online. They both found those people unworthy of further involvement.
Relationship, meaningful, respectful discussion that does not require "increasing ideological conformism" (a requirement of extremism, whether it be left or right) towards finding a mutually-agreeable solution to common problems: forgive my naivete, but I thought that was called, "democracy."
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I love how right wingers can only understand intersectionalism when it applies to white working class boys with problems
@amy
Is your reply in response to my post, or a response to Mr. Douthat's article? If to my post, could you elaborate?
Dear Mr. Douthat,
With the rise of the “ubiquitous instantaneity” that defines an online world different in degree and dimension from the analogue world of “circuitous explicability,” the extreme intellectual attention deficit disorder that affects nearly everyone nowadays translates into an absolute inability to even recognize the possibility of error on one’s own part as indoctrination goes exponential in the inundation of alleged information.
There is no room for humility as search engines and algorithms guide you to your preordained destination, and as I observe people in every walk of life from every social class transform into ideological automatons, I see very little difference between upper class, middle class, or lower class drones.
And the very apotheosis of this digital leveling effect sits in the Oval Office, convinced of his omniscience, while the rest of the country sits elsewhere, convinced that we’re so very superior to our thoroughly radicalized overlord, when nothing could be further from a truth that no longer exists.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
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Several phrases got me thinking -- "limits of liberalism" ... "progressivism fosters alienation." I still remember my public education and more recently the great pitfalls of ushering a non-conforming student through a large, highly regulated middle-school. Liberal thinkers of yesteryear like Thomas Jefferson may have correctly thought free education a good thing; but little about the experience brings to mind "liberal," or "progressive." In whose mind is a multi-thousand student edifice commanded by a multitude of strict administrators liberal or progressive? Maybe we are having a failure to communicate across the ideologies. These educational structures often take on the semblance of a penal institution combating hormonal disruption rather than teaching the three "Rs."
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Which way does the causal arrow flow? Do socioeconomically depressed regions of the country turn to the right to save their fracturing communities, or are their communities fracturing because they've long since put their faith in the party of Big Energy, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture, and Big Finance?
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Ross wants a humane conservatism, presumably one which doesn’t marginalize or disenfranchise a large part of the population.
I’d like a humane liberalism which doesn’t bully people in the name of right thinking, and recognizes their distress.
But we can be certain that, unfortunately, bad stuff will happen in any regime.
The difficulty with the conservative approach, even the reasonable and humane one that Ross would support, I think, is that it is based on an unproven premise: somehow the king and his men can put together the broken social contract. The risk, very real, is that a failed and frustrated king and court can become very dangerous.
The liberal program—government fostering an economic system which eases the economic distress of the downwardly mobile—also has its risks (eg. the Soviet Union). But it doesn’t require unscrambling the egg.
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Mr. Douthat argues that the root causes are sociological and political, yet he pinpointed economics in one of the case studies. Let's be honest here, economics is the key ingredient. Yes, it doesn't make any sense for a principal to overreact to a youtube video, but if one suspended child has economic means and the other doesn't, who will come out ahead after the suspension?
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When it comes to political elections, I'd like to see a modern day League of Voters set up a controlled online debate forum for virtually every election. All candidates could be given the same questions. They could each post a written answer of a certain length and then they could use blog software with only official candidates as users to debate the issues over a few months. That forum could also offer a chance to post and rebut accusations of misconduct. This would provide a central repository of all the important information about candidates and also reduce the pressure to spend on commercial advertising. Also, the public debate process would should improve policy making.
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Necessary topic for times. Must resist the temptation to quickly blame (just) the tech companies, though as the content store and dissemination they (YouTube, Facebook et al) have a part. To me the bigger issue is the assumption of right to anonymity to the point of impunity by mal-content creators. In the mutated definition of freedom and expression , say anything - share anything has become more and more the norm. Children are not equipped to know which well produced attractive engaging fun video is based on thruth vs not.
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What seems evident to me is that young people need, and are often searching for, a sense of purpose and a cause greater than themselves. As a society, we should figure out some structured way to offer this to them, perhaps through mandated, paid post-high school service opportunities that both help young people explore ways to make the world a better place and to understand that they are important to the wellbeing of their own society. It might sound Pollyannish, but these kinds of ritual experiences bind us together (making us “weavers,” as David Brooks would say) and push us to care more, and it might help mitigate the alienation Mr. Douthat describes.
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@Elizabeth Johnson, Job Corps, AmeriCorps. Great ideas that need to be reinstated and enlarged.
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Imagine the ratio of youth you describe to youth with the very same characteristics socially and culturally who don’t turn dysfunctional.
How would you explain that?
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@Henry Saltzman isn’t that a bit like saying ‘imagine the proportion of people who do t get shot vs those who do, so let’s not have a law against shooting’?
All epidemics start with a small ratio and if you don’t contain it then is when they scale up to epidemics
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There is something seductive in tracing the rise of vile ideas to the breakdown of the offline community. To do so assumes offline community was particularly effective in providing youth a clear place in the world in the first place. Of course this is something civilization has struggled with since the advent of youth.
The best predictor of online radicalization is not post-liberal ennui, it's exposure. This is why we observe radicalization even in places with strong traditional communities. We should resist the temptation to attribute social ills to a broader narrative about the failure of society. Sometimes social problems are arbitrary, YouTube being a prime example, and that fact should not stand in the way of a straight forward solution.
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This is pretty typical of end of paradigm eras. The Know-Nothings arose from a similar time, at the end of the Industrial Revolution when jobs didn’t pay a living wage and population had grown enough that people couldn’t simply go back to the farm. We’re at the end of the Information and Telecommunications Age. There are still jobs but they don’t pay well and they don’t employ enough people. An Age of Sustainability is beginning in which there will be jobs in new industries like deploying charging stations throughout the country. Economics will come to the rescue but don’t mistake this and the Green New Deal. The GND is a stimulus plan and the last thing we need. Private markets should pay the freight on new industry formation as it always has. When people have jobs that pay, social problems seem to abate.
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@ Yes but in a globalized economy, new industries have to compete with the entire world. Therefore new industries try to minimize employment via automation or employ workers in countries where wages are lowest. So don't count on private markets to save the day.
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@Denis
There has never been a positive economic period without government support for research and development and investment in infrastructure. (For example, one of the planks of the newly-formed Republican Party in 1860, strongly endorsed by its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was government investment in roads, bridges and canals.) The private sector cannot provide basic research or infrastructure, since both are difficult to monetize and only provide gains over the very long term.
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Sorry Ross, but as a 74 year old man, I could make little sense of this article on what is undoubtedly an important topic. Many of the terms that you use are unfamiliar to me, and I consider myself well-read in a traditional sense. Maybe you could do a rewrite of the topic for the senior citizens who are definitely worried about the state of the country, but not up to date on all the new terminology.
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@Charles Swigart Dear Charles, it's not possible to get up to date on the country without understanding the new terminology, then new technology and how the algorithms work. These things ARE what is happening to society, in a very real sense.
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@Charles Swigart
I, too, (at 81) was at sea with several usages and terms. So I just typed them into my search box. Poof! No need of a rewrite; feeling way more up-to-date this morning.
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"What we need is a better algorithm to prevent people — young men, especially — from getting too restless or rebellious or extreme."
What we need today is parenting. Many (most) of today's societal problems are rooted in the degradation of the family unit, parents not taking responsibility for raising their children to adulthood and this will not be solved by a better algorithm.
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@Mark
Perhaps parenting abilities are degraded when, in order to meet the basic costs associated with raising a family, both parents need to be working full time.
Perhaps, also, parenting abilities are degraded when we have a person in the White House who lies every day, treats people with a complete lack of civility, and lauds his own wealth.
I'm sure we all agree, however, that none of the problems will be solved by a better algorithm. Raising children, to use a now trite axiom, takes a village - which is to say a political structure based more on communal values and ethics, and less on individualism.
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@Mark
The Poway shooter was an honor student on the swim team with an intact family and a dad who’s a minister.
So...not buying this
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@Roger C
The "village" believes there are gods; the "village" eats billions and billions of disgusting meat products; the "village" incinerated millions of their fellow men; the "village" spends more time absorbed in brainless television shows than it does reading books. Villages ensure mediocrity in all things.
1
Somewhat to my surprise, I find myself agreeing with most of this. Whatever it is that ails us, more profit-driven tinkering by tech companies will not cure it.
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People might better help themselves if they read books, exercised more, and stayed off social media. Cultivate hobbies that help one's mind and body.
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