I Fell Down the Alt-Right Rabbit Hole. Eventually, I Climbed My Way Out.

I watched 30m of a Peterson 'lecture' a co-worker recommended to me. It kind of opened my eyes. Peterson is basically a 'motivational speaker' that presents himself as an academic well enough to fool people that only understand academic aesthetics. He doesn't even try to back up his claims or references, he just makes wildly abstract and generalized claims about human civilization and draws analogies that sound like they support that perspective. They sound right enough to people that want to believe that there is an expression of their culture that is inherently 'good' and all of civilization's problems are based on corruptions of that culture. But in the minds of his fans he's offering 'proof' of this perspective by appearing academic, even though he offers none.

he's a TED talk basically.

most TED talks are like that. sophisticated sounding gibberish that has no real world merit, but sounds really cool and interesting.
- Yeah. Every once in a while there’s a good one though.
- It really has become so easy to make yourself seem smart and credible these days. The fact that people thought Trump was a "good businessman" is absurd
  
  Give millions of people across the US the same money, connections, and opportunity and they would all be just as successful if not more.
This shines brightly in his "debate" with Slavoj Zizek

https://piped.video/watch?v=qsHJ3LvUWTs

Also love that Peterson is glued to his laptop while Zizek fucking slams shit down with nothing but paper notes.
- I wish Zizek had went harder on that fool.
He's basically a conman. It's impressive in a way, I've watched enough of it a few times to see how convincing he is. Anyone who doesn't want to believe it will sniff the bullshit after 3-5 minutes of him doing nothing but blow smoke and talk in self reinforcing circles with no facts.

If you want to agree with him, it's very easy to think he's informed and speaking the truth. Which is why he's so dangerous. He's like the gateway drug to right wing extremist views. He tells men all the things a lot of them want to believe. About how their inadequacy isn't their fault. How everything was stacked against them. Reinforces their sexism, their anger, directs it. Then they're listening to all the other even more blatant alt right voices and most of them never come back.
- He's just a glorified self-help guy who's gotten way more attention than he deserves by saying mildly offensive things. He should never have been allowed to become a target for outrage. Once that happened, he figured out how to monetize it and it was off to the races. It's like a feedback loop.
I highly recommend watching his debates with Sam Harris

It really shines a light on what a fake sophist charlatan Peterson is. Harris is so clear and plainspoken in comparison. His ideas are sophisticated, but explained simply.
- People don't actually like the smart and capable. They like bombastic, big mouth bullies who deliver sound bites and agree with them, or worse yet just a guy they recognize.
  
  Everyone complains about how we only have old guys running for President, when we had several other options in the last primaries. We just picked the worst ones because the others seemed "boring" or people didn't know them
Well, before we can say that Peterson is fooling people by only aesthetically presenting as an academic first we need to define fooling, then we need to define academic and then we need to define presenting. Without that shared substrate we can't make any value judgements about him because if we don't have that, we don't have anything.
- That sounds like a lot more trouble than he's worth.

As someone who used to be obsessed with Jordan Peterson and had a similar 180 transformation, this is super familiar to me. I remember speaking up at work against critical race theory in a meeting. I look back on that now with huge embarrassment of who I used to be. I was actively working against the things that I stand for now. I'm super grateful to breadtube creators for pulling me out. I still have friends in my life who are like this and I can't seem to break them out. All I can do is try to be a better example

You should be proud of yourself. Thanks for being here, we need perspectives like yours to help us remain empathetic.
Your courage and honesty are commendable
Which breadtube creators helped you out?
- Contrapoints got me on the right track, but I could also imagine Vaush and his edginess being a good foot in the door for some.
- Initially the most significant was Richard Wolff. His video popped up on my homepage and I actually only clicked it because I wanted to laugh at how dumb this "Marxist professor" must be. That did not happen. Instead he absolutely blew my mind. After doing some research, I discovered that Jordan Peterson had actually mentioned him. He said Richard Wolff had refused to debate him, but once I looked into Wolffs side of the story, I discovered that was a lie. And no wonder, it was obvious Wolff knew his stuff and would have been able to destroy Peterson in a debate.
  
  That was when the wall came down for me. I became unsatiably curious about everything Marxist and anticapitalist, which led me to watching Second Thought, and then eventually leftist creators like Shaun, hbomherguy, some more news, and Hakim just to name a few. I was addicted and watched hours of this stuff everyday until my mind,attitudes and politics changed completely.
Is there a breadtube community on Lemmy?

EDIT: Nevermind, it's linked lower down this very thread.
Why would you talk about that in a work meeting?!
- During the meeting my boss asked us our thoughts about a recent diversity/equality training session we just had. Everyone said it was fine and interesting but I took the opportunity to be insufferable and soapbox. Like I said, I'm entirely embarrassed about it now and glad they didn't really listen to me

I agree overall with the authors point, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out some solid media from the left side of things.

Some More News/Cody’s Showdy has been consistently great at firing back at alt-right figures like Peterson and Shapiro And related is the content put out by Robert Evans and Cool Zone Media. Behind the Bastards, The Woman’s War, It Could Happen Here are great. And they also did the collaboration in 2020 for Worst Year Ever which I really hope makes a return for 2024

Really most of the Cracked alum are great in this regard but those are the two sources I’ve got I’ve gotten the most enjoyment from

I just finished listening to the behind the bastards piece about Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert.

I was not expecting that
- The long series on Vince has been my favorite in recent memory, but I really enjoyed those two, very insightful
Smn did an extremely short and succinct piece on Peterson. A really quick watch.
- Yeah it’s not very long, super easy, you can knock it out on a lunch break
There's another new one that is really good called if books could kill. It isnt cracked ppl tho. Actually I remember that site before it got REALLY bad (I mean not sucked) and I remember a lot of commenters before they disabled comments complaining that the articles are too liberal lmao. Lots of "I come here for jokes not politics!!!"

I actually wrote a really long reply to the rest of your post on why it isn't really possible for the left to have the same impact as the alt right media.

But then I accidentally lost it. I'm taking it as a sign that I would have bored everyone into a coma and not to try to recreate it lol
- I feel like I’ve heard of that one and I’ll happily check it out so thanks for the rec. I love the cracked alum but I definitely want to diversify.
  
  And I definitely remember the comments on old cracked articles being like that. But I do still hold a lot of the writers from that time in high regard.
  
  Swaims video game podcast is good btw, I’d love Soren to start a show too
I love SMN!
To add to this, I just ran across Hasanabi on YouTube. He's the nephew of the founder of TYT, and is very left politically. He runs a running critique of current politics and engages users on twitch or discord, I believe.
Do you know why they stopped producing Worst Year Ever? Never seen a notice...
- They all got too busy and it never really became what they intended because of Covid

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve

I've never agreed with Peterson much, and this article was really eye opening. I think the expression "not even wrong" precisely nails it: he talks in such broad strokes and general terms that you cannot even start a debate before he swamps you with more generalizations.

The problem is, as OP experienced, that Peterson (although he would never admit as much) and his followers use this rhetoric to justify misogynistic, racist, sexist, and other "traditionalist" views, that are a real danger to the people on the receiving end.

I just had this with a user on here. Dude just went off the deep end with all this nonsense I couldn't even begin to respond without dedicating the day to unwrapping his tangents. I made his note "a little silly goose" and moved on.
- It's the only thing you can do. Some of these people have given up on reality and live in a really weird alt right bubble, so entrenched it's impossible for them to leave. Don't bother with 'em, waste of time, Block And Move On, or BAMO for short. Works every time!
- User notes are a thing? Nice to know.
Peterson is the idiotic man's intellectual

Because the right-wing saturation of platforms like YouTube was so central to my becoming a reactionary, I believe that creating a competing left-wing presence in online spaces should be a priority for the Left. Currently, conservatives enjoy a nearly unchallenged role in grabbing young men who may very well be supportive of progressive movements, but whose lack of community drives them away from collective politicking. This needs to change.

It's really refreshing to see a suggestion for how to help solve the right-wing rabbit hole problem other than just blaming "education" and saying it needs to be fixed (not that I think fixing education isn't the answer, I just don't think that it is the only answer). Something I've been asking myself since the 2016 election is, what the hell are we going to do about what is happening to our society that is turning people towards hate, bigotry, selfishness and cruelty? Sure, we can try to educate people, but there will always be folks that turn away from public education. Additionally, here's only a fraction of us who attend some form of higher education that might expose us to information that might bring some out of a selfish world view. Meanwhile, all that right wing content has flooded the internet, just waiting to enthrall folks who don't have direction.

Fighting back by introducing an equal (or even greater?) amount of content that opposes hateful ideology is not a bad idea at all as a method to try and catch these folks before they fall into these dark rabbit holes.

See [email protected]
It won't work. The left-wing tried it with on-air radio and failed. The right-wing has the financial pool from billionaires to fund all their right-wing grifters while the left media personalities have to rely on grassroots support. There are other factors as well, but money is the biggest issue.
the left isn't unified enough to ever do this.

i'm a progressive leftist type... and half the time i feel alienated from my own politics because so much of it is basically anti-male anti-white hate jerking where i am told that anything i may say is oppressive to those of 'marginalized identities'.

i seriously don't blame young guys for being so hopeless. nobody will give them any positive direction or reinforcement other than charlatans who are looking to exploit them. it's fucking dark.

i'm so glad my wayward 20s were 20 years ago when social media was not a thing. i had to sort out my shit in person with friends, not on the internet with strangers.

but as a 40 something guy now, i can tell you that NOBODY wants me involved in anything anymore. even my own social groups have taken to being like 'we have too many white men, they are bad, we need to attract more people of color and women and trans people because they are special and good by default and white men are bad by default'. it's infuriating and depressing that i'm basically told to f off when I want to contribute to my community.

i should also say i'm working-class, and that is just like... insta banned/hated if that ever comes up from my leftist people. who are typically upper middle class people pretending to be working-class for fun.
- i can tell you that NOBODY wants me involved in anything anymore. even my own social groups have taken to being like ‘we have too many white men, they are bad, we need to attract more people of color and women and trans people because they are special and good by default and white men are bad by default’. it’s infuriating and depressing that i’m basically told to f off when I want to contribute to my community.
  
  I don't doubt that you find the left's current politic alienating in and of itself (lord knows it can be bewildering), but I have SERIOUS doubts that reality is anything like what you're describing here. I'm a gun-toting, outdoor-type leftist whose predominantly queer/non-white friends (I live in a big city) always find me more of a novelty than a threat. They look at me like through the walls of a fishbowl, unable to understand a lot of what I believe but also appreciative that I'm an ally on core issues that matter to them. Not once has anyone ever looked at me or any of my other cis white male friends and told them to fuck off unless it's someone coming in with a chip on their shoulder who feels like they need to prove something by being a confrontational asshole. I suggest you reflect less on what you feel like people believe about you when you're not around and more on how they treat you when you are. They're not nearly as threatened or upset by you as you think.
  
  and that is just like… insta banned/hated if that ever comes up from my leftist people. who are typically upper middle class people pretending to be working-class for fun.
  
  The way you phrase this tells me you're gleaning many of your conclusions from online spaces, rather than face-to-face real life. That's probably why you feel the way you do. I actually have serious doubts that you have any meaningful personal relationships with leftists who aren't cartoons or provocateurs. Perhaps the way you're received online has to do with the fact that your stories are so over-the-top and on-the-nose as to seem deliberately hyperbolic.
- We should all take this textbook example of sock puppetry to heart. I'm sorry, but there just aren't "progressive leftist types" who are also "it's the working class, straight, middle-aged white men who are the <real> oppressed minority" types. Like point me to one thing progressive about anything in this comment if that's who you are. Point me to one thing you said other than "I'm a lib, promise!" that couldn't have come straight out of Jordan Peterson's or Scott Adam's whiny ass mouths. Get outta here with that bad faith "I'm liberal but all the trans and black and female people are mean to me and don't listen and don't want me around" boohoo nonsense

Interesting to see where the author's escape from the alt-right started; Frederick Douglass has been changing minds for a long time now.

These conversion & deconversion stories always go the same way:

"I'm an impressionable fuckwit who immediately gets on the first ride that looks appealing. But soon I realized I wanted to get off Mr. Bones Wild Ride, because it looked much cooler than it actually was. Whew what a relief when I got off. Let me tell you about my current ride, which is much better, the most important ride of the world and you should definitely get on it too. Everyone who doesn't get on THIS ride (which is definitely the correct one to be on) is evil and dooming humanity!

I'm a reformed person."

This sounds like an example right out of "Mastering the subtle art of not giving a f*ck"
Also perfectly fits religion.

There was a great article the other day talking about young men being lost and adrift, and a great takeaway is that JP and his ilk are a symptom, not the cause of men feeling guideless. While sane people haven't really discussed what good, healthy masculinity looks like, the alt right shlubs have been luring in people with no purpose by offering them toxic, reactionary masculinity.

The article went on to point out that the left needs to do better here. We need to provide a firm, healthy definition of masculinity. It isn't about absolute traits or the male ideal. And it doesn't have to be exclusionary from femininity. It can be both a masculine trait and a feminine trait to want to protect. To provide.

Ribbit

It might be soon. The Ontario College of Psychiatrists reprimanded him, and recommended he take a refresher course on professional use of social media, citing a number of complaints of his unprofessional behavior. He's suing them over it.

Assuming his lawsuit doesn't have any effect, this feels like building a paper trail for a permanent suspension.
They're working to do exactly that.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9386896/jordan-peterson-ontario-psychologists-college-public-statements/

Imo the classic "left" leaning shows are all way too light on the conservative viewpoint. The old white (conservative) guy is always a loveable misguided goof. This is evidence to why having a platform similar to what the right wing produces isn't feasible. The left doesn't want to offend anyone (a noble intention) especially my showing the insipid, unspoken/easily denied truth, of the opposing side.

Never thought I'd see the libs upvoting a socialist outlet like Jacobin here. Strongly recommend this piece from them: https://jacobin.com/2019/12/red-scare-industrial-workers-of-the-world-iww

Also: [email protected]

Posted your article. I think it may do better than you think
- Maybe maybe. Parts of Lemmy can be vastly different to other parts even moreso than on reddit due to the siloing and I could just be a little jaded from extensive battles with the anti-communists chasing me around recently.

Great read, thanks for sharing!