This is not my personal opinion, I know Gen Z men who voted for Harris. But the voter demographics really speak for themselves, and maybe now people will look at the radicalization of young men as a serious (but solvable) issue.
Oh absolutely, I’m pretty sure I’m on the same page with this. I only pose that to someone who believes they’ve found people who respect them, and particularly those who have felt for a long time that their voice didn’t matter, it is counterproductive to approach them and their group with outward hostility.
Telling them the people who took them in and listened to them are vile, abusive, disgusting people and are exactly the problem they say everyone says you are, is just reinforcing of their views.
Consider the comment originally replied to; paraphrase because mobile is hard, “those loudest about being victimized are the most eager to take their pound of flesh”. This can easily sound like:
- (Man) I’ve been victimized and nobody lets me voice this except for this gang/cult/militia. Cult says they should be allowed to “get support” and they know the way (it’s bad).
- (Outsider) Claiming to be a victim usually means you are a terrible person.
- (Man) So according to outsiders, if I seek help, I’m a bad person. According to my (cult etc) if I tell them, they will offer a form of support. I can stay with these people and get something of support, or I can leave them, be ostracized, and any attempts to voice my feelings will lead me to being labeled someone eager to take a pound of flesh.
They need to be shown that those on the outside understand them and are better people than those who took them in. They are with people whose form of empathy and respect is so distorted and toxic, but it’s the only model of that experience they know.
Your comment, upon my read, felt like anyone in that position would feel justified in their gang telling them that everyone on the outside is out to get them. If they already think everyone else is a predator, what is attacking their friends, their family, and their opinions, going to do?
They will only leave when they know they will arrive somewhere with the respect they craved without those toxic feelings they repressed during their time with a hateful group.
So I guess it’s less about the content of the comment, more of the way it represented the ideas, the timing, and the perceived intention.
Telling them the people who took them in and listened to them are vile, abusive, disgusting people
This isn’t a matter of telling anyone, this is a matter of people in abusive systems realizing it on their own. You can pop over to the ex-Mormon or ex-Scientology communities and find these folks in droves. Its not random anons asserting the corrupt nature of these relationships but the folks who escaped them.
“those loudest about being victimized are the most eager to take their pound of flesh”
The loudest folks are the social media influencers. You’ll regularly hear your Tim Pools and your Jordan Petersons, your James Dobsons and your Elon Musks, rant about how men are victimized by femininity, while profiting off the insecure and insulated men who have been roped into their carny acts.
They need to be shown that those on the outside understand them and are better people
The folks that profit off the patriarchy are the least willing (or, even, able) to convey an outsider understanding. They only persist by rehashing age old tropes of toxic masculinity.
They will only leave when they know they will arrive somewhere with the respect
They can only find respect when they leave. If they’re trapped in a bubble of delusion, they’re just going to get a shadow-play of Woke Liberal Virgins being mean-spirited losers and Based Trad Chads being triumphant paragons of virtue.