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I was totally onboard with this article until the last sentence. I was enjoying this article as an exploration of emotional vulnerability, the connection betwe

I was totally onboard with this article until the last sentence. I was enjoying this article as an exploration of emotional vulnerability, the connection between beliefs and belonging, the mixed blessing of internet anonimity. But if the (suspiciously articulate) kid goes from alt-right to antifa, I don't think that's any sort of progress to be applauded. I interpreted the article's point to be that alt-right is just emotionally hurt people venting online, and they do antics for attention and the media latches on to it to sell clicks, even if it's all BS. But if that's the case, the best way to handle it is not to counter-protest, but just to hear out the fears and insecurities.

ip26 7y ago
Presumably the author & son are alluding to the middle-aged man holding the poster, which I should hope is obviously nowhere near the same as antifa.
- bargl 7y ago
  Yup this is what i was thinking.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  Well, I don't know if I think a middle-aged man who goes to a rally to hold up a sign saying "NO TRUMP. NO KKK. NO FASCIST USA," is progress over the alt-right. To me it's the exact same thing -- an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.
  - deanCommie 7y ago
    "KKK" and "No KKK" are exactly the same thing? FFS...can we stop with the false equivalence? When one side is preaching intolerance, and the other side preaches intolerance to intolerance THEY ARE NOT BOTH EQUALLY INTOLERANT.
    - mindslight 7y ago
      Maybe not "equally", but they are both intolerant. The groupthinks of both teams are used to mobilize violence against easy targets of their outgroups, regardless of the purported goal. The real distinction to draw here is the matter of numbers. A counter protester is "punching up" in respect to the more numerous mob. They're not likely to get the mob to put down their pitchforks no matter how well-crafted their sign. But as this story demonstrates, their presence makes for human faces that object to the furor.
    - drak0n1c 7y ago
      The parent comment was not equivocating "KKK and anti-KKK", it was simply pointing out the false equivalence on that guy's T-shirt. All-caps claims that Trump, the KKK, and Fascism are equivalent is part of the problem and exacerbating tribalism. The anti-Semitic terrorist in Powey wrote that he felt personally betrayed and furious at how friendly Trump is with Jewish people and his support for Israel. The media, and protestors, making such extreme claims aren't just misleading people who oppose bigotry, they are misleading people who support bigotry and making the conflict bigger and more confused than it otherwise would be.
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        Yeah, he was angry that Trump isn't far right enough for his taste, a common trope among Nazis. I'm not sure how transfer any responsibility for his crime onto the people who are protesting against right wing extremism though.
        Knufen 7y ago
        Unrelated to the discussion, but Nazis were never on the right except for today where their views on immigration might cross. Nazism has always been a redefinition of socialism so I find it kinda confusing that people equate right wingers with nazis.
  - sbov 7y ago
    I'm reminded of the "is it OK to punch a 'Nazi'" debate.
  - aetimmes 7y ago
    > an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind. But he did, didn't he?
    - drak0n1c 7y ago
      That persuasion happened thanks to his verbal communication, not his over-the-top rhetorically toxic T-shirt.
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        The sale happened because of the product's merits - it had nothing to do with the advertisement copy.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    The exact same thing? That’s one hell of a false equivalence. The alt right aren’t bad people because they are “overzealous”, they are bad people because of their bigotry on the basis of race, religion and national origin.
    - alehul 7y ago
      To be fair to the poster you're replying to, I can assume a much more charitable interpretation is that the quote draws an equivalency between being against Trump and being against the KKK, and that's the over-zealous and tribal aspect. It's similar to saying "No Bernie, No Marx." Yes, they're on the same side of the spectrum compared to center, but it seems unfair and disingenuous to combine them as such.
      - nailer 7y ago
        I'd say "no Bernie, no Stalin" would be more apt (Marx wasn't directly violent) and yes as you say it would be a completely unfair comparison.
        alehul 7y ago
        That is much more apt, thank you!
    - alexandercrohde 7y ago
      Not really.... these aren't real nazis committing atrocities.... Going to 4chan and saying a bunch of trolly triggering stuff at your friends to get out your anger isn't really a bad thing. It's immature, but it's not really immoral, nor is it illegal, nor does it make you a "bad person." It's venting, tribalism, and immaturity. (case-in-point, the moderator was a 13-year-old jewish boy) This is what the article describes when it shows the man with the nazi flag posing for the reporters-- a symbiotic relationship that is entirely for show.
      - fzeroracer 7y ago
        Unless you want to employ the No True Scotsman here, how do you rationalize the repeated mass murders committed by people under the banner of the alt-right and equate them to people protesting against Trump or the KKK?
  - objectivetruth 7y ago
    So you see a peaceful protester with a sign saying "No fascism" and a bunch of people saying "Jews will not replace us!" and -- let me get this correct -- to you, they are the same because of the level of zealotry? Sometimes the people on this site amaze me with how much they're willing to use pedantry and sophistry and their "intelligence" to just throw away the lessons that our society learned 70 years ago, such as "ethno-nationalists are BAD."
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    I agree with you in the abstract ideal, but for a lot of people, this choice is roughly as good as it gets. In place of moral compasses, most people have thermometers they use to read the room, adopting belief systems and then enforcing them brutally, with no room for anything resembling moral reasoning, nuance, or basic human decency. The majority of the variability tends to be in 1) the belief system they choose to ingest and 2) the degree of passion with which they choose to engage in it. I'm not throwing my hands up and drawing a universal false equivalency here: Not every possible manifestation is as harmful as every other, and I have no trouble saying that the dehumanization and hatred that marks the strain of mainstream idpol leftism that's currently popular[1] is nowhere near as dangerous a manifestation as that of the alt-right. I don't see a lot of moral distance between the _participants_ in either of these ideologies; as far as I can tell, circumstances out of one's control have an outsize influence on which ideology most people end up as footsoldiers in. But the way in which people's barbarism is sublimated is extremely important from a pragmatic point of view, and I'd much rather see Sam become a mirror of the old man described than the modal alt-right participant at that rally. Taking the author at her word[2] when she describes how Sam started out, it sounds like he may have been in touch with the sensitivity and decency it takes to approach others with basic empathy. But such a state can be fragile and it sounds like Sam's reaction to the incident at his school knocked him out of that orbit. In the best-case scenario, it's a temporary situation, but the author's claim is that Sam is at a point where he's got a lot of confusion and passion and rage that he's sublimated into politics, and perhaps the best we can hope for is that the path of hate that he picks is one of the less harmful ones like garden-variety identitarian center-leftism. [1] I'm aware that this is probably an extraordinary claim to many here, so here's a simple example of what I mean. FTA: > I’d never in my life backed the “masculinist” cause or imagined that men needed protecting—yet I couldn’t help but agree with Sam’s analysis. The idea that the author doesn't realize what an abhorrent view this is is chilling; people and their lives are insanely complicated, and there's no group that's flatly-generalizable enough that a decent person would never have occasion to imagine they may need protecting in some scenario or another. There's no difference, at its fundamental root, between this and other more recognized forms of dehumanizing people by erasing their individual identities. [2] Though perhaps we can't take this for granted: as evidenced by other parts of the article, she doesn't seem like a particularly decent person herself.
  - pgcj_poster 7y ago
    This is hilarious. You couldn't get any more on-brand for Hacker News without suggesting that someone rewrite the kernel in Rust. The people at this rally almost certainly supported Trump, and at least some of them supported fascism. As such, a slogan condemning Trump alongside fascists is totally reasonable, even if it wouldn't necessarily be in other contexts. (And if you think that someone carrying a nazi flag doesn't really believe the message, well, the burden of proof is on you). Politics, by the way, is a tribal game. Almost everyone develops their beliefs primarily based on those of the people in their community or communities. For example, the belief that "holding an anti-Trump sign is just as bad as holding a Nazi flag, because both of them passionately express opinions" is basically non-existent outside of the Hacker News-reading demographic, but one which I've seen expressed here fairly often. That's not because HN readers are smarter than everyone else: it's because people tend towards the opinions that they're exposed to in their communities, and the rules of Hacker News effectively mandate impassioned centrism, so that's the ideology of the Hacker News tribe. If you think you're immune to tribalism, you're wrong, in the same way that if you think you're immune to confirmation bias, you're wrong. Visibility is much more important to influencing people than good arguments or sincere intentions. For example, five years ago, I was aware of the arguments for open borders, but I didn't publicly advocate for them, nor did I have a particularly strong opinion on the matter. That's because back then, there was very little public discussion of the issue. Now that I've met other people who are pushing for open borders (probably in response to Trump), I consider it to be one of the most important issues that I care about. That's just how humans work. That's the reason that people advocate for their views in highly visible ways, like protests. The point isn't to convince your enemies, it's to bring out the people on your side. John, who derives all his beliefs from careful research and pure reason, gets just as many votes as Bob, who likes Trump because he triggers the libtards. Actually, I suspect that Bob will get more, because half the time, people like John don't actually vote. You can talk as if you're above the rabble all you like, but in Democracy, it's their opinions that matter, and if you take politics seriously at all, it's them that you have to reach. Going out in the real world carrying signs, shouting, blocking traffic, throwing bricks, and maybe getting arrested is the best known way to get your message out, even if it offends your sensibilities.
vzcx 7y ago
Excellent, excellent points. Antifa members are often just a sick with fears, insecurities, and vengeance, as alt-right members. They are both peddlers of resentment, just run by different priests, and aimed at different enemies. Self-examination, getting beneath the ideologies and down at the underlying emotional content motivating their hosts is the only productive path to dialog and growth I've encountered so far.
- honkycat 7y ago
  You are trying so hard to sound reasonable and "both sides" these threads but it is simple to clock you. Both sides do not have merit. Only one side advocates hate against minorities and white nationalism. Only one side has multiple mass shooters it it's ranks. One side is a xenophobic reactionary group that contains nazis, and the other is a counter-protest group.
  - nailer 7y ago
    You are comparing the most extreme of one side (white nationalists) with the other side and pretending Antifa isn't frequently violent towards anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders.
    - honkycat 7y ago
      > with the other side and pretending Antifa isn't frequently violent towards anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders. Liar.
      - nailer 7y ago
        You should read the HN guidelines. After that, visit youtube and watch videos of Antifa people with knives and baseball bats running around Portland threatening people in public parks and roads.
        honkycat 7y ago
        Lol I live in Portland. Dont try to tell me what goes on in my town. I've seen it. Nazis/Patriot Prayer is the problem.
shkkmo 7y ago
> But if the (suspiciously articulate) kid goes from alt-right to antifa, I don't think that's any sort of progress to be applauded. I interpreted the article's point to be that alt-right is just emotionally hurt people venting online, and they do antics for attention and the media latches on to it to sell clicks, even if it's all BS. I would point out that there is quite a difference between "anti-fa" and "counter-protester", just as there is between a conservative and being a white nationalist. One of those differences is the ability to see shades of grey in both "your side" and "the other side". you say: > I interpreted the article's point to be that alt-right is just emotionally hurt people venting online, and they do antics for attention and the media latches on to it to sell clicks, even if it's all BS. I think it is less "emotionally hurt" and more "emotionally vulnerable and alienated". It also isn't all BS. There are nuggets of insight and truth buried in all the bile and lies. the article says: > Sam pledged fealty to the idea of men’s rights because, as he said, his former administrator had privileged girls’ words and experiences over boys’, and that’s how all of his troubles had started in the first place. I’d never in my life backed the “masculinist” cause or imagined that men needed protecting—yet I couldn’t help but agree with Sam’s analysis. you say: > But if that's the case, the best way to handle it is not to counter-protest, but just to hear out the fears and insecurities. There is room for both and when done well, they are the same thing. A single brave counter protester helped open a young man's eyes with courage, integrity and compassion. Would a horde of black masked militant "anti-fa" protestors have had the same effect? I strongly believe that using hate, rejection and isolation to fight against hate is counter-productive and destined to a a failure. Compassion and courage on the other hand...
sangnoir 7y ago
Counter-protesting neo-nazi's doesn't make one Antifa, unless you suspect the teenager and his presumably middle-aged mom were going to be Black Bloc'ing (if so, the article ended way too early). Antifa is a very specific ideology and is not a nebulous "counter-protesting the alt-right"

ip26 7y ago

Presumably the author & son are alluding to the middle-aged man holding the poster, which I should hope is obviously nowhere near the same as antifa.

bargl 7y ago
Yup this is what i was thinking.
alexandercrohde 7y ago
Well, I don't know if I think a middle-aged man who goes to a rally to hold up a sign saying "NO TRUMP. NO KKK. NO FASCIST USA," is progress over the alt-right. To me it's the exact same thing -- an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.
- deanCommie 7y ago
  "KKK" and "No KKK" are exactly the same thing? FFS...can we stop with the false equivalence? When one side is preaching intolerance, and the other side preaches intolerance to intolerance THEY ARE NOT BOTH EQUALLY INTOLERANT.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Maybe not "equally", but they are both intolerant. The groupthinks of both teams are used to mobilize violence against easy targets of their outgroups, regardless of the purported goal. The real distinction to draw here is the matter of numbers. A counter protester is "punching up" in respect to the more numerous mob. They're not likely to get the mob to put down their pitchforks no matter how well-crafted their sign. But as this story demonstrates, their presence makes for human faces that object to the furor.
  - drak0n1c 7y ago
    The parent comment was not equivocating "KKK and anti-KKK", it was simply pointing out the false equivalence on that guy's T-shirt. All-caps claims that Trump, the KKK, and Fascism are equivalent is part of the problem and exacerbating tribalism. The anti-Semitic terrorist in Powey wrote that he felt personally betrayed and furious at how friendly Trump is with Jewish people and his support for Israel. The media, and protestors, making such extreme claims aren't just misleading people who oppose bigotry, they are misleading people who support bigotry and making the conflict bigger and more confused than it otherwise would be.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      Yeah, he was angry that Trump isn't far right enough for his taste, a common trope among Nazis. I'm not sure how transfer any responsibility for his crime onto the people who are protesting against right wing extremism though.
      - Knufen 7y ago
        Unrelated to the discussion, but Nazis were never on the right except for today where their views on immigration might cross. Nazism has always been a redefinition of socialism so I find it kinda confusing that people equate right wingers with nazis.
- sbov 7y ago
  I'm reminded of the "is it OK to punch a 'Nazi'" debate.
- aetimmes 7y ago
  > an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind. But he did, didn't he?
  - drak0n1c 7y ago
    That persuasion happened thanks to his verbal communication, not his over-the-top rhetorically toxic T-shirt.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      The sale happened because of the product's merits - it had nothing to do with the advertisement copy.
- esoterica 7y ago
  The exact same thing? That’s one hell of a false equivalence. The alt right aren’t bad people because they are “overzealous”, they are bad people because of their bigotry on the basis of race, religion and national origin.
  - alehul 7y ago
    To be fair to the poster you're replying to, I can assume a much more charitable interpretation is that the quote draws an equivalency between being against Trump and being against the KKK, and that's the over-zealous and tribal aspect. It's similar to saying "No Bernie, No Marx." Yes, they're on the same side of the spectrum compared to center, but it seems unfair and disingenuous to combine them as such.
    - nailer 7y ago
      I'd say "no Bernie, no Stalin" would be more apt (Marx wasn't directly violent) and yes as you say it would be a completely unfair comparison.
      - alehul 7y ago
        That is much more apt, thank you!
  - alexandercrohde 7y ago
    Not really.... these aren't real nazis committing atrocities.... Going to 4chan and saying a bunch of trolly triggering stuff at your friends to get out your anger isn't really a bad thing. It's immature, but it's not really immoral, nor is it illegal, nor does it make you a "bad person." It's venting, tribalism, and immaturity. (case-in-point, the moderator was a 13-year-old jewish boy) This is what the article describes when it shows the man with the nazi flag posing for the reporters-- a symbiotic relationship that is entirely for show.
    - fzeroracer 7y ago
      Unless you want to employ the No True Scotsman here, how do you rationalize the repeated mass murders committed by people under the banner of the alt-right and equate them to people protesting against Trump or the KKK?
- objectivetruth 7y ago
  So you see a peaceful protester with a sign saying "No fascism" and a bunch of people saying "Jews will not replace us!" and -- let me get this correct -- to you, they are the same because of the level of zealotry? Sometimes the people on this site amaze me with how much they're willing to use pedantry and sophistry and their "intelligence" to just throw away the lessons that our society learned 70 years ago, such as "ethno-nationalists are BAD."
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  I agree with you in the abstract ideal, but for a lot of people, this choice is roughly as good as it gets. In place of moral compasses, most people have thermometers they use to read the room, adopting belief systems and then enforcing them brutally, with no room for anything resembling moral reasoning, nuance, or basic human decency. The majority of the variability tends to be in 1) the belief system they choose to ingest and 2) the degree of passion with which they choose to engage in it. I'm not throwing my hands up and drawing a universal false equivalency here: Not every possible manifestation is as harmful as every other, and I have no trouble saying that the dehumanization and hatred that marks the strain of mainstream idpol leftism that's currently popular[1] is nowhere near as dangerous a manifestation as that of the alt-right. I don't see a lot of moral distance between the _participants_ in either of these ideologies; as far as I can tell, circumstances out of one's control have an outsize influence on which ideology most people end up as footsoldiers in. But the way in which people's barbarism is sublimated is extremely important from a pragmatic point of view, and I'd much rather see Sam become a mirror of the old man described than the modal alt-right participant at that rally. Taking the author at her word[2] when she describes how Sam started out, it sounds like he may have been in touch with the sensitivity and decency it takes to approach others with basic empathy. But such a state can be fragile and it sounds like Sam's reaction to the incident at his school knocked him out of that orbit. In the best-case scenario, it's a temporary situation, but the author's claim is that Sam is at a point where he's got a lot of confusion and passion and rage that he's sublimated into politics, and perhaps the best we can hope for is that the path of hate that he picks is one of the less harmful ones like garden-variety identitarian center-leftism. [1] I'm aware that this is probably an extraordinary claim to many here, so here's a simple example of what I mean. FTA: > I’d never in my life backed the “masculinist” cause or imagined that men needed protecting—yet I couldn’t help but agree with Sam’s analysis. The idea that the author doesn't realize what an abhorrent view this is is chilling; people and their lives are insanely complicated, and there's no group that's flatly-generalizable enough that a decent person would never have occasion to imagine they may need protecting in some scenario or another. There's no difference, at its fundamental root, between this and other more recognized forms of dehumanizing people by erasing their individual identities. [2] Though perhaps we can't take this for granted: as evidenced by other parts of the article, she doesn't seem like a particularly decent person herself.
- pgcj_poster 7y ago
  This is hilarious. You couldn't get any more on-brand for Hacker News without suggesting that someone rewrite the kernel in Rust. The people at this rally almost certainly supported Trump, and at least some of them supported fascism. As such, a slogan condemning Trump alongside fascists is totally reasonable, even if it wouldn't necessarily be in other contexts. (And if you think that someone carrying a nazi flag doesn't really believe the message, well, the burden of proof is on you). Politics, by the way, is a tribal game. Almost everyone develops their beliefs primarily based on those of the people in their community or communities. For example, the belief that "holding an anti-Trump sign is just as bad as holding a Nazi flag, because both of them passionately express opinions" is basically non-existent outside of the Hacker News-reading demographic, but one which I've seen expressed here fairly often. That's not because HN readers are smarter than everyone else: it's because people tend towards the opinions that they're exposed to in their communities, and the rules of Hacker News effectively mandate impassioned centrism, so that's the ideology of the Hacker News tribe. If you think you're immune to tribalism, you're wrong, in the same way that if you think you're immune to confirmation bias, you're wrong. Visibility is much more important to influencing people than good arguments or sincere intentions. For example, five years ago, I was aware of the arguments for open borders, but I didn't publicly advocate for them, nor did I have a particularly strong opinion on the matter. That's because back then, there was very little public discussion of the issue. Now that I've met other people who are pushing for open borders (probably in response to Trump), I consider it to be one of the most important issues that I care about. That's just how humans work. That's the reason that people advocate for their views in highly visible ways, like protests. The point isn't to convince your enemies, it's to bring out the people on your side. John, who derives all his beliefs from careful research and pure reason, gets just as many votes as Bob, who likes Trump because he triggers the libtards. Actually, I suspect that Bob will get more, because half the time, people like John don't actually vote. You can talk as if you're above the rabble all you like, but in Democracy, it's their opinions that matter, and if you take politics seriously at all, it's them that you have to reach. Going out in the real world carrying signs, shouting, blocking traffic, throwing bricks, and maybe getting arrested is the best known way to get your message out, even if it offends your sensibilities.

vzcx 7y ago

Excellent, excellent points. Antifa members are often just a sick with fears, insecurities, and vengeance, as alt-right members. They are both peddlers of resentment, just run by different priests, and aimed at different enemies. Self-examination, getting beneath the ideologies and down at the underlying emotional content motivating their hosts is the only productive path to dialog and growth I've encountered so far.

honkycat 7y ago
You are trying so hard to sound reasonable and "both sides" these threads but it is simple to clock you. Both sides do not have merit. Only one side advocates hate against minorities and white nationalism. Only one side has multiple mass shooters it it's ranks. One side is a xenophobic reactionary group that contains nazis, and the other is a counter-protest group.
- nailer 7y ago
  You are comparing the most extreme of one side (white nationalists) with the other side and pretending Antifa isn't frequently violent towards anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders.
  - honkycat 7y ago
    > with the other side and pretending Antifa isn't frequently violent towards anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders. Liar.
    - nailer 7y ago
      You should read the HN guidelines. After that, visit youtube and watch videos of Antifa people with knives and baseball bats running around Portland threatening people in public parks and roads.
      - honkycat 7y ago
        Lol I live in Portland. Dont try to tell me what goes on in my town. I've seen it. Nazis/Patriot Prayer is the problem.

shkkmo 7y ago

> But if the (suspiciously articulate) kid goes from alt-right to antifa, I don't think that's any sort of progress to be applauded. I interpreted the article's point to be that alt-right is just emotionally hurt people venting online, and they do antics for attention and the media latches on to it to sell clicks, even if it's all BS. I would point out that there is quite a difference between "anti-fa" and "counter-protester", just as there is between a conservative and being a white nationalist. One of those differences is the ability to see shades of grey in both "your side" and "the other side". you say: > I interpreted the article's point to be that alt-right is just emotionally hurt people venting online, and they do antics for attention and the media latches on to it to sell clicks, even if it's all BS. I think it is less "emotionally hurt" and more "emotionally vulnerable and alienated". It also isn't all BS. There are nuggets of insight and truth buried in all the bile and lies. the article says: > Sam pledged fealty to the idea of men’s rights because, as he said, his former administrator had privileged girls’ words and experiences over boys’, and that’s how all of his troubles had started in the first place. I’d never in my life backed the “masculinist” cause or imagined that men needed protecting—yet I couldn’t help but agree with Sam’s analysis. you say: > But if that's the case, the best way to handle it is not to counter-protest, but just to hear out the fears and insecurities. There is room for both and when done well, they are the same thing. A single brave counter protester helped open a young man's eyes with courage, integrity and compassion. Would a horde of black masked militant "anti-fa" protestors have had the same effect? I strongly believe that using hate, rejection and isolation to fight against hate is counter-productive and destined to a a failure. Compassion and courage on the other hand...

sangnoir 7y ago

Counter-protesting neo-nazi's doesn't make one Antifa, unless you suspect the teenager and his presumably middle-aged mom were going to be Black Bloc'ing (if so, the article ended way too early). Antifa is a very specific ideology and is not a nebulous "counter-protesting the alt-right"