Great piece. Thanks for going through the screed so we don't have to.
The skeptic in me has the following questions:
1) Is this ideology on the rise, or is it just getting more attention in the media? Are the number of white supremacists greater today than 10, 20, 30 years ago? How is such a metric measured?
2) If this ideology is on the rise, how much of it is due to social media and interconnectedness? Are these bad ideas flourishing because they have a new pathway to infect minds? (would Gendron have a way to take up this ideology in 1990?)
3) How much of this ideology could be reaction to the proliferation of DEI theory? Is it possible that as a result of making immutable characteristics like race, gender, and sexuality a constant focus in all aspects of life that we *might* have an unintended consequence of providing these crackpots with talking points for recrutiment? e.g., does a well-intended but misguided bill like California's recently struck down AB 979 "Diversify Board of Directors" make it easier for 4chan cranks to draw people into their ideology?
4) Will there be any meaningful effort to understand the magnitude of the problem and find ways to collectively reduce it? The very next day my newsfeed was of course filled with a completely politicization of this tragedy which I am sure 99% of both parties are completely sickened by.
Sample:
"A Fringe Conspiracy Theory, Fostered Online, Is Refashioned by the G.O.P."
Once again, Dr Shermer hits one out of the ball park.
I want to add to the conversation, my position that THE BIG PROBLEM with the human race is not racism, sexism, religious bigotry, etc - it is humanity's appetite for cruelty. Cruelty not just toward The Other but toward our own communities: look at hazing rituals, acts to maintain conformity in groups - like we see in the military, religions, and sports teams etc. Since it is easier to motivate cruelty to The Other we see that form of cruelty in greater extreme.
Humans can be cruel bastards - not al; not most; but that tiny minority of cruel bastards has enough cruelty to the whole human race.
Consider a kind (not-cruel) racist who feels condescending pity for 'Those poor untermenschen who, cursed by nature, will never amount to much' - they may even act charitably towards the inferior ones. Many of us know "kind racists" - fortunately, most of them can be cured through education and enlightenment.
OTOH: Inherently Cruel people who enjoy hurting others are harder to fix. They want to commit atrocities and the justification is less important than inflicting pain. If we teach them not to be racist they will find another justification. They can rape, pillage and murder in the name of noble causes like rooting out Naziism in a neighboring country! Or saving a people from their despotic leader! Or maybe something trivial like disagreeing about which end of the hard boiled egg to open (HT Jonathan Swift).
A cruel person who likes inflicting pain cannot be reasoned out of that condition. We cannot educate them into kindness. There may be no fix. If the Bible teaches us nothing else it is this: a person carrying a message of love, kindness and mercy to the heartless and cruel often winds up being crucified.
When these things happen there is a frenzy of rhetoric on causes and solutions. But nothing changes as you really can't outlaw hate or legislate it away. Unfortunately, haters are going to hate, and all we can ever do is talk about it after the fact and pretend we've done something to make ourselves feel better.
Payton Gendron didn't choose the Buffalo market solely because many blacks shop there. He said that the restrictive gun laws of New York made it ideal, meaning there was a good chance his victims would be unarmed, or at least under-armed, and therefore sitting ducks. The fact that his weapon is already heavily restricted in New York shows that such laws restrict law-abiding citizens but have little effect on criminals. Do you really imagine someone who is willing to commit mass murder is going to be stopped by a gun law?
So, it looks like the Buffalo shooting was a cascade of gun control failures. Yet, the response of progressives to such a tragedy is always to call for more of the same. Democrats will further their attempts to disarm law-abiding citizens while weakening the police.
Humans are 'otherists,' meaning they are programmed to notice differences between themselves and others. It is one of our tools of survival and should be recognized as such. It is not the case that racists, sexists, ageists, and 'classists' are aberrant. They are following nature's programming. Unfortunately, they haven't had the natural instinct to mistrust others, who are different from ourselves, attenuated by a more liberal outlook.
Much of what Gendron wrote or copied is accurate, such as the fact that the white percentage of the American population is dropping. But then he takes this fact and twists it to support a nefarious activity, i.e. murdering blacks in a supermarket. In order to counteract this kind of behavior we must acknowledge truths so that people like Gendron don't think there are secrets only he, and others like him, recognize.
I fully share the phrase proposed here. I would comment that the primitive gun laws (wild west memories?) that America supports also plays a role, aside of religious beliefs that seem to refer to peace and -clearly- promote the opposite.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste and for this kid to go down the 4chan et al rabbit hole is cringeworthy. Not to mention, deadly. I wonder how his parents and family managed to avoid noting that he was descending into such racist weirdness. Whatcha readin' there, son? Back in 4th grade I signed out Shirer's history of the Third Reich and got marched down to the school psychologist's office. They decided I wasn't too weird but took away the book. I read it that summer, signing it out from the Erie County Public Library. But not in a vaccum. In the context of living in a neighborhood where many of the men had fought in WW II, including two of my uncles.
As far as gun control, NYS has a red flag law that could have been used to disarm this monster. For whatever reason, it didn't take him seriously. He managed, from what I read, to modify his NYS-legal rifle with high capacity magazines, which he got...somewhere. But until the left and right meet at the center, the idea of a fifty state rational gun law is as likely as a snowball in Hell.
I love your work. And so so wish you would add to Jewish conspiracy theories, those promoted by the Left, usually under the banner of antiZionism. AntiZionism itself functions as an antisemitic trope as clarified by David Hirsh*.
The words, logic, and graphics used to portray Zionists are the EXACT same ones used historically against Jews. Jews/Zionists are depicted as an outsized evil, starting all wars, controlling the media, controlling governments and finances, selfish, manipulative, fifth column, killing children for fun, drinking their blood and eating organs**, surrounding the world in its tentacles arms.
Please consider addressing this form of conspiracy theory as well as Right wing ones. They are both dangerous but the Left conspiracies become imbedded in society because they aren’t recognized by as dangerous.
I agree that this is a great piece! There is one minor error of fact that I have seen in other writings of his and in Skeptic. Charlottesville, the city where the Unite the Right "rally" took place, is the home of the University of Virginia and is not in North Carolina. I would also like to emphasize that very few participants in that were actually locals.
Nothing will change as long as we, as a nation, continue our obsessive love affair with guns. I'm not speaking about hunting (rifles & shotguns); I'm speaking about weapons of war. As a nation, we are guilty of "magical thinking" - doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. This was dramatically illustrated with this tweet and Web site, respectively, with body bags laid out to spell "THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS", each body bag representing 150+ lives lost since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida:
Exception: “birthrates among Jewish families are among the lowest in the world,...” With the exception of birth rates among Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox (aka: Hasidim) Jewish families, which, like the orthodox of any religion, have higher birth rates then their less observant coreligionists: “Using data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), we show that women who report that religion is “very important” in their everyday life have both higher fertility and higher intended fertility than those saying religion is “somewhat important” or “not important.”
(Religiosity and Fertility in the United States: The Role of Fertility Intentions
Question: How many of those who reject evolution because “It's only theory” embrace
The Great Replacement theory”?
Observation. “They’re reflecting the conspiracy theory that Jews control the media, politics, banking, and finance, a belief that animated Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf”.
If true, then the Jews are absolute worst conspirators in the past – been attacked, exiled, or enslaved by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans....Spain, England, Germany... - and presently, Israel is surrounded by Arab states and terrorist groups denying its right to even exist.
Great piece. Thanks for going through the screed so we don't have to.
The skeptic in me has the following questions:
1) Is this ideology on the rise, or is it just getting more attention in the media? Are the number of white supremacists greater today than 10, 20, 30 years ago? How is such a metric measured?
2) If this ideology is on the rise, how much of it is due to social media and interconnectedness? Are these bad ideas flourishing because they have a new pathway to infect minds? (would Gendron have a way to take up this ideology in 1990?)
3) How much of this ideology could be reaction to the proliferation of DEI theory? Is it possible that as a result of making immutable characteristics like race, gender, and sexuality a constant focus in all aspects of life that we *might* have an unintended consequence of providing these crackpots with talking points for recrutiment? e.g., does a well-intended but misguided bill like California's recently struck down AB 979 "Diversify Board of Directors" make it easier for 4chan cranks to draw people into their ideology?
4) Will there be any meaningful effort to understand the magnitude of the problem and find ways to collectively reduce it? The very next day my newsfeed was of course filled with a completely politicization of this tragedy which I am sure 99% of both parties are completely sickened by.
Sample:
"A Fringe Conspiracy Theory, Fostered Online, Is Refashioned by the G.O.P."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/us/replacement-theory-shooting-tucker-carlson.html
"Editorial: Virulent white supremacy has become normalized. And we let it happen"
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-16/editorial-virulent-white-supremacy-has-become-normalized-and-we-let-it-happen
"Dems turn focus to racist 'replacement theory' post-Buffalo shooting"
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/16/democrats-gop-rhetoric-buffalo-shooting-maga-00032895
"How 'replacement theory' became prominent in mainstream US politics"
https://abcnews.go.com/US/replacement-theory-prominent-mainstream-us-politics/story?id=84747073
Is any of this journalizing remotely helpful? Or is it just attempts to pick up political points and sow more division?
Once again, Dr Shermer hits one out of the ball park.
I want to add to the conversation, my position that THE BIG PROBLEM with the human race is not racism, sexism, religious bigotry, etc - it is humanity's appetite for cruelty. Cruelty not just toward The Other but toward our own communities: look at hazing rituals, acts to maintain conformity in groups - like we see in the military, religions, and sports teams etc. Since it is easier to motivate cruelty to The Other we see that form of cruelty in greater extreme.
Humans can be cruel bastards - not al; not most; but that tiny minority of cruel bastards has enough cruelty to the whole human race.
Consider a kind (not-cruel) racist who feels condescending pity for 'Those poor untermenschen who, cursed by nature, will never amount to much' - they may even act charitably towards the inferior ones. Many of us know "kind racists" - fortunately, most of them can be cured through education and enlightenment.
OTOH: Inherently Cruel people who enjoy hurting others are harder to fix. They want to commit atrocities and the justification is less important than inflicting pain. If we teach them not to be racist they will find another justification. They can rape, pillage and murder in the name of noble causes like rooting out Naziism in a neighboring country! Or saving a people from their despotic leader! Or maybe something trivial like disagreeing about which end of the hard boiled egg to open (HT Jonathan Swift).
A cruel person who likes inflicting pain cannot be reasoned out of that condition. We cannot educate them into kindness. There may be no fix. If the Bible teaches us nothing else it is this: a person carrying a message of love, kindness and mercy to the heartless and cruel often winds up being crucified.
When these things happen there is a frenzy of rhetoric on causes and solutions. But nothing changes as you really can't outlaw hate or legislate it away. Unfortunately, haters are going to hate, and all we can ever do is talk about it after the fact and pretend we've done something to make ourselves feel better.
Payton Gendron didn't choose the Buffalo market solely because many blacks shop there. He said that the restrictive gun laws of New York made it ideal, meaning there was a good chance his victims would be unarmed, or at least under-armed, and therefore sitting ducks. The fact that his weapon is already heavily restricted in New York shows that such laws restrict law-abiding citizens but have little effect on criminals. Do you really imagine someone who is willing to commit mass murder is going to be stopped by a gun law?
So, it looks like the Buffalo shooting was a cascade of gun control failures. Yet, the response of progressives to such a tragedy is always to call for more of the same. Democrats will further their attempts to disarm law-abiding citizens while weakening the police.
Humans are 'otherists,' meaning they are programmed to notice differences between themselves and others. It is one of our tools of survival and should be recognized as such. It is not the case that racists, sexists, ageists, and 'classists' are aberrant. They are following nature's programming. Unfortunately, they haven't had the natural instinct to mistrust others, who are different from ourselves, attenuated by a more liberal outlook.
Much of what Gendron wrote or copied is accurate, such as the fact that the white percentage of the American population is dropping. But then he takes this fact and twists it to support a nefarious activity, i.e. murdering blacks in a supermarket. In order to counteract this kind of behavior we must acknowledge truths so that people like Gendron don't think there are secrets only he, and others like him, recognize.
I fully share the phrase proposed here. I would comment that the primitive gun laws (wild west memories?) that America supports also plays a role, aside of religious beliefs that seem to refer to peace and -clearly- promote the opposite.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste and for this kid to go down the 4chan et al rabbit hole is cringeworthy. Not to mention, deadly. I wonder how his parents and family managed to avoid noting that he was descending into such racist weirdness. Whatcha readin' there, son? Back in 4th grade I signed out Shirer's history of the Third Reich and got marched down to the school psychologist's office. They decided I wasn't too weird but took away the book. I read it that summer, signing it out from the Erie County Public Library. But not in a vaccum. In the context of living in a neighborhood where many of the men had fought in WW II, including two of my uncles.
As far as gun control, NYS has a red flag law that could have been used to disarm this monster. For whatever reason, it didn't take him seriously. He managed, from what I read, to modify his NYS-legal rifle with high capacity magazines, which he got...somewhere. But until the left and right meet at the center, the idea of a fifty state rational gun law is as likely as a snowball in Hell.
I love your work. And so so wish you would add to Jewish conspiracy theories, those promoted by the Left, usually under the banner of antiZionism. AntiZionism itself functions as an antisemitic trope as clarified by David Hirsh*.
The words, logic, and graphics used to portray Zionists are the EXACT same ones used historically against Jews. Jews/Zionists are depicted as an outsized evil, starting all wars, controlling the media, controlling governments and finances, selfish, manipulative, fifth column, killing children for fun, drinking their blood and eating organs**, surrounding the world in its tentacles arms.
Please consider addressing this form of conspiracy theory as well as Right wing ones. They are both dangerous but the Left conspiracies become imbedded in society because they aren’t recognized by as dangerous.
* David Hirsh on Antizionism, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.26613/jca.4.2.83/pdf)
** blood libel, https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/blood-libel
I agree that this is a great piece! There is one minor error of fact that I have seen in other writings of his and in Skeptic. Charlottesville, the city where the Unite the Right "rally" took place, is the home of the University of Virginia and is not in North Carolina. I would also like to emphasize that very few participants in that were actually locals.
Excellent article. I look forward to part two.
Nothing will change as long as we, as a nation, continue our obsessive love affair with guns. I'm not speaking about hunting (rifles & shotguns); I'm speaking about weapons of war. As a nation, we are guilty of "magical thinking" - doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. This was dramatically illustrated with this tweet and Web site, respectively, with body bags laid out to spell "THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS", each body bag representing 150+ lives lost since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AMarch4OurLives/status/1507090987855880194
https://marchforourlives.com/thoughtsandprayers/
Here are the U.S. mass shooting statistics from 1982 to 2022 that is continuously updated:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/
An exception,a question, an observation
Exception: “birthrates among Jewish families are among the lowest in the world,...” With the exception of birth rates among Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox (aka: Hasidim) Jewish families, which, like the orthodox of any religion, have higher birth rates then their less observant coreligionists: “Using data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), we show that women who report that religion is “very important” in their everyday life have both higher fertility and higher intended fertility than those saying religion is “somewhat important” or “not important.”
(Religiosity and Fertility in the United States: The Role of Fertility Intentions
Hayford and Morgan: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/
Question: How many of those who reject evolution because “It's only theory” embrace
The Great Replacement theory”?
Observation. “They’re reflecting the conspiracy theory that Jews control the media, politics, banking, and finance, a belief that animated Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf”.
If true, then the Jews are absolute worst conspirators in the past – been attacked, exiled, or enslaved by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans....Spain, England, Germany... - and presently, Israel is surrounded by Arab states and terrorist groups denying its right to even exist.