293
Gen Z Won’t Save Us
(slate.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
293 points (95.4% liked)
politics
19241 readers
2162 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
People are surprised that they grew up with tech and are more susceptible to the propaganda than previous generations. People are also surprised at how vile and uncaring young men have turned into, they want to “own the libs” no matter the cost. They like seeing the pain they cause
I have a hard time believing this.
When you actually talk to the kind of young, Gen Z men that regularly spout right-leaning propaganda, generally speaking, you don't see people who enjoy suffering.
You see young men who are suffering themselves, but are given no outlet by society to express or fix it, and are heavily propagandized to by fascists who know that by creating arbitrary divides, (the most common one you'll see with these young men being "men vs women," think Andrew Tate type rhetoric) they can redirect the anger of these young men from systems to other individuals and groups that aren't the actual cause of their problems.
When young men are the specific, designated target of right-wing propaganda, which explicitly tries to tell them that "men used to have it better," and actively tries to make them believe that they're not strong enough, not good looking enough, and not rich enough, then of course you'll get young men that feel, in some ways justifiably, shunned.
To put it how Jason Stanley put it in his book, aptly named How Fascism Works, "Misogyny is what faces women when patriarchal expectations are left unfulfilled."
Those expectations never need to have actually been reality, but just the very expectation that they should have those things can make them feel slighted.
But remember, while these young men are angry, sad, and scared, they still don't enjoy causing pain. (I'm talking broadly of course, you'll always be able to find some crazy dudes if you look enough) They just feel like they haven't been given what they deserve.
Just like the rest of Gen Z.
The only thing that makes them different is the fact they believe the source of their suffering is a different group of people.
I'm not excusing any of their behavior or beliefs, far from it. But claiming that young men enjoy inflicting pain on others because they hold beliefs that make them feel slighted by society is just plain wrong in the vast majority of cases.
Man I cannot take another four years of "won't you think of the poor lowly Trump voters?" (this time Gen Z style). The original was cringeworthy and I doubt I'll like the sequel any better.
People have bigger problems than your average Gen Z white male Trump voter, as I'm sure they're accustomed to telling others online and in real life whom complain (when they aren't going on call of duty n-word tyraids and having discord chats with other idiots).
This is absolutely, categorically not what I was saying.
To clarify using this point I already made,
I'm commenting on the fact that they experience the same issues that the rest of their generation, and in many ways, society at large experiences, not saying that their own struggles mean we should subordinate our own opinion of what society needs for their sake.
I'm not pulling a "won't you think of the poor lowly Trump voters," I'm doing a "these are people too, who still think they're doing what's 'right'"
To these young men, society teaches them that they are fault because of the patriarchy, but leaves the door wide open for the right to proclaim that the sentiment means their own issues aren't being taken into account, which, in many ways, is true with the way liberal media often presents the patriarchy, denouncing its effects, but not clarifying that the patriarchy doesn't mean these young men should be doing perfectly fine already.
The messaging these young men see is (and I'm oversimplifying here, of course) "men as a category are in the wrong because of the patriarchy," but not "but young men still face many problems, just like the rest of their generation, so we should work on fixing that too"
So of course, the right swoops in and replaces what could be a positive secondary statement, and replaces it with "they say you benefit from privilege, but if you do, why is your life so bad right now?" (ignoring the fact that their struggles are almost entirely the same as the rest of Gen Z, men or not)
Again,
Believing, falsely, that your issues are caused by a different source than the ground truth, and believing that a man who says he can fix all of that will, y'know, fix all of that, in no way means that you enjoy inflicting pain.
I don't think all of them enjoy inflicting pain, but Gen Z Trump voters are just Trump voters, and some of them certainly enjoy inflicting pain (especially those walking around puppeting rape threats). I find the actions people take to be more illustrative of their character than imagined back stories.
No offense to you, but I've personally read tens of thousands of words in the wake of 2016 about economic anxiety only to have those same people suddenly about face on every economic issue once "their guy" took over and the opening of your post reminded me a lot of that.
Oh, definitely. There are always going to be some people that enjoy causing pain, and I'm not ignorant of their existence. I just believe that, broadly speaking, the majority of people in most groups, young Gen Z men included, don't actually enjoy causing harm, or even necessarily believe they're causing harm in the first place.
Right-wing grifters have a very easy time convincing people of arbitrary divides to cause conflict, and when young men are in a situation just like the rest of their female Gen Z peers, but don't see the same issues happening to those women because of their media bubble, to them, the world just looks like it's leaving them behind.
To them, they don't see themselves as causing pain, only as trying to gain back what they've "lost."
Essentially, while I do believe their beliefs are often wrong and misguided, I don't think that most of them believe they're even causing harm in the first place, let alone enjoy doing so.
I dunno man, the liberal tears shit, the "your body my choice" shit, the "hang Mike Pence chants", the insurrection, people rolling coal and flying Trump flags off cities in f-150s, etc etc. A lot of them fully know they're being assholes at very least. There are surely some kinder, gentler fascists among them but like, those ones are ok with the constant asshole behavior as well so they're enablers.
It sucks to learn that so many people are like this or at very least accepting of it. I bought democrats' collective "it's a loud minority" for a time, but at some point you just have to accept that this country is full of ignorant, fascist-loving, borderline-psychopathic assholes, or continue deluding yourself.
I understand that, but at the same time, I still don't think that's the majority of the voter base for Trump.
I could be wrong here, but with things like the "hang mike pence" (done by a fraction of the, relatively to the nation, small Jan 6th rioters) to the "your body my choice" messaging (primarily from figureheads, and likely being repeated by many young men that are moreso hopping on a bandwagon than actually assessing the phrase's meaning and going "yeah, I actually do think raping women is okay") I don't see any evidence it's a widespread phenomenon affecting anywhere near the majority of the actual people in these groups, nor that (in the latter case) people are saying it with an understood intent to cause harm.
If you have any statistics showing otherwise, I'd love to see them, but I haven't seen anything that demonstrably shows the majority of Trump's voters, either overall or within the smaller Gen Z cohort, are psychopathic individuals that enjoy causing pain.
Every Trump voter is either an asshole, enables assholes, tolerates assholes, or is some combination of those things.
Sure, I agree, but enabling or tolerating assholes is different than, as the original poster mentioned, "like seeing the pain they cause." That's all I was disagreeing with. I still believe their beliefs and who they support are wrong, but I don't think most of them think they're causing pain, or like it if they do.
Women have lost their way and need to be put back in the kitchen. The gays have gotten to much freedom to be flamboyant and they're destroying decency and indoctrinating children. The blacks are getting too uppity, they need a knee on the neck. Minorities have gotten too much and need mass deportations now.
But yeah cis hetero young men get the blame for everything.
By your reasoning, women, LGBT+, minorities are all justified in becoming extremists. Yet the only demographic is leading way on this. Now I'm sure you'll feedback loop your logic to take it as young men getting all the blame.
Where in my response did I imply they get the blame for everything? Jesus man, at least be mildly charitable when you interpret my responses.
I understand this rhetoric gets used. I'm trying to explain why.
To these young men, they've been told that they have privilege, but haven't been truly explained what that means. It leads them to believe people are telling them they're already doing well, even if they aren't. Grifters take advantage of that, and use the common tactic of fascist rhetoric, which is to create a false past where everything was better, and offer these young men a simple solution to their problems: "taking back" the rights/freedoms/abilities/access that they "once had."
They might hold abhorrent viewpoints, and for the final time, I don't endorse or defend any of them, but they don't enjoy inflicting pain, or even think that they are in the first place
I may have worded my responses in a much more convoluted way than intended, and for that I apologize. My only point in this conversation, far from defending their viewpoints or trying to pull a "let's look at all sides" argument, is simply that while they might have been propagandized to enough, to the point they believe false things about reality, they don't enjoy, or want to inflict pain. They simply want society to right the "wrongs" they've experienced, but don't understand what the root cause is of their pain.
I am specifically, solely trying to make the case that while their actions may end up causing harm, they don't enjoy causing harm in itself. That is all.
I don't think that's what they meant. What they meant is that those who adhere to the virilist ideologies found online are the ones who do. Because apparently violence and aggressive behaviour is viril.
They grew up with tech without understanding it, which is a big difference from millennials.