At a time of personal confusion and pain in my life, Jordan Peterson and the alt right gave me direction and purpose. I eventually realized that purpose was spreading a cruel, antisocial worldview — but not before I inflicted that cruelty on those around me.
Dear god I’m so glad I’m old enough to have missed all this.
As a guy whom Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex appealed to in high school because I was a big tall guy who just wanted to read and write poetry, it spoke to me deeply about societal expectations of what “man” and “woman” are and it’s clearly all performative, the whole alt-right pipeline seems wild to me. Reading the book allowed me to be comfortable in my own skin, knowing that people trying to hurt me by calling me slurs and insinuating I must be “queer” are people who are stuck in performative mode, and they clearly are unwilling to accept other people as they are (thus the willingness to ridicule others for being “different”).
Also, slight aside, it definitely feels like reading is a better way to find yourself than watching videos. I remember watching “What the Bleep do We Know” in college and the shocking realization just how much information was being left out of the film. There were a number of scientists interviewed for the film who condemned it saying their words had been purposefully twisted into supporting the absolute bullshit thesis of the film. I have always preferred books with footnotes and references, so you can actually dig for more information instead of just “trusting” the source is being honest.
Arguably, it’s why Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite books. Captain Beatty’s monologue about how all books contradicted each other is absolutely choice, and Beatty nearly succeeds in convincing the reader he is correct, but there’s just enough wiggle room for the reader to continue siding with the protagonist. Utterly brilliant antagonist, and I think a figure more deserving of analysis in regards to the alt-right pipeline, because it feels like they’ve taken Beatty’s argument to heart: All the books disagree with each other, so you can’t trust any of it. You can only trust this group of men who all agree with each other.
I am but a simple human - I see a Fahrenheit 451 reference, I upvote it.
As a tall guy who wanted to read and write poetry and also enjoyed moving my body a lot, which included dancing while being quite shy, I 've been called “closeted straight” when I was young.
I agree with everything you wrote, especially with the books > videos. Beside the space a book provides for the author to express himself clearly, it is also a quite active mode of engagement with content, since in following the narrative, imagining and understanding it, who we are is actually quite important too.
Oh, and Fahrenheit 451… what a great book!