Category: Foreign Affairs

Although the Lexicon primarily features issues originating in the US of A (as opposed to Canada, which is the US of Eh), sometimes the subject matter crosses international boundaries. In this case, the origin of this week’s Lexicon starts in Jolly Old England (as opposed to Canada, which is Jolly Old Eh-gland.)

It starts with an online game called Pathways (think a cheerier version of “Depression Quest”) where the user navigates through a series of events in an attempt to dissuade him or her from falling for online extremist propaganda. Welllll…let’s just say it backfired. Instead of educating users (primarily teenagers) about the dangers of propaganda, it is propaganda in and of itself by painting anyone to the right of Josef Stalin as an extremist.

I could talk all day about propaganda (as my lovely wife will tell you), but the focus of this week’s Lexicon is on the concept of online extremism. I’ll be the first one to tell you the Interwebs is a hotbed of people nuttier than elephant shit, but does that make them extremists?

Depends on who you ask.

online extremism

What the Left thinks it means – Internet propaganda designed to persuade gullible people to adopt right wing beliefs and ideas

What it really means – Internet propaganda designed to persuade gullible people to adopt any wing’s beliefs and ideas

So, where do I begin? Well, let me just start by saying online extremism is not just a right wing issue. There is and always has been a section of online culture dominated by left wing thinking, but they’ve been mostly relegated to backwater channels with an echo chamber bigger than the Grand Canyon. Or, as it’s called today, Bluesky.

That in and of itself isn’t that big a deal to me. I’m a big fan of letting people say what’s on their minds, even if I disagree with it. For one, it fosters more and better communication than banning it out of turn. For another, it’s always a good way to see where the assholes are so you can avoid them. Unless you want to point and laugh, which is easier when they make themselves known. So, there are plenty of good reasons not to silence people.

Having said all that, there are people out there who have completely lost the fucking plot and say/advocate for the weirdest shit out there. And that’s just the diaper fur community. (Safety Tip from your buddy Tom: If you don’t know, don’t look for it. Only furry evil in diapers greets you there.) Up until recently, people have been able to ignore the fringe players because they’ve been woefully unequipped to do anything about it. I knew a Pat Buchanan supporter who talked a big game, but was so short he made Nick Fuentes look like Andre the Giant. Needless to say, he wasn’t considered much of a threat.

Nowadays, it’s that kind of freak that has the power of an echo chamber telling him/her what they’re doing is completely cool and not at all too extreme. And it’s shit like this that got Renee Good shot and killed. Somewhere in her mind, she thought “running over an ICE agent is totes normal, dude” and used that thought to spur action.

Now, who could have put that idea in her head? I mean, it’s not like the Left has painted ICE in a negative light by calling them Nazis or comparing them to secret police or the Gestapo, right?

Except for Governor TIMMAH!

And Governor Gavin Newsom.

And Governor JB Pritzker.

And Senator Jeff Merkley.

And Senator Mark Warner.

And Representative Eric Swalwell.

And Representative Rashida Tlaib.

Wow. Come to think of it, there are a lot of Democrats and Leftists pulling the “ICE is the secret police/Gestapo/fascist/Nazi” card.

So, maybe the Left has a hand in the escalation of rhetoric against ICE, which is inspiring Leftist extremists to act. But remember, kids, it’s the MAGA crowd that are the violent ones because January 6th.

All that IMAX-level projection aside, online extremism is a legitimate problem, one being stoked by people we shouldn’t want to hang out with at all, man. And they all have the same problem: a messiah complex that rivals Oprah’s. With that messiah complex comes a lot of gatekeeping so only the true believers can stick around.

Naturally, that means more sensible people saying “Yanno, you might not want to drive a truck into a bunch of protesters/ICE agents” will be excommunicated and turned into the enemy, even if their opinions align with everything else the self-professed leader believes. The odd thing about these leaders of cults of personality is they often don’t have one of their own, so they borrow from someone else. Even self-styled “free thinkers” may fall victim to the kind of extremism that meets them where their biases are.

Not that this happens to too many people, right? (I’m looking at you, Bill Maher.)

Those assholes can be dangerous, what what of the followers themselves? That’s a bit of a mixed bag. The more gung ho a follower is, the more extreme he or she (still 2 genders) is likely to be. As you get further and further away from the epicenter of extremism, the less likely it is you’re dealing with an extremist. Sure, there are some who will drink the Flavor-Ade because everybody else is doing it (gotta love that peer pressure), but you’re going to find some who see the folly of it all and aren’t as willing to go along to get along.

The problem is neither side wants to separate the reasonable from the batshit insane. That would take too much effort, after all, and we don’t want people to think we’re not down for the cause because we happen to think not engaging in stupid shit is the correct path forward.

This is the time when we have to determine whether the loudest voices are the leaders or just so loud they drown out the actual leaders. I’ve seen this with the gay rights movement, the trans rights movement, the pro choice and pro life movements, the Religious Right, and so many others. And when you’re faced with the loudest voices, it gets really easy to slide into groupthink and become one of the masses, minus the “m.”

But that’s where being able to determine the difference comes in handy. If someone is loud, it doesn’t make him or her right; it just makes them harder to ignore. But is also makes them easier to mock for being loud and annoying, so there’s that.

How this applies to extremism is we have to separate the ring leaders from the ring followers because they are not always the same people. A militant trans rights activist may talk a big game, but wuss out at the first signs of it being go time. These are the ones who probably won’t decide to shoot up a Christian school, but they still have the ability to give those who do have a propensity towards violence to think the only way to fix things is to pull a “Death Wish.” They’re extremists of a sort, but more extremist-adjacent.

Think Charlie Manson versus the Manson Family members who murdered Sharon Tate, among others. The members committed the crimes, but they wouldn’t have happened without ole Charlie.

“But, Thomas,” you might be saying, “are you literally comparing trans activists to Charles Manson?” No. What I’m saying is there are some people who can inspire others to take action they might not otherwise take by instilling them with destructive thoughts. And we’re not just talking about Leftists here, folks. There are plenty of hair-triggers on the Right who would love nothing more than to start shit so they can pretend to be badasses, all from the safety of their double-wides, while others are doing the actual shit.

And all from the behind protection of a computer or phone screen.

There is a term from the Interwebs that describe these people perfectly: keyboard warriors. Now, there are some willing to put the emphasis on the latter rather than the former, which makes for a really awkward time all the way around when the fit hits the shan. (Hat tip to Larry Elder for that one.)

What Pathways gets wrong is it tries to water down the definition of extremism to an absurd degree. Even someone saying “we should be proud of being British” gets looped in with anyone who wants to put every immigrant into a chipper shredder, when that’s simply not the case. There may be some overlap between the two, but not enough to lump the former in with the latter.

Unless, of course, you’re being intellectually dishonest, which Pathways is being. The “right” course of action according to the game isn’t always the most logical. In one part of the game, you are given a choice to ignore what they deem inflammatory rhetoric, look for more information, or go from 0 to extremist by joining in the inflammatory fun. In the game, the only viable option is to ignore the rhetoric. Anything else gets you branded an extremist.

Put another way, the game punishes you for trying to be well-informed.

Which makes you more susceptible to extremist positions.

Which defeats the purpose of the game.

Unless, of course, the purpose of the game is to enable certain extremist positions…

Saaaaaaaaay! I think I’ve stumbled upon the real reason this game exists! And considering it’s targeting teenagers (who cling to popularity and clout like Hunter Biden hangs onto his crack dealer’s number), the goal is to get them to accept a set of ideas so they’ll be popular, cool, and have social clout, all without having to do anything but listen and believe.

Hmmmm…that’s a catchy little saying. I hope nobody unscrupulous ever latches onto it.

Meanwhile, what we can do to avoid being sucked in by online extremism, or extremism in general, is apply a little common sense. If you wouldn’t allow someone else to do it to you, don’t do it to other people. And if someone you know is rushing headlong towards extremism, try to pull them back. If they don’t want to come back from the edge, let them go. It may hurt, but it hurts a lot less than being buggered night after night in federal pound you in the ass prison.

Not that I know anything about that, mind you…