Getting Past The Alt-Right Playbook: My Talk at Indivisible Somerville

Didn't realize you were also in Somerville! Spooky. Good talk, I really like the series so far.

I really enjoy your work, and thinks it is some of the most important work to educate people on. I would love to see the final 'do' video ASAP, but instead I've just doubled my Patreon support. It is the least I can do. I hope you'll one day give a talk in Copenhagen, though I wouldn't know what to ask you if I got the chance.

Vincent Aaskov

In brief, when it came to individuals who grew up in very homophobic households, usually religious, and then broke away and changed their system of beliefs after leaving that household and community (one common example is moving elsewhere to go to college) there was an EXTREMELY high probability that, in time, their original belief system would be reinstated and they would rejoin if not their original community, then a similar one. If there is a name for this phenomena, I don't know what it is, but when I talk to people about it I just refer to it as a kind of "course correction", wherein the individual's original psychology is only temporarily overcome and altered because they find themselves in a new community, and later it "corrects" itself to the original thinking - usually with (typically the most flimsy) rationalisation as to why that original thinking was correct - when they return to the same or equivalent community of their upbringing.

Ryan Aston

I wanted to say something but I'll be brief because I've wasted enough of your time with lengthy writing-s! My thesis was on Discursive Psychology, a part of Social Psychology focusing on analysing discourse and the way individuals use discourse (and symbols and images) to put across meaning, in looking at how heterosexist and homophobic language is constructed to assert specific value systems to homosexuals as an outgroup. It was pretty broad (and frankly not very good) but one phenomena that was frequently observed in regards to changing values is to do with how individuals function as part of a group in society, beginning with the direct family and spreading out to their extended community.

Ryan Aston

This was really good. I especially liked your answers after the talk. I vaguely recall seeing a discussion in your comments section about conflating alt-right with right. You’ve cleared it nicely in the Q&A here… Maybe mention that in your next video, too?

Pavol Vaskovic

That was really good. I hadn't considered the problems with the rebuttal format. I also hear the Sunlight argument. A lot. Once the Access Hollywood tape leaked, that argument was dead in the water.

Thanks for sharing! I always look forward to your videos.

Sam