#i feel like i have the right kind of mindset to have been radicalised into some . not good things if i hadnt seen reason

[straightlightyagami]

u ever see someone with extremely fucked up views (or actions) and think wowww if a couple of things in my life went the tiniest bit differently that would have been me

[langernameohnebedeutung]

there's a lot of valid takes on why Gen Z is becoming radicalised at the rate they are - all that misinformation, tiktok, red pill, the pandemic - all have good points. But I think another factor is that even politically, their sense of normalcy is entirely different to the one of prior generations. The spiral of the last 15 years, the way the Overton window has moved, the change of style and tone in political discourse, the normalisation of anti-democratic ideas, the obsession with people's private lives, the topics that are front and centre during elections these days, the changing concept of the respect and dignity expected in a public office (god I sound like a boomer) - all of that was shocking to us.

the three generations of my family, all born and raised in VERY different time periods from one another, we've all just been equally shocked and horrified again and again these last 15 years - not just by what is happening but how it is happening and by what is possible and how easy it is to make a total mockery of the democracy and the rule of law. For all of us, that was a feeling of realising that something we implicitly trusted in to the point that it didn't need talking about ... just falling away. Or proving to always have been an illusion to begin with. To someone who grows up right now, this safety and security has NEVER existed.

But for these kids - the window of their life where they start becoming politically and culturally aware basically coincides with this downward spiral and I think that makes many of them blind or numb to it. I think for many of them, that's just their understanding of how things naturally progress and politics works. That the way previous generations evaluate the current situation - this framework of intentional manipulation and misinformation and radicalisation - is just fair and acceptable behaviour and that of course politicians manipulate the discourse to get what they want and of course it is normal to tell brazen lies and spread panic if that gets you what you want and if you're loyal to the party, you parrot those lines whether you really believe in them or not. (And let's be honest with ourselves - the seed to that has always been there)

And others, who I imagine intellectually know that things are going downhill, are really stuck in this extremely mind-numbing fatalist mindset (climate change is gonna kill us all anyway, haha) which makes you hopeless and desperate. And being hopeless and desperate also makes you vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation and radicalisation - because the offer you a perspective. Or meaning.

If you think about the trad-wife and redpill stuff or generally christian nationalism but also any movement that instrumentalises history with ideological narratives, you notice that their narratives place periods of stability way back in time in periods that match aspects of their idelogy e.g. their fetishisation of the 1950s. Then they come up with some horrible bad evil enemy that destroyed that paradise and created the 'degenerate' misery we live in now. Authoritarians and ideologues and cults have always done this. It's part of constructing the mutual enemy.

Beause this way, they can create their illusion of this kind of mythical, unreachable utopia (the past) that fascists love and attach all kinds of conditions to reaching that - with no pressure for them to ever actually deliver: women staying at home, racial segregation, christian hegemony, eugenics, absolute exclusion of gay and trans identities etc. This doesn't just have the benefit of pushing their politics on a confused youth (though that's a big benefit) - it also helps them hide from young people that these last 15 years, they literally created the chaos that these kids are living in. They sowed this situation and right now, with the radicalisation of the youth, they are reaping the rewards.

And the thing is, we can blame the Tiktok or whatever but I also think it is important that we let younger people know and feel that what's happening right now - is just not normal and not sustainable.

And yes, we need to let go of the naive illusion that "the kid are going to save the world". We should never have had that. But I also don't think a radical heel-turn vilifying all of Gen Z is going to help anyone or do justice to the situation.

[frumfrumfroo]

I get where you're coming from, but since we're seeing a really disturbing resurgence of white supremacy and fascism via the "alt-right", wouldn't it be irresponsible for a franchise like Star Wars- which happens to have all this fascist-y imagery on hand- to *not* address or comment on that in some way? I think Hux could be a good vehicle for that but they haven't done much with him besides comic relief.

Short answer: No. Art is not beholden to topical commentary nor is it the responsibility of fucking Hollywood to teach you political orthodoxy. If you want to watch propaganda, I’m sure you can find it, but mandating the promotion of RightThink in creative expression is not exactly a road I want to go down. I mean, if you don’t see the irony here in saying this while supposedly condemning fascism…

Longer answer: What do you even mean? How do you think ‘Empire Bad, Rebels Good’ or ‘First Order Bad, Resistance Good’ with completely black and white Captain Planet level ‘politics’ is somehow an insufficient ‘statement’ that the authoritarian regime with totalitarian iconography is not something positive we should emulate? The authoritarian regime are the bad guys. They are the bad guys. Already. And always have been. The fascist imagery is being used as visual short hand for ‘these are the bad guys’, in fact. The entire reason there is any such imagery in the films is to establish who the villains are. What kind of condemnation do you think that lacks?

SW is about individuals and the journey to ethical adulthood. The Evil Empire is a cardboard stand-in for all forms of selfishness, injustice, repression, etc. which only exists to represent bad, selfish choices. The Empire has no policies, they have no ideology, there’s zero substance to them as an entity- why? Because this isn’t a story about politics or systems of government. It’s a story about the moral agency of individuals. That evil is a decision made over time and you can always change your mind, that every single person can be saved because the choice is all that matters. The power of the bad guys collapses based on the selfless actions of one man because we’re not here for realistic geopolitics. We’re here for a fucking metaphor. A universal metaphor, not a topical one.

What does it look like for you if they ‘address’ it if the basic war plot the themes are hung on doesn’t count? No redemption for the traumatised lost child who is depicted as apart from the mundane aspect of the conflict, alienated from and contemptuous of the true believers in the faction, having motivations entirely personal and derived from intimate family trauma, and whose position in the plot is entirely about his spiritual quest for identity? Because this metaphor for disaffected youth and vulnerable people who are abused by nefarious elements should represent a bad political position rather than universal human flaws?

The message is then what? ‘I hope you never feel angry or isolated, I hope you never fall in with a bad crowd or succumb to a cultish mindset in desperation for belonging or validation because if you ever do, if you ever make a mistake, you’re done and you can’t come back.’ Sounds like a brilliant approach to rehabilitating radicalised people. Tell them there’s no place for them outside the toxic cesspool they’ve fallen into, they can never be forgiven or rejoin society and the only thing to do is double down. Double down until you burn it down because healing is impossible.

The real message we need in these times is one of no mercy, no quarter, right? Because that’s how you change hearts and minds. Dehumanise everyone who falls prey to the rhetoric of power or the illusion of safety in tribalism and deal out revenge in place of justice, I can’t see that perpetuating a cycle of violence and further radicalising everyone.

[girl4music]

Manipulation VS Gaslighting: What's the difference? An analysis into the depths of emotional abuse and victimisation and how, in the worst case scenario, it can lead to radicalisation.

The writer explaining gaslighting as an EFFECT rather than a TACTIC in this Quora article is spot on. The combination of continuous manipulation tactics give this EFFECT on the one who is being manipulated. This is explained extremely well and I want to expand on it.

The feeling of gaslighting is a continuous process through the use of manipulation tactics and not a manipulation tactic in itself. If you feel you are truly being gaslighted, it is most likely because you are continually manipulated. So don't use the term as a one-off experience of manipulation of which we all go through at some point because it isn't. And it insults true victims of emotional abuse when the term is used in that way.

I am more familiar with emotional abuse over physical abuse, and I assume most people will be because it has less consequences as it isn't often judged as an incident of criminal activity, although it certainly should be in some cases. I do not consider myself a victim of emotional abuse because I am not in a continuous cycle of manipulation and gaslighting, and therefore do not feel emotionally abused in any way and cannot put myself in the same category of those that do and that are in fact continually emotionally abused. There are actual victims of emotional abuse that do feel gaslighted all the time. Those are the ones in a continuous manipulation cycle and deal with manipulation tactics on a constant day-to-day basis. Which at it's worst can be closer to radicalisation than emotional abuse because the one who is emotionally abused doesn't realize that they are being emotionally abused. And their perception of reality is being majorly distorted and likely permanently so.

Why am I explaining all this? ...

Because I am tired of people claiming victimization or harassment or gaslighting or emotional abuse or manipulation when really, ... they just cannot deal with real life situations and circumstances, and interpersonal relationships of a mature and intelligent fashion. Where they cannot deal with social conflict flat out and any kind of cognitive dissonance makes them act like a petty child because it attacks their ego. Where they lack any level of emotional maturity or intelligence.

In fact I would go as far as to say anyone constantly claiming emotional abuse through the use of manipulation tactics are not actually being victimized at all and are actually victimizing whoever they claim is manipulating them. These people are most likely the manipulators and emotional abusers and gaslighters and victimisers instead. So be mindful of that when someone constantly claims they are being any of the aforementioned because, as I explained above..., somebody truly emotionally abused and manipulated and gaslightened and victimized do not know they are being so. I say again..., that's because constant emotional abuse through the use of manipulation tactics and gaslighting is closer to radicalisation. A radicalised person does not know they are being radicalised. That's the entire point to it. To keep them oblivious to the situation and circumstance they are actually in. Which is a very dangerous one.

However, I will contradict myself here a bit because it is not entirely like radicalisation because radicalisation leads more to violence and terrorism. It leads more to the harm of others rather than oneself. When you are being radicalised, your perception of reality is so distorted and conditioned that you knowingly inflict harm onto others. And I only say "knowingly" because it doesn't mean you don't have any awareness of doing it. It's just that you don't have any sensitivity from doing it because you are convinced by your radicaliser that it is the morally right thing to do or to believe it brings to you some sort of end goal that you're persuaded into feeling you need to get to or is beneficial for you. This is why radicalisation is connected to extreme religionism and cultism most of all. Because using the themes of fear and faith are great manipulation tactics and, tied together, create a successful method in the radicalisation of another person not previously of your following or of the same mindset and set of personal beliefs.

Thus, an experience of radicalisation is the worst case scenario of constant emotional abuse and continuous manipulation tactics. Especially when it's from everybody around you. Everyone in your social circle. Not just one person who has a personal agenda. True victims of emotional abuse experience varying degrees of this radicalising. And that is why it is insulting to them to claim yourself a victim of it over one solitary situation or circumstance. Which is likely not even an attempt to abuse or manipulate or victimise you at all but you only take it that way because you cannot DEAL with the situation or circumstance. And you have no emotional maturity to actually conversate rationally and logically and reasonably with that person you claim is doing this to you.

There is a certain level of tolerance you must have or learn for the hardships you're thrown or given in life. This level of tolerance is what makes you an emotionally mature and intelligent person. You do not immediately blame others for your own wrongdoings or claim yourself a victim because they felt negatively effected or hurt by you. These emotionally mature and intelligent people are the ones that can get through life not necessarily unscathed by pain, but tolerant to it because they have experienced enough of it to accept that it is part of life and part of reality. And if you're a person that cannot deal with it maturely and intelligently... That's your problem. No one elses!

I'm not directing this rant to somebody in particular but it is indeed inspired by somebody in particular. Knowing that they are now on a run for their life and it's not fair at all given they have been truly emotionally abused, manipulated, victimised and gaslighted through a good majority of it. This rant is for them. You know who you are and if you read... Know that I am always thinking about you and incredibly worried about you. Safe safe, friend. And keep in contact whenever you feasibly can. I know you are so incredibly strong and brave to deal with hard shit on your own but everybody needs somebody to talk to sometimes to be understood.

I understand you and I'll be here for you. I promise. 😟🥺 I care about you more than you know. Much love.

[grimelords]

Finished writing my January playlist up a couple weeks ago and forgot to post it. Sometimes things are like that I suppose. A pretty good mix of all the songs I was very into two months ago.

Terrapin Station (Suite) - Grizzly Bear & The National: It's shocking to think that a 5 hour long Grateful Dead tribute album changed my life but it really did. It's so good all the way through which is a feat in itself and it's a great introduction to every side of a band that can sometimes feel culturally overwhelming to try to get into. This song is a highlight, veering over every kind of territory for 16 minutes but always maintaining the sort of precision of purpose I associate with Grizzly Bear.

New Year - Beach House: January baby! I've got tickets to see Beach House later this month and I'm excited because they really surprised me as an incredible live band last time I saw them, building their songs with a lot more dynamism than the sort of drum machine play alongs their albums are (which I love!!).

BAGDAD - Cap.7: Liturgia - Rosalia: I'm still working my way into fully appreciating how good this Rosalia album is. The Justin Timberlake melody is so beautifully repurposed and I absolutely love the church choir behind the 'junta las palmas y las separa' part. It's just a heartbreaking and beautiful song even if I did have to google translate it.

Signs Of Life - Arcade Fire: I've been thinking a bit about Everything Now and how it was received and weirdly it seems to have a lot of parallels with the Achtung Baby/Zooropa/Pop era of U2, 20 years before it. Well established megastar bands who turned from their extremely heartfelt authentic origins and explored the world of pop and commercialism with varying critical success. Everything Now doesn't feel old fashioned but it's kind of weird they're playing with a lot of the same ideas U2 were in their Pop-Mart era so long ago. Anyway this is one of their best songs ever I think. The disco instrumentation versus the paranoid lyrics is just great, the backing vocals especially.

Discotheque - U2: The vocals in this song are so interesting. There are at times upwards of three Bonos harmonising with each other. It creates an unsettling image of a world overrun with Bonos. I do however love the extremely strangled guitar sound in the breakdown. I sort of wish this song were longer, long as it is, because it really starts to build into something serious by the end but then it just fades out disappointingly.

Violent Shiver - Benjamin Booker: I love Benjamin Booker but he needs to take a lesson from this song and do some hot licks again. He doesn't do hot licks like this in barely any other songs! Benjamin Booker sounds like he's from an alternate timeline where rock n roll stayed black and this is where it's at now.

Dawn Of The Dead - Does It Offend You, Yeah?: Can you imagine naming your band 'Does It Offend You, Yeah?' in 2019? What a time to be alive 2008 was. I absolutely love the steel drums in the prechorus and the bass and 'ooh ah' in the chorus. The production is just so chunky throughout. This whole song is thick.

Golden Skans - Klaxons: Anyway speaking of the heady days of English 'new rave' Golden Skans is a masterpiece. It's also masterfully compact, it's over in 2 and a half minutes. Amazing.

Go Bang - Pnau: I really applaud Pnau for having the audacity to release Chameleon and Go Bang on the same album right after each other when they're essentially the same song. Close enough to be the same song but different enough that you're still completely hyped when either of them come on.

Say You See Why So - Eleventh He Reaches London: I found this extremely serious Perth screamo band a little while ago they're so good i'm surprised I'd never heard of them before. I love the style of just endless new sections on new sections with barely any repetition, it makes you feel crazy which is perfect for this music.

Why Write A Letter That You'll Never Send - The Drones: I don't really know what to say about this song other than imagine literally getting this email verbatim lol.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2: Fully fucked up that one of the best U2 songs only got released on the Batman Forever soundtrack.

Dead Of Night - Orville Peck: I'm so glad Lana Del Rey has been around long enough now that she's inspired a second wave. I absolutely love the whole concept Orville Peck has going, masked gay cowboy is a criminally underexplored genre.

Trip The Mains - Methyl Ethyl: I can't believe Methyl Ethyl are onto their third album already. I love how dancey this is compared to their other stuff, and his voice is still completely blowing my mind.

Strange Days (1999) - Health: I've had the cover for this single as my lock screen for two months now. It's simply very good and such a direct distillation of Health's essence. They've simplified and moved closer to pop ideas on this album and I'm all for it, they sound like Purity Ring if Purity Ring exploded occasionally which sounds very good to me.

Milk Crisis - The Go! Team: I'm racist because I thought for a long time that this song was gibberish but it turns out it's actually just in Japanese.

Cream On Chrome - Ratatat: It's fucking sick that Ratatat have been able to not only survive but thrive for so long making music that sounds like the loading screen of a Dreamcast racing game.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken - The Staple Singers: This is maybe my favourite example of 60s stereo recordings making completely bizarre decisions. The drums and bass in this are panned extremely far left and the guitar far right, which has the nice effect of letting you take out your left headphone and listen to a very beautiful stripped back guitar and vocals only version.

Angel From Montgomery - John Prine: I'm seeing John Prine next week and I'm very excited. He's approximately one million years old and seems to only now be getting the recognition he's deserved for decades.

(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers - Merle Haggard: It's interesting thinking about the parts of American culture that don't really get exported to Australia. We got Johnny Cash and Hank Williams to a lesser extent but I hadn't really heard of Merle Haggard before this year which seems insane now that I've realised just how massive he was.

Debbie - Architecture In Helsinki: I have so much love for this vocal performance. Sitting in a weird half falsetto out of breath and just shrieking your way through it, mwah mwah I'm doing a chef's kiss right now.

Yandere - Yamantaka / / Sonic Titan: It's reassuring that the enthusiastic art nerd mindset of bands like The Red Paintings and The Sound Of Animals Fighting will never truly die. There should be more bands where they all have costumes and multi-movement songs songs telling an inscrutable story and a guy in the band whose whole job is just doing the lights.

Sweetness And Light (For Life Remix) - Itch-E & Scratch-E: My lifelong grudge against Paul Mac for enabling The Dissociatives and various other crimes will always be slightly tempered by how much this one song bangs.

Ontheway! - Earl Sweatshirt: I am such a big fan of this album. All the way through it feels like laying on the floor feels and it's addictive because of it. Every time I listen to it I just want to start it over again and lay the fuck down.

Mistake - Middle Kids: This song made me feel like a record producer in a movie or something when I first heard it because I got about one bar into the chorus and was absolutely smitten. It's just incredible.

Pressure To Party - Julia Jacklin: "I know where you live, I used to live there too" is maybe one of the best ever breakup album lines I've ever heard.

Our Shadows - Deantoni Parks: Deantoni Parks has a huge brain. The thing he does, where he sort of plays live mpc as part of a drumkit could be extremely naff and I'm sure there's a million guys on youtube doing it and making bad music, but he ain't one of them.. His take on it is so completely alien that the human element serves to bring it back to earth, all the disconnect that you would get from someone making a song like this on a laptop is metered out by a physical human body feeling every sound out personally and it's amazing.

Head To Toe In Morocco Leather - Muslimgauze: What's the word for being a weaboo except about the middle east and getting totally radicalised about it but never leaving England? Anyway Muslimgauze rocks and every six months or so I reread his wiki article and listen to his music exclusively for a couple of days before whatever that feeling is wears off again. I have a lot of respect for him but also suspect he may have just been a nut, which I respect as well.

In The Nervous Light Of Sunday - Circle Takes The Square: Very excited that Circle Takes The Square is on spotify now!!!

I'm In It - Kanye West: I heard that when they were recording this there was steam coming out of the horny meter that they have in the studio and then the glass broke on the horny meter and the needle started spinning around and around because the horny levels were so high.

Do Me A Favour - Arctic Monkeys: Alex Turner has two songwriting modes: incredibly tangible story songs and songs where he's just playing word association rhyming games and the craziest thing is both types are good. This is absolutely one of his best of the first kind I think​.

listen here

[cobalt-axolotl]

YES LIKE 60% OF THE TIME I SEE SOMEONE LIKE THAT THAT’S THE FIRST THING THAT POPS INTO MY HEAD LIKE YOU DONT GET HOW HARD IT IS!

u ever see someone with extremely fucked up views (or actions) and think wowww if a couple of things in my life went the tiniest bit differently that would have been me

[theamatuer]

I think about this a lot when it comes to my own perceptions, particularly when I was a lot younger.

Growing up in the Mormon church had a huge impact on how I saw the world, and still does to this day. I used to think civil marriage and drinking coffee were the worst things that could happen to you. I was taught that if you were sexually abused as a child, you may as well kill yourself. My internalized homophobia was never made external toward anyone but myself, but even that was deeply damaging to me and my relationships. I was told I was a Good Person because I was following their little checklist to a tee. I was ready to marry and have children when I was thirteen.

I was deeply devoted to this lifestyle and religion because for a time it was all I ever knew.

I’m not perfect in any way shape or form, but I try and see from other people’s perspectives based on their circumstances, if only because we are all capable of becoming what we scorn.

u ever see someone with extremely fucked up views (or actions) and think wowww if a couple of things in my life went the tiniest bit differently that would have been me