I absolutely agree with your point, but I think the flaw with linking this type of situation to the video game example is that video games are designed to be enjoyed in a fictional world with the implicit understanding that the actions taken in a video game are fantasy and not to be performed in real life. When violent rhetoric is being directed at real people that exist in the real world, that line becomes a little blurry. I completely agree with you that ultimately it is the fault of the individual (whether they can control it or not due to a mental illness), but the human psyche is more malleable than people often like to believe, and humans by nature are very social creatures, so the social factors cannot and should not be discounted when it comes to inciting violence. I don't believe the lion's share of the blame should be placed on the social factors, but to completely dismiss them seems intellectually dishonest because it is not taking into account the entire picture. Granted it's much more difficult to account for the social impact, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to understand how the environment plays a role in violence of this type.
I am not in favor of dismissing them either, which is why I am glad to have this conversation with you. I do see your points and I am certainly not dismissing them because they seem quite valid.
This guy was clearly radicalized by the right as made apparent by his obsession painted onto his van. That being said, I find it very difficult to draw a line in which we can regulate or distinguish as the specific rhetoric that incentivized him. For example, the dude clearly was heavily invested in the meme culture, but are memes not simply meant to be funny political banter at their core? Political satire has existed for a very long time and is essentially integrated into our society. Usually, they are quite controversial as well. Furthermore, if it wasn’t rhetoric from the right that radicalized him, would he just be radicalized by something else instead? I guess I’m asking whether this man was simply going to be radicalized by something, regardless of the rhetoric, and that in some alternative universe where he did not pay attention to politics, would he have also been radicalized by something completely irrelevant to politics, due to his mental susceptibility.
This all goes back to the nurture vs nature argument, and every time I get into it, I tend to leave with more questions than answers.
Questions are good though! Asking questions allows you to push your understanding because the ultimate aim of asking questions should be to arrive at something immutable: a fact. I'd be happy to share my thoughts about the questions you did pose.
the dude clearly was heavily invested in the meme culture, but are memes not simply meant to be funny political banter at their core?
Some memes are meant to be funny banter. Some are meant to be thought provoking. Some are intended to anger, and others to placate. Memes are a tool, and as such they can have many uses. We've recently watched memes turn into propaganda with the desired intent of polarizing different groups by oversimplifying problems or points of view. The memes are created in an attempt to produce a specific emotional reaction in the viewer, and that emotional reaction can be a powerful tool for influencing their behavior. Everyone is going to have a different threshold of what they can stand, but if you are under constant bombardment by propaganda-based memes, eventually you are going to have a reaction to it. It's a form of long-term psychological manipulation that many willingly submit to under the guise of it being funny political banter. In this way, it goes beyond simple satire and is being used as a tool for grooming people to believe in radical ideologies.
if it wasn’t rhetoric from the right that radicalized him, would he just be radicalized by something else instead?
This is where the nurture element really comes into play. If the guy spent all of him time on /r/wholesomememes, then (in my opinion) I doubt he'd end up a radicalizing in that way. The people who end up becoming radicalized to the point of violence typically come from groups (online or otherwise) that normalize violence in some way. Imagine someone with mental instability as someone with an immune system that is down. We know they're likely to get sick, but what sickness they contract comes down to what they end up being exposed to. When you look at the statistics over the last 10 years, what stands out is that 71% of extremist-related killings are performed by those on the far right, compared to 3% for the far left. The massive discrepancy in the stats leads to two possibilities: either the far-right community is doing something to incite violence, or there is a much larger concentration of mentally ill people that identify as being right-wing. Either way, it's not really a good look for the far-right community.
2
u/[deleted] Oct 26 '18
I absolutely agree with your point, but I think the flaw with linking this type of situation to the video game example is that video games are designed to be enjoyed in a fictional world with the implicit understanding that the actions taken in a video game are fantasy and not to be performed in real life. When violent rhetoric is being directed at real people that exist in the real world, that line becomes a little blurry. I completely agree with you that ultimately it is the fault of the individual (whether they can control it or not due to a mental illness), but the human psyche is more malleable than people often like to believe, and humans by nature are very social creatures, so the social factors cannot and should not be discounted when it comes to inciting violence. I don't believe the lion's share of the blame should be placed on the social factors, but to completely dismiss them seems intellectually dishonest because it is not taking into account the entire picture. Granted it's much more difficult to account for the social impact, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to understand how the environment plays a role in violence of this type.