I teach college students from the ages of 18 and over. In my experience, young white men in particular are becoming increasingly conservative. I asked one of my students about it, and he said men of his demographic are constantly targeted with negative media messaging. And not just the media. Many high school teachers are white women who express dislike of whiteness and masculinity. As a result, these young men are withdrawing into social media safe spaces that defend and support masculinity i.e. Jordan Peterson subreddits etc.
They feel that they are being raised in a society that actively dislikes them. They know that there are no affirmative action policies that will help them get jobs so they will have to work even harder than their peers to gain meaningful employment, all the while being told that their ‘privilege’ got them where they were.
A society that turns against its men will eventually turn against its women. We are seeing the apotheosis of this with the transgender movement which seeks to remove separate spaces for women.
Agree – as the west drifts further & further towards feminism and political correctness, their targets become more & more trivial to the point where anyone can see the bigotry against natural maleness. It can’t keep going before boys check out & actually, girls can see it too. The pendulum can only swing so far.
Warren Alexander
3 years ago
If the only thing Panto achieves is to bring children into the theatre, its has achieved plenty.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Whatever…the New York Times lost all credibility some years ago. Like the Guardian, it is staffed by hordes of woke, middle-class Marxists who know nothing about anything, but would happily tear down all our structures and traditions.
Michael Whittock
3 years ago
I hope that the trend towards the right evidenced in Gen-Z continues into the future with Gen-U (0-18 Generation Up and Coming! my definition). This will be key for the future of a right wing voice in our future politics. The possibility of its absence or chronic political failure doesn’t bear thinking about. One reason why I think the Gen-Us will have a right wing slant is because they will have suffered the consequences of the moral and spiritual destruction of the last 40 years. They will have suffered from the breakdown in family life, the twisted dogmas of identity politics and the spiritual emptiness of our nation’s turning its back on God revealed in Jesus Christ. As the miners used to say they were going to ensure their sons didn’t go down the pit to endure what they did, so the Gen-Us will say they aren’t going to let their children go through the traumas,heart-break and inner desolation they went through and so will be glad to embrace a better way-and there is a far better way. The Gen-Us will deserve vehicles by which this better way can be communicated. They will deserve a much revived and reformed Church and there are hopeful signs. They will also deserve a political party which is intellectually and morally equipped to repeal the wrong-headed laws produced by identity politics which are destructive of the individual and common good, and introduce legislation to restore justice and sane, healthy and settled individual and national life. I don’t think the Conservative Party is capable of such an effort. It cannot be trusted because its liberal wing is prone to support “woke” policies. For instance they,with Labour,have done much harm in undermining Christian Marriage and family life, not least in its gratuitous introduction of gay marriage. There is,I believe, a great need for an articulate, persuasive, authentically right wing party with respected and charismatic leaders who could form a government. How about a government with Douglas Murray as Prime Minister, Peter Hitchens as Foreign Secretary, Melanie Phillips as Home Secretary and Jordan Peterson as Secretary of State for Education with special responsibility to reduce and reform our universities?
david bewick
3 years ago
Gen Z in the USA are thought to have contributed to the election of the current president. The thought that Gen Z are more conservative than millenials has been recognised for some time.
Andrew Baldwin
3 years ago
A sample of one is not representative of anything, but my 16-year-old stepson shows no signs of embracing the right, quite the opposite. He attends a public high school in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in the arts (he is a drama major). His teachers are all quite charming, but they appear to be inculcating him with centre-left or left tout court sentiments. In a sense it may not matter as he takes little interest in politics, although he was upset about the death of George Floyd. He has a good heart. It is, or at least it was, deflating when I went on one of my right wing rants that he would never pay attention, or worry about my mental or physical health. Now I don’t even try_well_almost never. He is aware of Jordan Peterson, but takes no interest in watching any of his videos. Again, I think his teachers have put him off of it. He is very religious, but he isn’t at all interested in watching any of Peterson’s highly regarded videos interpreting the Bible, which I would have thought would interest him intensely. (I haven’t seen them either.) According to Eric, things are better in the UK. I hope that’s true. Maybe Jordan Peterson will be a hero to UK youth, if not to Canadian youth. One thing you learn in the Bible is that no prophet is without honour except in his own country.
Red Reynard
3 years ago
Ah, the joy of Panto. In what other environment could a young LAC, with the help of a marigold glove and a Jiff lemon, wizz over the Station Commander and other ‘scrambled eggs’ whilst playing the rear-end of a camel (‘Aladdin’ RAF St. Athan 1980). That epitomises the riotous possibilities that Panto offers. It is a blend of professional rigour and improvised anarchy…. Mind you, the Zobs backstage visit afterwards was a little tense.
Michael McVeigh
3 years ago
It’s hard to disagree with much of what Hayes says in this article, which would indicate that those on the Right will have no meaningful voice on the major social networks. That situation cannot and should not prevail. The answer, has to lie with the Judiciary whom we entrust, as the independent and third leg of our rulers, to settle matters of conflict. Eventually, whether by government law or another way around, a social network will find itself answering for its censoriousness and a return to the left/right balance which has elevated the west will ensue. Anything else risks the Right without a voice & that will eventually be very, very ugly.
Well said. I just wonder though – can the judiciary effectively police biased censorship on social media? And if we legislate to take away social media’s privilege of freedom from publishers’ responsibility for defamation and “hate speech”, will it not kill any discourse? A tricky one.
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
Interesting. I have for awhile now been exploring the categories of free speech (which seeks to enlighten), unfree speech (which seeks to disenlighten) and hate speech (which seeks to denigrate free speech).
But as you point out, the category of unfree speech, that is, “legal but harmful speech”, can be manipulated to curb free speech. Clearly this would not happen in a country like Britain unless Woke Eugenists got into power, but I appreciate that your endeavour is an international one.
My feeling as I read on was that ‘intent’ could be isolated as the determining factor to establish guilt or innocence but again that could be twisted to align with an authoritarian agenda.
So, the right to information? But how does that reduce harmful speech beyond the obvious harms of disinformation. This was a conundrum I tried to resolve with the Electoral Commission during the run up to the EU referendum whereby I complained about disengenious information and the disinformation being propogated by remain campaign groups.
They effectively told me, ‘buyers beware’ and essentially it is up to the citizen to do their own research. Thus, spin, manipulation, logical fallacies and sophistry are all fair game within our own domestic politics but these same things on an international stage are not.
Therefore, whilst the Right to Information and the ability to access the source of that information is certainly a relevant approach regarding cyber warfare, how are we to deal with harmful speech that also seeks to disinform and abuse internet users.
The pursuit of Truth pops into my mind and the cultivation of a moral environment that puts integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty back into the public moral realm.
It seems to me that the Rights framework only takes us so far but without rights being dependent on responsibility, then rights easily take on a binary characteristic which is why they can be so easily manipulated.
So for example, if an Internet duty of care is based on the responsibility of pursuing the Truth which is achieved by the underlying responsibilities of integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty, then these four Virtues alone circumscribe exactly what needs to be done.
In thinking/feeling this, I am now more convinced that as we reach a peak rights environment in which rights have now become hacked, twisted and corrupted, we now need to shift to the terrain of responsibilities.
Perhaps this is the way forward for Global Britain. A global proponent of Responsibility. For example, We have a responsibility to create a sustainable, sufficient and resilient environment in which we pursue the Truth with integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty. That should see the Authoritarians off 😊
Deirdre Boyd
3 years ago
The old saying: “Children rebel against their parents so much that they end up like their grandparents”.
Indeed, I’m no biologist but I remember reading something (and being convinced by it at the time) about how kids really are more like their grand parents than their parents, at a biological level.
Dave Weeden
3 years ago
👠Applause
Rob In Germany
3 years ago
The issue facing many of those alt right figures is they failed to build up a deep support base, usually via a mailing list. Lesson for next alt right wanna be is that FB gives and FB takes away.
David Waring
3 years ago
Interesting so few comment here? Now why I wonder is that?
johntshea2
3 years ago
Mr. Haynes refers twice in succeeding paragraphs to “The foreseeable future”. Both times he refers to a future of Left-Wing censorship HE foresees. Luckily, others foresee different futures, not least other Unherd writers, some of whose article links are interspersed in this article.
Meanwhile, can anyone actually get Parler’s crazy password system to work? I suspect it was designed by a Communist infiltrator…
Penelope Newsome
3 years ago
A rather deprecating position to take . Parler should be encouraged and it need not be just a vehicle for the Right.
My problem with it is that it’s so difficult to sign up to that I haven;t succeeded yet. They should get their technology sorted out or they’ll lose people like me who really do want to be on to hear Katie, Tommy and the rest.
Jeffrey Shaw
3 years ago
Is “Gavin Haynes” a pen-name used by Meghan Markle?
Sharon Overy
3 years ago
Frankly, the New York Times (a former newspaper) has had something of a hate-b***r for the UK for some while now. It publishes, with fair regularity, articles knocking and mocking this country in the most bizarre ways. I seem to remember a claim that we all eat boiled mutton every day and similar suggestions that we’re hopelessly backwards and primitive.
I doubt they actually have a real opinion on panto, I expect most of them don’t even know what it is, it’s just the latest excuse to have a dig. They’ve never forgiven us for voting for Brexit and think we’re somehow culpable for America electing Donald Trump, or as the NYT thinks of it, The Apocalypse.
Robin Lambert
3 years ago
Although I have stood as Independent in Last Two Local Elections(2018,2019) and last three General Elections 2015,2017,2019 .Rising taxes (With Covid SARS2 costs to Come in years ..) likelihood is Youth Lose certain Inaccurate concerns like ”Climate change” hysteria ..Some I agree with Stop HS2, Destruction of ”Green belt” Animal welfare etc..The MAIN concern is the way 24/7 Media stifles debate(illegal immigration,Overpopulation)) and gives traction to certain hysterias ;rather What is relevant to 18-30s lives ..Good luck to next Generations you will need it .
johntshea2
3 years ago
“The latter counsels patience: history is on the Left’s side, and, with generational turnover, demography will carry it to victory. On this score, Biden’s strong poll numbers might be a harbinger of Left-liberal resurgence.”
But hasn’t history ALWAYS been on the Left’s side? Or so we’ve been told for a century or more. And Joe Biden’s poll numbers are indeed strong, but no stronger than Hilary Clinton’s at this point in 2016.
As for the graphs, Figure 1 shows 59% of under-25s voted Labour in 2019, down 6% from 2017 and 2% from 1966. In 1970 only 32% of under-25s voted Labour, almost halving their vote in four years! Yet the UK voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18 in 1969. Did the new teen voters ALL vote Conservative in 1970? Unlikely.
I teach college students from the ages of 18 and over. In my experience, young white men in particular are becoming increasingly conservative. I asked one of my students about it, and he said men of his demographic are constantly targeted with negative media messaging. And not just the media. Many high school teachers are white women who express dislike of whiteness and masculinity. As a result, these young men are withdrawing into social media safe spaces that defend and support masculinity i.e. Jordan Peterson subreddits etc.
They feel that they are being raised in a society that actively dislikes them. They know that there are no affirmative action policies that will help them get jobs so they will have to work even harder than their peers to gain meaningful employment, all the while being told that their ‘privilege’ got them where they were.
A society that turns against its men will eventually turn against its women. We are seeing the apotheosis of this with the transgender movement which seeks to remove separate spaces for women.
Agree – as the west drifts further & further towards feminism and political correctness, their targets become more & more trivial to the point where anyone can see the bigotry against natural maleness. It can’t keep going before boys check out & actually, girls can see it too. The pendulum can only swing so far.
If the only thing Panto achieves is to bring children into the theatre, its has achieved plenty.
Whatever…the New York Times lost all credibility some years ago. Like the Guardian, it is staffed by hordes of woke, middle-class Marxists who know nothing about anything, but would happily tear down all our structures and traditions.
I hope that the trend towards the right evidenced in Gen-Z continues into the future with Gen-U (0-18 Generation Up and Coming! my definition). This will be key for the future of a right wing voice in our future politics. The possibility of its absence or chronic political failure doesn’t bear thinking about.
One reason why I think the Gen-Us will have a right wing slant is because they will have suffered the consequences of the moral and spiritual destruction of the last 40 years. They will have suffered from the breakdown in family life, the twisted dogmas of identity politics and the spiritual emptiness of our nation’s turning its back on God revealed in Jesus Christ. As the miners used to say they were going to ensure their sons didn’t go down the pit to endure what they did, so the Gen-Us will say they aren’t going to let their children go through the traumas,heart-break and inner desolation they went through and so will be glad to embrace a better way-and there is a far better way.
The Gen-Us will deserve vehicles by which this better way can be communicated. They will deserve a much revived and reformed Church and there are hopeful signs. They will also deserve a political party which is intellectually and morally equipped to repeal the wrong-headed laws produced by identity politics which are destructive of the individual and common good, and introduce legislation to restore justice and sane, healthy and settled individual and national life.
I don’t think the Conservative Party is capable of such an effort. It cannot be trusted because its liberal wing is prone to support “woke” policies. For instance they,with Labour,have done much harm in undermining Christian Marriage and family life, not least in its gratuitous introduction of gay marriage.
There is,I believe, a great need for an articulate, persuasive, authentically right wing party with respected and charismatic leaders who could form a government. How about a government with Douglas Murray as Prime Minister, Peter Hitchens as Foreign Secretary, Melanie Phillips as Home Secretary and Jordan Peterson as Secretary of State for Education with special responsibility to reduce and reform our universities?
Gen Z in the USA are thought to have contributed to the election of the current president. The thought that Gen Z are more conservative than millenials has been recognised for some time.
A sample of one is not representative of anything, but my 16-year-old stepson shows no signs of embracing the right, quite the opposite. He attends a public high school in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in the arts (he is a drama major). His teachers are all quite charming, but they appear to be inculcating him with centre-left or left tout court sentiments. In a sense it may not matter as he takes little interest in politics, although he was upset about the death of George Floyd. He has a good heart. It is, or at least it was, deflating when I went on one of my right wing rants that he would never pay attention, or worry about my mental or physical health. Now I don’t even try_well_almost never. He is aware of Jordan Peterson, but takes no interest in watching any of his videos. Again, I think his teachers have put him off of it. He is very religious, but he isn’t at all interested in watching any of Peterson’s highly regarded videos interpreting the Bible, which I would have thought would interest him intensely. (I haven’t seen them either.) According to Eric, things are better in the UK. I hope that’s true. Maybe Jordan Peterson will be a hero to UK youth, if not to Canadian youth. One thing you learn in the Bible is that no prophet is without honour except in his own country.
Ah, the joy of Panto. In what other environment could a young LAC, with the help of a marigold glove and a Jiff lemon, wizz over the Station Commander and other ‘scrambled eggs’ whilst playing the rear-end of a camel (‘Aladdin’ RAF St. Athan 1980). That epitomises the riotous possibilities that Panto offers. It is a blend of professional rigour and improvised anarchy…. Mind you, the Zobs backstage visit afterwards was a little tense.
It’s hard to disagree with much of what Hayes says in this article, which would indicate that those on the Right will have no meaningful voice on the major social networks. That situation cannot and should not prevail.
The answer, has to lie with the Judiciary whom we entrust, as the independent and third leg of our rulers, to settle matters of conflict. Eventually, whether by government law or another way around, a social network will find itself answering for its censoriousness and a return to the left/right balance which has elevated the west will ensue.
Anything else risks the Right without a voice & that will eventually be very, very ugly.
Well said. I just wonder though – can the judiciary effectively police biased censorship on social media? And if we legislate to take away social media’s privilege of freedom from publishers’ responsibility for defamation and “hate speech”, will it not kill any discourse? A tricky one.
Interesting. I have for awhile now been exploring the categories of free speech (which seeks to enlighten), unfree speech (which seeks to disenlighten) and hate speech (which seeks to denigrate free speech).
But as you point out, the category of unfree speech, that is, “legal but harmful speech”, can be manipulated to curb free speech. Clearly this would not happen in a country like Britain unless Woke Eugenists got into power, but I appreciate that your endeavour is an international one.
My feeling as I read on was that ‘intent’ could be isolated as the determining factor to establish guilt or innocence but again that could be twisted to align with an authoritarian agenda.
So, the right to information? But how does that reduce harmful speech beyond the obvious harms of disinformation. This was a conundrum I tried to resolve with the Electoral Commission during the run up to the EU referendum whereby I complained about disengenious information and the disinformation being propogated by remain campaign groups.
They effectively told me, ‘buyers beware’ and essentially it is up to the citizen to do their own research. Thus, spin, manipulation, logical fallacies and sophistry are all fair game within our own domestic politics but these same things on an international stage are not.
Therefore, whilst the Right to Information and the ability to access the source of that information is certainly a relevant approach regarding cyber warfare, how are we to deal with harmful speech that also seeks to disinform and abuse internet users.
The pursuit of Truth pops into my mind and the cultivation of a moral environment that puts integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty back into the public moral realm.
It seems to me that the Rights framework only takes us so far but without rights being dependent on responsibility, then rights easily take on a binary characteristic which is why they can be so easily manipulated.
So for example, if an Internet duty of care is based on the responsibility of pursuing the Truth which is achieved by the underlying responsibilities of integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty, then these four Virtues alone circumscribe exactly what needs to be done.
In thinking/feeling this, I am now more convinced that as we reach a peak rights environment in which rights have now become hacked, twisted and corrupted, we now need to shift to the terrain of responsibilities.
Perhaps this is the way forward for Global Britain. A global proponent of Responsibility. For example, We have a responsibility to create a sustainable, sufficient and resilient environment in which we pursue the Truth with integrity, accountability, transparency and honesty. That should see the Authoritarians off 😊
The old saying: “Children rebel against their parents so much that they end up like their grandparents”.
Indeed, I’m no biologist but I remember reading something (and being convinced by it at the time) about how kids really are more like their grand parents than their parents, at a biological level.
👠Applause
The issue facing many of those alt right figures is they failed to build up a deep support base, usually via a mailing list. Lesson for next alt right wanna be is that FB gives and FB takes away.
Interesting so few comment here? Now why I wonder is that?
Mr. Haynes refers twice in succeeding paragraphs to “The foreseeable future”. Both times he refers to a future of Left-Wing censorship HE foresees. Luckily, others foresee different futures, not least other Unherd writers, some of whose article links are interspersed in this article.
Meanwhile, can anyone actually get Parler’s crazy password system to work? I suspect it was designed by a Communist infiltrator…
A rather deprecating position to take . Parler should be encouraged and it need not be just a vehicle for the Right.
My problem with it is that it’s so difficult to sign up to that I haven;t succeeded yet. They should get their technology sorted out or they’ll lose people like me who really do want to be on to hear Katie, Tommy and the rest.
Is “Gavin Haynes” a pen-name used by Meghan Markle?
Frankly, the New York Times (a former newspaper) has had something of a hate-b***r for the UK for some while now. It publishes, with fair regularity, articles knocking and mocking this country in the most bizarre ways. I seem to remember a claim that we all eat boiled mutton every day and similar suggestions that we’re hopelessly backwards and primitive.
I doubt they actually have a real opinion on panto, I expect most of them don’t even know what it is, it’s just the latest excuse to have a dig. They’ve never forgiven us for voting for Brexit and think we’re somehow culpable for America electing Donald Trump, or as the NYT thinks of it, The Apocalypse.
Although I have stood as Independent in Last Two Local Elections(2018,2019) and last three General Elections 2015,2017,2019 .Rising taxes (With Covid SARS2 costs to Come in years ..) likelihood is Youth Lose certain Inaccurate concerns like ”Climate change” hysteria ..Some I agree with Stop HS2, Destruction of ”Green belt” Animal welfare etc..The MAIN concern is the way 24/7 Media stifles debate(illegal immigration,Overpopulation)) and gives traction to certain hysterias ;rather What is relevant to 18-30s lives ..Good luck to next Generations you will need it .
“The latter counsels patience: history is on the Left’s side, and, with generational turnover, demography will carry it to victory. On this score, Biden’s strong poll numbers might be a harbinger of Left-liberal resurgence.”
But hasn’t history ALWAYS been on the Left’s side? Or so we’ve been told for a century or more. And Joe Biden’s poll numbers are indeed strong, but no stronger than Hilary Clinton’s at this point in 2016.
As for the graphs, Figure 1 shows 59% of under-25s voted Labour in 2019, down 6% from 2017 and 2% from 1966. In 1970 only 32% of under-25s voted Labour, almost halving their vote in four years! Yet the UK voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18 in 1969. Did the new teen voters ALL vote Conservative in 1970? Unlikely.