I take huge issue that someone who once had extreme beliefs must ‘repent’ in public, especially in view of the quite vicious media. Really, if no criminal acts are commited – it’s none of our business what a stranger believes in. I’ve encountered many former far-right extremists who are so desperate for redemption, that they embark on a foolish quest for suffering. This means aligning with ‘progressive’ causes and making public apologies. It’s sad and won’t help them. There’s more to an individual than politics.
I believe in redemption. But it’s not found in having the ‘correct’ views. Honestly, the man in this article should stop seeking forgiveness from such a vile society, which probably calls him an ‘incel’ and cries at his ‘male tears.’ Live a life that you are proud of. That’s enough.
I’ve always found ridiculing the tears of men and/or white people repulsive. However, I did once accuse a member of my church of crying “church lady tears” because she lost an argument with me over whether or not we should allow homeless women to sleep in the church (I was for, she was against). I still feel a little guilty about that.
Why wouldn’t it be appropriate for someone who expresses those extreme views, in public, to ‘repent’ in public? Nowadays everyone has to do everything ‘in public’: why not repenting?
Last edited 1 year ago by Nona Yubiz
Christopher Chantrill
2 years ago
Anyone else notice the oozing educated-class condescension in this article?
And anyone else feel that the problem is not the various extremists (the book blurb includes three others from probably lefty revolutionary to probably Muslim fanatic to Aussie Antifa) but maybe the outright injustice arising out of the 150-year-old rule of the educated class? Of which the educated class is utterly unaware?
In the Allyship narrative you are either a helpless “oppressed people” or a “white oppressor” or a noble “ally.”
When the educated pooh-bahs marginalize you as a “white oppressor” what are you supposed to do? And if you say “yes sire, please sir,” and you still can’t get a job?
The guy was blowing his own eardrums out with his intensity at a white supremacist rally featuring–among other lovable groups expressing pride in their heritage–the KKK. As in lynching, burning, raping, murdering Black men and women KKK. Truly vile. And you’re bothered by the tone of the article?
Last edited 1 year ago by Nona Yubiz
Penny Adrian
2 years ago
I find it incredibly ironic that the same people who slander me as a “carceral feminist” for wanting rapists, child molesters, and batterers imprisoned for longer periods of time are fine with forcing an idiot in his 20’s (who committed NO violent crimes) to serve a life sentence for once having joined a racist cult.
Forgiveness is for child molesters & rapists, but not for people who once held toxic political views.
This is what happens when words are confused with “literal violence”.
You are contributing to the problem by calling it a “cult” and labeling the view “toxic.”
Remember the views white identitarians espouse were normal views until fifty years ago at most, back when we punished sex offenders more harshly I might add.
If you want to call them “antiquated” or “misguided” then fine, but the performative denunciation plays right into the hands of the left.
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
I’m sure the author thinks of herself as incredibly sensitive, what with “genuinely trying to understand” what she is actually trying to pass off as “the right”, but she has obviously learned nothing about that side of the political aisle. There is no respect shown in this article for conservative positions. She would do well to accept that Cytanovic’s treatment since returning to America is the sole and direct result of the political and social philosophy of the left, and is absolutely in line with the outlook of people of the left. Perhaps for her next book, she might address that.
Agreed. This article falls into the common journalistic trap of equating common (not even particularly conservative) views with Nazis. This is a perfect example:
“he can swing from showing genuine awareness that his past views were racist, to defensive outbursts on issues like migration.”
The vast majority of people who want greater border enforcement and serious consequences for hiring illegals aren’t Nazis or white nationalists at all. They’re working class people tired of competing against illegal immigrants for jobs. Often legal immigrants are the most concerned about illegal immigration. This is hardly surprising.
There are lots of conservatives. There are a few true Nazis. They effectively hold no serious power in American politics. They are the racist uncle whose rantings you begrudgingly put up at Thanksgiving.
There is only one mainstream group in American politics that believes in racial essentialism, that race is the defining and most important feature of every human. That group is progressive Democrats.
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago
I thought Unherd was going to be less… herdlike. The articles are fine. But the comments. Whoah. If I read one more comment that uses the term “The Left”… well, suffice it to say that if I wanted to read a lot of bad argumentation and defensive posturing, I’d stick to Twitter.
Nona Yubiz
1 year ago
I thought Unherd was going to be less… herdlike. The articles are fine. But the comments. Whoah. If I read one more comment that uses the term “The Left”… well, suffice it to say that if I wanted to read a lot of bad argumentation and defensive posturing, I’d stick to Twitter.
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
racist views: the deportation of migrants and the creation of a white-only state
But wanting black only states is fine. How many whites are in top ,positions, eg Presidents, in black Africa?
Abi Caffrey
1 year ago
This isn’t an issue of right or left and I get so irritated when this kind of thing is used to political point score. Im a socialist and utterly conscribe to the values of forgiveness and redemption.
Cytanovic and for that matter, Beghum were young and vulnerable. As a middle aged women, Im eternally grateful I’ve been able to grow into my identity and not been frozen in time, tied to the idiocy of my youth.
Lack of forgiveness says far more about the vitriolic nature of the human race than it does about anybody’s politics.
R Wright
2 years ago
The real problem is that card carrying communists are given tenure while people like this are denied even basic employment. He doesn’t have to repent for his political views at all just because the liberal intelligentsia despises him and the overton window is in one direction only. I’d wager many of his socially conservative views which the author hopes to weed out of him are held by the majority of the U.S population. If I was in his position I’d never have bothered ‘repenting’at all, because with friends like these, who needs enemies?
Bill (we didn’t set enough bombs) Ayers, leader in the Weather Underground, which set bombs and murdered people, employed as a professor at the University of Chicago, is honored by the left. McVeigh properly was executed. Ayers skated. Ain’t equal justice under the law wonderful
Name me one single “card-carrying communist” in the United States today. Seriously: I’m curious. Haven’t heard of any communist activity in this country for many years.
Last edited 1 year ago by Nona Yubiz
Bronwen Saunders
2 years ago
“…to defensive outbursts on issues like migration” – did he call for restrictions on immigration perhaps? What a monster! And were those “derogatory remarks about trans people” genuinely abusive or simply statements of fact – that men remain men, even if they wear dresses and lipstick? I struggle to find anything truly abominable in this young man’s CV. As far as I can tell, he did not burn down someone else’s business, loot the local store, peddle drugs or demand that other people go down on their knees to him; and compared to what thousands of teachers, lawmakers and medical practitioners are currently doing to children in the name of “trans rights”, his own wrong-doings seem trivial.
Stuart Noel
2 years ago
Funny, isn’t it, that right wing extremists are wrong in the head and in need of deprogramming, yet left wing extremists are ushered into positions of power and influence. This guy can barely get a job, yet lunatics whose political views are rejected by 80% of the population are put in charge of educating peoples’ children.
“content on YouTube”; “down rabbit holes”; “amplified and distorted”; “social media algorithms”; “offering up ever more”: all underscored by “increasing amounts of time”.
That’s the screen life today for you. TV entertainment back in the old days, however, probably constituted more of a, … I was going to say threat, … a mollifying exercise on extremists of any sphere, and would-be extremists. I mean, surely, young and extremist people today, from both west and east, north and south, if you will, may well have all enjoyed watching The Simpsons on TV in the 1990s. When they was even younger! And that was before entertainment became content, rabbit holes and the lot. The cheerful offerings on a big screen eventually became amplified through and distorted by the ever more of choice, choice, choice – leading to the extreme amount of frowning and squinting as ridiculously tiny tyrannical screens began in earnest to hook the young into looking down and looking aloof. The algorithms took over the entertainments. Frivolity, despair and anger lurk just beneath the high jinks snippets that the new diversions coming and piling onto a tiny screen near you deliver to the youth of today.
It’s not music therapy. It’s not art therapy. How come you never, never hear of these simple therapies for all those in need of official de-radicalisation programmes? Are those activities beyond the interests of those whose “religious frameworks” would rebuff such kindly gestures? If someone is described as having a “religious framework”, is that not just another way of saying that that person has their very own moral outlook? And is not having your very own idea of morals a ray of light? A ray of light that may be hard to discern amidst all the dazzling rays of Reno and Vegas, say? Even the Russians and Chinese, as if to maintain their sanity, revel in the great classical music traditions of the West.
But people’s morals these days may be crushed by the perils of the latest technologies and gadgets. The poorest suffer most, in my view. Especially the very young who must contend with possibly being in a broken family, too. There might be no reprieve now: no outlet away from all the “outlets” stalking our daily lives.
Outlets used to be called newspapers. Content used to be called entertainment.
Rabbit holes used to be called TV channels.
Algorithms used to be called flicking the channels.
Amplified and distorted used to be encountered when told “do not adjust your set”.
“Offering up ever more” used to be a brand new channel – or a flourish at the end of a show.
I blame the technologists and engineers for this disastrous slide into identity and fractious politics: when screens were bigger, the entertainment was grander, and the people were in tune, whether born and bred or newcomer from distant shores. Um, yes, as I write this on a device designed by said technologist.
But you get my drift at how far we have drifted. All you have to read is the miserable language and phrasings we unwittingly adopt today.
Harry Child
1 year ago
Why is always the right wing that gets this sort of treatment in this paper. It is the vile indoctrination of the left wing extreme views that invade universities, public services and some of the news media -BBC Guardian etc that has done the most damage. The attitude that everyone is a victim and has justified grievances diminish the ability to stand up to life challenges
Elizabeth dSJ
1 year ago
The virulent, oppressive bigots, who seek to demean and destroy people’s lives are not the white identitarians, but the ‘anti-racists.’
Of course show me an ‘anti-racist’ and I will show you a racist, because I guarantee they have different moral standards for white people and non-whites.
And a lot of whites ‘normies’ get caught up in that obsessive, performative hatred of a tiny fringe because they know to be perceived as racist is to invite limitless persecution.
Drahcir Nevarc
1 year ago
“He gets agitated when he feels like his socially conservative beliefs are under attack, or when they are equated with the views of the neo-Nazis”
… which is entirely justified.
Drahcir Nevarc
1 year ago
There is an obvious analogous question regarding how we should treat repentant Black Lives Matter fascists and gender headbangers.
I take huge issue that someone who once had extreme beliefs must ‘repent’ in public, especially in view of the quite vicious media. Really, if no criminal acts are commited – it’s none of our business what a stranger believes in. I’ve encountered many former far-right extremists who are so desperate for redemption, that they embark on a foolish quest for suffering. This means aligning with ‘progressive’ causes and making public apologies. It’s sad and won’t help them. There’s more to an individual than politics.
I believe in redemption. But it’s not found in having the ‘correct’ views. Honestly, the man in this article should stop seeking forgiveness from such a vile society, which probably calls him an ‘incel’ and cries at his ‘male tears.’ Live a life that you are proud of. That’s enough.
I’ve always found ridiculing the tears of men and/or white people repulsive. However, I did once accuse a member of my church of crying “church lady tears” because she lost an argument with me over whether or not we should allow homeless women to sleep in the church (I was for, she was against). I still feel a little guilty about that.
Have an upvote, although I can’t help liking the idea of former wokists repenting for their extremism and racism.
Why wouldn’t it be appropriate for someone who expresses those extreme views, in public, to ‘repent’ in public? Nowadays everyone has to do everything ‘in public’: why not repenting?
Anyone else notice the oozing educated-class condescension in this article?
And anyone else feel that the problem is not the various extremists (the book blurb includes three others from probably lefty revolutionary to probably Muslim fanatic to Aussie Antifa) but maybe the outright injustice arising out of the 150-year-old rule of the educated class? Of which the educated class is utterly unaware?
In the Allyship narrative you are either a helpless “oppressed people” or a “white oppressor” or a noble “ally.”
When the educated pooh-bahs marginalize you as a “white oppressor” what are you supposed to do? And if you say “yes sire, please sir,” and you still can’t get a job?
Agreed. We do not give a toss whether the author and her fellow traveller forgive us. We certainly are not forgiving them.
The guy was blowing his own eardrums out with his intensity at a white supremacist rally featuring–among other lovable groups expressing pride in their heritage–the KKK. As in lynching, burning, raping, murdering Black men and women KKK. Truly vile. And you’re bothered by the tone of the article?
I find it incredibly ironic that the same people who slander me as a “carceral feminist” for wanting rapists, child molesters, and batterers imprisoned for longer periods of time are fine with forcing an idiot in his 20’s (who committed NO violent crimes) to serve a life sentence for once having joined a racist cult.
Forgiveness is for child molesters & rapists, but not for people who once held toxic political views.
This is what happens when words are confused with “literal violence”.
You are contributing to the problem by calling it a “cult” and labeling the view “toxic.”
Remember the views white identitarians espouse were normal views until fifty years ago at most, back when we punished sex offenders more harshly I might add.
If you want to call them “antiquated” or “misguided” then fine, but the performative denunciation plays right into the hands of the left.
I’m sure the author thinks of herself as incredibly sensitive, what with “genuinely trying to understand” what she is actually trying to pass off as “the right”, but she has obviously learned nothing about that side of the political aisle. There is no respect shown in this article for conservative positions. She would do well to accept that Cytanovic’s treatment since returning to America is the sole and direct result of the political and social philosophy of the left, and is absolutely in line with the outlook of people of the left. Perhaps for her next book, she might address that.
Agreed. This article falls into the common journalistic trap of equating common (not even particularly conservative) views with Nazis. This is a perfect example:
“he can swing from showing genuine awareness that his past views were racist, to defensive outbursts on issues like migration.”
The vast majority of people who want greater border enforcement and serious consequences for hiring illegals aren’t Nazis or white nationalists at all. They’re working class people tired of competing against illegal immigrants for jobs. Often legal immigrants are the most concerned about illegal immigration. This is hardly surprising.
There are lots of conservatives. There are a few true Nazis. They effectively hold no serious power in American politics. They are the racist uncle whose rantings you begrudgingly put up at Thanksgiving.
There is only one mainstream group in American politics that believes in racial essentialism, that race is the defining and most important feature of every human. That group is progressive Democrats.
I thought Unherd was going to be less… herdlike. The articles are fine. But the comments. Whoah. If I read one more comment that uses the term “The Left”… well, suffice it to say that if I wanted to read a lot of bad argumentation and defensive posturing, I’d stick to Twitter.
I thought Unherd was going to be less… herdlike. The articles are fine. But the comments. Whoah. If I read one more comment that uses the term “The Left”… well, suffice it to say that if I wanted to read a lot of bad argumentation and defensive posturing, I’d stick to Twitter.
Only one of those positions is racist.
But wanting black only states is fine. How many whites are in top ,positions, eg Presidents, in black Africa?
This isn’t an issue of right or left and I get so irritated when this kind of thing is used to political point score. Im a socialist and utterly conscribe to the values of forgiveness and redemption.
Cytanovic and for that matter, Beghum were young and vulnerable. As a middle aged women, Im eternally grateful I’ve been able to grow into my identity and not been frozen in time, tied to the idiocy of my youth.
Lack of forgiveness says far more about the vitriolic nature of the human race than it does about anybody’s politics.
The real problem is that card carrying communists are given tenure while people like this are denied even basic employment. He doesn’t have to repent for his political views at all just because the liberal intelligentsia despises him and the overton window is in one direction only. I’d wager many of his socially conservative views which the author hopes to weed out of him are held by the majority of the U.S population. If I was in his position I’d never have bothered ‘repenting’at all, because with friends like these, who needs enemies?
Bill (we didn’t set enough bombs) Ayers, leader in the Weather Underground, which set bombs and murdered people, employed as a professor at the University of Chicago, is honored by the left. McVeigh properly was executed. Ayers skated. Ain’t equal justice under the law wonderful
Are you kidding me? “The Left”? What is “the Left”, pray tell? Who does it consist of? Honestly, use your brain.
Name me one single “card-carrying communist” in the United States today. Seriously: I’m curious. Haven’t heard of any communist activity in this country for many years.
“…to defensive outbursts on issues like migration” – did he call for restrictions on immigration perhaps? What a monster! And were those “derogatory remarks about trans people” genuinely abusive or simply statements of fact – that men remain men, even if they wear dresses and lipstick? I struggle to find anything truly abominable in this young man’s CV. As far as I can tell, he did not burn down someone else’s business, loot the local store, peddle drugs or demand that other people go down on their knees to him; and compared to what thousands of teachers, lawmakers and medical practitioners are currently doing to children in the name of “trans rights”, his own wrong-doings seem trivial.
Funny, isn’t it, that right wing extremists are wrong in the head and in need of deprogramming, yet left wing extremists are ushered into positions of power and influence. This guy can barely get a job, yet lunatics whose political views are rejected by 80% of the population are put in charge of educating peoples’ children.
I ask again… please define ” racism”?
Discrimination leftists DON’T support
“content on YouTube”; “down rabbit holes”; “amplified and distorted”; “social media algorithms”; “offering up ever more”: all underscored by “increasing amounts of time”.
That’s the screen life today for you. TV entertainment back in the old days, however, probably constituted more of a, … I was going to say threat, … a mollifying exercise on extremists of any sphere, and would-be extremists. I mean, surely, young and extremist people today, from both west and east, north and south, if you will, may well have all enjoyed watching The Simpsons on TV in the 1990s. When they was even younger! And that was before entertainment became content, rabbit holes and the lot. The cheerful offerings on a big screen eventually became amplified through and distorted by the ever more of choice, choice, choice – leading to the extreme amount of frowning and squinting as ridiculously tiny tyrannical screens began in earnest to hook the young into looking down and looking aloof. The algorithms took over the entertainments. Frivolity, despair and anger lurk just beneath the high jinks snippets that the new diversions coming and piling onto a tiny screen near you deliver to the youth of today.
It’s not music therapy. It’s not art therapy. How come you never, never hear of these simple therapies for all those in need of official de-radicalisation programmes? Are those activities beyond the interests of those whose “religious frameworks” would rebuff such kindly gestures? If someone is described as having a “religious framework”, is that not just another way of saying that that person has their very own moral outlook? And is not having your very own idea of morals a ray of light? A ray of light that may be hard to discern amidst all the dazzling rays of Reno and Vegas, say? Even the Russians and Chinese, as if to maintain their sanity, revel in the great classical music traditions of the West.
But people’s morals these days may be crushed by the perils of the latest technologies and gadgets. The poorest suffer most, in my view. Especially the very young who must contend with possibly being in a broken family, too. There might be no reprieve now: no outlet away from all the “outlets” stalking our daily lives.
Outlets used to be called newspapers. Content used to be called entertainment.
Rabbit holes used to be called TV channels.
Algorithms used to be called flicking the channels.
Amplified and distorted used to be encountered when told “do not adjust your set”.
“Offering up ever more” used to be a brand new channel – or a flourish at the end of a show.
I blame the technologists and engineers for this disastrous slide into identity and fractious politics: when screens were bigger, the entertainment was grander, and the people were in tune, whether born and bred or newcomer from distant shores. Um, yes, as I write this on a device designed by said technologist.
But you get my drift at how far we have drifted. All you have to read is the miserable language and phrasings we unwittingly adopt today.
Why is always the right wing that gets this sort of treatment in this paper. It is the vile indoctrination of the left wing extreme views that invade universities, public services and some of the news media -BBC Guardian etc that has done the most damage. The attitude that everyone is a victim and has justified grievances diminish the ability to stand up to life challenges
The virulent, oppressive bigots, who seek to demean and destroy people’s lives are not the white identitarians, but the ‘anti-racists.’
Of course show me an ‘anti-racist’ and I will show you a racist, because I guarantee they have different moral standards for white people and non-whites.
And a lot of whites ‘normies’ get caught up in that obsessive, performative hatred of a tiny fringe because they know to be perceived as racist is to invite limitless persecution.
“He gets agitated when he feels like his socially conservative beliefs are under attack, or when they are equated with the views of the neo-Nazis”
… which is entirely justified.
There is an obvious analogous question regarding how we should treat repentant Black Lives Matter fascists and gender headbangers.