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Are teenage boys in the US becoming more conservative – or more dangerously apathetic?

Are teenage boys in the US becoming more conservative – or more dangerously apathetic? | Arwa Mahdawi

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/02/teenage-boys-the-us-becoming-more-conservative-dangerously-apathetic

Social media is abuzz with a survey showing 12th-grade boys are twice as likely to identify as conservative. The reality is a little more complicated, writes Arwa Mahdawi

Are teenage boys in the US becoming more conservative – or more dangerously apathetic? | Arwa Mahdawi

36 comments

Gradually_Adjusting

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"... Fascism is an act of contempt, in fact. Inversely, every form of contempt, if it intervenes in politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, Fascism. It must be added that Fascism cannot be anything else but an expression of contempt without denying itself. ..."

Albert Camus

Political contempt is a very relatable feeling to the younger generations. The system feels broken and difficult to fix, thanks to the expensiveness of the electoral process.

thefartographer

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After generations of being told "mind your business" by the previous generation's populace who try to control everyone else, the latest generation said "ok," and fucked off to do their own thing. I don't blame them. We destroyed the world that had been molded into something kind for us and left them with an oppressive environment; they might produce the last generation or two to enjoy being human before the billionaires and their friends coast on the product of them constantly stirring shit. Good luck to us all.

TokenBoomer

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Upvote for Camus

Hazdaz

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I 100% believe there is a growing segment of the population of young white boys who are becoming radicalized. They see a world that is crumbling just like everyone else, but they have been shunned by the Left, and seemingly every other day the world's problems are being blamed on them for some reason. Many of these folks feel like society is pushing them out and see that right wing extremist groups are accepting them. They keep hearing that racism and sexism is bad, and yet racism and sexism against white males somehow seems to be perfectly acceptable.

This is the exact type of exclusionary tactics that pushed so many post WW1 Germans into supporting the Nazi party right before WW2.

For years I've been hearing that Republicans are only old rich white men and that once they all eventually die, the GOP will be toast. Except that's not true at all. Google image search the Proud Boys and tell me those guys are old. And there is that other group that wears the tan khakis (can't think of their name). None of those people look older than 30.

This is a big problem that will only get worse.

CADmonkey

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I've been saying this for a while. Young white boys hear how horrible white men are, and because they're kids, they don't always understand the parts that are left unsaid. They just hear that the world is ending and it's because of people like them. Then if they have trouble finding a girlfriend they get told they are incels and losers.

And suddenly you've got a whole demographic of young angry people ripe for exploitation. Telling them they're stupid and evil for listening to the right wing nut jobs doesn't help, they've been told how stupid and evil they are since they were children, they're going to listen to the person who says "we accept you as you are".

It's been going on for a couple of decades at least, and look where we are now.

Hazdaz

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Totally accurate. And there is a ton of hypocrisy with this situation as well. As you stated, older white men are demonized by every group out there. But you can't defend yourself if you are one of those older white men or immediately simpletons will claim you are RaCiSt. And these young white kids see this and think their dad or uncle or cousin aren't so bad... why is the world constantly shitting all over them?

The most hilarious (and infuriating) part of all this is that the same people (usually on the Left) who go apeshit when people generalize a certain group have zero problems generalizing all white guys together. How does that make sense? As you stated, just because some white dude can't get a GF doesn't make him an incel. Just because some white dude dresses a certain way or listens to a certain type of music doesn't mean he's some hardcore MAGAt. Yet those generalizations are perfectly fine for society to make but god forbid you state that X group loves Y food, or Z group is not good at something.

And this hypocrisy theme continues elsewhere as well. Again, the Left loves to pretend not to want people to generalize, but they will typically generalize that just because someone is white, they immediately have some kind of special privileged, and yet if you are black, for instance, you are oppressed. I'm sorry, but I kind of doubt the kids of billionaire Beyonce or Kanye West are being oppressed by The Man. On the flip side, some dirt poor white kid from Appalachia has absolutely no advantages in this world compared to his dirt poor black neighbor. They go to the same shitty school, their parents work in the same shitty coal mine making the same shitty paycheck, they live in similar shitty mobile homes. Yet only one of those kids could potentially get a free-ride to go to college by leveraging his race and getting scholarships.

Kids aren't stupid. They might not be very worldly or have experience doing things, but they see a lot of this bullshit and become easy prey for groups that are actively recruiting them and tell them that things aren't right in the world.

assassin_aragorn

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I read a great article a while back about how no one has proposed an alternative to toxic masculinity, except for the far right who reinforces it. The left needs to more firmly speak up here.

Some possible traits to highlight -- with the understanding that these traits are a spectrum among men and aren't exclusionary of women -- are the desire to protect and provide. That's something we can point to.

Hazdaz

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Not only does the Left not have an answer to this, they actually make things worse by pushing away these folks.

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

Social media was recently abuzz with a survey that shows 12th-grade boys (who are aged 17 or 18) are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative v liberal.

The numbers showing young men becoming conservative come from the 2022 Monitoring the Future study, a respected annual survey looking at American adolescents that began in 1975.

This got the jubilant attention of a bunch of high-profile rightwingers, such as Steve Bannon and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the conservative media personality and fiancee of Donald Trump Jr.

Some rightwing influencers, such as Charlie Kirk, the founder of conservative youth group Turning Point USA, used the chart as proof that their outreach to high school kids (or, as some might describe it, “brainwashing”) was working.

There is certainly a lot to be said about how young men are drifting to the right – or, in many cases, how they are being pushed there by misogynistic conservative influencers such as Andrew Tate and Ben Shapiro.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Tedesche

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Sorry, OP, but this is a garbage op-ed. It offers very little information about, much less insight into the study in question, meaning mostly the article just serves to give the author a chance to express her political slant via pejorative adjectives towards right-wing groups. The fact that I happen to agree with her slant doesn’t change the fact that it’s not a good article.

I for one think it’s a phenomenon worth investigating further, this question of why young men in particular are saying they feel alienated from both political parties. I don’t know, but I strongly suspect the extent to which Democrats embrace increasingly exclusionary and misandrist slogans created by feminists is part of it.

Feminism is very important for women’s rights, but I’ve realized as I’ve grown up that the movement’s leaders have absolutely zero interest in policing their man-hating radicals. Whenever said radicals are brought up—even when it’s in a mainstream context—feminists are quick to dismiss them and claim it’s unfair to judge the movement by their statements. To which my response is: if you can’t be bothered to keep their misandrist talking points out of your mainstream discourse, then I have no reason to believe they’re as fringe as you say, much less that you actually disagree with them.

To the extent that democrats either embrace or tolerate this kind of talk (and they do), I can easily see how a teenage boy who leans liberal would hesitate to identify as such when they hear liberal mouthpieces pushing language and concepts that either demonize, exclude, or minimize men. It’s a problem the Democrats have not taken seriously, and I sincerely hope they start to, because the Right is eager to capitalize on it.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod

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It's not an op-ed, it's just reporting on the study and reactions to it. The whole article is barely six paragraphs long and doesn't get into any editorializing. The survey also says about a third still haven't made up their mind.

And if you're going to spout of reasons why this is the case, it would be great if you would have something concrete to back up your assertion beyond your gut telling you this is the case. Do you have statistics about how much exposure the average teenage boy has to radical feminists?

Tedesche

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It’s not an op-ed

It's literally in the "Opinion" section of the Guardian's website.

Do you have statistics about how much exposure the average teenage boy has to radical feminists?

No, not on hand. This is just my opinion, but the author of the op-ed above even suggests feminist slogans might be part of the reason why the data from the study looks the way it does. Teenage boys are at least as exposed to social media as the rest of us (or do I need an official study to make that claim too?), so I think it's safe to assume they're exposed to posts about "toxic masculinity," "mansplaining," "manspreading," "#yesallmen," "ironic misandry," and articles like this and this.

baronvonj

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Why did you put quotes around toxic masculinity?

Madison420

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To be pejorative of course, most of those are objectively actual things. It's like when I say they're entitled to their "opinion" I'm actually implying they don't know asshole from elbow.

baronvonj

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Well, I'm sure you realize you'll be taken less seriously when you take such a broadly mocking approach up front and then only temper it when asked. You sound a bit like the feminists you're criticizing.

Madison420

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Look at usernames, prepare yourself.

baronvonj

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Look at usernames,

I really should.

Zengen

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This right here. People like you that push that shit at teenage boys. This is why they are turning right. I know a lot of people who flipped parties purely cuz they can't stand that sort of bullshit. Or that flipped because they are wick and tired of every straight white guy being called a racist. We are all pissed that our parents and grandparents fucked up the system with their apathy and blind trust in institutions that fucked us over.

Madison420

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I didn't push anything, can you two not read a username?

Semi-Hemi-Demigod

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I’ve actually read the very short article and the author’s opinion isn’t mentioned. It cites opinions of other people a lot, which would explain it being in op ed.

Did we read the same thing?

totallynotarobot

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So you'd rather all women spend their time running around shouting "not all women" instead of like...being whole humans with their own interests and personalities? What a creepy take.

Tedesche

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No. Reread my comment and try to think harder.

ZodiacSF1969

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This is such a brain dead take on what they said.

Rachelhazideas

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The idea that some women are responsible for other people's behaviors is a tale as old as time. Feminists are not responsible for the actions of misandrists and TERFs. We are people, with our own thoughts and feelings. Stop holding us accountable for the actions of people that we don't even associate with.

By taking on patriarchy, feminists are advocating for men's issues too because the patriarchy hurts everyone. Issues such as men's mental health, male sexual assault victims, homelessness, lack of paternity leave, are all under the umbrella of feminism. Men who say they are not feminists are acting against their own self interests.

Tedesche

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Ever since someone pointed out how similar feminism is to religion, I can't unsee it. You employ the exact same No True Scotsman defenses and demand people only pay attention to your good actions and ignore all your bad ones.

Sorry, I'm not drinking that Kool Aid.

eupraxia

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No True Scotsman doesn't really make sense without an effort to define what a Scotsman is in the first place. What feminism are we talking about? Are we so caught up on labeling people as feminists and misandrists that we've stopped talking about underlying ideas or caring about the internal conflicts within that camp?

As someone who's queer as hell, I've seen this play out time and time again - someone who's queer does something terrible, (because we're just people, a mix of good and bad) the media plays up that incident and re-stokes the debate over whether or not we get to exist, then people in my life suddenly look to me as somehow responsible or associated with or benefiting from that person's actions, simply due to the labeled association. Truth is, I only have direct insight into people I'm close to, queer or no. And so when I express my lack of political or personal connection with that person, it's perceived as No True Scotsman, even though the original perceived connection was shaky at best.

As with all groups of people, take feminists as a mixed bag of people with varying ideas, who aren't all responsible for what everyone else thinks. We're all better off expressing ideas one-on-one rather than playing to these tribal labels. I think you are absolutely correct in that some rhetoric employed in service of feminism has alienated a sector of young men, but we can't forget how media paints persecution narratives out of single tweets and snappy hot takes and holds everyone who labels themselves a feminist responsible.

Rachelhazideas

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Your kidding me right? Comparing feminism to religion when most religions are anti-feminist is a whole new level of deranged takes that I wouldn't expect to see on Lemmy.

I don't think you understand what the no true Scottsman fallacy is, nor the fact that you are employing it. I am a feminist, aka the Scottsman, and you are attempting to define what I am. What I am and what I support is not defined by you. Think about the relevance of your own experiences first. Consider that you are not a feminist and I am, and why that would make you qualified to define my beliefs (hint: it doesn't).

PoliticalAgitator

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It sounds like you're giving us the thumbs up to hold you accountable for the rhetoric of the far-right then?

WaterChi

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Ever notice how fascism is similar to religion? Just look at the GOP. It's a giant cult

YoBuckStopsHere

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I think you will find some articles you like and some that you don't. Politics is a large umbrella and not everything will be a subject you are interested in.

MiddleWeigh

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Yea people just feel hopeless, and I don't blame them when the system is literally rigged.

Self interest rules here. It is in most young peoples interest to just say fuck it, for their own well being and mental health, head in the sand and try to survive. What else to do? Corporate profit rules, and slavery is written into the constitution.

Through this same path of apathy I was able to find myself, and my own path forward, and here I am posting ramblings on lemmy. But I'm glad I'm not growing up today quite frankly, and im glad i had the people and friends I did. I was raised on punk rock lol.

If there is an uptick in conservatism, and or apathy it's in large part to the sense of self depreciation that's instilled in us, as well as that ever present streak of contrarianism in youth coupled with the disaster that is our education system and unhealthy use of social media.

Polarization and Apathy are a feature of the political and economic system it would seem to me. But I'm just a self depreciating uneducated idiot, with my own fair share of apathy.

EnderWi99in

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It's hopelessness mixed with growing up being told they are bad and the reason the world is bad. I feel genuinely bad for boys growing up now. They don't have the benefits older men had but they get all of the blame and negativity. I don't blame them for feeling at least like the right might care about them more because the right doesn't contain all of the male hate and misandry they face on a daily basis, even if supporting the right is probably causing them more harm in the long run.

Default_Defect

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That kid 100% looks like he'd tell me to go frick myself, while "flicking" me off with his ring finger.

sin_free_for_00_days

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When future prospects are dead or fading, people get radicalized. Or I guess reactionary is the more accurate term.

EnderWi99in

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Future prospects are bleak AND you've been told by one side of the political aisle that you're the cause of all of the worlds troubles. The last time that combination happened we had the rise of fascism. Maybe don't raise boys telling them they are the reason the world sucks and they might not swing to the right.

KairuByte

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“It’s okay sweetie, the world is literally burning, drowning, and sometimes both at the same time! But in order to protect you, I’ll just say we have no idea why or how to prevent it! Wouldn’t want to hurt your fefe’s by telling you that humans are the problem!” 🤦🏻‍♂️

WaterChi

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It's really stupid to confuse the fascism of the modern American right and conservatism.