How to handle my son's troubling far-right views and online influence

[TheCatCushions]

DS (14) is extremely bright, highly intelligent and adhd/autistic. He has recently been coming out with troubling views about wanting the UK to be all white again like in the 1950s, he talks about immigration and closing our borders and stopping the boats etc and doodles pictures of Hitler with worrying slogans. He has admitted to saying certain things deliberately to shock but he genuinely believes that the UK should be all white and compares us to say, Zimbabwe remaining all black.

He has not been brought up to think like this and I am concerned that he is going down a rabbit hole online. I teach him the benefits of other cultures and how the UK has evolved, what it means to be British has changed over time and that we are now multicultural. Although he is highly intelligent, he is also very black and white in his thinking.

He also believes that we should go back to the 1940s where it comes to gender roles and women need to stay at home and men be the providers. He also talks about feminism meaning women that hate men. I try my best to gently correct these views and question why he believes this.

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this? Thank you.

Yes. This
Especially you tube and tiktok people scare monger on there, post a lot of untruths and some nonsense guys go on about this one percent men

I don’t think he’s highly intelligent.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I second PREVENT referral, and speaking with school to see if they can support it. Any clubs etc he attends that you can speak with? Autism/ADHD make him more susceptible to radicalisation but they should not be used to minimise it. I'd also be very clear I do not support his views as they are racist and misogynistic rather than gently challenging these, but being careful how you engage him if he's looking for a 'buzz'.

Take care of yourself, and seek support for yourself as a priority too.

i assume you don’t know the boy, so how can you make a judgement based on the mothers post (who Pressumably knows her son a lot better than you). Or are you one of the “if they don’t think like me they must be thick brigade” because that attitude is a major part of the crisis we’re in.

As PP say some young autistic men are very vulnerable to being drawn in by right wing arguments. Reform has a lot of money and a lot of 'reach' on social media with simplistic sloganeering.

It's less 'he doesn't think like me so he must be thick' and more 'he draws pictures of Hitler to get a reaction and says women should lose their rights' that indicates a certain lack of intelligence in some respect - emotional intelligence, empathy, critical thinking for example. It's not just 'a difference of opinion' when it comes to celebrating Nazis and advocating for the oppression of women. It's a serious warning bell that a 14 year old is sinking into this particular internet cesspit.

It seems extremely important to some people that they blame everyone who opposes fascism for the rise of the far-right. As though people who embrace far-right ideals are super intelligent people who have taken such offence at being criticised that they just had get more fascist so they could own the libs. So we must all take great care not to hurt Nazi feelings because then it's our fault that they're Nazis. Heaven forbid people take responsibility for their own political opinions and actions. It must be someone else's fault for criticising you!

Talk to school safeguarding lead they might get him help via prevent

"As PP say some young autistic men are very vulnerable to being drawn in by right wing arguments." Young ASD people are very vulnerable to being drawn in by online arguments of every stripe. There's a reason why children with ASD are over-represented in the online Furry community, online trans community, weird lone-wolf shooters, gaming community, etc. It's not just politics that can draw them in.

Turn off the internet and remove his access to it.

Turn off the internet and remove his access to it.

What do your weekends look like? I’d try and get out more as a family and visit places where he can see a little more. I’d try and find some mixed gender clubs and widen his social circle.

id also look at groups like young labour and young conservatives, he likes different opinions, join others and debate-explore ideas. I was a member of both and the Lib Dem’s just to find people to debate and discuss with. It’s about leaving the echo chamber

think it's very fair to state that removing women's rights is not an intelligent position

I can think of many scenarios where it would be an intelligent position. If say, female dominance had increased to a position where men were committing suicide in droves and society were threatened. It wouldn't be a palatable thing to do but it would be the intelligent thing to do.

You state your view as being absolute and inviolate but intelligence accounts for changing conditions and scenarios.

Men's rights have been reduced (no longer allowed to SA and DV the wife) and few would argue against the action as being unintelligent.

I think the problem with your arguments is that you're trying to take them to such an abstract place that everything stops making sense.

Well, if you can't follow a generalised example and can only focus on specific, concrete examples then I think that's on you.

There is a saying "hard cases make bad law" and in this case you're trying to pluck examples that you think are so heinous (nazis, racists) as to make your 'no intelligent person' argument work.

I abstract them a little for you in the hope you can see the fallacies for yourself.

So your vegans are standing in quite clearly for Muslims...for you to take it to that odd hypothetical is nonsensical, especially as it didn't even work as a hypothetical stance

My vegans are not a proxy for Muslims. That's your take.

You stated that (to paraphrase) "if you're concerned about a group limiting your freedoms then you must by definition be uncomfortable in the presence of individuals from that group". The vegans work in highlighting the foolishness of that statement.

In your statement you were trying to assert that any concerns stem from racism rather being genuine. I refute that. There is race and there is a belief system. The two are not inseparable.

I can work with any other example where your response is not going to just leap to racism/facism/etc as though labelling is an actual argument.

If you want to consider Muslims or, say, fundamentalist Christians, then we can talk about that... though I think that anyone who relies almost exclusively on outdated texts of how to best arrange society and live life rather than think for themselves probably shouldn't figure in a discussion about intelligence. Generally I dont because people start appealing to the authority of some sacred book.

Oh, and @Toseland Cockneys weren't 'forced out' [ your implication is by them there Muslims, which is a suspect implication in itself]. They moved out as they prospered, just like the Hugenots and Jews before them.
Slight exception for the poorest of the poor, who were excluded by well meaning slum clearance and housing reform in the late 19th to early 20th century, which put up the rents.
These are historical facts; which somehow I think you won't like. But tough.

You mean lies? Fairly sure that's not what he meant.

DSL is Designated Safeguarding Lead. They are the person/people (the school may have a few) who will have had theost training in this area, so given the seriousness of your concerns, ideally you would go to them in my opinion.

They have left over many years as their community values and way of life was eroded.

So not “pushed put” - they simply chose to move. How did their community values and way of life get eroded?

I can think of many scenarios where it would be an intelligent position. If say, female dominance had increased to a position where men were committing suicide in droves and society were threatened. It wouldn't be a palatable thing to do but it would be the intelligent thing to do.
You state your view as being absolute and inviolate but intelligence accounts for changing conditions and scenarios.
Men's rights have been reduced (no longer allowed to SA and DV the wife) and few would argue against the action as being unintelligent.

Again @sartre with the insane abstraction rendering your argument absolutely pointless. To bring it back to reality, we are talking about a 14 year old boy expressing a desire for women's rights to be removed taking us back to the 1940s (probably not actually the moment he meant, given the war!) The OP is insisting this boy is highly intelligent and knows everything there is to know about politics. In actual fact, his stance is not an intelligent one - we aren't living in your odd, imaginary dystopia and I'm not sure that even in your hypothetical that your stated solution is the intelligent one because you'd like to argue from a position of conjured up fantasy as you cannot base your arguments in the real world and have them make any sense at all. The boy might have intelligence in terms of retaining information, but he does not have a critical ability to evaluate and understand either history or politics or human rights. He lacks a certain kind of intelligence - and of course he's only 14 and is being radicalised by disinformation online. He is not 'seeing something the rest of us can't see', he is just a wrong, misguided, immature boy who needs help. I really can't continue to argue your strange imaginary scenarios, because they are not relevant in any way to any of the points you think they illustrate.

@CanSeeClearlyNowTheRainHasGone

think it's very fair to state that removing women's rights is not an intelligent position
I can think of many scenarios where it would be an intelligent position. If say, female dominance had increased to a position where men were committing suicide in droves and society were threatened. It wouldn't be a palatable thing to do but it would be the intelligent thing to do.
You state your view as being absolute and inviolate but intelligence accounts for changing conditions and scenarios.
Men's rights have been reduced (no longer allowed to SA and DV the wife) and few would argue against the action as being unintelligent.

I don’t think you can argue that’s an intelligent position. You can say in your opinion it is preferable to have women reduced to second class citizens if it means you avoid more male suicides. But that doesn’t necessarily make it “intelligent”. Somebody could easily argue that an actually intelligent position would be to explore why women having rights leads men to kill themselves and addressing that mindset in men in a manner which leads to better outcomes for men without reducing women to second class citizens.

Very true, though I didn't bother getting into it as there's also the fact that this poster sailed way past the point, which is about equality of rights. The kid in this scenario is advocating for women to have fewer rights than men. This poster is imagining a scenario where women have more rights than men. The intelligent argument is for neither sex to be denied the right to vote/work/have financial independence/exercise bodily autonomy. The kid is arguing for women to lose thise rights and for some reason this poster wants to argue that he might be arguing from a position of great intelligence. But if you can only argue that it's intelligent to take away women's rights by inventing a fantasy - and even in that fantasy it doesn't hold true because, as you point out, there are other solutions in that fantasy that are more sensible - then it doesn't seem that there is in fact a real world intelligent argument for denying women's right to equality. Even in the fantasy scenario, an intelligent person would redress the balance to restore equality of power rather than rendering women powerless. But I considered it a gigantic waste of time to patiently explain how things would work in this abstract scenario, much like the equally pointless vegan one, given that the thread deals with a real life situation in which the OP seems a bit cowed by her son's perceived intelligence hence posters advising that she can be more confident in challenging him than she thinks because his arguments are built on wobbly foundations.

I think you are raising a much more interesting point in the way men (some men!) can feel threatened by women gaining equal rights and independence, and how that creates space for the manosphere and its panicky attempts to restore a world that never really existed the way they imagine it did, but provides a way to punch women back down beneath them - rather than looking upwards at the real forces of oppression in society (billionaires, tech companies, corporate power etc). All of which could be an interesting point for an intelligent teenager to start considering more deeply and for him to examine where these beliefs are coming from.

Also, sorry, in my post further up the thread I tagged @sartre instead of @CanSeeClearlyNowTheRainHasGone

Well naturally, I did pick up the poster seems to see equality and female dominance as somehow synonymous. Equality does not mean anybody dominates.

I think somebody just wants to tie themselves in knots defending the far right. I don’t think I have seen an intelligent argument for reducing women to second class citizens and, most importantly I don’t think OPs son advanced an “intelligent” rationale for his position?

And yes I agree with you that the intelligent position is nobody being reduced to second class citizenship status. It’s odd to argue that if group A feel significantly threatened by group B having autonomy then the “intelligent” position is to remove B’s autonomy.

That’s an option, but not inherently the intelligent position.

I just assume they struggled to think of a better example whereby reducing women to second class citizens maybe the intelligent position (and that goes back to tying themselves in knots….)

Lots of the teenage lads I worked with in a Specialist School had these views @TheCatCushions all of them had a diagnosis of ADHD and ASC and a lot were being targeted by far right extremists/incel extremists online due to their vulnerabilities. A lot ended up needing prevent referrals due to how extreme their views and behaviour became. You need to try nip this in the bud re internet access, gaming platforms, forums he is on etc. Speak to school re early help or prevent referral to see if he meets criteria.

You can say in your opinion it is preferable to have women reduced to second class citizens if it means you avoid more male suicides

The original premise was not about the OPs son being right. It was about whether you could say someone was thick/stupid/unintelligent for advocating a position you didn't agree with.

And intelligently considering situations leads to forming one's own opinions. So of course it would be an opinion. It might be different to your opinion (based on the same or different data) but it would not make the person stupid for holding that opinion.

I note that in you arguing the contrary that you do two things.

1. You assume that the only option in reducing rights is to make women second class citizens where I gave you a scenario in which they'd likely accumulated too many rights to have a functioning society. You haven't even countenanced that a reduction in that scenario might restore equity.

1. You ignored the counter example I gave where men's rights were actually reduced because they had rights which were not compatible with a functioning society. And that was something we hopefully all applaud.

If you come up with different answers for two near identical scenarios where just the sexes are switched, then I think you have some unrecognised bias in your thinking.

Don't be daft, in both scenarios it's about equality. No one has said they think anyone disagreeing with them is stupid; they have pointed out that this boy who is the subject of the thread lacks the intelligence to critically evaluate the information he's being fed which has led to him believing women deserve fewer rights than men. Even in your imaginary scenario, giving women fewer rights than men is not the intelligent position to take.