[api]

I've often observed that if you take an angry fanatical ideologue and scratch, you often find a nihilist. The ideology is just a medium for the anger. The anger is the fundamental thing. There's a lot of people who seem to be really angry right now.

Part of it is legit, I think. There are legit things to be angry about, though they differ depending on where you live in the world.

Part of it is an addiction. Anger releases some powerful brain chemicals, and it can be addictive.

[bell-cot]

Sadly yes.

And for "scratch", it's usually sufficient to compare the angry fanatic's views/actions with some of the more prosocial parts of their supposed ideology.

[api]

I discount prosocial parts of ideologies that are impractical to the point of being pure escapist fantasy.

For the far right, it's either the techno-fascist "we become Gods" stuff or the trad "back to a perfect green agrarian utopia that looks like a Hitler painting where my happy tradwife greets me every day." I suppose the not quite as far right idea of rewinding history and reviving 1950s America (and pretending that was a utopia) also counts.

For the far left it's the ludicrous green anarcho-primitivist stuff where we LARP the Na'vi on Avatar or the idea of achieving peaceful and lasting equity through legislation and redistribution.

I have a hard time accepting that anyone actually believes any of that shit. I get kind of angry when I see it because it's so insanely absurd.

It feels like window dressing for an ideology that, stripped of these fantastical goals, is just grievance politics and nihilistic accelerationism. It's a way for them to hide it even from themselves. They're just angry and they hate their lives and they want other people to suffer for it.

Or do Scientologists actually believe in Galactic Emperor Xenu and Thetans?

[graboy]

Eric Hoffer would agree with this take.

[i_am_a_peasant]

Well put tbh