Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

1. How and why did the racist riots happen, and what do they tell us about where we might be heading? This thread concerns one part of the answer, the formation of what the historian Arno Meyer called a “crisis stratum” of disillusioned young men. 🧵

2. He was writing about the rise of fascism 100 years ago, but there are some disturbing parallels. Of course, there are also some major differences: for example, we are not recovering from a devastating war. How has it happened without that catalyst?

3. Well, those who have manipulated and helped create this crisis stratum have played on a similar sense of atomisation and betrayal, caused by decades of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism simultaneously promises the world and snatches it away.
penguin.co.uk/books/455534/t…

4. As Pankaj Mishra points out in his brilliant book Age of Anger, it’s in the gap between a promise and its fulfilment that frustration, humiliation and a desire for vengeance grow.
penguin.co.uk/books/297618/a…

5. Neoliberalism tells us that if we work hard enough, we can all be Number One: a mathematically impossible promise. But it also creates the conditions which ensure that, no matter how hard you work, you are likely to remain subordinate and exploited.

6. How? It has enabled the formation of a new rentier class, that owns the essential assets and ruthlessly exploits younger and poorer people. Young men step into a world of promises - but find that all the golden doors are locked, and they do not have the key.

7. The manosphere and/or far right influencers, like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan, Russell Brand and Elon Musk, double down on the impossible promise: if only you tidy your room, eat more beef, resist “feminisation”, find your true self, you will be Number One!!

8. Then they explain why this mathematically impossible promise doesn’t materialise: it’s the fault of women, or immigrants, or the woke brigade, or Muslims, or “globalists” or a shadowy “elite” (a term which, when ill-defined, has historically meant Jews).

9. If only these impeding forces can be swept out of the way, you too can be world king. It’s a simple, seductive way of explaining failure in a complex world. It diverts attention from the true sources of oppression: real elite powers such as oligarchs and major corporations.

10. The result is a cadre of young men, like those of a century ago, who think they are sticking it to The Man, when in fact they are following his orders. Many of them now call themselves “heterodox”, which is kind of ironic, as they all seem to believe the same things.

11. These “heterodox” beliefs are roughly what their conservative grandparents believed, and what previous generations of young people rebelled against. It’s a stale, cruel doctrine of racism, misogyny, homophobia and patriarchy, repackaged as edgy and radical.

12. This disastrous wrong turn causes no end of trouble both to the young men themselves and to society as a whole. Young people are right to be angry, but in the absence of accurate information, they are easily manipulated. A century ago, we saw where this led.

13. There is no iron rule that prevents it from happening again. But this time we should be able to see it coming, push back against the conflict entrepreneurs, and help young people find a better way of dealing with the huge pile of shit older generations have dumped on them.