Indoctrination and the Alt-right

HOW EASY IS IT TO GET INDOCTRINATED?

A TED talk by Christian Picciolini, in which he outlines his descent into America’s neo-Nazi movement, and how he got out, demonstrates how surprisingly easy it is to be sucked into an extremist ideology. Picciolini talks about the difficulties of his early life by saying, “Right after I was born, things got a little bit more difficult. They struggled to survive with raising a young family and a new business …And quality time with my parents was pretty nonexistent. Even though I knew they loved me very much, growing up, I felt abandoned. I was lonely, and I started to withdraw, and then I started to resent my parents and become very angry.” He then goes on to tell the story of a man twice his age, with a shaved head, coming up to him in an alley and snatching the joint from his lips while saying, ‘"That's what the communists and the Jews want you to do to keep you docile,"’ Perhaps it was the show of compassion, that this person seemed to care about his well being, that started Picciolini’s plunge into a facist movement, “…But it was as if this man in this alley had offered me a lifeline. For 14 years, I'd felt marginalized and bullied. I had low self-esteem. And frankly, I didn't know who I was, where I belonged or what my purpose was. I was lost”(Christain Picciolini). This is one tactic of training. Certain political and social groups target those who are at their lowest, those who are vulnerable, and therefore easier to be persuaded or even brainwashed. When people feel as though they lose control, they are more likely to turn to extremism. Picciolini witnessed this firsthand, saying the group’s leaders would target these vulnerable young people and draw them in, “with promises of paradise that were broken.” Picciolini was a member of the neo-Nazi movement for eight years, and it took life-altering events, such as his wife and child leaving him, for him to get out. This is the ease at which persuasion can happen in the real world. Now imagine how much easier it is with the power of the internet, how you can grow your platform, and how many people you can reach with your rhetoric.