Selected materials removed from National Park sites at instructions from Trump administration (legal cases underway) (Gemini generated) It is quite difficult to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country under the current conditions. The occasion has been hijacked by a president and a political party that have no dignity, no respect for the basic values …
Far-right support in Germany
The question of how the political values and attitudes of young people are formed has come up frequently in recent posts. This question is especially interesting in the case of the rise of far-right parties in Germany, including especially the AfD. What is of particular interest is that there seem to be several divisions at …
A more pluralistic analytical sociology
No Kings Protest Anti-Orban Protest A central theme in Rethinking Analytical Sociology is my concern that the founders of analytical sociology presented the field as a general and universally applicable approach to sociological research. Associated with this claim is what I called "ABM fundamentalism" -- the view that computational models could and should be applied …
Racist extremism and inter-group violence
Ethnic cleansing, Srebrenica, July 1995 Milan Obaidi is a prolific Danish social psychologist who has worked extensively on right-wing extremism. His scientific publications provide greater detail on his emerging views of the psychology of extremism. A useful document for the ongoing discussion of the mechanisms of right-wing extremism here is a well-documented 2020 summary of …
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Social psychologists on the appeal of antagonism and hate
Our current political scene presents an unresolved and important question: why have the ideologies of hate, fear, nationalism, antagonism, and violence had such appeal to a segment of young men across many countries in the past thirty years? How does it happen that many fairly typical twelve-year-old boys somehow become captivated by the extremist right-wing …
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How are an individual’s political values formed?
March on Selma, 1965 Human beings have attitudes, behaviors, habits, stereotypes, and values. And somehow these mental attributes are developed or acquired in the course of normal human social life. But how, when, and with what results does this process work? And how persistent are a set of attitudes and values once established in the …
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Social dynamics of large-scale hate
Many countries are facing a resurgence of racism and ethnic hostility in the current political environment, catalyzed in complicated ways by the refugee crisis in Europe, the Brexit vote in the UK, and the rise of trumpism in the United States. Animosity against black and brown people, immigrants, and Muslims is rising in many countries, …
How democracies die
image: Senator Josh Hawley salutes January 6 insurrection Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have written with growing alarm about the threat to our democracy by right-wing extremism. How Democracies Die was sobering when it appeared in 2017, and the publication of Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point (2023) reaches an …
Making a far-right activist
Far-right demonstrators supporting CasaPound (link) How can we understand some of the factors that lead to the development of far-right beliefs and worldview in young people? Why do a certain number of people in their teens and twenties develop a political fascination with neofascism, anti-immigrant extremism, and a range of racist ideas? Is this an …
Ethnography of the far right
Can we understand the dynamics of far-right extremism without understanding far-right extremists? Probably not; it seems clear we need to have a much more "micro" understanding of the actors than we currently have if we are to understand these movements so antithetical to the values of liberal democracy. And yet there isn't much of a …
Understanding Society 