Why Young Minds Are Being Led Down The Extremist Pipeline | TaraElla News



Welcome to TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. Subscribe if you're interested.

Today, I want to respond to a recent video by Faraday Speaks, where he elaborates on his idea that there is a far-right pipeline that stretches from centrist channels like the Rubin Report all the way to the far-right, where audiences of centrist and IDW channels can supposedly be converted to the far-right over time.

So, how on Earth can someone who watches Dave Rubin end up in the far-right? My rational mind tells me that a classical liberal, the kind of people who watch Rubin, is the furthest thing from the authoritarian far-right. But then, Caleb reminds us that Rubin once interviewed Stefan Molyneux, who also interviewed far-right figures like Jared Taylor on other occasions. However, we should also remember that Rubin interviewed Marianne Williamson just a few weeks ago. Are Rubin fans now major supporters of the Williamson 2020 campaign? I don't think so. The point is, people have independent thinking, and mature adults are generally skeptical towards unfamiliar ideas anyway. Moreover, most people, at least most mature adults, are pretty committed to their existing worldview, and those who watch Rubin and agree with his classical liberal worldview generally won't go far-right, even if they happen to come across such ideas. I guess then, the problem with some young people being easily influenced by what they see is that, many of them aren't firm enough in their worldview yet, which is why they could be easily swayed by anything they might be exposed to, and I think it's something many people probably aren't even very aware of. Many young people simply don't have the required life experiences to be firm about their worldview. But if that's the problem, then it's not a problem specific to Rubin having interviewed Molyneux or something like that. It's a much bigger problem.

Rather than there being a specific pipeline to the far-right, I think the problem is that, too many people are now becoming committed to extreme political ideologies at a very young age, well before they can judge the validity of ideas based on their life experiences. I won't name names here, but I do know of a online commentator who is only 26 years old, who has already been a liberal centrist, a conservative, a far-right adjacent, an anarchist, and finally now a communist. Imagine having had all these identities, many outside the political mainstream, at just 26! When I was 26, I didn't know many of the things I know now. Let's face it: most people in their early 20s are, generally speaking, not very experienced and knowledgeable. Yet many people in their early-20s or younger are already being committed to very radical politics of one brand or another. It seems to me that they want to join a club, any club, before they even learn enough to decide which club they really want to join. I think this is the real worry, rather than any single so-called pipeline going in any single direction. Perhaps we should be teaching our young people to learn more before they pick a side.

As for Rubin and other IDW-type classical liberals, they're certainly not part of any attempt to promote the far-right. This is a conspiracy theory that rational people simply shouldn't entertain. Rather, I think their major concern is a loss of freedom, and this is a very valid worry at the moment. What they fear is that the freedom to act and speak will be severely curtailed in the name of social justice, which, as I often say, is not real social justice but rather something called critical theory. There is indeed a movement out there, which broadly attempts to use some form of critical theory to justify restrictive cultural changes, in the name of so-called social justice. The recent viral video of a DSA conference, which included clips where participants used so-called points of personal privilege to demand things like people not use gendered language, where people were peer-pressured into using jazz hands rather than clapping, made this point very well. While the various behavioral alterations were enforced in the name of making things more comfortable for certain groups, this also represented peer-pressure to act a certain way, to restrict personal freedom to speak and act, with the implication that if you don't comply, you're anti-justice. Stuff like this makes me actually fearful for our future. I mean, what if this kind of critical theory inspired social engineering, enforced via peer pressure, becomes the norm of everyday society one day? This really reminds me of the phrase, freedom is only ever two generations away from extinction.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on the internet. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.