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I think that one of the intersecting factors is that as far as I can tell, a lot of the extreme right and left as we see them in the media come from high stress, impoverished background. My experience with mental healthcare suggests that the op's uncle probably sees a lot of people with similar economic standing. Any type of chronic stress or ongoing trauma absolutely exacerbates health problems period. In many cases when you're poor, you can't afford to fix something until it breaks all the way, and that can include your body or your mind. From a personal perspective, my anxiety problems have more than once made me feel as though I have no control over myself, my environment, or their outcomes. This feeling of powerlessness absolutely informed my early understanding of left-wing politics as a teenager/young college student, and righteous anger was a pretty good substitute for control. Hopelessness is really fertile ground for conspiratorial thinking. Hitting rock bottom is a great place to pick up new fears and resentments, and search for radical answers you wouldn't have thought of before. Some people convert religions, some change careers, some start listening to Alex Jones.
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Oct 3, 2016 04:57
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PupsOfWar posted:I have a lot of vivid fantasies centered around doing violence to people in suits I absolutely think that removing the threat of homelessness, poverty, and hunger would drastically increase quality of life for pretty much everyone. I'd prefer to do this via abolition of capital and some sort of utopian luxury communism, but I'd settle for strengthening the welfare state at this point in my life. I don't have any revolutionary fire anymore. I don't know if it would reduce the incidence of extremism, but I think it's probably more important to just help people anyway. If the tactics quoted upthread work, it wouldn't be a bad place to start.
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Oct 3, 2016 17:00
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