There are a lot of disparate threads on this board about essentially the same thing: white supremacist terrorism and cultural racism. One of the most persistent threads throughout them is the range and persistence of the denialism. There is a persistent insistence that they are not "true" white supremacists, but are "lone wolf" actors, and not indicative of a deeper and more pervasive threat.
That is a profound misunderstanding of terrorism in the age of pervasive, near-universal social media access.
Although not entirely new, Stochastic Terrorism has been rapidly becoming the new face of terrorism all over the world, but especially in the developed world with widespread access to mass communication tools, such as social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the various Chans.
The phenomenon was first comprehensively defined and explained in an article in DailyKos. Stochastic Terrorism: Triggering the shooters.
The definition of stochastic terrorism is, in brief, "The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random."
That's somewhat simplistic, but it explains why concentrating on terrorist organizations, and organizations in general, is misguided at best, and deliberate misdirection at worst. Modern terrorism has eschewed the traditional model of organized leadership, infiltration, and activation of sleeper cells; and moved toward promulgating memes,
The key factors in stochastic terrorism are radicalizing seemingly random "loners" through inflammatory rhetoric; and plausible deniability, the ability for the inciting individual or group to distance themselves from the terrorist and declaim responsibility.
We're all familiar with inflammatory rhetoric, the Islamists painting of westerners as the enemy of Islam, Trump painting liberals and unsympathetic journalists as the "enemies of the people", prominent hard-right conservatives blathering on about rapist immigrants and "white genocide", and so on.
Just as importantly, possibly even moreso, is plausible deniability. The purveyors of inflammatory rhetoric can avoid using direct language to incite violence, but still get their message out, and "disavow" the violence which is a direct result of their worldview.
Some further examples and reading on the subject.
THE RISING DANGER OF STOCHASTIC TERRORISM
What a lot of these articles don't address strongly enough and deeply enough is the sheer importance of
This, of course, did not originate with Trump, or even the Islamists. It's far older than that, and has its direct roots in demagoguery and other forms of "whipping up". The earliest clear examples of stochastic terrorism occurred within the anti-abortion movement of the '80s and '90s. Various preachers, and ostensibly "non-violent" protest groups like Operation Rescue labeled doctors and nurses as murderers, referred to open access to abortion as a "Holocaust", and did all but demand direct action against clinics and their personnel. And people took them up on their calls to action and committed numerous murders, bombings, arsons, assaults, and other violent crimes against doctors, nurses, and clinics in the US and worldwide.
This process has continued to evolve, and extremists of all stripes have begun to learn how to harness the power of social platforms to inspire others to violent acts without having to implicate themselves directly in that violence.
There are two phenomena involved in the process of radicalization and escalation to violence.
The first of these is the Pyramid of Violence. This was first developed to explain the progression of sexual violence, but it applies equally well to all forms of social violence deriving from prejudice and entitlement attitudes. Starting with the promulgation of a prejudiced and entitled worldview, through cultural expression of that worldview (institutionally or individually), through open verbal expression bigoted humour, to expression in more verbally violent forms (humourous or otherwise), to physical expression of that violence, to outright murder.
The second is the radicalism pipeline. It starts with the normalization of prejudice through the use of edgy humour, aka "trolling". The psychology of this process is well-established, and is used widely in marketing and advertising.
Once people have gotten use to the outward expression of bigotry, they are then primed for the next level, the escalation of bigoted rhetoric by the likes of major social media influencers, and popular pundits with platforms that allow them to reach millions of people (aka Fox News). At this level, the rhetoric is still generalized enough to seem more or less harmless, and is often defended as "free speech" despite its implications. From there, the next step on the pathway is more focused targeting, more radical pundits and influencers begin providing clear targets for their rhetoric -- Mexican rapists flooding across the border, "superpredators" black men, Jews in the financial industry, prominent feminists, trangendered sexual predators attacking young girls in public restrooms, journalists who openly criticize leaders and movements -- and demonize these targets as the cause of any and all social ills affecting their demographic.
Finally, there's the call to action. This is never a direct incitement to commit violence, but a subtle and indirect call based on dog whistles and other coded language. Probably the most blatant and familiar of these is Trump's "second amendment people" comment. In context, it's quite clear what the meaning is, but Trump's people made an effort to backpedal on the meaning and claim they were referring to political action, despite the comment being a clear call to direct action.
And that brings up the biggest and most powerful tool that the influencers have: deniabilitly. Their call to action is always couched in coded language. Dog whistles, "just asking questions", and a vague assertion that "something needs to be done" to remedy the situation. When called out for their incitement, it's very easy for them to fall back on this deniability. Of course they're not calling for violence, only for political action, protest, boycotts, etc. despite the fact that these non-violent actions are never part of their rhetoric, never mentioned explicitly. Therefore, they are never responsible for the results of their words, and any attempt to call them on it is "political correctness gone mad", and "censorship of unpopular speech".
And, of course, there's the somewhat less subtle or coded attempt to paint themselves and their supporters, even the violent supporters, as the victims. They're just "expressing an alternate worldview", and are "being attacked by SJWs". It's never the targets of violence who are the real victims, it's the people being called to account for their hateful rhetoric and pontificating who are the "true victims".
Just as important as the deniable calls to action, is the use of these coded signals to confuse the issue, to not only give cover to the incitement, but also to make it difficult to discuss and address the incitement, to disrupt a potential backlash, and create a rift amongst the opposition. Pepe the Frog, Kekistan, OK/WP, all of this is to not only make the radicals appear less threatening, but to set their opponents to arguing with each other over what is a threat, and what is not. The inciters can denigrate and ridicule anyone who recognizes the codes for what they are, treating it as "just a joke", and those who attempt to explain the meanings of the memes as "idiots who don't get the joke". Disavow, Deny, Denigrate are their watchwords; and their communications are filled with misdirection and misinformation intended to muddy the waters and keep the uninitiated from fully understanding the nature of the threat.
Thus we end up with flippant dismissals of these symbols and dog whistles, and hair-splitting over what constitutes a "true" Nazi, White Supremacist, terrorist, and so on; and grossly misunderstanding and underestimating the nature and degree of threat involved.
The end result is that the inciters can rely on a relatively few people making the full progression from worldview to violent action, well-supported on their various steps through the process. Obviously not everyone will step up through each stage, but we can see numerous incidents involving those who do; each one supported by a much larger body of influence of people in the previous steps of the process. The Christchurch shooter, the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, the Charleston church shooting. One can see the various steps in the radicalization and violence process in each of these.
The Christchurch shooter's manifesto (which I am absolutely not going to link) demonstrates this radicalization from edgelord humour to violent action, and the power of racist and other bigoted memes, in an almost textbook fashion.
Another great expression of part of the process of radicalization and incitement is the Daily Stormer's PR guide, as published by the Huffington Post, which provides detailed instructions on how to craft and promulgate radicalizing language while still maintaining plausible deniability.
For more in-depth details on this, I strongly recommend the following two videos, which provide a systematic exploration of the process of radicalization from normalization to direct violent action.
The PewDiePipeline: how edgy humor leads to violence
PewDiePipeline 2: How to Shut it Down
A former radicalized alt.right reactionary who managed to de-radicalize and work his way out of the pipeline explains the process of radicalization and how to de-radicalize people already in the pipeline:
Faraday Speaks
- My Descent into the Alt-Right Pipeline
One of the things I've noticed recently on this very forum is the proliferation of these sorts of rhetorical tactics. Now, I'm not saying that everyone here is consciously engaging in this sort of radicalizing language and coded call-to-action, but there are an obvious few. But that's not the biggest problem, the biggest problem is how effective the propaganda machine has become, how normalized the rhetoric of bigotry and coded calls-to-action have become, and how otherwise decent people have been duped into excusing, accepting, or outright supporting the deniability and coded language under the guise of free speech and freedom of assembly. The fascists, white nationalists, homophobes/transphobes, and so on, have found unlikely and unwitting allies in their cause.
That is a profound misunderstanding of terrorism in the age of pervasive, near-universal social media access.
Although not entirely new, Stochastic Terrorism has been rapidly becoming the new face of terrorism all over the world, but especially in the developed world with widespread access to mass communication tools, such as social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the various Chans.
The phenomenon was first comprehensively defined and explained in an article in DailyKos. Stochastic Terrorism: Triggering the shooters.
The definition of stochastic terrorism is, in brief, "The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random."
That's somewhat simplistic, but it explains why concentrating on terrorist organizations, and organizations in general, is misguided at best, and deliberate misdirection at worst. Modern terrorism has eschewed the traditional model of organized leadership, infiltration, and activation of sleeper cells; and moved toward promulgating memes,
The key factors in stochastic terrorism are radicalizing seemingly random "loners" through inflammatory rhetoric; and plausible deniability, the ability for the inciting individual or group to distance themselves from the terrorist and declaim responsibility.
We're all familiar with inflammatory rhetoric, the Islamists painting of westerners as the enemy of Islam, Trump painting liberals and unsympathetic journalists as the "enemies of the people", prominent hard-right conservatives blathering on about rapist immigrants and "white genocide", and so on.
Just as importantly, possibly even moreso, is plausible deniability. The purveyors of inflammatory rhetoric can avoid using direct language to incite violence, but still get their message out, and "disavow" the violence which is a direct result of their worldview.
Some further examples and reading on the subject.
THE RISING DANGER OF STOCHASTIC TERRORISM
What a lot of these articles don't address strongly enough and deeply enough is the sheer importance of
This, of course, did not originate with Trump, or even the Islamists. It's far older than that, and has its direct roots in demagoguery and other forms of "whipping up". The earliest clear examples of stochastic terrorism occurred within the anti-abortion movement of the '80s and '90s. Various preachers, and ostensibly "non-violent" protest groups like Operation Rescue labeled doctors and nurses as murderers, referred to open access to abortion as a "Holocaust", and did all but demand direct action against clinics and their personnel. And people took them up on their calls to action and committed numerous murders, bombings, arsons, assaults, and other violent crimes against doctors, nurses, and clinics in the US and worldwide.
This process has continued to evolve, and extremists of all stripes have begun to learn how to harness the power of social platforms to inspire others to violent acts without having to implicate themselves directly in that violence.
There are two phenomena involved in the process of radicalization and escalation to violence.
The first of these is the Pyramid of Violence. This was first developed to explain the progression of sexual violence, but it applies equally well to all forms of social violence deriving from prejudice and entitlement attitudes. Starting with the promulgation of a prejudiced and entitled worldview, through cultural expression of that worldview (institutionally or individually), through open verbal expression bigoted humour, to expression in more verbally violent forms (humourous or otherwise), to physical expression of that violence, to outright murder.
The second is the radicalism pipeline. It starts with the normalization of prejudice through the use of edgy humour, aka "trolling". The psychology of this process is well-established, and is used widely in marketing and advertising.
Once people have gotten use to the outward expression of bigotry, they are then primed for the next level, the escalation of bigoted rhetoric by the likes of major social media influencers, and popular pundits with platforms that allow them to reach millions of people (aka Fox News). At this level, the rhetoric is still generalized enough to seem more or less harmless, and is often defended as "free speech" despite its implications. From there, the next step on the pathway is more focused targeting, more radical pundits and influencers begin providing clear targets for their rhetoric -- Mexican rapists flooding across the border, "superpredators" black men, Jews in the financial industry, prominent feminists, trangendered sexual predators attacking young girls in public restrooms, journalists who openly criticize leaders and movements -- and demonize these targets as the cause of any and all social ills affecting their demographic.
Finally, there's the call to action. This is never a direct incitement to commit violence, but a subtle and indirect call based on dog whistles and other coded language. Probably the most blatant and familiar of these is Trump's "second amendment people" comment. In context, it's quite clear what the meaning is, but Trump's people made an effort to backpedal on the meaning and claim they were referring to political action, despite the comment being a clear call to direct action.
And that brings up the biggest and most powerful tool that the influencers have: deniabilitly. Their call to action is always couched in coded language. Dog whistles, "just asking questions", and a vague assertion that "something needs to be done" to remedy the situation. When called out for their incitement, it's very easy for them to fall back on this deniability. Of course they're not calling for violence, only for political action, protest, boycotts, etc. despite the fact that these non-violent actions are never part of their rhetoric, never mentioned explicitly. Therefore, they are never responsible for the results of their words, and any attempt to call them on it is "political correctness gone mad", and "censorship of unpopular speech".
And, of course, there's the somewhat less subtle or coded attempt to paint themselves and their supporters, even the violent supporters, as the victims. They're just "expressing an alternate worldview", and are "being attacked by SJWs". It's never the targets of violence who are the real victims, it's the people being called to account for their hateful rhetoric and pontificating who are the "true victims".
Just as important as the deniable calls to action, is the use of these coded signals to confuse the issue, to not only give cover to the incitement, but also to make it difficult to discuss and address the incitement, to disrupt a potential backlash, and create a rift amongst the opposition. Pepe the Frog, Kekistan, OK/WP, all of this is to not only make the radicals appear less threatening, but to set their opponents to arguing with each other over what is a threat, and what is not. The inciters can denigrate and ridicule anyone who recognizes the codes for what they are, treating it as "just a joke", and those who attempt to explain the meanings of the memes as "idiots who don't get the joke". Disavow, Deny, Denigrate are their watchwords; and their communications are filled with misdirection and misinformation intended to muddy the waters and keep the uninitiated from fully understanding the nature of the threat.
Thus we end up with flippant dismissals of these symbols and dog whistles, and hair-splitting over what constitutes a "true" Nazi, White Supremacist, terrorist, and so on; and grossly misunderstanding and underestimating the nature and degree of threat involved.
The end result is that the inciters can rely on a relatively few people making the full progression from worldview to violent action, well-supported on their various steps through the process. Obviously not everyone will step up through each stage, but we can see numerous incidents involving those who do; each one supported by a much larger body of influence of people in the previous steps of the process. The Christchurch shooter, the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, the Charleston church shooting. One can see the various steps in the radicalization and violence process in each of these.
The Christchurch shooter's manifesto (which I am absolutely not going to link) demonstrates this radicalization from edgelord humour to violent action, and the power of racist and other bigoted memes, in an almost textbook fashion.
Another great expression of part of the process of radicalization and incitement is the Daily Stormer's PR guide, as published by the Huffington Post, which provides detailed instructions on how to craft and promulgate radicalizing language while still maintaining plausible deniability.
For more in-depth details on this, I strongly recommend the following two videos, which provide a systematic exploration of the process of radicalization from normalization to direct violent action.
The PewDiePipeline: how edgy humor leads to violence
PewDiePipeline 2: How to Shut it Down
A former radicalized alt.right reactionary who managed to de-radicalize and work his way out of the pipeline explains the process of radicalization and how to de-radicalize people already in the pipeline:
Faraday Speaks
- My Descent into the Alt-Right Pipeline
One of the things I've noticed recently on this very forum is the proliferation of these sorts of rhetorical tactics. Now, I'm not saying that everyone here is consciously engaging in this sort of radicalizing language and coded call-to-action, but there are an obvious few. But that's not the biggest problem, the biggest problem is how effective the propaganda machine has become, how normalized the rhetoric of bigotry and coded calls-to-action have become, and how otherwise decent people have been duped into excusing, accepting, or outright supporting the deniability and coded language under the guise of free speech and freedom of assembly. The fascists, white nationalists, homophobes/transphobes, and so on, have found unlikely and unwitting allies in their cause.
via International Skeptics Forum http://bit.ly/2F3wzsm
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