Give him a book by Robert Nozick, so he discovers what coherent conservative philosophy sounds like
Ooooh he’s a huge reader. anarchy state and utopia? I’d like a specific suggestion. He’s a huge Ayn Rand fan.
edit: I am very excited about your response because my son is too smart for the usual deprogramming tacks, but steering him away from fascism in any way would be great.
if he likes ayn rand, i would suggest bioshock: rapture by john shirley
Is your kid into The Smiths? Back In The Day, all the Ayn Rand fans I knew were pretty annoying, but we could agree that The Smiths made some great music. So maybe get your kid some Smiths albums or a t-shirt or something.
(do kids still do albums these days? also, I know Morrisey has made some questionable statements, but we’re talking about reaching out to a fascist here…)
Oh god Ayn Rand? I’m surprised he has the attention span. Yeah Anarchy State and Utopia.
Steel man his perspective. Give him something he finds interesting which will also teach him to develop his argumentation.
Give him 1984 so he can understand where authoritarianism leads.
EDIT: who the fuck downvoted this? How is teaching a kid about the horror of authoritarianism a bad thing?
Honestly it’s a very lazy tack. Imagine what would actually happen if you are a young conservative and your leftist aunt or whatever gives you 1984.
Animal farm, too.
Of course good shout
In the context of Lemmy, my best explanation is that tankies hate Orwell.
Do they not see the irony in that?
- Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (1892)
- Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (1982)
- Abdullah Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism (2011)
unironically, some books on philosophy and more broad political sciences.
Assuming he isn’t the stupidest person in the room at any given time, some good reading on philosophy and sociological structures (politics) will be interesting.
Don’t ask me for recommendations, there are better places to go, and im sure a few people here will have good recommendations.
education is the single biggest thing preventing people from being more educated, funny how that works really.
Some kids adopt an edgy political identity as a form of protest or rebellion. I can see this being the case here, especially if your whole family is particularly left-leaning. Kid wants to feel like he has an autonomy over his own decision making and that he’s not just a carbon copy of you or his siblings, so he becomes a contrarian.
As a teen I was also taken in by extremist political ideology on 4chan, but the thing that snapped me out of that is, surprisingly enough, my curriculum at school focusing heavily on critical thinking and problem solving as essential skills. That’s unfortunately not something that can easily be condensed down into a gift-sized package. I’m sure there are some books out there that can help, but I worry that it might be too on-the-nose or that he might just not like reading much to be interested in dry subject matter like philosophy or political science.
I kind of agree with other posters here that taking a family trip somewhere, maybe not explicitly as a gift for him, but as an experience for all of your children, will expose him to stimuli that drastically differ from the way he currently sees the world, which is influenced by a nonstop stream of fearmongering propaganda and a lack of perspective of what a world outside the town or city he grew up in actually looks like.
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It’s hard to do that when he shows such clear disdain for his siblings.
I’d recommend some Scott Galloway. He’s an advocate for young men, but he’s not one of those toxic manosphere types. He’s not exactly a leftist, but he’s certainly a liberal by today’s standards.
And if your son is old enough, and a virgin/incel, maybe buy him an evening with female companionship.
A lot of people recommend anything, outdoors, hiking, camping, dirt bikes etc.
I want to say you have to be careful with those. As you can easily spiral into right wing, conspiracy theorist territory.
Youtube is very good at pushing that kind of content.
Maybe something about food, like cooking classes, or about traveling.
Edit: I developed my comment a bit more below. Hiking isn’t a right wing hobby per say. But here is the experience I had with youtube. If you start browsing video about camping and hiking. You will probably start browsing video about solo camping, then survivalism. Then youtube will try to push video about paranormal activities and conspiracies.
So the important part is cut down on social media.
I think a lot of right wing people are people who have travelled very little. If OP can afford it, maybe a trip somewhere with the family.
So hiking is fascist now?
Survivalist militias are, and guess who already has a history of going too far…
No no, it’s not really what I mean. Hiking is great, and everything that has to do with nature.
But I enjoy sometimes watching video about surviving in nature, bushcraft and youtube algorithm started pushing stuff about Paranormal shit, conspiracy things.
It might be true about anything. it’s juste something to keep in mind. Before pushing OP’s son to get a hunting or fishing license.
But clearly disconnecting from social media can help.
If you have to advise about hobbies, boardgaming is nice, rollerblading too.
You ought to edit your comment above because it reads like you’re telling people those things are dangerous.
A ticket to visit https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/slavery-and-freedom
or
https://www.theauschwitztours.com/
A course for https://coursebrowser.dce.harvard.edu/course/slavery-and-historical-memory/
Gift him the yellow badge. Let him wear it and slowly remove his luxury to do things throughout the December.
Disconnection notice from the ISP.
A contract to not use the internet for a year in exchange for X cash/gift.
Fake Klux invitation.
A visit to people with different views including the thing his on, plus if old people for uncool effect.
Plane ticket to Peru and a Ayahuasca retreat
A Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The article doesn’t mention this, so I am adding that you can also read that annotated version online for free at https://www.mein-kampf-edition.de/ (but only in German; not sure if there are annotated translations into other languages, I never checked because German is my first language).
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.
A cooy of disco elysium
Second this, communism go brrr
The Wall (the full album) by Pink Floyd
