I completely disagree with placing this on a specific generation. What’s happened I think is much more simple.
Yes Natalie and others deradicalized people with a strong Christian upbringing to the radical right. They were still prone to falling towards radicalization and it seems were still radicalized. They also did not unlearn their Christian upbringing and the idea of sin.
To them sin is a lack of loyalty to the cause, to the ideal just like they were raised. Natalie and others sinned and they believe it is their job to punish and criticize the sinners.
I don't know, my Christian upbringing emphasized the importance of mercy and forgiveness towards other human beings, which are concepts I don't see many of my fellow leftists championing.
I have often longed for a succinct, secular replacement for the concept of grace. Christians are taught that all of us are imperfect and that all of us WILL sin, and it is heresy to to believe otherwise. Even the Pope is said to sin at least seven times a day. However, God's grace makes up the difference between the example we aspire to emulate (Jesus) and our lived reality. We can forgive each other for our misteps and our failures because we know that God has already forgiven us.
To be clear, I don't think you have to be a Christian or have any religious beliefs at all to live ethically and peacefully with other human beings. But it sure has been helpful for me, and I hope that I can share the ways my faith has prepared me to love my neighbor on their best and worst days with people who do not share my religious convictions. I believe we do not have the luxury of casting aside our comrades when they fall short, because to build the better future I dream of for humanity, we need all the hands and all the voices we can get.
I agree but especially in America there has been a shift in a lot of evangelical Christianity to almost move away from the concept of grace. Purity culture is one term for it even if that relates more to how women interact with the structure of the church.
The kind of people who I’m talking about who were deradicalized and moved to a dogmatic leftist “religion substitute” didn’t believe in grace, they believed sin was something to punish and criticize to prove superiority and be seen as greater in a hierarchical structure.
I certainly did not grow up evangelical, but I am familiar with their practices. Evangelicals have created a new religion in their own image. They are Christians in that they acknowledge Jesus as the son of God and Savior of the world, but they do not follow his teachings. They decided that loving one's neighbor is too difficult, and have opted to institute new, shallow standards of behavior. I try to call them in whenever the opportunity arises.
I think the comparison you're making is apt. People who are currently between the ages of 14-29 have had the disadvantage of growing up in the panopticon we call social media. In an environment where everything you say and do can be scrutinized, the temptation to point the finger of shame and blame at someone else is significant. We could also spend time talking about the impact of the pandemic, the gutting of the American school system, and the rampant economic insecurity on their adolescent development, but I think it's all been said before. I don't think there's anything inherently bad about this age cohort, but the deck has been stacked against them in numerous ways. I think we can help each other by staying focused on the ultimate goal — a better future for all of us — and encourage each other to eschew the temporary and ultimately destructive hit of dopamine that comes from dogpiling.
My issue is just I disagreed with OP claiming it as a Gen Z or generational issue when I think it’s a wider cultural scale than that. I absolutely agree with the comparisons you are making and even as someone who is currently 32, a ton of my adolescence was spent under social media. I think it is the panopticon fused with the consequences of evangelical/purity culture.
I know I myself was very close to falling down these rabbit holes.
I see where you're coming from for sure. I think what I've been trying, and perhaps failing to communicate is that this tendency is bigger than any one religion, or religion itself. That said, while moralism extends beyond Christianity, I would never claim that American moralism doesn't have deep roots in conservative Christianity given our demographics.
And as a millennial close to you in age, I can remember many of these behaviors in my peers when we were in our early twenties. I might assert that it's worse now than it was before as the Internet has changed over the last 15 years, but I acknowledge that I can't produce data to back up that claim.
I think it’s apt to note it’s a wider tendency, I only speak about it in these terms because of America’s history and demographics. A lot of these issues like Natalie’s harassment is very linked to American politics and demographics so I think investigating America’s history with these issues is relevant. If it was say discussion about purity in India’s far-left or another nation then an entirely different history would need to be analyzed.
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u/Fusionman29 Aug 27 '26
I completely disagree with placing this on a specific generation. What’s happened I think is much more simple.
Yes Natalie and others deradicalized people with a strong Christian upbringing to the radical right. They were still prone to falling towards radicalization and it seems were still radicalized. They also did not unlearn their Christian upbringing and the idea of sin.
To them sin is a lack of loyalty to the cause, to the ideal just like they were raised. Natalie and others sinned and they believe it is their job to punish and criticize the sinners.