(Untitled)

[ibid]

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1231684&page=1

Reading this made me depressed. Why does conflict and defensiveness seem to be so integral to being human?

Comments

[nashiitashii]

The article makes me sad too. It's difficult for me to understand it, but at the same time, the people in the story are idolizing people who committed atrocities. Sadly enough, it's all too common .

[devoosha]

Very disturbing. But thanks for posting...this warrants watching.

[sugarimp]

There was a bit of a drama over at puny_mortals when I posted this last week. Some confused kid claimed that neo nazis were a disgrace to National Socialism, and that the holocaust never happened. It was funny, whilst sad.

[ibid]

Actually this I see this sort of thing as a gague of my mental health - as long as I can laugh then I know I'm fine!

And as long as we can all laugh then they can't get away woth it!

[concorde]

That is just gross. Gross. But, as the article pointed out, these girls aren't acting out of any soul-deep beliefs -- this is garbage they're being taught to repeat. They could've just as easily been taught to sing songs about Jesus or Barbie or all the sex they'd like to have (as with that horrible Tatu duo). If they had a better mother, they'd certainly be singing something else. I predict one day, after they grow up and (hopefully) go to college, they'll be appearing on Oprah to sobbingly recant their childhood singing career.

[tonyjohnuk]

Is their indoctrination not the same as the way many young are indoctrinated into religeous beliefs by their parents. Do all young not learn from their family? What is a valid test of personal belief? I think they are simply being tribal. They are preaching to the converted and not testing their beliefs.

There seems to be people that prefer the shelter of a community and those that relish the engagement of others. I'm not sure there's anything wrong in having a xenophobic attitude as such. Surely there's an element of choice here. You can choose not to engage with those that are different from you. There may be little real basis for the choice criteria but when have humans needed good rational basis for their behaviour.

Could there be some benefits, in the natural selection sense, to an isolationist attitude?

[concorde]

Unfortunately, the anthropological concept of cultural relativism must be discarded when the young of a culture are actively being taught hate of another group by misguided adults.

As anthropologists, should we accept xenophobia without protest or discussion? Perhaps. As members of the larger culture of which this particularly ugly strain is a subset? Definitely not.

They're not simply singing to the converted; if they could, they'd sing on MTV in a heartbeat. Continued isolation in this case only denies these children from learning or engaging in outside contacts that would cause them to discover the fallacy of their mother's beliefs.

[tiker_tape]

I actually rather surprised that it's taken Dateline this long to notice Prussian Blue. They came to my attention last year when they came up on the Museum of Hoaxes. The question was whether this group was real or not. Unfortunately, they turned out to be real.

The Prussian Blue website is also quite frightening. Last time I was there, they were proudly selling white supremacy t-shirts and other memorabilia. You would think, that even with the Freedom of Speech, this would fall under the jurisdiction of the hate laws somehow.

[itsalljustaride]

exactly, on the freedom of speech laws.

""Because it's provocative," explains April of the cattle brand, "to him he thinks it's important as a symbol of freedom of speech that he can use it as his cattle brand.""

some people do things just because they are antagonistic. they walk around wearing nazi crap and spouting hate because to them its more fun and gives their lives more meaning than preaching tolerance. i am of the mentality that people like this are what are really eroding freedom of speech. people who just say things because they can, without regard to truth or reason or even well-established history.

shit like that should be considered a form of child abuse. there is a difference between teaching children your values and teaching them an entire philosophy of hatred and ignorance to the point where it becomes their whole life.