How do you want to radicalize yourself?

Hi friend, 

Last week I wrote about the importance of taking a conscious and active role in the curation of your own moral beliefs and identity (you can read it here!), and I promised to come back and share more about what that actually looks like.

I want to start by saying that I sometimes call this work “intentional self-radicalization,” because the truth is that far too often we allow our moral beliefs to be influenced unintentionally, and with sometimes dire consequences. 

Think about how many young men start off by searching for content online to help them understand why they feel so lonely, disempowered, or unworthy… and then end up so entrenched in misogynistic incel content that they come to view genuinely believe women don’t deserve sexual autonomy or the right to vote, and feel entitled to rape and kill them. 

What can we call this kind of pipeline, if not “accidental moral radicalization”?

These boys aren’t generally going online with the goal of becoming violent misogynists, but their beliefs about what is right and what is wrong change gradually as they’re exposed to perspectives and ideas and communities who see things a certain way. 

First it’s relatable videos on how dating is hard for men right now because women have all the power, and some seemingly reasonable critiques of feminism. Then it’s content about “looksmaxxing,” a slow introduction of dehumanizing language to describe women. The video content gradually becomes more extreme and violent, and they come with access to a community of men who validate him, give him a sense of “belonging,” and both reinforce his changing views, and continue to push them to more and more extreme places. 

Eventually, the guy is fully indoctrinated (or “red-pilled” as they say in the incel community), and his moral beliefs have been completely rewritten in the most dangerous possible way. 

This might sound like an extreme case of someone being influenced by others to accidentally overhaul their entire moral identity, and it is. But unfortunately these kinds of stories aren’t exactly rare. 

Think about the brainwashing that happens in any cult or high-control religion, where people are progressively exposed to more and more extreme ideas, and come to hold incredibly bizarre-sounding beliefs (to those outside of the community) about what is good and right, and what is bad and evil. Think about how many kids just wanted to feel like their life had meaning, and got recruited into terrorist organizations. Think about how many poor white people in the US turned to right-wing media for their news, and ended up getting radicalized into MAGA extremism, xenophobia, and white supremacy. 

Unfortunately, there are countless stories out there of people getting unintentionally radicalized into a brand new set of extreme moral beliefs, often with horrific consequences. 

But this phenomenon happens outside of these kinds of extreme cases, too. It happens constantly, in fact, because we humans are biologically wired to be influenced by each other, and our moral beliefs are constantly being shaped, changed, or reinforced by the people and perspectives that we’re exposed to. 

• Think about your friend who used to be staunchly anti-capitalist but then got a corporate job she loves, and how her views on the morality of money have changed over the years. 

• Think about your sensitive nephew who used to cry about killing bugs, and how he started acting tough and making violent jokes when he hit puberty. 

• Think about how you felt so strongly about a particular issue when you were surrounded by other people who felt the same, but as your peer group changed you realized you didn’t actually feel that strongly about it after all. 

We aren’t often aware of the way our moral beliefs are being influenced by others (because change tends to happen gradually and our brains are incredibly adaptable), but it’s happening all the time, and to all of us. 

If that sounds alarming, let me please remind you that it doesn’t have to be a bad thing! 

After all, we are just as likely to be morally influenced in a positive direction as we are to be influenced in a negative one! 

• Think about all the people who grew up in cults or high control religions, who were able to escape and recover, thanks to the exposure to other people and ideas. 

• Think of all the people who were taught racist and sexist beliefs growing up, but who were able to unpack and dismantle them in adulthood, with the support of more progressive people and ideas. 

• Think about how many people learned to reject their sexuality or gender identity because it was “wrong,” and are now living beautiful, authentic lives as their true selves, after finding queer community. 

• Think about how many people internalized the idea that their worth and value are based on their body size and attractiveness, who were able to overcome their body image issues and feel worthy, after learning about body neutrality and body liberation.

Our beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad, worthy or unworthy, and natural or unnatural, are constantly being influenced by the people and ideas that we’re exposed to. 

And this is actually a really good thing, because it means that we get to decide how we want to be morally influenced! 

Moral influence doesn’t have to be some passive thing that happens to us, although many people choose that path. But if we want to, we can choose to be incredibly conscious and intentional about what we allow ourselves to be exposed to instead, and in so doing, we can actually decide the direction of our own radicalization. 

Let’s say you grew up with internalized fatphobia, for example, and it’s wreaking havok on your body image and confidence. You’ve done enough work already to logically understand that body size isn’t necessarily something a person can control, and that other people deserve respect and inclusion no matter their body size. 

Despite this, you still feel like it’s shameful for you to be fat, and you still feel absolutely disgusted by your body. This is because on some deep emotional level, you still carry the belief that being fat is bad and wrong, and that only people with poor moral character or weakness end up fat. 

Since your “rational/logical beliefs” and “moral/emotional beliefs” don’t match, you might realize that the deep-seated moral beliefs you hold about fatness aren’t actually in alignment with your core values or sense of truth. These beliefs are hurting you (and possibly other people), and they’re outside of your actual moral identity and integrity. So you decide to intentionally radicalize yourself about body size. 

You take a fearless inventory of the people and ideas that you’re exposed to, and the impact that they have on you. Then you make some big changes! You cut out, distance yourself from, or set boundaries with the people that reinforce weight stigma, and find alternatives for the activities, spaces, and communities that do the same. You overhaul the content you consume, going way out of your way to expose yourself (both online and in real life) to people and ideas that can’t help but influence you toward weight neutrality and body liberation. 

Over time you will be subtly (or not-so-subtly) influenced in the direction of your own choosing, until eventually your moral beliefs system is unrecognizable from what it used to be. 

This, my friends, is intentional self-radicalization, and it is some serious magic. 

It’s worth acknowledging here that while intentional self-radicalization is both incredibly badass and very much a moral imperative (in my belief system, at least), thinking about it can sometimes bring up shame and resistance. 

After all, it requires admitting that your current moral beliefs are false (or at the very least subjective), and if your sense of self is rooted in moral superiority/correctness, objectivity/intelligence, or even just being a “good person,” that admission itself can feel threatening and uncomfortable. 

So in the interest of (hopefully) helping you release any shame that comes up around having been “wrong” in some way, or in needing to update your moral beliefs, I want to share a personal and slightly embarrassing story with you!

I have to start by admitting that before the Black Lives Matter movement started gaining popularity, I knew very little about systemic racism. 

Like most white people, I didn’t think about race or racism much. But when I did, it would be fair to say that I believed what I was taught in school, which means I had the impression that as a society overall, we had already fixed the majority of racism-related problems, and were living in a more or less post-racism world. I certainly didn’t feel like I personally played any role whatsoever in the oppression of people of color, and I never once considered my own privilege, or thought about what being white meant to me. 

Having already radicalized myself in other ways by this time, I was already a pretty politically progressive person, and I was lucky enough to have people in my circle of influence who were more educated than I was about systemic racism, and who considered it a moral obligation to help others get educated too. 

Nobody ever said that I was a bad person or called me racist or anything, but as BLM went mainstream, I realized that a lot of my most respected peers were talking about racism in ways that made me feel like I was obviously missing something… and we know what a powerful motivator FOMO can be!

It was also made clear to me on various occasions by people whom I held in the highest moral regard, and whom I trusted implicitly in terms of critical thinking and being a “good person” that my ignorance around this issue was harmful, and that I needed to learn more. 

So I started learning, and intentionally exposing myself to new people and ideas around race. And I started exposing myself to these people and ideas before I agreed with them— that’s important!

As I listened and learned, I realized that a lot of what I previously thought and believed about racism was incorrect. I didn’t automatically agree with everything people said, but anytime I felt resistance I would try to sit with what I was hearing, and see if my resistance was coming from a place of authentic critical thinking, or just a desire to protect my own moral identity from a perceived attack. (Spoiler: it was often the latter.)

The more I learned, the more I wanted to radicalize myself in this direction. Because once I realized how much racial injustice is still happening, I started to feel very uncomfortable with the fact that I had spent so much of my life ignoring it. 

This process caused a major rupture to my moral identity and sense of myself as a “good person,” because… how could I have not realized that people of color are being actively disadvantaged, disrespected, and discriminated against all around me? How could I have never considered that being white made my life easier, and gave me unearned advantages? 

And how could I have not considered the fact that—other than systemic racism—the only explanation for why people of color are disproportionately represented in poverty and prison (and disproportionately not represented in positions of leadership, wealth, and power) is that they’re inferior and/or less deserving? 

I’ll admit that these realizations, and the way they made a big mess of my previously solid moral identity was incredibly unpleasant and uncomfortable. I felt a lot of shame at first, and then later on a lot of grief and anger. 

But you can’t unsee certain things, and once I saw the truth about systemic racism I knew the only way to repair my moral identity—which is to say: to get back into alignment with my values and integrity, in the wake of my new understanding of the world—was to keep going. 

So I kept listening, kept learning, kept unlearning, and kept challenging and changing the ways in which I moved through the world, with the goal of both doing less harm, and of using my privilege to fight for justice. (Which I now felt to be the only morally correct thing to do.)

I will probably keep learning and unlearning in this space forever, but over time, my moral identity righted itself and stabilized again in a way that is actually much stronger and healthier than before, because I am now much more in alignment with my own values and integrity.

This is what intentional self-radicalization can look like; it may be disorienting and uncomfortable as you do it, but the result is a richer, deeper, more authentic, and more resilient sense of yourself as a moral person. 

From that place, you’re more likely to treat yourself with kindness and respect, and also to treat other people with kindness and respect. And the world needs more of that, now more than ever.

Big hug,

Jessi

PS. I wrote my February articles ahead of time, because the musical I’m doing opened last week and runs for the next couple of weeks, so I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time for writing. There is so much horrific shit going on right now, from the ICE murders to the Epstein files, and I have many thoughts on them which I hope to write about soon. I promise I’m not intentionally ignoring those topics, I’m just balancing life and work the best way I can this month. Please feel free to hit reply and let me know if there is a topic you want to see me write about after this series on moral distress and identity is done!