Partner’s son has gotten into QAnon. What to do?
March 29, 2020 1:12 AM Subscribe
My partner is sheltering in place in another town with her 19-year-old son. Today she texted me that he’s been watching the QAnon video series “The Fall of the Cabal” and believes what it says, including that the CIA runs the news media and both CNN and Snopes are fake.
She wants me to convince him that it’s not real, but I am concerned that someone who believes in QAnon cannot be argued out of it with facts, and that showing him the many available articles and videos debunking QAnon could cause him to dig in more firmly.
Are there any resources or scripts for keeping a young family member from falling down a conspiracy rabbit hole?
Similar questions on AskMe tend to be about friends or partners and the consensus answer tends to be "agree to disagree.” He is an adult at 19 but my partner wants to ensure his world view is not permanently distorted at such a tender age. (This question comes close and has some good advice.)
The son has had therapy for depression and has been lonely recently due to some circumstances in his life, though his mother says he’s been actually happy and holding up well during the lockdown. He still lives with her and is not yet self-sufficient.
I don’t know how he found his way to QAnon—I wanted to ask this question before I get into the topic with him. I know that the alt-right recruits depressed, lonely people online, but I have reasons to believe he would never become virulently racist or white supremacist. I’ve found some sites about what to do if your child is being radicalized, but I don’t believe he would ever turn to violence or terrorism. (Or should I be worried?)
I’m half-sure he’ll just grow out of it in time, but I don’t want to ignore it if there’s any way to help.
She wants me to convince him that it’s not real, but I am concerned that someone who believes in QAnon cannot be argued out of it with facts, and that showing him the many available articles and videos debunking QAnon could cause him to dig in more firmly.
Are there any resources or scripts for keeping a young family member from falling down a conspiracy rabbit hole?
Similar questions on AskMe tend to be about friends or partners and the consensus answer tends to be "agree to disagree.” He is an adult at 19 but my partner wants to ensure his world view is not permanently distorted at such a tender age. (This question comes close and has some good advice.)
The son has had therapy for depression and has been lonely recently due to some circumstances in his life, though his mother says he’s been actually happy and holding up well during the lockdown. He still lives with her and is not yet self-sufficient.
I don’t know how he found his way to QAnon—I wanted to ask this question before I get into the topic with him. I know that the alt-right recruits depressed, lonely people online, but I have reasons to believe he would never become virulently racist or white supremacist. I’ve found some sites about what to do if your child is being radicalized, but I don’t believe he would ever turn to violence or terrorism. (Or should I be worried?)
I’m half-sure he’ll just grow out of it in time, but I don’t want to ignore it if there’s any way to help.
I make many assumptions in the following. Please excuse the assumption of whiteness in the following. If it doesn't apply, I hope that the intersections with default still do.
All of this is about agency and power, and knowing a secret knowledge gives you status above the ordinary at a time when power and status are being redistributed away from default cis-het-white-male. I am these things and have enough opportunity to give some of it up, while those that have less opportunity might be attracted towards the nothing-matters of QAnon and towards the alt.right and extreme right wing promise of making your partner's son great again. The rumbling discontent occurs in a swathe of USA literature: many bad 'twenty-something white man' novels have been written about this promise-but-lack of power (American Psycho, Fight Club etc.) but ultimately this 19-year-old or I take our place in society as it stands today.
(The long way round involves getting to acceptance of the colonial and racist heritage I stand on top of -- knowing why and choosing not to carry on these ways as we build better communities. There will be a time, soon, to lean our communities and civilisation toward good-for-all when we can leave our homes and look one another in the eye.)
The short way round is to embed in communities that let you see people who are different to you and assess that it's not wrong. But we're sheltering-in-place, so maybe there's a story to be told about a deeper conspiracy -- you know it's true because I made it up right now -- concerning organising forces called G.R.E.E.D. around a mythical figure "Will T. Power" where the media frame their news-telling in certain ways so that we don't think except along railroad lines of their terminology and, if we differ, we fight amongst ourselves for the improved wording to frame of the problems in the world around us (which influences what we conceive solutions might be). G.R.E.E.D. means that what power I have I want more of and will exclude you to get and retain it. We've arrived at pervasive social structures so that money and power are unassailable and uniting together for change is practically impossible. (The twist: "G.R.E.E.D. was us all along.")
I figure that a bigger conspiracy doesn't supplant a better vision of what our communities, societies and civilisation can be. To do that, you've got to call shenanigans of QAnon rejecting a broken society as meaningless and yet not replacing it with something better. Then you can talk about societies who report high happiness scores and a correlation with high social mobility and low gap from rich to poor with high happiness scores -- as to what their 'guiding conspiracy' might be and whether it's a better alternative to this QAnon one.
posted by k3ninho at 5:13 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
All of this is about agency and power, and knowing a secret knowledge gives you status above the ordinary at a time when power and status are being redistributed away from default cis-het-white-male. I am these things and have enough opportunity to give some of it up, while those that have less opportunity might be attracted towards the nothing-matters of QAnon and towards the alt.right and extreme right wing promise of making your partner's son great again. The rumbling discontent occurs in a swathe of USA literature: many bad 'twenty-something white man' novels have been written about this promise-but-lack of power (American Psycho, Fight Club etc.) but ultimately this 19-year-old or I take our place in society as it stands today.
(The long way round involves getting to acceptance of the colonial and racist heritage I stand on top of -- knowing why and choosing not to carry on these ways as we build better communities. There will be a time, soon, to lean our communities and civilisation toward good-for-all when we can leave our homes and look one another in the eye.)
The short way round is to embed in communities that let you see people who are different to you and assess that it's not wrong. But we're sheltering-in-place, so maybe there's a story to be told about a deeper conspiracy -- you know it's true because I made it up right now -- concerning organising forces called G.R.E.E.D. around a mythical figure "Will T. Power" where the media frame their news-telling in certain ways so that we don't think except along railroad lines of their terminology and, if we differ, we fight amongst ourselves for the improved wording to frame of the problems in the world around us (which influences what we conceive solutions might be). G.R.E.E.D. means that what power I have I want more of and will exclude you to get and retain it. We've arrived at pervasive social structures so that money and power are unassailable and uniting together for change is practically impossible. (The twist: "G.R.E.E.D. was us all along.")
I figure that a bigger conspiracy doesn't supplant a better vision of what our communities, societies and civilisation can be. To do that, you've got to call shenanigans of QAnon rejecting a broken society as meaningless and yet not replacing it with something better. Then you can talk about societies who report high happiness scores and a correlation with high social mobility and low gap from rich to poor with high happiness scores -- as to what their 'guiding conspiracy' might be and whether it's a better alternative to this QAnon one.
posted by k3ninho at 5:13 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
How did the son get into Q-Anon? What does he find that he gets out of it? Why was this enticing to him? Does he know yet about the connections between Q-Anon and white supremacy (that is, does he know yet that this group is misaligned with what you report are some core values for him)? Maybe start with questions and trying to understand (as others said) what social needs of his this is meeting that were going unmet. Or start with talking about core values. In either case, you'll probably have more success if he feels like you are respecting his autonomy, and truly care about him (as I'm sure you do, but successfully conveying that to a teenager is a different matter, of course).
At some later point it might (?) be useful to talk about why you and his mother are worried about this. For example, I'd be worried that Q-Anon would lead to virulently sexist ideologies would lead to potential harm to his mother while they're stuck in the same house together with all of the normal everyday tensions that also can entail. You can preface that by saying you don't really think he would head down that path, intellectually, but that of course fears are not always rational. I mean, I, a random stranger on the internet, think that this is a rational worry. But teenager is not going to think that, and may shut down if he feels like he's being accused of something that he doesn't (yet) believe in. The goal with all this is innoculation: so that he has thought ahead of time and rejected ahead of time some of the even worse pathways that this may lead to, so that when he encounters them in person, he also rejects them. So lean on those shared/core values and build off of having established respect and trust in the earlier part of the conversation for this part of the conversation.
The SPLC has a guide on talking to relatives (that they out out for US Thanksgiving after Trump's election). I'll see if I can find the link. Advice from groups like March for Science on how to respectfully and effectively talk to folks who are vaccine hesitant would also apply in this situation.
posted by eviemath at 7:09 AM on March 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
At some later point it might (?) be useful to talk about why you and his mother are worried about this. For example, I'd be worried that Q-Anon would lead to virulently sexist ideologies would lead to potential harm to his mother while they're stuck in the same house together with all of the normal everyday tensions that also can entail. You can preface that by saying you don't really think he would head down that path, intellectually, but that of course fears are not always rational. I mean, I, a random stranger on the internet, think that this is a rational worry. But teenager is not going to think that, and may shut down if he feels like he's being accused of something that he doesn't (yet) believe in. The goal with all this is innoculation: so that he has thought ahead of time and rejected ahead of time some of the even worse pathways that this may lead to, so that when he encounters them in person, he also rejects them. So lean on those shared/core values and build off of having established respect and trust in the earlier part of the conversation for this part of the conversation.
The SPLC has a guide on talking to relatives (that they out out for US Thanksgiving after Trump's election). I'll see if I can find the link. Advice from groups like March for Science on how to respectfully and effectively talk to folks who are vaccine hesitant would also apply in this situation.
posted by eviemath at 7:09 AM on March 29, 2020 [4 favorites]
Believing in a vast grand unified conspiracy theory relies on a large number of people being far more competent than any group that has ever existed. I grew up around a ton of conspiracy theorists, and one of the only conversational gambits that worked was: "Dad, people are just clearly too stupid to organize anything like that, and anyway there are all these smaller, public, obvious conspiracies that we know are happening; why don't we focus on, say, advocating for an end to corporate price-fixing on medicine?"
It worked some of the time. Or at least got them to shut up.
The other thing that may help even more is to treat it like a genuine interest (it was for me; I was super-into True Crime novels and espionage thrillers, which led straight to the Illuminatus Trilogy, but then eventually to a history degree).
Provide them with more substantive work about actual conspiracies/examples of conspiratorial thinking: Lies my Teacher Told Me, A People's History of the United States, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. If they're into QAnon they may not be super-bookish, so David Harvey's and David Graeber's lectures on debt or late financial capitalism might be interesting - plenty of real conspiring to go around from the finance sector.
The great thing about this approach is that, even if it's discarded wholesale, it preserves the good will of both the kid and the partner, which direct intervention may not. There's real harm in some of the QAnon stuff, but a surprising number of people believe in things I think are obviously ridiculous and occasionally harmful. Providing a relatively grounded connection for someone who believes wacky stuff is probably a net positive, unless it starts to affect your own well-being.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:29 AM on March 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
It worked some of the time. Or at least got them to shut up.
The other thing that may help even more is to treat it like a genuine interest (it was for me; I was super-into True Crime novels and espionage thrillers, which led straight to the Illuminatus Trilogy, but then eventually to a history degree).
Provide them with more substantive work about actual conspiracies/examples of conspiratorial thinking: Lies my Teacher Told Me, A People's History of the United States, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. If they're into QAnon they may not be super-bookish, so David Harvey's and David Graeber's lectures on debt or late financial capitalism might be interesting - plenty of real conspiring to go around from the finance sector.
The great thing about this approach is that, even if it's discarded wholesale, it preserves the good will of both the kid and the partner, which direct intervention may not. There's real harm in some of the QAnon stuff, but a surprising number of people believe in things I think are obviously ridiculous and occasionally harmful. Providing a relatively grounded connection for someone who believes wacky stuff is probably a net positive, unless it starts to affect your own well-being.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:29 AM on March 29, 2020 [9 favorites]
Well, I think pretty close to 100% of all conspiracy theories eventually get to some variation on blaming the Jews. Assuming he's still a reasonable person, you can let him know that... then go down the rabbit hole with him following whatever path he likes until you find it.
Seriously, I said "pretty close to", but I'm pretty sure it's actually 100%.
posted by Mchelly at 7:38 AM on March 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
Seriously, I said "pretty close to", but I'm pretty sure it's actually 100%.
posted by Mchelly at 7:38 AM on March 29, 2020 [7 favorites]
I don't know if the strategy this OP took with their dad is something you want to try, but it's a hilarious read either way.
posted by foxjacket at 8:22 AM on March 29, 2020
posted by foxjacket at 8:22 AM on March 29, 2020
Hm. One small thing I'd recommend is, if you haven't already, you & your partner might want to read Johann Hari's Lost Connections. Hari is a journalist who was discovered to be a plagiarist and was disgraced: he then spent a couple of years reflecting on his lifelong anxiety and depression, and talking with experts about causes and treatments. He's the first person I've read who has a coherent sociological theory of depression, which is essentially (over-simplifying) that it's a response to meaninglessness and a lack of human connection.
It seems to me that susceptibility to QAnon has the same / similar roots. And if that's true, solutions wouldn't lie in arguing with your partner's son about facts; they would lie more in helping him find meaningful work and build up his social connections.
I'll also say that when I was 19, I was an angry, alienated idiot, who absolutely would've been susceptible to QAnon if it had been around back then. (I remember telling a friend the Taliban wasn't real, and had been made up by Ronald Reagan for unspecified reasons. I also "didn't believe in" female genital mutilation, WTAF.) I grew out of it and turned out fine. What helped me was probably a combination of finding my path work-wise, as well as just the passage of time and getting a little more mature.
And now that I think about it, one thing that actually did help at the time was talking with a friend of my father's, who was warm and kind and had beautiful manners, and who I admired. He would talk with me about politics and stuff, and when I said something ridiculous he would react as though I had (forgive me) audibly farted.
Me: But, you know, the Taliban isn't real, Ronald Reagan made it up.
Him: Oh, actually that's not true. In fact, if you're interested, an old friend of mine has just written a book about the history of that part of the world [etc., etc.]
He didn't entertain my bad ideas seriously and certainly wouldn't have argued with me about them. He behaved as though I was clever and curious and would grow into being wise and smart, but had to pass through a nonsense stage first, as though it was a medium-length illness. This was helpful, I think, because it didn't make me feel ashamed/attacked, which would've made me dig in my heels. It made me feel like my nonsense was normal, and that growing out of it was equally normal. Which I think helped me to do that. So maybe you can play some similar role with your partner's son?
Good luck.
posted by Susan PG at 8:22 AM on March 29, 2020 [19 favorites]
It seems to me that susceptibility to QAnon has the same / similar roots. And if that's true, solutions wouldn't lie in arguing with your partner's son about facts; they would lie more in helping him find meaningful work and build up his social connections.
I'll also say that when I was 19, I was an angry, alienated idiot, who absolutely would've been susceptible to QAnon if it had been around back then. (I remember telling a friend the Taliban wasn't real, and had been made up by Ronald Reagan for unspecified reasons. I also "didn't believe in" female genital mutilation, WTAF.) I grew out of it and turned out fine. What helped me was probably a combination of finding my path work-wise, as well as just the passage of time and getting a little more mature.
And now that I think about it, one thing that actually did help at the time was talking with a friend of my father's, who was warm and kind and had beautiful manners, and who I admired. He would talk with me about politics and stuff, and when I said something ridiculous he would react as though I had (forgive me) audibly farted.
Me: But, you know, the Taliban isn't real, Ronald Reagan made it up.
Him: Oh, actually that's not true. In fact, if you're interested, an old friend of mine has just written a book about the history of that part of the world [etc., etc.]
He didn't entertain my bad ideas seriously and certainly wouldn't have argued with me about them. He behaved as though I was clever and curious and would grow into being wise and smart, but had to pass through a nonsense stage first, as though it was a medium-length illness. This was helpful, I think, because it didn't make me feel ashamed/attacked, which would've made me dig in my heels. It made me feel like my nonsense was normal, and that growing out of it was equally normal. Which I think helped me to do that. So maybe you can play some similar role with your partner's son?
Good luck.
posted by Susan PG at 8:22 AM on March 29, 2020 [19 favorites]
Yes, I think you should try to talk to him about it, and do everything you can to not make him defensive. When people are pushed hard about conspiracy theories it just makes them dig in farther with their rationalizing and they believe it more. But if he's just recently started getting into it he won't have internalized all the ideologies. People absolutely change their minds about conspiracy theories all the time, but it takes time
That YouTube video series is extremely new so I don't have any specific info about it, but my understanding is that a lot of the specific detailed Q predictions have been false over the last few weeks.
There are two approaches that can work here: having him think the Q community is boring or harmful so he drifts away from it socially, or having him apply the same sort of "believe nothing you are told" mantra to the movement itself, which it will fall apart under. Neither of these involve appeals to authorities he does not trust.
The social approach works better if he has strongly values you socially, which is likely not true based on how this question is asked. Generally this works by pointing out actions by the community that do not agree with his desires for a community, without getting into the specific reasons why. You would need to know what he values specifically to do this.
To get him to turn his critical lens on the q itself, you need to ask him about why, specifically he believes q. To get this started you could ask him what he knows about how q started, because you're interested. Why does he think that q actually has his best interests in mind and isn't just trying to manipulate their followers for political gain? Why trust q more than all the other random people on 4chan? Because that's what q is, a collection of 4chan trolls who started this as a troll for the lulz and then when they realized people were paying attention they aimed it towards right wing goals.
You want to ask him about q from the perspective of being interested in what it is, but not as a possible convert. If he stays in neutral explaining mode he's the most likely to question things without feeling the urge to defend them. So you ask about q as a way of getting to know his desires better. Ask him how the predictions have done over the last few weeks. But, this approach will only work if he is capable of some self questioning. If it does seem like he gets very defensive about it when you're just asking neutral questions, I would mention that to him and bail out before he gets too far. You should know an hour in if he's capable of being critical of q, and if he isn't give up.
posted by JZig at 8:29 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
That YouTube video series is extremely new so I don't have any specific info about it, but my understanding is that a lot of the specific detailed Q predictions have been false over the last few weeks.
There are two approaches that can work here: having him think the Q community is boring or harmful so he drifts away from it socially, or having him apply the same sort of "believe nothing you are told" mantra to the movement itself, which it will fall apart under. Neither of these involve appeals to authorities he does not trust.
The social approach works better if he has strongly values you socially, which is likely not true based on how this question is asked. Generally this works by pointing out actions by the community that do not agree with his desires for a community, without getting into the specific reasons why. You would need to know what he values specifically to do this.
To get him to turn his critical lens on the q itself, you need to ask him about why, specifically he believes q. To get this started you could ask him what he knows about how q started, because you're interested. Why does he think that q actually has his best interests in mind and isn't just trying to manipulate their followers for political gain? Why trust q more than all the other random people on 4chan? Because that's what q is, a collection of 4chan trolls who started this as a troll for the lulz and then when they realized people were paying attention they aimed it towards right wing goals.
You want to ask him about q from the perspective of being interested in what it is, but not as a possible convert. If he stays in neutral explaining mode he's the most likely to question things without feeling the urge to defend them. So you ask about q as a way of getting to know his desires better. Ask him how the predictions have done over the last few weeks. But, this approach will only work if he is capable of some self questioning. If it does seem like he gets very defensive about it when you're just asking neutral questions, I would mention that to him and bail out before he gets too far. You should know an hour in if he's capable of being critical of q, and if he isn't give up.
posted by JZig at 8:29 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Or should I be worried?
Unlike some other answerers here, I DO think you should be worried and not just assume/hope he'll grow out of it - there's a lot of room for horrible behavior in between "just watchin' some videos" and "turn to violence and terrorism."
Here's a long PBS article touching on the prevalence of conspiracy theories and some ways to combat them.
Here's a piece from NBC news by a psychologist who has studied people who believe in conspiracies about why people tend to believe.
Here's an older piece from SplinterNews talking with a cult deprogramming expert on way to approach friends and family members about their support of Trump.
I know that the alt-right recruits depressed, lonely people online
Yes.
The son has had therapy for depression and has been lonely recently due to some circumstances in his life
OK - is he currently in any kind of therapy? Because I think this is Step One; history of depression + recent circumstances (whatever they are) + *gesticulating wildly at the world* all of the social isolation and fear and stress out here due to the coronavirus = there's a good chance he's really primed for the Qanon stuff and should be getting some professional tele-help to deal with the underlying issues that are priming him.
And, I'm sorry, there's a real chance that he's putting on a brave face for his mom and is nowhere near holding up well - teenagers are not exactly known for emotional forthrightness with their parents. Even scarier is that he may be appearing happy because he's getting sucked into the QAnon world, there can be deep psychological pleasure in feeling that you're one of the few people privy to all the Secret Answers About The World.
I am concerned that someone who believes in QAnon cannot be argued out of it with facts, and that showing him the many available articles and videos debunking QAnon could cause him to dig in more firmly.
Generally, yes, although tone and approach can be important - everything I've read on this suggests that gentle dissuasion and taking their concerns seriously has better effect than mocking, laughing, or angry dismissal. Some excerpts of that de-programming interview:
IOW, don't just scoff and blast him with a bunch of other angry mocking ANTI-Q videos - you need to actually engage with him on a personal and sincere level and use that to encourage him to do his own digging into how plausible or realistic Q is.
She wants me to convince him that it’s not real
Mom needs to be involved in this, too, it can't just be all on you, especially since you're not there in person. You two need to present a united front and be on the same page with your approach.
Although considering that there's probably a strong element of misogyny to the Q stuff, she may have to back off sooner and deflect most of this onto you, especially if there's a chance she's going to lose her temper. Of course there's no way to know your gender or presentation, but you may definitely have better results if you're a father figure to him - one way the patriarchy sucks is that young men take older men far more seriously than they do women. If this isn't applicable for gender/gender presentation reasons, it might help to recruit a cis-male family friend or relative to participate.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:35 AM on March 29, 2020 [11 favorites]
Unlike some other answerers here, I DO think you should be worried and not just assume/hope he'll grow out of it - there's a lot of room for horrible behavior in between "just watchin' some videos" and "turn to violence and terrorism."
Here's a long PBS article touching on the prevalence of conspiracy theories and some ways to combat them.
Here's a piece from NBC news by a psychologist who has studied people who believe in conspiracies about why people tend to believe.
Here's an older piece from SplinterNews talking with a cult deprogramming expert on way to approach friends and family members about their support of Trump.
I know that the alt-right recruits depressed, lonely people online
Yes.
The son has had therapy for depression and has been lonely recently due to some circumstances in his life
OK - is he currently in any kind of therapy? Because I think this is Step One; history of depression + recent circumstances (whatever they are) + *gesticulating wildly at the world* all of the social isolation and fear and stress out here due to the coronavirus = there's a good chance he's really primed for the Qanon stuff and should be getting some professional tele-help to deal with the underlying issues that are priming him.
And, I'm sorry, there's a real chance that he's putting on a brave face for his mom and is nowhere near holding up well - teenagers are not exactly known for emotional forthrightness with their parents. Even scarier is that he may be appearing happy because he's getting sucked into the QAnon world, there can be deep psychological pleasure in feeling that you're one of the few people privy to all the Secret Answers About The World.
I am concerned that someone who believes in QAnon cannot be argued out of it with facts, and that showing him the many available articles and videos debunking QAnon could cause him to dig in more firmly.
Generally, yes, although tone and approach can be important - everything I've read on this suggests that gentle dissuasion and taking their concerns seriously has better effect than mocking, laughing, or angry dismissal. Some excerpts of that de-programming interview:
Approach the topic compassionately: Framing an intervention as an act of personal care and compassion is important, Ross says. Otherwise, it's just viewed as an ambush, and the subject starts off on the defensive.There are deep emotional reasons he is finding these beliefs appealing, so he probably can't be directly argued out of them, but you can and should calmly and gently talk with him about why and how he finds these things credible, and use those conversations to introduce him to various debunking materials you find.
Give them information: Part of a successful intervention, Ross says, is conveying new information to the subject, so they can make their own informed decision about staying with or leaving the group.
Introduce divergent views: Information alone can't help a cult member escape, because cult experiences are emotional, not just intellectual. But changing the information intake of a person in an insular community can help them realize what they're missing.
Avoid loaded language: If the person you're talking to feels "othered" or attacked, they'll shut down.
Untangle myths: Ross says the key to introducing more critical thinking is pointing out ambiguity and nuance, rather than challenging core beliefs directly.
Be respectful and loving, not smug and condescending: Near the end of our conversation, Ross touched on an important part of the process of deprogramming: don't underestimate the intelligence of the person you're talking to. [. . .] In his experience, people who are successfully deprogrammed from cults are usually most persuaded when they see how concerned their families are, and how much they love them, along with learning things they did not know prior to the intervention.
IOW, don't just scoff and blast him with a bunch of other angry mocking ANTI-Q videos - you need to actually engage with him on a personal and sincere level and use that to encourage him to do his own digging into how plausible or realistic Q is.
She wants me to convince him that it’s not real
Mom needs to be involved in this, too, it can't just be all on you, especially since you're not there in person. You two need to present a united front and be on the same page with your approach.
Although considering that there's probably a strong element of misogyny to the Q stuff, she may have to back off sooner and deflect most of this onto you, especially if there's a chance she's going to lose her temper. Of course there's no way to know your gender or presentation, but you may definitely have better results if you're a father figure to him - one way the patriarchy sucks is that young men take older men far more seriously than they do women. If this isn't applicable for gender/gender presentation reasons, it might help to recruit a cis-male family friend or relative to participate.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:35 AM on March 29, 2020 [11 favorites]
My theory is: just help him have better stuff to do. It won't eliminate all that, but it'll dilute it and give him handholds when he wants to climb out of it. Would he want to build a computer? Can you guys scale the tallest mountains around? If you don't have interests to share, does he have interests you can support?
posted by slidell at 12:39 PM on March 29, 2020
posted by slidell at 12:39 PM on March 29, 2020
I have some friends who believe wacky things. IMO as their peer the best thing I can do is redirect what they're telling me into something more positive.
So, if it were me, large amounts of punk rock records and the suggestion above to drop a David Graeber book on him is a really good idea (I suggest "Debt: The First 5000 Years").
posted by bradbane at 5:44 PM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
So, if it were me, large amounts of punk rock records and the suggestion above to drop a David Graeber book on him is a really good idea (I suggest "Debt: The First 5000 Years").
posted by bradbane at 5:44 PM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
Gosh there's some great stuff here, I'm bookmarking this as a just-in-case for certain young family members.
I have a quick-fix very short thing for you that I read about in the context of discussing feminism with misogynists, but which applies to very many places where arguments are being made either in bad faith, or repeated from a source which publishes in bad faith: respond with a question.
It's not The Total Solution you want, but it's like, a short-term tool to use in times where you feel frustrated or "omg why can't you see this is nonsense".
So for example:
"Did you know that there's a cabal that runs the media"
Which bits of the media? Do the bits it doesn't control talk about it?
"Did you know that Snopes is fake"
Wow that's a lot of work to go to. What do you think its creators are trying to achieve with it?
These aren't great examples but I'm at work and don't have enough time to think of better ones!
The idea isn't to end the conversation with these, but to keep it going, whilst pushing the person to probe their own ideas and assumptions at the same time. Could be useful!
posted by greenish at 2:42 AM on March 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
I have a quick-fix very short thing for you that I read about in the context of discussing feminism with misogynists, but which applies to very many places where arguments are being made either in bad faith, or repeated from a source which publishes in bad faith: respond with a question.
It's not The Total Solution you want, but it's like, a short-term tool to use in times where you feel frustrated or "omg why can't you see this is nonsense".
So for example:
"Did you know that there's a cabal that runs the media"
Which bits of the media? Do the bits it doesn't control talk about it?
"Did you know that Snopes is fake"
Wow that's a lot of work to go to. What do you think its creators are trying to achieve with it?
These aren't great examples but I'm at work and don't have enough time to think of better ones!
The idea isn't to end the conversation with these, but to keep it going, whilst pushing the person to probe their own ideas and assumptions at the same time. Could be useful!
posted by greenish at 2:42 AM on March 30, 2020 [3 favorites]
Education.
IF you can, get him to read about the Logical Fallacies: the ways in which rhetoric can be spun but this can show him which arguments are made of bullshit. He'll start to recognise that QAnon is built on these fallacies.
Also give him a short article on how to judge media. How journalism works. Attribution, source, bias.
These things do not directly say 'QANon is bullshit' but will give him the tools to recognise bullshit.
After that a book on Logic ...
posted by MacD at 3:05 AM on March 31, 2020
IF you can, get him to read about the Logical Fallacies: the ways in which rhetoric can be spun but this can show him which arguments are made of bullshit. He'll start to recognise that QAnon is built on these fallacies.
Also give him a short article on how to judge media. How journalism works. Attribution, source, bias.
These things do not directly say 'QANon is bullshit' but will give him the tools to recognise bullshit.
After that a book on Logic ...
posted by MacD at 3:05 AM on March 31, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
(You can run the thought experiment on yourself using a hated political/religious group or news network of your choice: supposing those people made a surprising but not impossible claim about reality, is there literally any level of evidence/ testimony/ helpful Youtube explainer videos that would get you to believe it? No, right? Because the point isn't the evidence: it's that your very being rejects any hint of affiliation with them and their dumb lies.)
Rather than engaging with the claims themselves, a more effective approach might be to treat it as a social problem. Assume this kid will believe whatever his friends OR whatever the highest-status accessible social group in the vicinity believe, then try to shape the social world accordingly, by exposing him to cool adults who hold preferred beliefs, or by quietly encouraging his own social leanings toward friends who don't share the disapproved-of belief system. That's harder to do in lockdown, of course, but maybe a lot of family movies of the type a teen boy might relate to? Or online games with safer peer groups?
FWIW "late teens absorb nontraditional peer beliefs that parents disapprove of!" has been a problem endemic to Western family systems for a solid 200+ years, and is known to be hard. You might ask your partner to reflect on what things she decided to believe at 19, and how her folks felt about them. Mostly, absent other issues, the kids turn out OK.
posted by Bardolph at 5:01 AM on March 29, 2020 [12 favorites]