Nonfiction writing about noticing and responding to dangerous ideologies

November 25, 2021 8:22 PM

I am searching for nonfiction writing about people who noticed dangerous ideologies (particularly authoritarian ones, although I'm open to others as well) early on as they were gaining steam, and did work to try to counteract those ideologies.

Examples of the sort of thing I'm looking for could be people fighting objectivism before it fed into libertarianism, or people fighting gamergate before it fed into the alt-right.

I'd also be very interested in examples of people doing this who believed that they were successful, or where, for unrelated reasons, the dangerous ideology never ended up taking off in the way that was feared.

posted by wesleyac to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

The 1941 article "Who goes Nazi?" might qualify? (It ponders who they think is vulnerable to the ideology and why, but also interesting as a slice-of-the-era)
posted by Cusp at 10:01 PM on November 25, 2021 [6 favorites]

There's the story or myth of William F. Buckley driving out extremists and objectivists from the GOP.
posted by johngoren at 2:38 AM on November 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

Cusp, that is a fascinating piece. I'd love to see someone write an updated version.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:57 AM on November 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Great question, and a fascinating article posted by Cusp. Here's an archive link for anyone who hits the paywall.
posted by rpfields at 10:42 PM on November 26, 2021