Pushing on an open door

I think a lot of this has to do with people finding out about stuff that happened way before they were born for the first time on TikTok instead of in a history book

You know it's serious when JJ is sitting on a couch.

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” ― Terry Pratchett

I’m very grateful for J.J McCullough. I’m very happy there is still a sober headed voice of reason on the internet

Disappointed on the fact that this isn't just a clip of JJ pushing on an open door

This feels like a deeper problem with all of society, not just young people. The lack of fundamental knowledge, the too-easy acceptance of extreme and radical thinking, the old and well as the young are succeptable to it

There needs to be correctly taught media literacy, and correct media literacy is more than just being contrarian to the establishment.

The door analogy is great. Reminds of the saying "If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything"

As a younger person myself I find this is very true, the amount of people who will fight tooth and nail to defend horrible men is mental

Great metaphor. I was an idiot when I was a young man. In fact, I still am. Also, props for the Madvilian and Neutral Milk Hotel albums in the background.

Agreed. I’m 19 and I see people my age blindly parroting whatever shit they see on the internet. I’m talking both people on the left and right. I’m left leaning but some of the stuff I hear people saying about just, anyone who isn’t part of the neo-liberal progressive canon of people we should be championing is really kinda distressing. It’s sad because we’re one of the first generations to generally have unlimited knowledge, and we have the resources to learn. It’s not that fucking hard. It’s just that a lot of people my age have adopted a sort of unwillingness to learn or hear from people who aren’t a member of their “””team”””.

Thank you, J.J. It feels like you're the only sane person that I see in a while on the internet.

As someone who has actually read the Unabomber manifesto it is insanely concerning to see how many people idolise him, on both the left and right (seemingly not realising how incompatible his believes and actions are to their beliefs).

I'm nearly 70, and from what I've seen this has always been true. What aggravates things today is the ease with which individual fools can communicate with like minds and form insane culture.

Thanks for making this video

Thank you J.J, for being AGAIN the voice of reason. I am quite enraged by that news, as an 11-year-old during 9/11 I cannot fathom how young people, let alone americans can even be duped for this "Terrorists were right" fairytale. And those are the ones who shout around "Educate yourself!", so why won't they??

J.J. needs a series called "Yelling at Zoomers."

Two things: 1. Tom Nichols, currently writing for The Atlantic, often laments the “death of expertise” and even wrote a book about it which I have not yet read. Sounds like something you’d vibe with. 2. As a younger millennial, who even borders on Gen Z depending on who you ask, I feel like I grew up in a world where the United States was the only sheriff in town. And because of this, the default position of the intelligentsia was to (rightly) criticize American hegemony as a counter to the mainstream narrative of American exceptionalism. Many of my more curious friends and I in turn developed a very anti-American sentiment because we were relatively more aware of the negative influence of the United States on the rest of the world. However, in recent years, with the rise of China and again Russia on the world stage, things are not quite so simple and we are almost in a new Cold War. I think a lot of younger millennials and newly socially active Gen Z are still operating from this worldview where the United States runs everything and anyone who is not part of the United States is the righteous David fighting Goliath. The dominant narrative amongst leftists is that America is bad and anything not American is good as they’ve become so used to criticizing America as the only authoritative voice on the world stage. Thus, they’re vulnerable to persuasion from lunatics who flew planes into buildings. Edit: A word

Thank you JJ, for being such a clear and common-sense voice on stuff like this.

Can safely say I was not immune to such susceptibility before, when I fell down the anti-SJW rabbit hole for a few years. Really, the only thing I would add to this vid's thoughts is that, while the youth are definitely most vulnerable to what you describe, as an inevitable side-effect of not having lived as long and usually experienced as much, it's also clear that anyone of any age is susceptible to these forms of manipulation, as an inevitable side-effect of poor education. In all honesty, I think that is an even more pressing issue than problematic youthful self-righteousness, which, to be frank, has always been a prominent thing among the youth, no matter the generation. Goodness knows, I definitely still have plenty of it myself. Social media has just amplified all of these negative things to a frightening public presence we can no longer ignore as easily as we used to be able to, and therefore, it influences our culture more significantly. But, like youthful self-righteousness of generations past, I am positive that the most extreme examples will mellow out with time, only for the youth of today to become horrified in turn by what their own kids will get into, and on and on it goes.