Horrible Children

I've been thinking a lot about infantilism and the alt-right, particularly the possibility that being immersed in that world might cause or at least contribute to the strange, childish behavior we've been seeing. It's a thesis one is reluctant to bring up for a number of reasons: it's dismissive and needlessly insulting; it frees one from the need to address other positions or understand where they come from; it seldom leads anywhere productive. 

Sometimes, though, a possibility becomes so unavoidable that ignoring it becomes an act of dishonesty.  We have grown men throwing literal tantrums over wearing a mask. We have Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene acting like spoiled twelve-year-olds at the State of the Union. We have Donald Trump.

This is not normal. The outbursts. The pouting. The contrariness. The substitution of "own the libs" attention getting devices for a political view.

And, yes, we can find examples in both parties, but in no way can this be considered symmetrical.

 

Bob Chipman has been thinking along related lines. Chipman is, as previously mentioned, one of our best critics/cultural commentators. Here he uses JoJo Rabbit as a stepping off point to explore the strangely childish quality of the Nazis. He even takes the connection between infantilism and Nazism further by bringing in a comparison to certain extreme reactionary segments of fan boy culture.