Oh absolutely, I’m pretty sure I’m on the same page with this. I only pose that to someone who believes they’ve found people who respect them, and particularly those who have felt for a long time that their voice didn’t matter, it is counterproductive to approach them and their group with outward hostility.

Telling them the people who took them in and listened to them are vile, abusive, disgusting people and are exactly the problem they say everyone says you are, is just reinforcing of their views.

Consider the comment originally replied to; paraphrase because mobile is hard, “those loudest about being victimized are the most eager to take their pound of flesh”. This can easily sound like:

1. (Man) I’ve been victimized and nobody lets me voice this except for this gang/cult/militia. Cult says they should be allowed to “get support” and they know the way (it’s bad).
2. (Outsider) Claiming to be a victim usually means you are a terrible person.
3. (Man) So according to outsiders, if I seek help, I’m a bad person. According to my (cult etc) if I tell them, they will offer a form of support. I can stay with these people and get something of support, or I can leave them, be ostracized, and any attempts to voice my feelings will lead me to being labeled someone eager to take a pound of flesh.

They need to be shown that those on the outside understand them and are better people than those who took them in. They are with people whose form of empathy and respect is so distorted and toxic, but it’s the only model of that experience they know.

Your comment, upon my read, felt like anyone in that position would feel justified in their gang telling them that everyone on the outside is out to get them. If they already think everyone else is a predator, what is attacking their friends, their family, and their opinions, going to do?

They will only leave when they know they will arrive somewhere with the respect they craved without those toxic feelings they repressed during their time with a hateful group.

So I guess it’s less about the content of the comment, more of the way it represented the ideas, the timing, and the perceived intention.

I agree that much of the problem is men on men and this patriarchy - men who do not want to uphold patriarchal values can often be ostracized and demonized by those who do - but I believe OP was specifically noting that then those men who get abused and ostracized cannot speak out of seek help because many people will simply snap back at them saying that they are part of the problem and resources need to be given elsewhere. They cannot endure the abuse, and their own cohort becomes abusive, and the only way to avoid the abuse from all sides (in their view) becomes joining the “social excrement” they wanted to escape in the first place.

Angry screams tend to mask sad and lonely tears. Hatred does not end hatred; hatred ends through non-hate alone. Non-hate is not inaction, though. If we do not look at them, and ourself, with empathy and kindness and understanding and patience, they will continue living in a world devoid of and therefore ignorant to empathy and kindness and understanding and patience.

There was a lovely computer science book for kids I can’t remember the name of, and it was all about the evil jargon trying to prevent people from mastering the magical skills of programming and algorithms. I love these approaches. I grew up in an extremely non/anti-academic environment, and I learned to explain things in non-academic ways, and it’s really helped me as an intro lecturer.

Jargon is the mind killer. Shorthands are for the people who have enough expertise to really feel the depths of that shorthand and use it to tickle the old familiar neurons they represent without needing to do the whole dance. It’s easy to forget that to a newcomer, the symbol is just a symbol.