I've been seeing some posts from fascists recently where they talk about their resentment at being forced to do things they didn't want to as children, and people predictably make fun of them like "Oh you're a fascist because mommy forced you to go to school and eat your vegetables?" And yeah, that's stupid, but there is a point under there of resentment at the way children are treated, just expected to do things because adults told them to even if it hurts, that I feel is worth discussing.
Like, if a child hates eating their vegetables, instead of going "Okay, maybe we need to try other vegetables cooked in other ways" It's just being told to eat plain boiled cabbage or brussel sprouts or something and stop complaining. Like, that's a relatively small example, but there's a lack of consideration of children's feelings that permeates the culture. I've never met someone who hates all vegetables, I've met a lot of people who hate the unseasoned boiled food their parents made. I've met people with food sensitivities who spent their entire life being called picky eaters because no one wanted to try and accommodate them. You know?
I've talked about how toxic school environments are before so I guess I won't go over it too much, but I've never met anyone who hates learning, but I have met people who hate learning asinine things that they'll never think about again past exams and will never be useful to them under teachers who clearly don't respect them for 6 hours a day 5 days a week since childhood. But even in this environment, every child has favourite teachers who listened to them and favourite classes that were actually interesting, and a lot of people take interest in subjects they previously hated because they found interesting and passionate books or documentaries or youtube videos about them.
Fascist movements prey on resentment, and oftentimes that resentment is just entitlement and bigotry, but sometimes there's a point underneath it that is real and fair but gets twisted to fascist ends, like the cooption of socialist rhetoric, and I do think that appealing to childhood resentment often falls into that category of valid resentment being twisted than being entirely entitlement and stupidity.
