Breakthrough Writer

Autobiography of a Skinhead Lesson #4: Frank Meeink’s De-Conversion Process (First Revision for Fall 2010)

Part One. Ensconced in a malignant racist ideology, Meeink goes through a de-conversion process resulting from the following:

1.  When he sees the Oklahoma City bombing aftermath, specifically, a man carrying a bloody little girl, Meeink realizes his ideology is not some heroic mission but a murderous enterprise, which he has aided and abetted. He no longer sees himself as a hero, but as a villain and a coward.

2.  When the black people invite him into their prayer group, he sees a humanity that contradicts the malicious lies he has read in his racist propaganda.

3.  Beyond the prayer group, Meeink makes friends with people of other races in prison, including Little G. and Jello (199) and these experiences contradict the racist polemics he has been immersed in for so long.

4.  He sees people in his skinhead gang acting so stupidly, some dying, some going to jail, others disappearing, that he loses faith in the efficacy and intelligence of the organization.

5.  After he gets out of prison, he notices a lot of skinheads give up the movement because they grew up and had better things to do. See page 201.

6.  He sees the inconsistencies and imbecilities of his racist doctrine when he realizes that based on skinhead teachings his own daughter, mostly Italian, is “not white” but some sort of “mutt” to be held in contempt.

7.  His friend Louie leaves the skinhead movement. See page 214. He becomes a kingpin, making him super rich.

8.  Meeink feels lonely with his new crew after he gets out of prison. It doesn’t feel the same; therefore, his need for belonging is no longer being met.

9.  On page 216 we find that Frank Meeink no longer has the fire in his belly for violence. At nineteen, he “feels old.”

10.               On page 219 Meeink sees the baby Nazis for what they really are, idiots trying to sound smart, pseudo intellectuals, and Meeink realizes he cannot tolerate these knuckleheads. For example, racist jokes didn’t sound funny. His heart was no longer in the skinhead world. He was going through his “What the hell was I thinking?” period.

11.               On page 219, he has an epiphany or revelation in which he sees the Nazi “truth” as a pack of lies.

12.               Meeink almost kills a skinhead who disrespects Meeink’s daughter. That’s sort the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

13.               He tries to cling to his last vestigial hatred, that against the Jews, but even that fails, when his Jewish boss turns out to be generous in flagrant contradiction of the parsimonious Jew stereotype.

14.               His skinhead associates trap in and beat him to a pulp in which they say, “You’re dead to us.” This is literally and figuratively true. In a way this the night Frank Meeink completely dies to his old racist ideology and all of its associates. See page 229.

15.               He confesses his crimes to the FBI and helps the FBI understand the skinhead operation. See page 239. And he does speeches on anti-hate for the ADL.

Part Two. The Tragedy of Frank Meeink’s Post-Nazi Existence: He Lives in a Vacuum.

One. When we get rid of a poison from our system, we have to replace it with something good; otherwise, we replace the poison with another poison. Frank has nothing to replace his skinhead lifestyle with, so he resorts to alcohol and drugs to numb his loneliness and shame for his past.

Two. When we get rid of a poison from our system and are left with a vacuum, we too often fill the void with something even worse than before.

Three. Frank doesn’t realize that he’s gone from being a skinhead to a “cellar dweller.” See page 236.

Part Three. Writing Your Introduction for Your Essay. Various Techniques. 

Introductions to Avoid

 

1. According to the Webster Dictionary . . .

 

2. Since the Dawn of Man . . .

 

3. In today's society . . .

 

4. In the modern world today . . .

 

5. Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the Garden of Eden . . .

 

6. Since time memorial . . .

 

7. Mired in this age of rampant consumerism . . . 

 

8. In this essay it is my objective to . . . which I will prove by . . .

 

9. Sorry for the poor quality of this essay, Mr. McMahon, but I am under a lot of stress and pressure right now . . .

 

 

10. An overused, hackneyed quotation: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." 

 

 

Effective Introductions

 

1. Connect a current event to your topic. For example, you might connect Octo-Mom to the subject of birth control or the ethical standards of fertility doctors. 

 

2. Seize upon a national obsession and connect it to your topic. We have the aforementioned Octo-Mom, the lies of Alex Rodriguez regarding his steroid use, the pandemic of foreclosures and their effect on families, the devastation of unemployment, etc . . .

 

3. Use a quote that has not been overused when it bears relevance to your essay's topic. George Bernard Shaw: "There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what one wants. The second is getting it."

 

4. Personal anecdote or short one-page story that is relevant to your essay topic. This story should be a hook that gets your reader's jazz. 

 

5. Use a startling statistic that gets your reader's attention and that is relevant to your topic. You might talk about how many foreclosures there are every hour or how many people sign up on the immoral dating service Ashley Madison. 

 

6. Begin with a rhetorical question that you are going to answer in your thesis. For example, why are Americans spending billions and billions of dollars on dieting every year while getting fatter and fatter? Or why are jealous boyfriends more likely to cheat than boyfriends who are not jealous? Does this make any sense. Yes, it does . . . 

 

7. Use an analogy or extended comparison to clarify a point that is important to your argument. For an example, CLICK HERE. 

 

 

Part Four. Writing an Thesis

Thesis Do's and Don'ts 

Do’s

1.  Do write a thesis from the guts or that has a strong emotional connection to you and your audience (visceral).

2.    Do write a thesis that is relevant to current events and make that relevance apparent.

3.  Do write a thesis that is relevant to the human condition.

4.  Do write a thesis that is born from discontent, anger, perplexity, and a hunger for making things right.

5.  Do write a thesis that answers a compelling question you and your readers want answered.

6.  Do write a thesis in a single sentence, followed by mapping components that support your argument.

7.  Do emphasize argument over information whenever possible.

8.  Do take intellectual risks and say that which us unsafe or contrarian or against the mainstream.

9.  Do write a thesis that results from you arduously exploring all sides of the topic and had you changing your opinion umpteen times before you committed to what you’re convinced is the most reasonable position.

10.     Do write a thesis that is crystal clear in your mind since you can only write a powerful, clear essay if the thoughts inside your head are clear and powerful.

 

Don’ts

1.  Don’t write an easy thesis that is so self-evident or obvious that to support it is a complete waste of time that will bore your reader to tears, anguish, and resentment over your bovine effort.

2.  Don’t write a thesis that leads to a sermon in which you bloviate a bunch of homilies, bromides, and truisms to your rankled reader.

3.  Don’t write a thesis that is so broad and general that the only way to support it is with a 500-page book.

4.  Don’t write a thesis that you don’t understand or believe in because your lack of conviction will give your paper a limp, soggy quality that will depress both you and your reader.

5.  Don’t write a thesis that is cold, cerebral, and intellectually detached for this approach will result in a frosty academic treatise with no vitality or fire to inflame your readers’ interest.

6.  Don’t write a thesis that is ridiculous for ridiculous’ sake because, lacking in any vital ideas, you’re desperate to pique and provoke your reader with lame gimmicks.

7.  Don’t write a thesis that “sounds good” but in truth bores the hell out of you so that when you sit down to write your essay you cry and curse your decision to enroll in a composition class.

8.  Don’t write a thesis for which there is no accessible research material so that you’re left making up fictitious articles for your Works Cited page.

9.  Don’t write the same thesis that your friend wrote because “he got an A” when in fact you have no emotional connection to this carbon copy essay.

10.     Don’t write a thesis that simply echoes the same points of the essay you’re writing about, which results in a summary of the essay, not an analysis.

Part Three: Examples of Weak and Strong Thesis Statements

 

Examples of Weak Thesis Regarding LeBron James

LeBron James’ Transition to the Miami Heat was made into a big, stupid production.

I’m sick of hearing about whether LeBron James is leaving Cleveland.

 

BETTER

While LeBron James’ circus was a contrived narcissistic endeavor that sickened me to the bone, I defend James’ move because his owner didn’t show enough commitment to winning a championship, Cleveland does not “own” LeBron James, Miami is a good fit for James, and in general athletes, not owners, should be in control of their destiny.

 

EXAMPLES OF WEAK THESIS STATEMENTS REGARDING APPLE COMPUTER

Apple computers are cool.

I hate Apple computers.

Apple computers are overpriced junk.

 

BETTER THESIS STATEMENTS

While Apple computers are overpriced and force you to spend more for software, they are in general better purchases because of superior customer support, superior grade materials, and less prone to viruses, worms, and malware.

Apple computers are overrated in terms of build quality, software applications, and safety from hackers. 

Here Again Are the Essay Options

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

If you are applying Frank Meeink's conversion to the skinhead movement in terms of "escape from freedom," you would write a 1-page introduction by explaining what "escape from freedom" is. Then your thesis paragraph would look something like this:

Frank Meeink's escape from freedom is evidenced by ____________, _____________, ____________, and ________________. 

Option #3: The Chimera 

Write down a chimera that you pursued only to find it a cruel illusion worthy of your contempt.

Application of Class Activity to Your Essay: Use your chimera story as your one-page introduction, leading to Frank Meeink's chimera, his racist ideology. You would bridge your intro paragraph and your thesis paragraph with "Similarly" or some such transition.

Your thesis might look like this:

Frank Meeink's quest to find the answers to his problems in the skinhead ideology proves to be a chimera evidenced by ____________, _____________, _____________, and _________________.

Option #4: In a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink and Jeff Henderson.

Suggested Introduction: Write a profile of an ignoramus, steeped in stupid ideas, who is unaware of his absurd beliefs and then transition to your thesis paragraph about Frank Meeink using the transition "Similarly."  

Option #5: The True Believer:

If you're writing about the true believer, you might in one page profile a TB you know or define one based on McMahon's lecture. Then your thesis paragraph would go like this:

FM is a true believer evidenced by __________, ___________, _____________, _____________, and _________________. 

 

Lesson #3: Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: The Authoritarian Paradox and the Pursuit of the Chimera (First Revision)

 

 

Part One.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

 

The Authoritarian Character (culled from Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom)

1.  Meeink needs his ideology to inflate his self-admiration, but in reality this grandiosity is a feeble mask for his self-loathing. This is the first trait of the authoritarian: He adorns himself with bluster and grandiosity in a failed attempt to hide his self-hatred.

2.  Like all humans, the authoritarian faces the unbearable human condition: a sense of isolation and powerlessness. Well-balanced people overcome isolation and powerlessness by finding love and work, but the authoritarian does not. Instead, he relies on mechanisms of escape, mainly becoming dependent on masochistic individuals who submit to his dominant, sadistic behavior.

3.    Other mechanisms of escape: MECHANISMS OF ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM

Authoritarianism. Submission or domination. In masochistic form, we allow others to dominate us. In sadistic form, we try to dominate and control the behavior of others. A common feature of authoritarianism is the belief that one's life is determined by forces outside oneself, one's interests, or one's wishes, and the only way to be happy is to submit to those forces. The authoritarian submits to those who are higher up and steps on those who are below.

Destructiveness. "The destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempts to save myself from being crushed by it." Destructiveness is often rationalized as love, duty, conscience, or patriotism.

4.  Automaton Conformity.  People cease to be themselves and adopt the type of personality proffered by their culture.

 

Part Two. Unable to Overcome Isolation, Like Meeink, You Become Disaffected

1.  You lack confidence to engage with others so you withdraw into yourself. Perhaps you were hurt in the past and don’t want to get hurt again, so you avoid people.

2.  You get married more for convenience and to shelter you from the world.

3.  You become addicted to your routines, which shut out the outside world.

4.  You are reflexively hostile to anyone new because they represent a threat to your existence. You hate change.

5.  You act like a churlish (grouchy) know-it-all who has all the answers, a person who dismisses everything as a “joke” and “utter nonsense.”

6.  You are incapable of listening to others. The only thing you listen to the Cynical Voice constantly grumbling inside your head.

7.  You are lethargic in your self-centeredness and numb yourself with various addictions in order to undergo your “slow death.”

8.  You teach yourself that there is no hope for change or a better life so you succumb to learned helplessness or you desperately cling to an extreme ideology.

9.  Unable to connect, you retreat into the authoritarian world of solipsism: Solipsism, failing to connect with others, is a form of insanity. The telling signs of solipsism are self-pity, resentment, and narcissism (you’re the only one who matters, your suffering is worse than everyone else’s, your grievances are more compelling to everyone else’s). Tell the students about the doctor whose wife left him and the student who never dated after 20 years. These are two examples of people who are withdrawn into themselves and cannot connect with the outside world and as such are insane.

 

 

 

 

Part Three. Meeink’s Racist Ideology Is a Chimera, a Phantom or Illusion

 Chimera’s Definition, Causes and Effects

 

1.  The chimera is a dream, but not all dreams are equal. The chimera is a dream that results in evil and self-destructiveness. A chimera looks like an angel but is really the devil. A chimera looks like it is taking you to heaven, but it is really taking you to hell.

A chimera is a mirage that draws us in slowly, starting with a burp or a trifle, a tease, an iridescent color that flashes before our eyes or it hits us over the head. In either case, it grows into an obsession and consumes all our energies, thoughts, and dreams.

2.  The chimera is based on unconscious longings for class ascent, acceptance, love, popularity, wealth, parental unconditional love (Rosebud), the Chanel Number Five Moment, distinction, proving our doubters that they were wrong.

3.  We project our fantasy onto a tabula rasa.

4.  Often the chimera is a panacea, a cure-all for all our woes.

5.  The Absolute Fallacy (success, fitness, perfection, perfect absolute relationship)

6.  The Transcendence Fallacy

7.  The Bitch Goddess Fallacy, the belief that we will find happiness by doing nothing as we sit in the lap of luxury.

8.  The inevitable despair of the chimera. George Bernard Shaw said there are two great tragedies in life: Not getting what we want and getting it.

9.  The cycle of ongoing chimeras, people who never learn and who go in circles, jumping from one chimera to the next.

10.               The paradox of the chimera: Chimeras destroy us but they also feed our dreams and in some ways give us strength, drive, motivation, and vitality that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

11.               The need for the chimera: We must have stars in the horizon for which he can row our oars. But as I've said before, a chimera is often associated with the Devil Trickster who looks delicious but in reality serves up a nasty stew. 

 

Examples of chimera (have students come up with some):

 

1.  The low-carb diet or the South Beach Diet

2.  Yoga

3.  A Lexus IS350

4.  Viagra

5.  Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft

6.  Dianobol

7.  Having a six-pack

8.  Cosmetic surgery, botox or nose job or implants.

9.  G-Star Jeans (underground store for special jeans, not the ones you can buy at Nordstrom)

10.               the cognoscenti.

11.               Becoming famous

12.               Angelina Jolie; she’s more than a human. She’s become the great bitch goddess, every man’s dream and every woman’s nightmare. The fantasy of the seductress.

13.               Jennifer Aniston, the myth of the good girl, the myth of innocence.

14.               Celebrity of all kinds, an autograph, a sighting.

15.               Las Vegas

16.               Palos Verdes (my neighbors in Torrance are bitter that they haven’t moved to PV yet. Peevers.

17.               UCLA

18.               iPod

19.               Anything sold on the QVC network

20.               Marriage. Not all marriages but most are built on the Goody Box chimera. When I want a goody I reach into the goody box. But what happens when all the goodies run out.

21.               Me-Time. People who have lots of me-time are miserable.

22.               A racist ideology that promises a future of “racial purity.”

Part Four. Class Activity

Write down a chimera that you pursued only to find it a cruel illusion worthy of your contempt.

Part Five. Application of Class Activity to Your Essay: Use your chimera story as your one-page introduction, leading to Frank Meeink's chimera, his racist ideology. You would bridge your intro paragraph and your thesis paragraph with "Similarly" or some such transition.

Your thesis might look like this:

Frank Meeink's quest to find the answers to his problems in the skinhead ideology proves to be a chimera evidenced by ____________, _____________, _____________, and _________________.

 

Or if you are applying Frank Meeink's conversion to the skinhead movement in terms of "escape from freedom," you would write a 1-page introduction by explaining what "escape from freedom" is. Then your thesis paragraph would look something like this:

Frank Meeink's escape from freedom is evidenced by ____________, _____________, ____________, and ________________. 

 

Another Option:

If you're writing about the true believer, you might in one page profile a TB you know or define one based on McMahon's lecture. Then your thesis paragraph would go like this:

FM is a true believer evidenced by __________, ___________, _____________, _____________, and _________________. 

Lesson #2 Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: The True Believer (First Revision)

Applying Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer to Frank Meeink’s conversion to a racist ideology.

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

One approach: The psychological conditions of Frank Meeink could be framed as the qualities of "The True Believer"

Part One. The Qualities of the True Believer

1.  The true believer is someone who suffers protracted (ongoing) frustration and is seeking mass change through joining a radical, extremist movement. He is so desperate to belong and find personal change that he questions nothing about the group's doctrine. Instead, he embraces everything with enthusiasm. As such, the TB is often called a "Kool-Aid Drinker," a colloquial term that comes from the Jim Jones mass suicide, which entailed the drinking of Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. 

2.  The true believer hungers for revolutionary and spectacular change; gradual change will not do; sadly, of course, real change in life is gradual.

3.  The movement must allow opportunity for self-advancement since the true believer is someone who constantly strains for significance.

4.  The true believer is too cowardly to look inward to locate his problems so instead he looks outside himself, at the world, and proclaims all is wrong with the world and he is going to change it—radically.

5.  The true believer is not intimidated by external forces because he believes he possesses colossal power and he is entitled to exercise power to change the world he sees fit. The TB’s power must come from a potent doctrine, an infallible leader or some new technique.

6.  The true believer has strong faith in the future that embodies his version of a future paradise.

7.  The true believer suffers from “extravagant” or excessive hope and this results in reckless behavior.

8.  The TB must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties and complexities involved in his vast undertaking.

9.  The TB loses himself in a vast undertaking because a huge part of his motive is to lose or erase himself. Why? Because he hates who he is and the only way he can relieve himself of this self-loathing is through self-erasure. The more he loses himself in his radical movement, the more he can run away from who he is. The TB must have an unlimited capacity for self-renunciation.

10.               The TB joins an extreme group because he hopes that in doing so he will get a new life, rebirth, the chance to acquire pride, confidence, purpose, and identity, things that he life has been woefully lacking in.

11.               The TB needs to find faith in a “holy cause” because he has lost faith in himself. In other words, his intensity for his cause is in proportion to his low self-esteem.

12.                The less a TB has reason to claim excellence for himself, the more he will find reason to claim excellence for his cause or ideology.

13.               The TB is fed up with himself and wishes to distract himself from his self-loathing by snooping and nosing and butting-in to the business of others. He is therefore a meddler and an obnoxious do-gooder.

14.               The TB’s conviction that he has found a higher calling that emancipates him from the Self and makes him selfless afflicts him with a most noxious and unbearable vanity.

15.               The more the TB’s life is full of despair and self-loathing, the more fanatical and passionate he is in our backing his ideology.

16.               TBs are society’s least worthy members. They are the undesirables and, sadly, because they join extremist groups, they often afford more change than stable, productive people who are content with being inert.

17.               TBs tend to be failures, misfits, outcast, criminals, and all manner of throwaways and undesirables.

18.               The TB is NOT motivated by altruism but by selfishness: the need to make his hated self disappear by becoming obsessed and fanatical about his ideology.

 

Part Two. Looking at the Imbecilities of Meeink’s Racist Ideology

1.  The question is never asked: Is race biological or a social invention, objective or subjective? There is a scene where some guy talks about how Italians aren’t “really white.” Meeink, who is half Italian, and whose daughter is mostly Italian, has a confrontation with the skinhead. Questions of racial purity are arbitrary, subjective and unscientific. Look at the scientific community and they’ll tell you THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION OF RACE. RACE IS A MATTER OF PERCEPTION AND CHANGES FROM CULTURE TO CULTURE.

2.  Skinhead theology is just that, a theology that explains the world by breaking it into two simple racial groups, the pure and the impure. Such an absurd over simplification is rooted in an infantile fantasy.

3.  Skinhead theology attracts failures and the discontented who are too cowardly to blame themselves for their own failings. Unable to take responsibility for their own failings, they create scapegoats, the “racially impure” to “explain” their problems.

4.  Skinhead theology is little more than a façade for a violent gang that needs to justify its existence by relying on pseudo intellectual claptrap.

5.  A lot of people “grow out” of their skinhead phase. They get a job, get married, grow up, have children, and looking back they see their skinhead phase as a bad dream, a passing fever, an embarrassment to their existence. Thousands of young men go to laser surgery tables to have their skinhead tattoos removed so they can get their old life behind them.

6.  The place where skinhead ideology thrives the most is in prison because belonging to this gang is a business; it makes money for its top gang leaders and it provides protection for inmates.

7.  Meeink later said in an interview that his view of the people he hated was based on theories, not reality. When he met blacks and Latinos in prison, they were not at all like the representations he had read about them. Much to his chagrin, blacks and Latinos accepted this guy with a swastika tattoo in their athletic games and religious prayer meetings. Then a Jew was kind to him when he got a job and he was shocked that the Jew was so generous, contrary to all the propaganda he had read.

 

Part Three: Reviewing the Causes of Meeink’s Conversion to a Racist Ideology

1.  Looking to substitute basic needs with a fanatical adherence to a perverse ideology

2.  Looking for an easy explanation for one’s misery: finding a scapegoat

3.  Misguided search for love

4.  Misguided search for power

5.  Nihilism

6.  Having the psychological profile of a True Believer, as defined by Eric Hoffer

 

Terms to Define in Groups for Your Paper

 

Learn to write one-sentence definitions of important words for your paper. Sometimes you need to use a word or phrase for your reader that requires a definition.

A formal definition for an essay should include the following:

1. the term

2. the classification

3. distinguishing characteristics

 

Examples:

 

Debauchery is a condition of moral collapse.

Acedia is a form of depression caused from a prolonged lack of focus and purpose in life.

Gossip is a ritual that feeds our appetite for feeling morally superior to those who are the subject of our salacious whispers.

Impoverishment through substitution”:

Impoverishment through substitution is a trap in which the person tries feebly to replace basic human needs like love and belonging with grotesque counterfeits such as consumerism, fanatical ideologies, gluttony, text messaging addiction, etc.

Redemption is the process in which you turn your life around to atone for past sins and misdeeds.

The Fall is part of one's life journey in which one confuses false success with "the good life" resulting in a precipitous descent into blindness, delusion, and moral dissolution. 

 

In one complete sentence, define ONE OF the following terms in ways that can be used in your research paper:

1.  True Believer

2.  Skinhead Theology

 

 

Lesson #1 for Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead: Compensating for Unfulfilled Human Needs (First Revision)

Part One. The Basic Human Needs, All of Which Are Absent in Frank Meeink

One. Basic trust, the foundation of human development according to Erik Erikson, which gives a child a sense of unconditional love so that he or she can explore the world without a fear of condemnation. There is no substitute for basic trust. People who don't have it spend all their lives looking feebly for compensation and these searches are often misguided. There is a film about this tragic quest for unconditional love called Citizen Kane. More recently, the film Boogie Nights is also about a boy's quest for basic trust, family, unconditional love. 

Two. To love and to be loved. Again, Meeink feels hated by his parents; he feels like an inconvenience to everyone in his family. His parents treat him like a disease, an affliction, a piece of rubbish that should be tossed away. This translates into self-loathing, which results in self-destructive behavior. 

Three. Belonging. Meeink feels like a misfit, a loser; he belongs nowhere. People who feel like rejects are vulnerable to joining extreme groups because fanatical groups always offer lost and lonely souls a sense of belonging. The most tragic case of this in recent history is the mass suicide at the compound headed by the Reverend Jim Jones. The more desperate one is for belonging, the more one is likely to join a fringe group. 

Four. Distinction. Meeink has never found himself as he is lost in an abyss of drinking and drugs.  Languishing with a sense of being a nobody, Meeink at 14 years of age becomes a skinhead and on page 58 he writes: “I was fourteen, and I was a neo-Nazi skinhead. For the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered.” Straining for a sense of significance and belonging often makes people lose themselves in a movement that promises to help them forget who they are. When you hate yourself, forgetting who you are is a gift. Forgetting who you are becomes a addiction because you constantly need to keep the demons of self-hate at a distance. 

Part Two. Having never learned how to love, Meeink is fated to follow misguided paths to love, for which there are many, including:

1.   Find love by shopping, honing a shopping an addiction, and becoming in essence a consumer philistine. Another example: One of my students wrote about his uncle, an obsessed hard worker who became a millionaire and died at an early age in his fifties. On his death bed he said, "My life has been a farce. I've been lonely and for all my money, I never found what I was looking for." And then he died.

This first misguided way of finding love is not Meeink’s problem, but the does suffer from the rest that follow.

2.  Become an automaton or conformist, one who finds “love” by being molded by the herd, by the authority, by the clique. In Meeink’s case, he conforms to the Skinhead Orthodoxy and becomes a proselytizer (preacher) for racism and all divers forms of crackpot theories.

3.  Become a perennial child; become dependent on an adult or authority figure to feel safe and provided for. The obedient child of skinhead doctrine, Meeink becomes mired deeper and deeper in ignorance and irrationality. He is emotionally a child who accepts without question the doctrine of his authority. This belief and obedience gives him a sense of comfort and reinforces his sense of belonging within the group. 

4.  Become a power-monger: use your talents and brute force to lord over others and become intoxicated by a sense of power. Meeink becomes a sort of skinhead warlord celebrity; he even has his own TV show that he pays for on local cable. With low self-esteem, he becomes a leader, a larger-than-life figure who rules over his disciples. Often it is those who preach with the greatest passion who are lost and use their preaching to conceal their self-doubt and self-hatred. 

5.  Become a vain narcissist. In an interview, Frank Meeink confessed to being a narcissist, someone with “a big ego and low self-esteem.” The lower your self-esteem, the more compelled you are to flap your wings and draw attention to yourself in order to convince the world that you are successful, happy, and powerful; however, the truth is you are the opposite of all these things: You are eaten away by a sense of failure, misery, and powerlessness. 

6.   Popularity is based on fashion and imitation. And Meeink does this well. In his sick social circle, his uniform and theories are considered admirable. In other circles, something is deemed cool or desirable in the marketplace of fashion for a time and then it cycles out. Therefore, popularity is like the stock market. What makes you popular today might make a nobody tomorrow. A popular red-head actress from the 1980s is now homeless in Torrance. I saw her at Penguins buying a frozen yogurt with pennies and she spilled her frozen yogurt all over my shoes while I was buying mine. Where’s all her friends now? In Meeink’s case, his popularity doesn’t last long. As soon as he wants out of the skinhead movement, his “friends” try to beat and kill him.

 

7.  Become an addict and seek oblivion to escape the unbearable separateness and alienation that results from not being able to love. Meeink’s drug addiction is so bad that by the time we get to the book’s end, we still see him struggling with it. But let us not look at drugs as his only addiction. His overall orientation is that of addiction so that ALL of his relationships with people and things and even ideas are addictive, including his obsession with Nazi ideology. 

 

Part Three. The Foundation of Meeink’s Conversion to Skinhead: Nihilism and the Death of Meaning

1.  Frank is rejected by his parents who care about drugs more than they care about him.

2.  Frank’s father, divorced from his mother, cynically and recklessly tells his son Frank that Frank’s mother will choose her new boyfriend over Frank and his father turns out to be right, so in essence Frank is rejected a second time. The constant rejection afflicts Frank with a burning hunger for acceptance, belonging, and approval. 

3.  Frank has sublimated rage, anger so deep he doesn’t know what to do with it and not seeing his rage with crystal clear vision, the rage goes into two different directions: inward killing him and outward in his false ideology of Nazism.

The worst kind of rage and the worst kind of despair and, yes, the worst kind of insanity are the types in which YOU ARE NOT AWARE OF THEM. When you are not aware of your psychological afflictions, you are at the highest risk of being destroyed by them. 

For example, the DMV tells you not to drive a car after having a fight or an argument. You get in your car and you find yourself less patient and more easily annoyed by other drivers and not connecting your annoyance and volatility to your recent argument, you have a meltdown on the road and you end up doing something stupid that could result in an accident or even a fatality. However, if you're aware that your anger is the result of the argument, and not the other drivers, you are in a better position to calm yourself down. 

Another example: Your girlfriend breaks up with you because you're needy, neurotic, and a bit of a nut. If you know this, you can be a good sport about the rejection and say to yourself: "Of course, she broke up with me. I'm crazy."

On the other hand, if you can't acknowledge that you're crazy and your girlfriend breaks up with you, you become a bad sport about it and you say to yourself: "How dare she break up with me. A man of my greatness. There must be another man, someone she's been seeing behind my back. I had better spy on her and get to the truth of the matter. I may even have to stalk her. And then of course, once I get rid of her secret lover, I can prove to her that I'm not crazy, that I am a great man and represent the best thing that could ever happen to her." 

Which reaction is crazier, reaction 1 or reaction 2? You decide. 

4.  Frank is desperate to be loved and to enjoy a sense of belonging even if it means being cradled in the brutish arms of Nazi Skinheads and its “Identity Theology” (see page 54). You know you're desperate when you seek love from Nazis. That's profoundly sad and that Frank is blind to this sadness shows just how crazy he is. 

5.  Frank is desperate to find an easy to answer to the misery, rejection, and worthlessness that he feels and rather than tackle the realistic complexities behind his rage and general sense of depression he looks to a fantasy: a scapegoat (blaming innocent targets) and racist ideologies always fixate on scapegoats.

6.  Being “called into God’s army [of racist degenerates]” gives Meeink a sense of mission and purpose that he never had before. See page 54.

7.  To feel unified, Meeink and his fellow racist cohorts must rally against a common enemy, ZOG.

8.  Sadly, we learn that thousands of young men, treated like rubbish from their parents, look for answers to explain their situation as marginalized unloved throwaways and they find these wrong pseudo answers in these racist ideologies.

9.  Nihilism, the belief that life has no value or meaning, is so painful and creates a void so unbearable that gullible misguided youth will glom onto the most odious hate-filled ideology just to wipe away their nihilism.

10.               The “believers” tend to come from similar backgrounds, hated or ignored by parents, and they are able to share a similar vein of rage and create a sense of togetherness and unity. No longer do they feel alone.

 

Part Four. The Ideology Must Fulfill Basic Needs for the Throwaways of Society

1.  The hate ideology must contain an easy-to-follow narrative about the “pure” race becoming “contaminated” by the impurities of other races.

2.  There must be specific groups that are hated in order to serve as scapegoats.

3.  There must be members of “your tribe” who compromise their behavior by not adhering to racist ideology and as such are “traitors.”

4.  There must be clear rites of passages to be initiated into the group. Cut your hair, wear a uniform, join a violent wilding spree, etc., to prove your “street cred.”

5.  You must possess doctrine or teachings that present an alternative “true” teaching to the “propaganda that mainstream society teaches you.”

6.  The hate group must serve as a surrogate family and provide parental figures as replacements for the ones you never had.

7.  There has to be a chain of command so that everyone knows their place and can aspire to ascend the ranks.

8.  There has to be a radical lifestyle change so that you can see your behavior as righteous and healthy, in contrast with the contaminated behavior of The Other.

9.  There has to be a renunciation of past ties to family and friends as you become reborn in the new hate group.

10.               There must be constant proof of one’s fidelity, loyalty, and allegiance to the group often evidenced by crimes, killings, or any errand given by your superiors.

 

Part Five. Essay Options

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

Option #3: In a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink and Jeff Henderson. 

 

Autobiography of a Skinhead Lesson #5: Writing Your Thesis

Part One. Essay Options:

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

Option #3: In a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink and Jeff Henderson.

Suggested Introduction: Write a profile of an ignoramus, steeped in stupid ideas, who is unaware of his absurd beliefs and then transition to your thesis paragraph about Frank Meeink using the transition "Similarly."  

Part Two. Writing a Thesis: 

Thesis Do's and Don'ts

Do’s

1.  Do write a thesis from the guts or that has a strong emotional connection to you and your audience (visceral).

2.    Do write a thesis that is relevant to current events and make that relevance apparent.

3.  Do write a thesis that is relevant to the human condition.

4.  Do write a thesis that is born from discontent, anger, perplexity, and a hunger for making things right.


5.  Do write a thesis that answers a compelling question you and your readers want answered.


6.  Do write a thesis in a single sentence, followed by mapping components that support your argument.


7.  Do emphasize argument over information whenever possible.

8.  Do take intellectual risks and say that which us unsafe or contrarian or against the mainstream.

9.  Do write a thesis that results from you arduously exploring all sides of the topic and had you changing your opinion umpteen times before you committed to what you’re convinced is the most reasonable position.


10.     Do write a thesis that is crystal clear in your mind since you can only write a powerful, clear essay if the thoughts inside your head are clear and powerful.

 

Don’ts

1.  Don’t write an easy thesis that is so self-evident or obvious that to support it is a complete waste of time that will bore your reader to tears, anguish, and resentment over your bovine effort.

2.  Don’t write a thesis that leads to a sermon in which you bloviate a bunch of homilies, bromides, and truisms to your rankled reader.

3.  Don’t write a thesis that is so broad and general that the only way to support it is with a 500-page book.


4.  Don’t write a thesis that you don’t understand or believe in because your lack of conviction will give your paper a limp, soggy quality that will depress both you and your reader.

5.  Don’t write a thesis that is cold, cerebral, and intellectually detached for this approach will result in a frosty academic treatise with no vitality or fire to inflame your readers’ interest.

6.  Don’t write a thesis that is ridiculous for ridiculous’ sake because, lacking in any vital ideas, you’re desperate to pique and provoke your reader with lame gimmicks.

7.  Don’t write a thesis that “sounds good” but in truth bores the hell out of you so that when you sit down to write your essay you cry and curse your decision to enroll in a composition class.

8.  Don’t write a thesis for which there is no accessible research material so that you’re left making up fictitious articles for your Works Cited page.

9.  Don’t write the same thesis that your friend wrote because “he got an A” when in fact you have no emotional connection to this carbon copy essay.


10.     Don’t write a thesis that simply echoes the same points of the essay you’re writing about, which results in a summary of the essay, not an analysis.

Part Three: Examples of Weak and Strong Thesis Statements

Examples of Weak Thesis Regarding LeBron James

LeBron James’ Transition to the Miami Heat was made into a big, stupid production.

I’m sick of hearing about whether LeBron James is leaving Cleveland.

 

BETTER

While LeBron James’ circus was a contrived narcissistic endeavor that sickened me to the bone, I defend James’ move because his owner didn’t show enough commitment to winning a championship, Cleveland does not “own” LeBron James, Miami is a good fit for James, and in general athletes, not owners, should be in control of their destiny.

 

EXAMPLES OF WEAK THESIS STATEMENTS REGARDING APPLE COMPUTER

Apple computers are cool.

I hate Apple computers.

Apple computers are overpriced junk.

 

BETTER THESIS STATEMENTS

While Apple computers are overpriced and force you to spend more for software, they are in general better purchases because of superior customer support, superior grade materials, and less prone to viruses, worms, and malware.

Apple computers are overrated in terms of build quality, software applications, and safety from hackers. 

Part Four. Class Activity:

Develop a thesis with mapping statements or components for one of the essay options below.

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

Option #3: In a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink and Jeff Henderson.

 

Autobiography of a Skinhead Lesson #4: Frank Meeink’s De-Conversion Process

Part One. Ensconced in a malignant racist ideology, Meeink goes through a de-conversion process resulting from the following:

1.  When he sees the Oklahoma City bombing aftermath, specifically, a man carrying a bloody little girl, Meeink realizes his ideology is not some heroic mission but a murderous enterprise, which he has aided and abetted. He no longer sees himself as a hero, but as a villain and a coward.

2.  When the black people invite him into their prayer group, he sees a humanity that contradicts the malicious lies he has read in his racist propaganda.

3.  Beyond the prayer group, Meeink makes friends with people of other races in prison, including Little G. and Jello (199) and these experiences contradict the racist polemics he has been immersed in for so long.

4.  He sees people in his skinhead gang acting so stupidly, some dying, some going to jail, others disappearing, that he loses faith in the efficacy and intelligence of the organization.

5.  After he gets out of prison, he notices a lot of skinheads give up the movement because they grew up and had better things to do. See page 201.

6.  He sees the inconsistencies and imbecilities of his racist doctrine when he realizes that based on skinhead teachings his own daughter, mostly Italian, is “not white” but some sort of “mutt” to be held in contempt.

7.  His friend Louie leaves the skinhead movement. See page 214. He becomes a kingpin, making him super rich.

8.  Meeink feels lonely with his new crew after he gets out of prison. It doesn’t feel the same; therefore, his need for belonging is no longer being met.

9.  On page 216 we find that Frank Meeink no longer has the fire in his belly for violence. At nineteen, he “feels old.”

10.               On page 219 Meeink sees the baby Nazis for what they really are, idiots trying to sound smart, pseudo intellectuals, and Meeink realizes he cannot tolerate these knuckleheads. For example, racist jokes didn’t sound funny. His heart was no longer in the skinhead world. He was going through his “What the hell was I thinking?” period.

11.               On page 219, he has an epiphany or revelation in which he sees the Nazi “truth” as a pack of lies.

12.               Meeink almost kills a skinhead who disrespects Meeink’s daughter. That’s sort the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

13.               He tries to cling to his last vestigial hatred, that against the Jews, but even that fails, when his Jewish boss turns out to be generous in flagrant contradiction of the parsimonious Jew stereotype.

14.               His skinhead associates trap in and beat him to a pulp in which they say, “You’re dead to us.” This is literally and figuratively true. In a way this the night Frank Meeink completely dies to his old racist ideology and all of its associates. See page 229.

15.               He confesses his crimes to the FBI and helps the FBI understand the skinhead operation. See page 239. And he does speeches on anti-hate for the ADL.

Part Two. The Tragedy of Frank Meeink’s Post-Nazi Existence: He Lives in a Vacuum.

One. When we get rid of a poison from our system, we have to replace it with something good; otherwise, we replace the poison with another poison. Frank has nothing to replace his skinhead lifestyle with, so he resorts to alcohol and drugs to numb his loneliness and shame for his past.

Two. When we get rid of a poison from our system and are left with a vacuum, we too often fill the void with something even worse than before.

Three. Frank doesn’t realize that he’s gone from being a skinhead to a “cellar dweller.” See page 236.

Part Three. Writing Your Introduction for Your Essay. Various Techniques.

Introductions to Avoid

1. According to the Webster Dictionary . . .

2. Since the Dawn of Man . . .

3. In today's society . . .

4. In the modern world today . . .

5. Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the Garden of Eden . . .

6. Since time memorial . . .

7. Mired in this age of rampant consumerism . . . 

8. In this essay it is my objective to . . . which I will prove by . . .

9. Sorry for the poor quality of this essay, Mr. McMahon, but I am under a lot of stress and pressure right now . . .

10. An overused, hackneyed quotation: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

Effective Introductions

1. Connect a current event to your topic. For example, you might connect Octo-Mom to the subject of birth control or the ethical standards of fertility doctors. 

2. Seize upon a national obsession and connect it to your topic. We have the aforementioned Octo-Mom, the lies of Alex Rodriguez regarding his steroid use, the pandemic of foreclosures and their effect on families, the devastation of unemployment, etc . . .

3. Use a quote that has not been overused when it bears relevance to your essay's topic. George Bernard Shaw: "There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what one wants. The second is getting it."

4. Personal anecdote or short one-page story that is relevant to your essay topic. This story should be a hook that gets your reader's jazz. 

5. Use a startling statistic that gets your reader's attention and that is relevant to your topic. You might talk about how many foreclosures there are every hour or how many people sign up on the immoral dating service Ashley Madison. 

6. Begin with a rhetorical question that you are going to answer in your thesis. For example, why are Americans spending billions and billions of dollars on dieting every year while getting fatter and fatter? Or why are jealous boyfriends more likely to cheat than boyfriends who are not jealous? Does this make any sense. Yes, it does . . . 

7. Use an analogy or extended comparison to clarify a point that is important to your argument. For an example, CLICK HERE. 

 

Part Four. Writing an Introduction for Your Essay. 

Here Again Are the Essay Options

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

Option #3: In a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink and Jeff Henderson.

Suggested Introduction: Write a profile of an ignoramus, steeped in stupid ideas, who is unaware of his absurd beliefs and then transition to your thesis paragraph about Frank Meeink using the transition "Similarly."  

Lesson #3: Autobiography of a Skinhead: The Authoritarian Paradox and the Pursuit of the Chimera

Part One. The Authoritarian Character (culled from Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom)

1.  Meeink needs his ideology to inflate his self-admiration, but in reality this grandiosity is a feeble mask for his self-loathing. This is the first trait of the authoritarian: He adorns himself with bluster and grandiosity in a failed attempt to hide his self-hatred.

2.  Like all humans, the authoritarian faces the unbearable human condition: a sense of isolation and powerlessness. Well-balanced people overcome isolation and powerlessness by finding love and work, but the authoritarian does not. Instead, he relies on mechanisms of escape, mainly becoming dependent on masochistic individuals who submit to his dominant, sadistic behavior.

3.    Other mechanisms of escape: MECHANISMS OF ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM

Authoritarianism. Submission or domination. In masochistic form, we allow others to dominate us. In sadistic form, we try to dominate and control the behavior of others. A common feature of authoritarianism is the belief that one's life is determined by forces outside oneself, one's interests, or one's wishes, and the only way to be happy is to submit to those forces. The authoritarian submits to those who are higher up and steps on those who are below.

Destructiveness. "The destruction of the world is the last, almost desperate attempts to save myself from being crushed by it." Destructiveness is often rationalized as love, duty, conscience, or patriotism.

4.  Automaton Conformity.  People cease to be themselves and adopt the type of personality proffered by their culture.

 

Part Two. Unable to Overcome Isolation, Like Meeink, You Become Disaffected

1.  You lack confidence to engage with others so you withdraw into yourself. Perhaps you were hurt in the past and don’t want to get hurt again, so you avoid people.

2.  You get married more for convenience and to shelter you from the world.

3.  You become addicted to your routines, which shut out the outside world.

4.  You are reflexively hostile to anyone new because they represent a threat to your existence. You hate change.

5.  You act like a churlish (grouchy) know-it-all who has all the answers, a person who dismisses everything as a “joke” and “utter nonsense.”

6.  You are incapable of listening to others. The only thing you listen to the Cynical Voice constantly grumbling inside your head.

7.  You are lethargic in your self-centeredness and numb yourself with various addictions in order to undergo your “slow death.”

8.  You teach yourself that there is no hope for change or a better life so you succumb to learned helplessness or you desperately cling to an extreme ideology.

9.  Unable to connect, you retreat into the authoritarian world of solipsism: Solipsism, failing to connect with others, is a form of insanity. The telling signs of solipsism are self-pity, resentment, and narcissism (you’re the only one who matters, your suffering is worse than everyone else’s, your grievances are more compelling to everyone else’s). Tell the students about the doctor whose wife left him and the student who never dated after 20 years. These are two examples of people who are withdrawn into themselves and cannot connect with the outside world and as such are insane.

 

 

 

 

Part Three. Meeink’s Racist Ideology Is a Chimera, a Phantom or Illusion

 Chimera’s Definition, Causes and Effects

 

1.  The chimera is a mirage that draws us in slowly, starting with a burp or a trifle, a tease, an iridescent color that flashes before our eyes or it hits us over the head. In either case, it grows into an obsession and consumes all our energies, thoughts, and dreams.

2.  The chimera is based on unconscious longings for class ascent, acceptance, love, popularity, wealth, parental unconditional love (Rosebud), the Chanel Number Five Moment, distinction, proving our doubters that they were wrong.

3.  We project our fantasy onto a tabula rasa.

4.  Often the chimera is a panacea, a cure-all for all our woes.

5.  The Absolute Fallacy (success, fitness, perfection, perfect absolute relationship)

6.  The Transcendence Fallacy

7.  The Bitch Goddess Fallacy

8.  The inevitable despair of the chimera. George Bernard Shaw said there are two great tragedies in life: Not getting what we want and getting it.

9.  The cycle of ongoing chimeras, people who never learn and who go in circles, jumping from one chimera to the next.

10.               The paradox of the chimera: Chimeras destroy us but they also feed our dreams and in some ways give us strength, drive, motivation, and vitality that we otherwise wouldn’t have.

11.               The need for the chimera: We must have stars in the horizon for which he can row our oars.

 

Examples of chimera (have students come up with some):

 

1.  The low-carb diet or the South Beach Diet

2.  Yoga

3.  A Lexus IS350

4.  Viagra

5.  Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft

6.  Dianobol

7.  Having a six-pack

8.  Cosmetic surgery, botox or nose job or implants.

9.  G-Star Jeans (underground store for special jeans, not the ones you can buy at Nordstrom)

10.               the cognoscenti.

11.               Becoming famous

12.               Angelina Jolie; she’s more than a human. She’s become the great bitch goddess, every man’s dream and every woman’s nightmare. The fantasy of the seductress.

13.               Jennifer Aniston, the myth of the good girl, the myth of innocence.

14.               Celebrity of all kinds, an autograph, a sighting.

15.               Las Vegas

16.               Palos Verdes (my neighbors in Torrance are bitter that they haven’t moved to PV yet. Peevers.

17.               UCLA

18.               iPod

19.               Anything sold on the QVC network

20.               Marriage. Not all marriages but most are built on the Goody Box chimera. When I want a goody I reach into the goody box. But what happens when all the goodies run out.

21.               Me-Time. People who have lots of me-time are miserable.

22.               A racist ideology that promises a future of “racial purity.”

Part Four. Class Activity

Write down a chimera that you pursued only to find it a cruel illusion worthy of your contempt. 

Lesson #2 Autobiography of a Skinhead: The True Believer

Applying Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer to Frank Meeink’s conversion to a racist ideology

Part One. The Qualities of the True Believer

1.  The true believer is someone who suffers protracted (ongoing) frustration and is seeking mass change through joining a radical, extremist movement.

2.  The true believer hungers for revolutionary and spectacular change; gradual change will not do; sadly, of course, real change in life is gradual.

3.  The movement must allow opportunity for self-advancement since the true believer is someone who constantly strains for significance.

4.  The true believer is too cowardly to look inward to locate his problems so instead he looks outside himself, at the world, and proclaims all is wrong with the world and he is going to change it—radically.

5.  The true believer is not intimidated by external forces because he believes he possesses colossal power and he is entitled to exercise power to change the world he sees fit. The TB’s power must come from a potent doctrine, an infallible leader or some new technique.

6.  The true believer has strong faith in the future that embodies his version of a future paradise.

7.  The true believer suffers from “extravagant” or excessive hope and this results in reckless behavior.

8.  The TB must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties and complexities involved in his vast undertaking.

9.  The TB loses himself in a vast undertaking because a huge part of his motive is to lose or erase himself. Why? Because he hates who he is and the only way he can relieve himself of this self-loathing is through self-erasure. The more he loses himself in his radical movement, the more he can run away from who he is. The TB must have an unlimited capacity for self-renunciation.

10.               The TB joins an extreme group because he hopes that in doing so he will get a new life, rebirth, the chance to acquire pride, confidence, purpose, and identity, things that he life has been woefully lacking in.

11.               The TB needs to find faith in a “holy cause” because he has lost faith in himself. In other words, his intensity for his cause is in proportion to his low self-esteem.

12.                The less a TB has reason to claim excellence for himself, the more he will find reason to claim excellence for his cause or ideology.

13.               The TB is fed up with himself and wishes to distract himself from his self-loathing by snooping and nosing and butting-in to the business of others. He is therefore a meddler and an obnoxious do-gooder.

14.               The TB’s conviction that he has found a higher calling that emancipates him from the Self and makes him selfless afflicts him with a most noxious and unbearable vanity.

15.               The more the TB’s life is full of despair and self-loathing, the more fanatical and passionate he is in our backing his ideology.

16.               TBs are society’s least worthy members. They are the undesirables and, sadly, because they join extremist groups, they often afford more change than stable, productive people who are content with being inert.

17.               TBs tend to be failures, misfits, outcast, criminals, and all manner of throwaways and undesirables.

18.               The TB is NOT motivated by altruism but by selfishness: the need to make his hated self disappear by becoming obsessed and fanatical about his ideology.

 

Part Two. Looking at the Imbecilities of Meeink’s Racist Ideology

1.  The question is never asked: Is race biological or a social invention, objective or subjective? There is a scene where some guy talks about how Italians aren’t “really white.” Meeink, who is half Italian, and whose daughter is mostly Italian, has a confrontation with the skinhead. Questions of racial purity are arbitrary, subjective and unscientific. Look at the scientific community and they’ll tell you THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION OF RACE. RACE IS A MATTER OF PERCEPTION AND CHANGES FROM CULTURE TO CULTURE.

2.  Skinhead theology is just that, a theology that explains the world by breaking it into two simple racial groups, the pure and the impure. Such an absurd over simplification is rooted in an infantile fantasy.

3.  Skinhead theology attracts failures and the discontented who are too cowardly to blame themselves for their own failings. Unable to take responsibility for their own failings, they create scapegoats, the “racially impure” to “explain” their problems.

4.  Skinhead theology is little more than a façade for a violent gang that needs to justify its existence by relying on pseudo intellectual claptrap.

5.  A lot of people “grow out” of their skinhead phase. They get a job, get married, grow up, have children, and looking back they see their skinhead phase as a bad dream, a passing fever, an embarrassment to their existence. Thousands of young men go to laser surgery tables to have their skinhead tattoos removed so they can get their old life behind them.

6.  The place where skinhead ideology thrives the most is in prison because belonging to this gang is a business; it makes money for its top gang leaders and it provides protection for inmates.

7.  Meeink later said in an interview that his view of the people he hated was based on theories, not reality. When he met blacks and Latinos in prison, they were not at all like the representations he had read about them. Much to his chagrin, blacks and Latinos accepted this guy with a swastika tattoo in their athletic games and religious prayer meetings. Then a Jew was kind to him when he got a job and he was shocked that the Jew was so generous, contrary to all the propaganda he had read.

 

Part Three: Reviewing the Causes of Meeink’s Conversion to a Racist Ideology

1.  Looking to substitute basic needs with a fanatical adherence to a perverse ideology

2.  Looking for an easy explanation for one’s misery: finding a scapegoat

3.  Misguided search for love

4.  Misguided search for power

5.  Nihilism

6.  Having the psychological profile of a True Believer, as defined by Eric Hoffer

 

Terms to Define in Groups for Your Paper

 

Learn to write one-sentence definitions of important words for your paper. Example: “Impoverishment through substitution”:

Impoverishment through substitution is a trap in which the person tries feebly to replace basic human needs like love and belonging with grotesque counterfeits such as consumerism, fanatical ideologies, gluttony, text messaging addiction, etc.

Breakdown: Subject followed by classification followed by distinguishing characteristics.

Subject and verb: Impoverishment through substitution is

Classification: a trap in which

Distinguishing characteristics: the person tries feebly to replace basic human needs like love and belonging with grotesque counterfeits such as consumerism, fanatical ideologies, gluttony, text messaging addiction, etc.

 

In one complete sentence, define the following terms in ways that can be used in your research paper:

1.  nihilism

2.  True Believer

3.  Skinhead Theology

 

Lesson #1 for Autobiography of a Skinhead: Compensating for Unfulfilled Human Needs

Part One. The Basic Human Needs, All of Which Are Absent in Frank Meeink

One. Basic trust, the foundation of human development according to Erik Erikson, which gives a child a sense of unconditional love so that he or she can explore the world without a fear of condemnation.

Two. To love and to be loved. Again, Meeink feels hated by his parents; he feels like an inconvenience to everyone in his family.

Three. Belonging. Meeink feels like a misfit, a loser; he belongs nowhere.

Four. Distinction. Meeink has never found himself as he is lost in an abyss of drinking and drugs.  Languishing with a sense of being a nobody, Meeink at 14 years of age becomes a skinhead and on page 58 he writes: “I was fourteen, and I was a neo-Nazi skinhead. For the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered.”

Part Two. Having never learned how to love, Meeink is fated to follow misguided paths to love, for which there are many, including:

1.   Find love by shopping, honing a shopping an addiction, and becoming in essence a consumer philistine. This first misguided way of finding love is not Meeink’s problem, but the does suffer from the rest that follow.

2.  Become an automaton or conformist, one who finds “love” by being molded by the herd, by the authority, by the clique. In Meeink’s case, he conforms to the Skinhead Orthodoxy and becomes a proselytizer for racism and all divers forms of crackpot theories.

3.  Become a perennial child; become dependent on an adult or authority figure to feel safe and provided for. The obedient child of skinhead doctrine, Meeink becomes mired deeper and deeper in ignorance and irrationality.

4.  Become a power-monger: use your talents and brute force to lord over others and become intoxicated by a sense of power. Meeink becomes a sort of skinhead warlord celebrity; he even has his own TV show that he pays for on local cable.

5.  Become a vain narcissist. In an interview, Frank Meeink confessed to being a narcissist, someone with “a big ego and low self-esteem.”

6.   Popularity is based on fashion and imitation. And Meeink does this well. In his sick social circle, his uniform and theories are considered admirable. In other circles, something is deemed cool or desirable in the marketplace of fashion for a time and then it cycles out. Therefore, popularity is like the stock market. What makes you popular today might make a nobody tomorrow. A popular red-head actress from the 1980s is now homeless in Torrance. I saw her at Penguins buying a frozen yogurt with pennies and she spilled her frozen yogurt all over my shoes while I was buying mine. Where’s all her friends now? In Meeink’s case, his popularity doesn’t last long. As soon as he wants out of the skinhead movement, his “friends” try to beat and kill him.

 

7.  Become an addict and seek oblivion to escape the unbearable separateness and alienation that results from not being able to love. Meeink’s drug addiction is so bad that by the time we get to the book’s end, we still see him struggling with it.

 

Part Three. The Foundation of Meeink’s Conversion to Skinhead: Nihilism and the Death of Meaning

1.  Frank is rejected by his parents who care about drugs more than they care about him.

2.  Frank’s father, divorced from his mother, cynically and recklessly tells his son Frank that Frank’s mother will choose her new boyfriend over Frank and his father turns out to be right, so in essence Frank is rejected a second time.

3.  Frank has sublimated rage, anger so deep he doesn’t know what to do with it and not seeing his rage with crystal clear vision, the rage goes into two different directions: inward killing him and outward in his false ideology of Nazism.

4.  Frank is desperate to be loved and to enjoy a sense of belonging even if it means being cradled in the brutish arms of Nazi Skinheads and its “Identity Theology” (see page 54).

5.  Frank is desperate to find an easy to answer to the misery, rejection, and worthlessness that he feels and rather than tackle the realistic complexities behind his rage and general sense of depression he looks to a fantasy: a scapegoat (blaming innocent targets) and racist ideologies always fixate on scapegoats.

6.  Being “called into God’s army [of racist degenerates]” gives Meeink a sense of mission and purpose that he never had before. See page 54.

7.  To feel unified, Meeink and his fellow racist cohorts must rally against a common enemy, ZOG.

8.  Sadly, we learn that thousands of young men, treated like rubbish from their parents, look for answers to explain their situation as marginalized unloved throwaways and they find these wrong pseudo answers in these racist ideologies.

9.  Nihilism, the belief that life has no value or meaning, is so painful and creates a void so unbearable that gullible misguided youth will glom onto the most odious hate-filled ideology just to wipe away their nihilism.

10.               The “believers” tend to come from similar backgrounds, hated or ignored by parents, and they are able to share a similar vein of rage and create a sense of togetherness and unity. No longer do they feel alone.

 

Part Four. The Ideology Must Fulfill Basic Needs for the Throwaways of Society

1.  The hate ideology must contain an easy-to-follow narrative about the “pure” race becoming “contaminated” by the impurities of other races.

2.  There must be specific groups that are hated in order to serve as scapegoats.

3.  There must be members of “your tribe” who compromise their behavior by not adhering to racist ideology and as such are “traitors.”

4.  There must be clear rites of passages to be initiated into the group. Cut your hair, wear a uniform, join a violent wilding spree, etc., to prove your “street creds.”

5.  You must possess doctrine or teachings that present an alternative “true” teaching to the “propaganda that mainstream society teaches you.”

6.  The hate group must serve as a surrogate family and provide parental figures as replacements for the ones you never had.

7.  There has to be a chain of command so that everyone knows their place and can aspire to ascend the ranks.

8.  There has to be a radical lifestyle change so that you can see your behavior as righteous and healthy, in contrast with the contaminated behavior of The Other.

9.  There has to be a renunciation of past ties to family and friends as you become reborn in the new hate group.

10.               There must be constant proof of one’s fidelity, loyalty, and allegiance to the group often evidenced by crimes, killings, or any errand given by your superiors.

 

Part Five. Essay Options

Option #1: In a 5-page research paper, analyze the conditions that made Frank Meeink ripe for racist brainwashing and the forces that unshackled him from the chains of his racist ideology.

Option #2:  In a 5-page research paper, analyze Frank Meeink's descent into the Skinhead movement in terms of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom." How, in other words, is Meeink's conversion an escape from freedom?

Option #3: In a 5-page research paper, compare the Fall and Redemption of Frank Meeink and Jeff Henderson.