The Wall Street Journal published an article Oct. 1 about young men who are falling into “internet darkness” and interviewed one who left that world by embracing the Catholic faith.
The article by journalists Julie Jargon and Ben Fritz looks specifically at how two young men — one on the far-right and one on the far-left — were convinced online to embrace radical political views and how they grew out of those views.
A.M. Hickman, whose late mother was a heroin addict, became disillusioned with the world. Being surrounded by what he saw as the wreckage of the world, Hickman became convinced of far-left ideas.
“I got mad and asked, ‘Why does the world suck?’” he told the outlet.
Hickman spoke with CatholicVote Oct. 1 about his experience moving from far-left anger to peace in the Catholic faith.
“It is natural for young men and boys to be looking for answers in a climate like ours,” Hickman told CatholicVote in an interview. “Our mechanisms for truth-seeking are warped and degraded by the secular culture”
Hickman read Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto at age 13, and he soon got involved in survivalist message boards. At 21, he was a moderator for one of the internet’s largest forums about “liberation” from the government and capitalism, according to the Journal.
“When you find other people who understand you go, ‘Let’s talk about it,’ and then it becomes ‘Maybe we should blow up this dam or shoplift Kenny Chesney CDs and sell them,’” he explained to the Journal. “It gets crazy quickly.”
Hickman spent eight years hitchhiking, trying to drop out of society. However, he eventually realized this way of life would not fulfill him. He says he lived in filth and saw dozens of his friends die of overdoses.
In 2019, Hickman joined the Coast Guard in an attempt to find structure, but soon came the lockdowns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In his interview with CatholicVote, he explained how he was completely isolated from all social interaction for months with no idea when it would end. He began praying the Rosary and returned to the Catholic faith of his grandmother.
Today, Hickman lives in rural New York with his wife and child, making a living as a writer on his Substack, Hickman’s Hinterlands.
Hickman thinks that the Catholic Church can serve as a home for young men who feel adrift in the world.
“Extremist ideas are going to continue to thrive, but those who experiment with them will cycle through them until they hit bottom — and it is at ‘bottom’ where they will find Christ and His Church,” he told CatholicVote.
He also told CatholicVote that he thinks no other belief system or institution is more “capable of nourishing souls and bringing peace to the human heart than the Church — and for this reason, unlikely as it would seem, I actually suspect we’re at the cusp of an era of mass conversions to the Church. It is only a matter of time.”
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