vino_la_mine
6mo ago
Yes, I agree that this was worse than the George Floyd's death. 9/11 is the more appropiate comparison, but I think it shows precisely why this "mass psychosis" is something wrong that should be checked. Sure, when we were bands of 30-50 tribesmen, the largest consequence that was going to happen was another 30-50 tribesman dead. I think the pyschosis that followed after 9/11 prevented much clear thinking and led to a series of bad decisions of enormous consequences that did not help the problem. Even if you don't care about the massive number of dead civilians in Iraq, America spent a lot of money and resources there, all for nothing (they never did end up having the WMDs). Congress passed the Patriot Act granting intelligence agencies massive powers, created the TSA, etc, and it's unclear whether any of these massive infringement of liberties and waste of resources had any benefits. My point is, this sort of stifiling of discussion, regardless of how "justified" it is, leads to incredibly bad decisions because it silences all possible critique.
The attack on Israel as the Right's George Floyd Moment
I wanted to make this a more fleshed-out post, but I'm swamped with midterms at the moment
Post-2020 George Floyd, there was a massive unification around BLM, defund the police, etc. I think we all remember some of the worst parts of that dynamic: the media deciding 'moral clarity' was necessary instead of providing both sides. Of those skeptical of the defund the police movement, only the worst/least coherent voices were elevated ("weakmanning"). People who didn't believe in the narrative were decried as the 'worst people', there were calls to fire people who made statements outside of the Orthodoxy, etc. Blanket characterization of the motivations of the other side as 'bigotry', 'racism', etc without further investigation
Does anyone else have the feeling the same thing is happening with regards to Israel? I used to like Bari Weiss' The Free Press (or, Common Sense when it started out), precisely because they were willing to challenge orthodoxies, and dive into the motivations of those who had controversial thoughts. However,it seems the same belief in 'critical thinking' is not applied to Israel; the worst of the pro-Palestine protests are elevated (photos of the swastika being held up, people chanting gas the Jews, etc), and broad characterization of the motives of anyone who does not strongly condemn the other side as anti-semitic. Now, while I do think there are anti-semites on the pro-palestine side in the traditional sense, due to the long history of tensions between muslims/jews, I do think there are many American liberals that are actual self-consistent about this and do not support the attacks because they hate Jews. I saw a tweet perfectly capturing this, that if Natives had done a similar attacks on Americans, they would have supported it, even if they had been a victim. Thus, I think it's actually broadly wrong to decry it as anti-semitism, as it points at some deeper pathologies in the left that deserve to be explored and interregated. I get why Bari is perhaps arguing - this is a moment that "requires" moral clarity - but I think we see what happens when we let the media be the one that makes those decisions. I'm sure the NYT employees post-George Floyd had the exact same feeling, and from an epistomological perspective, this feeling is not hard enough evidence to abandon the key journalistic principles of approaching the other side in good faith, allowing each side to make the best case for its side, etc.
I am also seeing a strong (and intentional) attempt to enforce consenus by many on the right/anti-woke/center left. Screencaps of professors/employees/leadership saying things that are out of the desired consensus, @tting their institution to get their attention, etc. People who are skeptical of certain aspects and express that skepticism of the narrative (the beheaded babies) are screencapped and shared as 'the worst people'. Does this remind anyone of what happened to those who were simply skeptical of the narrative that American police were on some racist killing spree, and demanded to see harder evidence?
In short, I see three things happening:
- Aborgation of jouralistic principles in favor of 'moral clarity' by outlets that were founded as a reaction to the moral clarity moment, with the justification that this moment now is actually such a moment where it is necessary because they feel it to be so (how could you not feel otherwise?!?)
- Elevation of the worst people of the pro-palestinian side (gas the jews chants, swastika shown, etc)
- Blanket characterization of the pro-palestinian side as antisemitic
- Use of instutional power to attempt to remove dissidents
- Characterizations of those even just skeptical of the details of the attacks as "the worst people"
- Strong consensus-building by rooting actively searching for, widely sharing, and rooting out dissendents (why haven't institution X made a statement?)
I am strongly Pro-Israel and anti-Hamas (with sympathy for the Palestinians caught in this), but I hate this dynamic, I hated it when it happened on the left, and it's disappointing to see it happen on the right and the "anti-cancel culture"/centrist left.
Edit: Fixed typo "I like the same 'critical thinking' believe is not applied to Israel" -> "It seems the same 'critical thinking' is not applied to Israel"
I guess it remains to be seen whether everyone will. The BLM conversation had been in the air for a while, activists had been festering resentment torwards the police for a while, and they were poised to strike when the George Floyd video was released. The Israel-Palestine issue, I think, had been out of the American mind for a while, but there does seem to be a massive and hard push towards consensus-building. You're right that it might not end up being a 'George Floyd' moment if that consensus is not reached, but when I am referring to it as a George Floyd moment, I am referring to the tactics and dynamics.
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