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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   34441 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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There's a point where free speech bleeds too far into norms of civility, and this guy crossed that line when he said "Jews must be abolished by any means necessary."

FWIW "Abolish whiteness" was an extremely common slogan during the Floyd Great Awakening, and the term itself was coined by a high-status Jew in the Academy, Noel Ignatiev:

He was best known for his controversial theories on race and for his call to abolish "whiteness". Ignatiev was the co-founder of the New Abolitionist Society and co-editor of the journal Race Traitor, which promoted the idea that "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity"... His academic work was linked to his call to "abolish" the white race

The point is, when you criticize Jews in any capacity you are crossing the line too far into norms of civility, whereas Jews criticizing Whites is extremely prolific and high-status across all cultural and academic institutions.

A lot of the surge of anti-semitism is coming from the rejection of the notion that Jews deserve this special treatment, where the "norms of civility" means they are beyond any criticism in any similar measure they give to Whites.

The tweet said:

My position on Jews is simple: whatever Harvard professor Noel Ignatiev meant by his call to “abolish the White race by any means necessary” is what I think must be done with Jews. Jews must be abolished by any means necessary.

It should also be noted that Noel Ignatiev regarded anti-semitism as a "Crime against humanity." So according to Harvard professor Ignatiev there's a moral impetus to abolish the white race by any means necessary, but anti-semitism is a Crime against Humanity. The surge of anti-semitism is caused by the Noticing of this bitterly hostile social consensus. The actions of Israel are going a long way in revealing this social consensus for what it is.

It would probably be prudent to offer the full context here:

Not at issue is whether there will be kosher food in the Dunster dining hall, since I have said from the beginning that I welcome anything that meets the food wishes of students.

Nor at issue is whether there will be a toaster oven for kosher use only, since House Master Liem offered to pay for one out of his private funds.

The only issue is whether Harvard money will be spent for something whose use is restricted on sectarian grounds. I oppose such an expenditure because it violates secular principles, which in my opinion are part of the foundation of a democratic society.

Cooking utensils, according to kosher law, must be used only for kosher food. Harvard funds all sorts of religious facilities, but none of the others is restricted in use on sectarian grounds. Thus Memorial Church hosts a variety of religious and non-religious activities, which do not render it unfit for Christian (or other) worship, and no one is compelled to engage in any form of religious observance in order to use it.

...

Finally, at least one Crimson headline writer and one cartoonist have suggested that I am anti-Semitic. I regard anti-Semitism, like all forms of religious, ethnic and racial bigotry, as a crime against humanity and whoever calls me an anti-Semite will face a libel suit. Noel Ignatiev Non-resident Tutor, Dunster House

So, he's objecting to what he sees as specific Jewish privilege and is specifically answers the claim that this action would make him an anti-Semite. Seems like context that one would want to include and not just drop this one individual sentence here, whatever one things about Ignatiev's other statements.

Finally, at least one Crimson headline writer and one cartoonist have suggested that I am anti-Semitic. I regard anti-Semitism, like all forms of religious, ethnic and racial bigotry, as a crime against humanity and whoever calls me an anti-Semite will face a libel suit.

Public writers who threaten critics with a libel suit (especially for an evaluative claim like “is an anti-Semite”) always rub me the wrong way. It just seems pathetic, like running to teacher because someone called you a doo-doo face. The cost of having a following for your thoughts is that someone’s going to misinterpret them. If you can’t take that heat, stay out of the kitchen.

I also feel like it’s a lack of humility — if you’re offering up a radical take on race, someone’s going to find serious issue with that. Maybe they’re misinterpreting you. But the cost of a radical reinterpretation is that the people who rely on the mainstream one will find it intensely offensive. Of course you’re going to get called nasty things! You can wear that as a badge of honor, or shriek about it. Only one of those makes you look like a person with the intellectual humility required to actively argue for a radical take.

It’s a Jewish specific thing in this context because Jewish laws forbid that anything that touches something unclean must be destroyed. Christianity has no similar rules. If I hold a race in a church, it might be offensive, but it doesn’t render the building “unchristian” to the point that it must be destroyed. The closest I can think of is hala in Islam or no beef in Hinduism. Reserving the holy things of religion against things that break those rules isn’t special treatment is the condition doesn’t exist for other religions.

Can you explain how the context contradicts my summary? He vocally supported ending the white race, while at the same time declaring anti-Semitism a Crime against Humanity. That was my statement, and your context does not refute that in any way. Sure, he made that affirmation in order to defend himself from the accusation of anti-Semitism for his position on Harvard food accommodations but that is no matter. What I have said is not changed whatsoever by the context you provided, he simultaneously held both positions exactly as I described.

If the context was unimportant, why not include it yourself? Even if we assume that you didn't mean to imply what people think that you were implying, at least you surely understand that your post could easily be read in such a way without that context?

If the context was unimportant, why not include it yourself?

The context is unimportant, and I excluded it because it is unimportant. You can't just say the word "context" you have to explain how "the context" changes what I said- and it does not in any way. So he was against Jews getting their own dining accommodations at Harvard? Can you explain to me how that's relevant at all to what I said? My point was to contrast his call to destroy the white race with his claim that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity. That point is not whatsoever challenged by his position on Harvard dining.

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He vocally supported ending the white race, while at the same time declaring anti-Semitism a Crime against Humanity. That was my statement, and your context does not refute that in any way.

You only mention him objecting to anti-Semitism, as usual implying that Jews only care about Jews and are enemies of everyone else. The context makes it clear you're being disingenuous:

Finally, at least one Crimson headline writer and one cartoonist have suggested that I am anti-Semitic. I regard anti-Semitism, like all forms of religious, ethnic and racial bigotry, as a crime against humanity

As for "vocally support ending the white race," when academics and activists talk about "ending whiteness" they are not talking about literally genociding white people. Their argument is that "whiteness" is an arbitrary social construct. Of course most of us consider this a stupid argument, much like the claims that "male" and "female" are arbitrary social constructs. But just as people who want to "end masculinity" and "end the gender binary" are not talking about literally exterminating males, you know perfectly well what Ignatiev actually meant.

But just as people who want to "end masculinity" and "end the gender binary" are not talking about literally exterminating males, you know perfectly well what Ignatiev actually meant.

This argument would never hold against any other group; women, blacks, jews themselves. We can't accept and normalise this sort of rhetoric. Its indefensible.

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But just as people who want to "end masculinity" and "end the gender binary" are not talking about literally exterminating males

It seems to me they are clear advocating for eliminating what many people would think of when they think of males. While they may be allowing for XY individuals to still 'exist' in some sense, it's likely it would be in the sense that a woman can have a cock, balls and beard. Those aren't women, and their new men, won't be men.

They are talking about eliminating males in a real sense. We do them and ourselves a disservice by not believing they are sincere in their advocacy especially when they show us time and again who they genuinely are and what they believe.

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You only mention him objecting to anti-Semitism, as usual implying that Jews only care about Jews and are enemies of everyone else.

There is no implication of that at all. My implication is exactly what I said: he is vehemently anti-white and he strongly objects to anti-semitism. Absolutely nothing about the context challenges that fact, there is no implication that he "only cares about Jews." He's a commie, I'm sure he cares about a bunch of stuff! But he's vehemently anti-white while strongly objecting to anti-Semitism (very very many such cases).

That was my point, it is 100% true, it is not changed at all by the context, and it's not challenged by anything you wrote here.

@Amadan, would you agree that he's vehemently anti-white and he simultaneously strongly objects to anti-Semitism, regarding it as a Crime Against Humanity? If not, why not?

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You are being intentionally obtuse. You are obviously intelligent enough to parse Ignatiev’s actual beliefs, yet you intentionally flatten their nuance whenever they appear to deviate from your simplistic framing.

Let’s assume for a moment that Ignatiev is forthrightly representing his own beliefs. He wishes to abolish the cultural belief that appearance and ancestry should confer any prestige or preferential treatment upon any individual. He, like any committed critical theorist, believes that an inherent quality of “whiteness” — not simply a broadly European phenotype, but the cluster of meaning and historical importance retroactively applied to people with that phenotype — is a belief in a hierarchy in which white people are in some sense more important, more valuable, etc., than non-white people are.

In that sense, it is also true that he wants to “abolish the black race”; not to abolish the African phenotype, but to abolish the idea that anyone should care what ancestral group an individual appears to descend from. However, it means something different to lead with a call to abolish a powerful, hegemonically-empowered group than it does to lead with a call to abolish a more vulnerable, historically-persecuted group. When it comes to Jews, it makes sense for Ignatiev to say that Jewish people have just as much a right to their own private religious beliefs as anybody else, but that these religious beliefs should not be made into a template for policymaking, nor should Jews be treated as any more special than anyone else. (As they are in Israel, which is why Ignatiev has repeatedly expressed opposition to the existence of Israel.)

In this framing, anti-Semitism is bad specifically because it is one example of a larger category of beliefs: namely, that an individual’s ancestry or inherited religious beliefs should have any bearing on one’s treatment of, or expectations about, that individual. It happened that the context of the conversation Ignatiev was having centered around a Jewish-specific issue. (And one on which, as @Stefferi pointed out, Ignatiev came down on the side that did not advantage Jews rather than the one that did.) Had that conversation been about a black-centric issue, he would have said that anti-blackness is a crime against humanity.

Now, if all of these beliefs are his actual beliefs, there is no hypocrisy there at all. He is a standard-issue hardcore blank statist secular progressive who wants to abolish nations, dissolve unchosen bonds between individuals in order to liberate them to pursue a life of pure self-discovery and voluntary commitments. There’s no secret undercurrent of wanting to see Jewish people secretly privileging themselves while dissolving other macro-scale unchosen identities.

And of course you can say he’s lying, and that in fact his commitment to blank-slate liberated individualism does actually have a secret exception clause for Jews. (This appears to be your claim.) But then, if you’ve opened the door to accusing him of cynically lying, why are you certain that he’s honest about wanting to abolish whiteness, but also certain that he’s lying about not thinking anti-Semitism is any worse (or any better) than any other form of bigotry? Why couldn’t he be making a bombastic call to “abolish whiteness” because it’s catchy, provocative, and likely to get him a lot of attention, interview requests, and speaking engagements? Why is it that you believe Jews are liars, except when they say negative thing about white people?

Like, Ignatiev’s contention is that there is a society-wide belief that phenotypically-European people are more special than other races, and that’s it’s somehow important to keep them pure and make sure they continue to hold all the important positions of power in as many advanced first-world countries as possible, both because they’re entitled to those countries (“we built them”) and because they’re more qualified to competently run them, whereas other races would fuck it up. That’s what he means when he talks about “whiteness” and what he has explicitly argued for abolishing.

And this appears to be a pretty accurate descriptor of your beliefs! You do think those things about white people! When I’ve expressed enthusiasm about miscegenation between white people and East Asians, you’ve reacted with shock and horror, because you take it for granted that preserving the genetic purity of the white race is of considerable importance. When others have argued in favor of skilled non-white immigration into white countries, you’ve expressed fervent opposition because you don’t think non-whites would be responsible, capable, conscientious wielders of power within white countries. Basically you want non-white people to stay in the parts of the world that currently have all the non-white people, because you want them to stay separate from white people. You’ve made this explicit! The caricature of “whiteness” which Ignatiev attacks — one which, in truth, vanishingly few white people in the 21st century believe in — is the reality of your belief system.

If you want to claim that Ignatiev is making sone larger, more genocidal claim about wanting to directly harm all people of fair skin, or all people of European descent — and also that he wishes to exempt himself from this by retreating into a defensive and subversive Jewish identity — then you have to actually contend with the substance of his stated arguments.

You are being intentionally obtuse. You are obviously intelligent enough to parse Ignatiev’s actual beliefs

Obviously I understand Ignatiev's beliefs, better than you apparently. No, I don't think Ignatiev is calling for a literal murder of all white people. Instead he is using his own non-negligible cultural influence to deconstruct and pathologize White Identity, in an effort to undermine it. I understand that perfectly well, I more than most here understand that you don't undermine a race by just committing murder, you do it at a symbolic and ultimately cultural level. It remains an expression of a strong ethnic hostility even if it's not actually advocating for physical violence.

In that sense, it is also true that he wants to “abolish the black race”; not to abolish the African phenotype, but to abolish the idea that anyone should care what ancestral group an individual appears to descend from.

Citation strongly needed! He regards the Black Race as a social construct also, but one that is sympathetic and he does not call to Abolish Blackness. If you're going to provide a claim for that, please provide evidence. While you're at it- provide evidence that he called to Abolish Jewry. Of course he did neither such thing, it is Whites who who receive the enmity of his ideological worldview and no other racial group.

There’s no secret undercurrent of wanting to see Jewish people secretly privileging themselves while dissolving other macro-scale unchosen identities.

Calling for the Abolition of Whiteness while simultaneously declaring anti-semitism as "Crime against Humanity" is a far more important demand for Jewish privilege than the question over whether Jews at Harvard should be given dedicated kitchens. He is demanding Jewish privilege by socially deconstructing White identity while declaring in-kind criticism of Jewish identity to be a Crime against Humanity. His position on dining at Harvard notwithstanding, which is entirely irrelevant to the question at hand.

Please provide evidence Ignatiev called for the Abolition of Blackness or Jewry. He did not. He called for the Abolition of Whiteness, and he declared anti-semitism to be a crime against humanity. Which is exactly what I said in my original post.

When I’ve expressed enthusiasm about miscegenation between white people and East Asians, you’ve reacted with shock and horror, because you take it for granted that preserving the genetic purity of the white race is of considerable importance.

I challenged your absurdly naive notion that combining all the races of the world would magically combine all the relative strengths of each group into one superior specimen:

I do believe that the optimal genetic admixture of people in the future will be some combination of European, East Asian, Jewish, and a small but non-negligible amount of Amerindian. You might think this would be a mystery-meat catastrophe, but I think it would be a healthy and vital blending of the best each of these elements would offer.

That was the juvenile claim you made which I challenged.

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SS says a lot of pretty nakedly racist things, but man, a screed defending a literal call to abolish the White race that ends in claiming the desire to protect one's culture and homeland from foreign replacement is some vile thing -- as if literally every people don't want to do that, as if it wouldn't be considered mad, bigoted offense to promote this same replacement for minority groups -- is quite possibly the only situation where Secure sounds more sympathetic than the person he's arguing with.

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However, it means something different to lead with a call to abolish a powerful, hegemonically-empowered group than it does to lead with a call to abolish a more vulnerable, historically-persecuted group.

This is one way to look at it. You could also ask if maybe the double standard is what's causing the hostility in the first place.

If you immigrate to China, say "abolish the Han nation" and when called out on it say "I just mean the Han should stop persecuting the Uyghurs, why I am always being scapegoated and blamed for everything," that might not be the best idea.

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Thanks! That kind of fact-checking is valuable to reveal manipulation by SS-men.

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