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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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In "holy shit" culture war moments, Kanye has lashed out at (((us))) on Twitter. He came out of the gate swinging by stating that:

... when I wake up I'm going death [sic] con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda

Please note that Kanye is using double-spaces instead of periods for some reason.

This comes shortly after he was pictured wearing a White Lives Matter shirt, and shortly before he asked rhetorically

Who you think created cancel culture?

As always, the reaction is worse than the action, and causes the story to explode. In response to accusations that Jews control the media and invented cancel culture, Jewish organizations have loudly declared that such accusations are anti-semitic and inherently untrue, and then demanded Kanye be cancelled. The irony appears lost on them. To the surprise of I'm sure absolutely no one, Kanye was quickly locked out of his twitter account.

Social media reactions have been mixed, to say the least. /pol/ has apparently decided that Kanye is one step removed from goose stepping his way down the isle at the Grammys, and is almost /theirguy/. Of course there's also a substantial faction who just spam n****r so I'm going to stop short of saying that Kanye has struck a blow for unity within the racist community.

/r/Kanye, which is dedicated to exactly what you think, is in full melt-down mode understandably.

I really don't have anything else to add to this monumental pile of flaming garbage. There is no redeeming anything buried here. Only more decay and hatred seeping into public spaces. I leave you with only this thought that has been said by far smarter men than I. Twitter delenda est.

n****r

Just say nigger, man. We aren't in reddit any more.

There's really not much to go off on here. Kanye is one step removed from believing in lizard men at this point. People melting down at what he says for the uninterested observer is entertainment.

What is gained by saying it?

[EDIT] - No seriously, what's the argument here? Doing things simply because someone told you not to is childish. The idea that liberty can be secured by rejecting all norms was tested to destruction, and it did not actually work at scale. The taboo exists whether you like it or not, and flouting it provides no benefit that I can see. The word is actually garbage.

I don't actually want you or anyone else banned for mentioning it. I'm not going to, though, because I don't see the point, and I'll make the argument against mentioning because I think it's a sound one on the merits.

What is gained by saying it?

Nothing is gained or lost by saying it.

The frame of the arguments as a whole are lost by not saying it in a mention context. You are arguing inside of the frame of those who see no distinction between use and mention. And in my eyes not respecting that distinction is witch behavior. Just a witch from a different school of the Dark Arts than the one you are scared of.

Nothing is gained or lost by saying it.

Others differ, and judge accordingly. I want to talk to those others about matters of import, and that is going to be difficult enough with the opinions I actually hold. Why make it harder by violating taboos for no actual benefit? I'm here to have conversations with people I disagree with. Those conversations actually benefit me. Misspelling "naggers" does not.

To a first approximation, everyone has taboos. I can accept that some rare, uncanny individuals are sufficiently... outlier... that they honestly don't, but this seems more like a disability than a superpower from where I'm sitting. It doesn't enable conversation in any way that I see. It doesn't gain knowledge or grow understanding. Those are the things I'm here for, so I'm going to argue that it's a net-negative, and self-censoring, while a bit silly, is still the superior play. Some might see this as abdication to Blue dominance. I think that is silly, and is more an appeal to magical words than any self-censorship argument ever could be.

It's not brave. It doesn't make a point. no one's impressed. We've all heard the arguments for and against for decades. I'm quite comfortable predicting that the mods here aren't going to ban mentions, so there's no inherent slippery slope argument greater than the implicit one from attempting communication across a steadily-widening tribal divide. All there is is what you want to do, and why.