This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
So Tucker is under fire from the ADL after Tucker claimed attacks on white women was because they were "key to reproducing the white race" or something to that effect. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, has now openly called him a Nazi. Greenblatt in particular seems to have a personal obsession with Tucker, with him publicly demanding Fox News fire the talkshow host on previous occasions. Tucker has also been the subject of a massive frontpage NYT article claiming he was a white nationalist.
An Orthodox Jewish group has decided to never let a good opportunity stirring the pot go to waste, joining the fray by issuing a statement demanding him to resign. Who? Greenblatt, of course! They represent about 2000 rabbis, so it isn't a small group, though admittedly the Orthodox community within the American diaspora is much weaker than they are within the British community.
There are two things of interest to me. First, the intra-Jewish CW on how to deal with rising de facto white nationalism. Even the most generous reader of Tucker's words will have to concede that he is making explicit racial arguments on behalf of a race, namely his own. Whether you agree with him or not is beside the point. He is no longer mumbling or hinting.
But secular Jews, who have historically been most alarmed about white nationalism, are now training their guns on the Orthodox community. The NYT - arguably their house paper - unloaded on Jewish day schools (called "yeshivas") in a front page article some weeks ago. The Orthodox community is growing very fast and unlike previous eras, retention appears to be stronger. So we can expect the American Jewish community to look more like the British one (which tends to lean conservative). Right-wing Jews do of course worry about white nationalism but they tend to not overlook left-wing anti-Semitism as much as secular Jews do.
Just a few days ago, Jerusalem Post carried an Op-Ed predicting the end of the "golden age" for Jews in America. Were Nazis the culprits? No, the author contended. The threat is "Islamo-Leftists". As the Jewish community trends right, a more diverse range of opinions will flourish away from the monolithic focus on white radical right extremism. But at the same time, it is hard for non-Americans such as myself not to notice how open racial appeals are made by folks like Tucker or Ann Coulter. Admittedly, Coulter has dipped her toes in these waters in previous years but even a cursory look at her substack shows the word white come up just as often as conservative. A decade ago, that wouldn't have happened.
As a curiosity, her podcast partner is Mickey Kaus, who is Jewish. So we seem to be viewing two different trends. First, an ever-increasing explicit focus on race from white right-wingers away from generic terms like "conservative" or "Christian". Second, an internal Jewish struggle where the long-term trend seems to favour the right-leaning Orthodox community. Stuck in all of this, you have legacy organisations like the ADL which still has institutional clout. Yet Tucker seemingly cannot be fired despite being openly called a Nazi by the head of the ADL, something that I would not have expected under the era when Abe Foxman ran the organisation. Is this a sign of a weakening hold of the ADL within the Jewish community or a radicalisation (racialisation?) on the part of white America? The answer, it appears to me, seems to be both.
But is it so? I wish it would be the case, but it looks like most Jewish vote - at least outside Orthodox community - goes firmly to the left. Yes, I know about Ben Shapiro, etc. but those are singular exceptions, in my opinion dwarfed by the opposite trends. Given the normalization of the thinly veiled antisemitism on the Left (BDS, anti-Zionism, embracing militant Islam, "dual loyalty" talk, etc.) I don't know what attracts the American Jews in the Left so much, but that seems to be the case to me.
Why would you expect him to be fired? ADL is lately openly political and embracing the leftist narratives, and one of the leftist narratives that exists roughly since the Nazis first appeared on the political scene is to call everybody on the Right "Nazis". If every such case would lead to people being fired, nobody to the right of John Kerry could be ever employed. It's not the coin that retains any weight by now.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link