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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32054 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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The strange place of Jewishness in the culture war

I find that Jewishness has a very strange place in the culture war, and I think it merits examination. I welcome people trying to help me make sense of it and figure out exactly where the battle lines lay. Both left and right fancy themselves champions of Jewishness, and paint the other side as antisemitic. It's very strange how it breaks down, and I don't fully understand why and along which lines.

On the left, they're very eager to portray the other side as fascists, holocaust deniers, and old-fashioned anti semites. We can see this in cases like Kyrie Irving mentioned below, and Kanye West, where if anyone says anything bordering on Jew-illuminati conspiracy theory, they are pounced on and labeled as fascist and far right. I particularly disliked the handling of Marjorie Taylor Greene last year, where she said something (which admittedly did sound stupid and crazy to me) about Rothschild, and immediately, I was hearing about "jewish space lasers" from every jewish acquaintance I know. While I do agree that Greene sounded crazy, I think there was a few steps and a lot of filling in the blanks between what she said and something that's legit antisemitic.

On the right, everyone I know is very eager to say that the left hates Jews. These people are fans of people like Bari Weiss. I'm less clear right now on exactly what delineates the claim that the left hates Jews, maybe because we've had a run over the past month of a number of cases of the left supposedly championing Jews (like in the Kanye situation). I know that one such thing that people on the right take issue with is the left being very anti-Israel. Though really, I think it does make sense that being anti-Israel isn't the same as being antisemitic.

This state of affairs makes it difficult for me to predict how my Jewish acquaintances will react to any culture warring. I've found that sometimes, the very same people are eager to claim that liberal American institutions hate Jews due to their stances on Israel, but then will also turnaround and claim that Trump was about to start shipping Jews out to the camps for the 2nd holocaust. It sort of seems to me that most of them are so eager to see oppression everywhere, they're like a leaf blowing in the wind, following whatever the current is, claiming that anyone and everyone is out to get them. Instead, to me, it seems more like (almost) no one is out to get them, and instead everyone wants to claim that their tribe is the only REAL supporters of the Jews.

I find the position strange because cursory research shows a clear over-representation of Jews in key areas of society, yet you have Jewish advocacy groups whose aim seems to be to replace any thought of this with the propaganda that “white people” are over-represented, which most people do not interpret as “mostly Jews”. The sheer chutzpah of this group to go after rappers because they “spoke truth to power” inarticulately is staggering, because their crime is not misinformation — saying it about white would get a pat on the back —but naming a group a little too accurately. Since when do we expect rappers to be articulate, anyway? When Lebron James, king of the first page of books, says that every day black people are hunted by white people, was he called out or was he praised?

So I think this is the strange place of “organized activist jewry”, or whatever you want to call the alliance of Jewish-identifying advocacy groups and journalists. You have a wealthy, influential cabal, united by a belief in the superiority of their bloodline, and they’re pushing a little too much and the curtain is started to tear. While of course I hope that every Jewish life is safe in America, the blacklash seems utterly natural, and I’m not going to catastrophize the words they pick when they speak truth to power. As organized Jewry is pretty much against my interests, I hope awareness continues to spread, and this awareness will of course be deemed anti-Semitic.

"Since when do we expect rappers to be articulate?"

I don't know. Rappers do truck in wordsmithery after all. The gift of gab is out front in that particular genre of music more than any other.

I thought that as a kid listening to rap, but when I listen to it now I find the vocabulary to be exceptionally poor. With most of the stories and/or the message of the songs superficial and presented in the most ineloquent and straightforward way possible. Compared to extremely simple poetry like The Life of A Cupcake most rap doesn't even compare.

Ya Rap survives because black people and lesbians are the last people allowed to produce Bawdy poetry (and somehow the lesbians are even worse at it), the most popular genre of poetry for most of human history

Regime de Vivre

I rise at eleven, I dine about two,

I get drunk before seven; and the next thing I do,

I send for my whore, when for fear of a clap,

I spend in her hand, and I spew in her lap.

Then we quarrel and scold, 'till I fall fast asleep

When the bitch, growing bold, to my pocket does creep;

Then slyly she leaves me, and, to revenge the affront,

At once she bereaves me of money and cunt.

If by chance then I wake, hot-headed and drunk,

What a coil do I make for the loss of my punk!

I storm and I roar, and I fall in a rage,

And missing my whore, I bugger my page.

Then, crop-sick all morning, I rail at my men,

And in bed I lie yawning 'till eleven again.

-- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (approx 1675)

united by a belief in the superiority of their bloodline

If you think that that is what "the chosen people" means, you are quite mistaken.

Imagine I told someone that God has singled white people out for special responsibilities and wants me to keep the bloodline pure, that my worship must be led by those of special German descent, and that God has made special promises with rewards to my European ancestry, including a carve out of land in, hm, Uzbekistan. They will obviously think I am crazy, because such ideas are crazy, but they would also come away with the idea that I am a white supremacist and an extremely dangerous person.

Well, it depends. Did you also say, "According to the [leaders of the white people], [whites] has not been chosen as the people of the Law on account of its racial superiority.'? or that ""A [non-white] who consecrates his life to the study and observance of the Law ranks as high as the high priest"? Or that "Poverty is the quality most befitting [whites] as the chosen people"? Or that "Only on account [their] good works [are whites] among the nations "as the lily among thorns" ? Then, no, I would not draw that inference.

And if I said “God has chosen us and sanctified us out of all the nations”, “[europeans] only have I singled out of all the families of the earth”, and “[europeans will] be a peculiar treasure unto God from all the peoples”?

We can try to lighten the statements however we want, but this is what is believed. For those versed in the Talmud it’s no problem to say “Jews were not chosen from racial superiority”, because this is true in their legalese, as God is said to have chosen Jews on His own accord thereby making them superior. Such a statement does not answer whether Jews functionally believe that they are superior.

The Talmud rolls back Meir’s assertions, with

they will receive reward not like those who having been enjoined perform commandments, but like those who not having been enjoined perform good deeds

And in some cases prescribes the death penalty for a gentile who studies the Torah

the punishment of a gentile who studies Torah is like that of one who engages in intercourse with a betrothed young woman, which is execution by stoning

And the fruits of being especially chosen have been persecution, so make of that what you will.

I'm curious what your qualifications are to say "what is believed." And,re who gets rewards, if you are not familiar with the Jewish concept that any righteousness person gets said rewards,regardless of faithm, you don't know much

I think it's as simple as Jews say [positive statements about themselves] and that if a group of white people ever said [positive statements about themselves] on account of being white then they'd get called Supremists. Not because they actually think they are supreme, just, calling a group of white people White Supremists is just a Thing You Do to boo them. See also: conflation of White Separatists/Nationalists with supremists.

This angle fits the rest of the post, which was about overrepresentation, which is true but unacceptable to mention about Jews, but is acceptable to mention about whites. See also: the way to get the ADL to defend Ethnonationalism is to mention Israel.

I don't know what that has to do with the statement that I took issue with, which was that Jews are "united by a belief in the superiority of their bloodline." That is a very different claim than "Jews can get away with saying positive statements about themselves but whites can't,' which I don't take issue with as a factual claim.

Those who believe it only believe it unconsciously. Few believe it consciously, and of the ones that do, I'd expect 0 to be secular progressive NYT writers.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?

To the same extent that a Protestant work ethic doesn’t go away when Protestantism is discarded, or the residue of guilt doesn’t go away when Catholicism is discarded. If you are raised going to Temple, or have parents who do, and spend time in a social circle that is influenced by the religion, that will have an implicit effect. Essentially, as these progressive Jews believe that the stain of racism isn’t easily washed off of white Americans, I assert that the mark of tribal ethnic supremacism doesn’t immediately disappear once attendance to Temple discontinues.

They aren’t raised going to temple, though, that’s the whole point. Jews are about as religious as any other northeastern ethnic group(that is, not very) and the secular reform Jews writing for the NYT may have gone to synagogue on Hanukkah and Passover growing up but they mostly weren’t regular attendees, didn’t keep kosher, didn’t have a predominantly Jewish circle, etc.

Why would that be the defining feature? Culture alone could carry on for generations after explicit religious attendence stops. My ex-wife was one of those secular Jews, but she still grew up in a Jewish community in Brooklyn; she used to criticize the in-group solidarity she saw, even as she was heavily acculturated into it. There is a very noticible difference compared to our children who are being raised in an almost entirely gentile community.

Moreover, virtually all "white billionaires" are no card bearers of pro-white activism. Quite the contrary. On the "Jewish Question" though, I think part of the reason why Jew-owned newspapers like NYT have seen an uptick in criticisms towards the IDF's excesses in Gaza for example is the right's co-option of the Zionist cause and pacify the would-be criticism from the left. Perhaps the conventional right wing antisemitic tropes of Jewish influence in the west to lobby for Jewish nationalism militaristically and violently while eroding gentile nationalisms through diversity and mass immigration are not too far off the mark.

I also think the adage that today's conservatives are mostly yesterday's liberals is largely correct, and this is where large parts of the pro-Zionist right stands on the matter (of course, we also have the grassroots Evangelical movement in favour of Israel). The accusations they lay against the left are by and large within the liberal framework, you could see this in statements like "leftists are the real antisemites/bigots", "leftists are the real fascists", and so on. The same people however are also vehemently opposed to regime change operations in the MENA region against Assad, etc.

That said, while I do see what the left, tankies and Arab Ba'athists say about the Zionist lobby in the US, its still difficult for me to believe that American mainstream media is biased towards Israel and silent on IDF atrocities against Palestinians. Tons of Democratic voters outright believe that Israel shouldn't exist, I suppose two of those groups are primed to just see anything western as a hostile outgroup?

EDIT: As an aside, could it also be that this is another reason why the "incel" movement is so reviled by the mainstream? After all, young lonely men are very prone to political indoctrination and they often rail against the hyper-individualist hyper-capitalist culture for atomising society into loyal consumers and eroding all traditional support structures (or their own idea of said structures), rendering them unhappy. Often times, this does infringe on espousing antisemitic tropes. And what do they have to lose for it that the Jewish elites could threaten to take away!

Tons of Democratic voters outright believe that Israel shouldn't exist

What's your proof? I found a survey from 2019 that says Democratic voters positively view Israel while not being as positive about its government.

united by a belief in the superiority of their bloodline

Would you say this belief is wrong?

I would say that Jews do have a hugely disproportionate amount of power in society, but they are also generally higher IQ and higher achieving than pretty much any other group so I guess I’m OK with it. I mean hell the whole reason America and the West won World War II is because the Jews came over and built super weapons for us.

Speaking as someone who is not Jewish.

The war was won because Japan decided to attack the largest and wealthiest developed country in the world, and Germany decided to invade the second largest industrialized country and fight the aforementioned largest and wealthiest developed country in the world, and Germany’s European Allies were a clown show that needed constant diversion of military resources to protect.

The Jews had nothing to do with it except making it easier to shut down questioning of the war narrative after the fact.

The war was won well before the bomb on the back of access to much superior industrial capacity, manpower and oil.

yes. US industrial capacity was so great we could supply both american theaters and underwrite the soviets' materiel efforts.

the bomb shortened a war that was already decided

I mean sure the Allies probably would’ve won, but the quality of the victory is important too. Without the bomb I highly doubt we would’ve had 80+ years of the Pax Americana and US hegemony.

The Soviets and British had the bomb a few years after us so i doubt it made much difference.

The Soviets having the bomb soon afterward was also directly due to the efforts of a network of spies that were predominately Jewish.

the rosenbergs were framed

those powerful who framed them is a question steeped in shadow

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Hah, I think there is certainly reason for Jews to be proud of their ancestry and group accomplishments. But the way that the religion of Judaism codifies this superiority, in combination with activism, is a somewhat toxic combination.

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