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Notes -
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.
One could argue jewishness is at the top of the culture war, which helps explain why it's a weapon for both sides.
The history of the holocaust is perhaps the most powerful victim narrative there is - a people brutally killed by the millions in a way that is modern, industrial, and driven by pure hatred. The powerful victim framing is used by the woke left to attack any opponent who publicly identifies the elites as jews.
Of course, when elements of the legacy left and the woke speak out for the rights of palestinians, the right is not going to forgo the opportunity to use the anti-semitism label against them. Rarely does the left criticize the jewish elites these days, apart from some elements of it that have been driven to the very fringe.
And it is the subject of jewish elites that is the most relevant to the culture war. The insanity of many of the trending cultural movements, the racial conflict, anti-energy "ESG" movements, pedophile story hour, #metoo, ubiquity and desensitization of pornography, pro-war/anti-war, and so on, represent such a regression of humanity that you really have to question the extent to which any of it is organic. Insofar as modern American cultural trends are manufactured, it is with the blessing of the elites.
It does not need repeating that jews are over-represented in the sort of elite circles relevant to shaping cultural narratives, media, banking, politics, media, technology, media.
Not all elites are jews, and not all jews are elites, but ingroup preferences and biases are going to play a role both consciously and unconsciously in the decisions of who is and isn't let in. Not really good or evil, just human (and potentially evil).
But certainly some forces at play in the culture war could be fairly called "evil". Beyond the promotion of degeneracy and "pitchfork people versus torch people" distractions, the most obvious example is the insanity and crushing of the human spirit following the amplification of the fear and hysteria around covid that lasted two years and in some circles persists to today. A rational society led by benevolent elites would be discouraging fear and encouraging calm in response to a novel cold virus.
So we know these elites can use the jewish victim narrative as a shield against criticism and use the vast and well-funded network of "anti-hate" groups to ostracize and ruin their opponents as soon as they start to notice and vocalize the apparent overrepresentation of jews among the people who appear to be perpetuating these evils. One of the most famous people in the world saying "Jews control the banks" and losing access to his bank immediately thereafter brings this into the forefront of the collective consciousness.
With this in mind it's useful to clarify the relevant issue here, which is not jewishness generally, but a group of people that obtains and maintains wealth and power through careful cunning, manipulation, and deception, caricatured in the meme of the "grabbler" and broadly repeated in anti-sesmitic stereotypes dating back centuries.
So what exactly is the connection between all of these elements:
Over-representation of jews in elite circles of media, banking, politics.
"Anti-semitisism" as the most stigmatized form of hate.
Superiority complexes, "goyim", and narrative control / censorship.
Glamorization of cultural degeneracy and wokeism.
Demonization of family and traditional values.
Promotion of racial conflict, and anti-whiteness.
Covid lockdown hysteria, vaccine apartheid, the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
Ye sacrificing his career and professional reputation because he's "off this meds".
Epstein didn't kill himself; human trafficking and blackmail of influential people.
Financialization of the economy over the past 50 years.
Debt, compound interest, ESG, growing income/wealth inequality, inflation, and poverty.
"You will own nothing and be happy"
That is the realm of the jew-illuminati conspiracy. There may even be no connection at all, and the trends we see are just a natural result of free markets, globalization, and technology intersecting with human nature.
The extent to which jewish thought may be influencing the elites control of culture nonetheless warrants some consideration from anyone seeking to understand the culture war, though you won't find any real answers amidst the sea of anti-semitic nonsense out there, and must bear in mind that merely speculating on the connection between nefarious behavior of elites and jewish thought is itself met with hostility and used to further the victim narrative.
Ultimately it is likely a fruitless endeavor, though if the connection is real then continuing to sweep it under the rug is perhaps a recipe for holocaust 2.0. And now, even if you conclusively prove some "evil jews" conspiracy to be true, sharing it widely will only cause problems, you are better off sharing the more nuanced anti-semitic take of "don't kill the jews; kill the jew inside you"; meaning, don't perpetuate any of these toxic cultural elements and resist the temptations of greed, status, and materialism, in favor of a life of service and respect towards others. Because the power to do these evils comes only from exploiting human weakness and temptation, and the more we recognize that and refuse to comply, the weaker that power becomes. In the end, whether the jewish influence is 0% or 100%, isn't that the outcome we should all want?
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