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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34413 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Well, I guess it was only a question of time before the ADL condemned Dave Chappelle and SNL more generally for "popularising" anti-Semitism.

Chappelle had a SNL monologue a few days ago where he walked a tightrope between supposedly condemning Kanye and Kyrie before slyly signal-boosting some of their talking points. Kanye comes across as crazy and Kyrie as plain dumb but Chappelle is neither, so this is arguably bigger news. Of course, Chappelle has been courting controversy before, such as his perceived anti-trans comments or complaining about college kids being too sensitive these days.

So I am not sure if this is some kind of cultural shift where black entertainment elites are more willing to criticise Jews or if it is simply Chappelle running towards controversy in order to stay relevant. Maybe it is both. Nevertheless, I think the ADL has by and large been enormously inefficient and self-defeating during these past 6 weeks. It seems even some Jewish publications agree.

He says Hershel Walker is dumb. He's as dumb as the average American, at least going by his academic credentials. It's like there is a reason elites exist even if they are a convenient scapegoat for everything wrong with society. Things we take for granted from political leaders, like being articulate, are not that common.

Good football players in the south regularly graduate from college without being able to read or write. I don’t think having a college degree really tells us anything about walker’s ability.

But the average American high school graduate cannot read or write well either . I know people who have never written anything in their adult lives , even with degrees. Reddit, people who spend a lot of time online is not representative of the general population. If you compare his credentials to someone like even George W. Bush, who graduated from Yale and whose SAT scores confer an IQ of around 125, there is probably a 20 point IQ difference, so 100, give or take 5, sounds right, which is average.

I said read or write, not read or write well. Football players who graduate from college despite not having done any coursework and needing help to write their names on the registration paperwork is a common story.

Is there a writeup of this somewhere? I'm prepared to believe it, but I'd like something more than single-point anecdote to base it on.

[EDIT] first result on google seems relevant. ...damn, that's depressing.

Football players who graduate from college despite not having done any coursework and needing help to write their names on the registration paperwork is a common story.

But the same for non-athletes. That's why the dropout rate is so high. NFL players score as well on the Wonderlic as the general population, about 20, which is average IQ. Mr. Walker quit college to join the NFL, which was a rational and understandable move on his part. It's not like he failed out.

He's as dumb as the average American, at least going by his academic credentials.

I don't think you can make this evaluation. At a bare minimum, the University of Georgia is going to be just a bit less academically selective when it comes to a five-star running back recruit than a random kid that would like to be an engineer someday. He apparently lied about getting his degree:

It’s a falsehood that has proliferated elsewhere, including in an online biography advertising Walker’s book, at a campaign rally for his bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, and even during his introduction this year at a congressional hearing.

Walker released a statement to the AJC acknowledging he did not graduate from college.

“I was majoring in Criminal Justice at UGA when I left to play in the USFL my junior year,” Walker said, referring to the professional football league. “After playing with the New Jersey Generals, I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.”

I'll also note that Criminal Justice isn't exactly the most challenging of degrees. We don't know enough from the information provided to determine whether he was too slow-witted to finish the degree without receiving the help that a UGA football player could expect, but I really don't see any academic information that could be used to conclude that he's of average intelligence.

I don't think you can make this evaluation. At a bare minimum, the University of Georgia is going to be just a bit less academically selective when it comes to a five-star running back recruit than a random kid that would like to be an engineer someday. He apparently lied about getting his degree:

But only 40% of Americans have a college degree. Having a degree would put in him the top 60%. He had to take the Wonderlic ..that would answer it definitively .

He doesn't seem to have a degree, and even if he did, I question the validity of a college football player's degree as a metric for intelligence. SEC schools are famous for giving their players a free pass.

I can't find Walker's Wonderlic, but running backs in general are famously not the brightest bulbs.

I wanted to fact-check that, but couldn’t be arsed to convert this to summary stats. Not on my phone, at least.

Standard Wiki grains of salt apply, but here we are:

  • Offensive tackle – 26

  • Center – 25

  • Quarterback – 24

  • Guard – 23

  • Tight end – 22

  • Safety – 19

  • Linebacker – 19

  • Cornerback – 18

  • Wide receiver – 17

  • Fullback – 17

  • Halfback – 16

Standard HBD caveats also apply - adjusting for race by position probably tightens those gaps considerably.

Anyway, the real point is that you definitely don't need to be of average intelligence to be one of the best SEC running backs ever, even if you do walk away with a degree. Maybe Walker isn't actually a dumb guy, but his attendance at UGA is not strong evidence for that.

So I am not sure if this is some kind of cultural shift where black entertainment elites are more willing to criticise Jews...

I think most white Americans would be quite surprised to find out how many black musicians and athletes are into what are typically characterized as fringe religious views - Black Hebrew Israelites, Five-Percent Nation, Nation of Islam, and so on. Even among people that are aware of guys like Jay-Z repping these groups, I think most whites don't realize just how deeply weird and racist these religions are. For example, Five-Percenters on race:

As in the Nation of Islam, Five Percenters believe that the original inhabitants of the world were Black (which they refer to as the "Asiatic Blackman" and believe had inhabited the earth for "66 trillion years") who ultimately descended from the Tribe of Shabazz, while the White race are evil "devils" who were created 6,000 years ago on what is today the Greek island of Patmos by a 'rogue bigheaded scientist' named Yakub (the Biblical and Qur'anic Jacob) who was of the Meccan branch of the tribe. After the Whites attempted to rise up against their creators, they were exiled to the caves of "West Asia" - what would later be known as Europe. The Yakub origin story is the basis for all Five Percenter racial understanding.[72]

When you start flipping through the Wikis, you find some pretty aggressive claims. The Black Hebrew Israelites are particularly antisemitic, but they're not all that picky about who they direct racism at. If you ever get a chance to hang around outside the basketball arena in DC, these guys are out there preaching, and they are wild. They insult whites, they insult Asians, they even insult black people that associate with whites. If you ever want to see what "hate" looks like in person, these guys are the perfect embodiment of it.

Anecdotally, I've had a surprising number of black folks mention these sorts of things offhandedly - not that they've fully bought in and not that they're personally hateful or anything, but just stuff like, "hey, did you know that black folks were actually the original Jews?". A black guy at a dive bar that was chatting with my (Asian) wife and I had some odd ideas about the ancestry of Asian people. Occasionally you'll hear an athlete mention something like this.

The only thing unusual about Kyrie is that he's stubborn enough to be blunt, open, and refuse to take it back. There's usually a gentleman's agreement to just not poke at people's weird beliefs too much, but I guess it's just too tempting with Kyrie and Kanye.

the White race are evil "devils" who were created 6,000 years ago on what is today the Greek island of Patmos by a 'rogue bigheaded scientist' named Yakub

What the hell? I always thought this was a joke made up by 4chan. It just feels so dumb and arbitrary. Why Patmos? Why 6000 years ago? What happened to all recorded history before that? Why specifically a "big headed" scientist?

There's even a wikipedia page for him.

I wonder if it's a coincidence that the Young Earth Creationists believe the Earth itself was created 6000 years ago? Or is there some Bible verse or something that lends itself to the number 6000 that both of these theories are tying into? As you allude to, 6000 seems an arbitrary number to pick out - the fact there are 2 different sets of crazies that picked it seems interesting.

YEC’s get their number(s, technically- the usher chronology might be the consensus among YEC’s today, but it’s not universally agreed upon) by adding up the ages in the Bible until they reach an event they think they know the date of. There are literally dozens of versions of this, and the most prominent and common is called the usher chronology, after an Anglican bishop in the 1600’s who did precisely that. It’s popular for using the KJV translation as opposed to the vulgate, and gives a 6000 yr figure.

It’s very possible that Elijah Mohammed/Wallace Fard copied the 6000 yr figure from the Usher chronology.

The 6000-year-old earth is, I believe, derived from the math done by Bishop Usher. He basically started at Year 0 and worked backwards using the ages of given for various Biblical characters like Adam, Noah, Jacob, etc. No idea where the Black Israelites are getting their number from.

It’s going by the jewish calendar, supposedly going back to the creation of the world in genesis 5783 years ago.

Yeah, the "Black Hebrews" hypothesis is basically just 85 IQ gibberish. Which is precisely why it would've been smart of the ADL to let it slide, since it is goofy nonsense. But Greenblatt just couldn't help himself. The man seems to only have a sledgehammer and not understand the concept of "pick your battles". The special six-item demand list they gave to Kyrie for him to redeem himself came across as vindictive and almost as a public humiliation ritual. Chappelle also brought up the list, so it seems to have irked him.

I read somewhere that this book that Kyrie promoted is now in the top 10 list on Amazon. Talk about Streisand Effecting yourself.

My one experience with black hebrew israelites was running into them in downtown Dallas with a (IRL tradcath)priest while they were protesting something vaguely to do with lost tribes and Cuba. They quieted down and got out of the way despite being clearly nuts.

From my memory it seemed as if they were unhinged and incoherent and seemed that way to even the homeless black people hanging around hoping for some drama, a high bar to clear indeed. I do have the impression that NoI/Hotep stuff is way more popular and insane schizo gibberish mostly in the ways plenty of high achieving religions are schizo.

But Greenblatt just couldn't help himself. The man seems to only have a sledgehammer and not understand the concept of "pick your battles".

And he keeps winning, so maybe that concept is less useful than typically thought.

and almost as a public humiliation ritual.

And a literal shakedown for donations.

The Kanye cancellation wasn’t really because of the ADL, it was because of his total lack of backing down.

Not even just that tbh. He said it in the bluntest, most provocative manner possible with minimal cover.

but Kanye isn't one of them.

I suspect that part of it is that he's too narcissistic to feel like he should have to play the game.

Combined with mental illness and the long record of him both being a dilettante and getting away with provoking people on race issues - there was the Confederate flag and the MAGA hat - it's not a surprise that he didn't heed the depths.

Kanye is also somehow impossible to look away from. I don't know what it is. Some innate sense of comedic timing and pitch-perfect camp I guess. It doesn't seem like he intends it, it just seems to be part of who he is.

This is one of the funniest videos I've seen recently and he isn't even trying to be funny, I don't think.

He is, unironically, a lyrical genius. I'm not clear on whether he's the voice of a generation, but the man's sense for prose, wordplay, and timing makes him legitimately hilarious. This 12 minutes with Lex Fridman is quite the ride.

Oh I know, I watched the whole thing. The stuff that Kanye says is so incredibly stupid, but he's somehow so captivating while he says it.

well to quote Chappelle quoting Kanye, it's because his life is dope and he does dope shit.

Even without the context... just the content and delivery, the perfect comedic timing of the punchline, the tone, the gestures, how the whole thing is a sidetrack into a subordinate clause that he gets lost in and never closes. He's like a Coen Brothers character.

His, erhm, "personal trainer" was the one who originally made the phone call to have him committed. If you read this recent exchange that Jewish "personal trainer" had with Kanye I think it's hard to not understand Kanye's perspective:

I'm going to help you one of a couple ways... First, you and I sit down and have an loving and open conversation, but you don't use cuss words, and everything that is discussed is based in fact, and not some crazy stuff that dumb friend of yours told you, or you saw in a tweet.

Second option, I have you institutionalized again where they medicate the crap out of you, and you go back to Zombieland forever. Play date with the kids just won't be the same.

This isn't a doctor telling Kanye to take his meds. This is somebody threatening him and his children, threatening to medicate him to send him to "Zombieland forever" for criticizing Jewish people.

On one hand, Kanye is pretty unhinged, or at least that's how it looks, and I can believe your interpretation; a personal trainer, Jewish or otherwise, absolutely could send that message in good faith and without malice (though without «love» either). Antipsychiatric narratives are popular with exactly the kind of people who would benefit from some treatment – many among them Black adherents of insane doctrines.

On the other hand: «meds, schizo» is something I'd be receiving here for every second post of mine, but for the standards of local moderation; and indeed that's what I often get on platforms with lower (they'd argue higher, naturally) standards. This has nothing to do with the quality of the argument and everything with the fact that certain topics are coded as psychotic. The ability to define psychiatric norm, and therefore the bounds of permitted (or rather, conceivable in a polite society) discourse is a political superpower precisely because it lies nominally outside politics (cue Foucault), and punitive psychiatry is a well-known practice. The peace activist (and notable Philosemite) Andrei Sakharov was probably crazier when he proposed the tsunami-causing nuclear weapon than when he got forcefully medicated in 1984 for a hunger strike in the name of his wife Yelena Bonner, but the system, that is, the set of bureaucrats and careerists running the place, approved of the former way more, so that's how it went down. And if Black celebs were as policed by their Jewish agents and doctors for their takes on systemic white power... yawn. Well, you get it.

By “latent” is meant that form of schizophrenia in which all manifestations of the illness are expressed only to a degree that is “marginal” or “slight,” and there are no such gross symptoms as hallucinations. The following symptoms are those most characteristic of latent schizophrenia (they are quoted from a textbook for students at medical institutes): introversion, listlessness, lessened interest in life, generalized pessimism and melancholy, preoccupation with inner experiences, inappropriate thoughts and actions, bigotry ana rigidity of opinions, and suspiciousness, etc. So that if you are an introvert with a penchant for self-analysis; if you are uncommunicative; if you do not want to change your convictions because you do not consider then “groundless”, if the fact that you are being tailed and your telephone conversations are being bugged is attributed to “suspiciousness,” or perhaps a “delusion of persecution,” the conclusion is clear… Nor will you be saved by the fact that you are successfully coping with your job responsibilities, or with creative work; that you show an interest in it and are even “growing” professionally. Although formally the presence of a psychic pathology does not rule out responsibility for your actions your “exculpation” is inevitable.

– A Dissident’s Guide to Psychiatry, Vladimir Bukovsky and Semyon Gluzman, ~1973

The interesting thing is that schizos act against their interests and can't keep their mouths shut, unlike normies who learn from example; so if you institutionalize people for X, eventually only schizos will keep bringing X up, which will tie X to schizophrenia in the public mind and retroactively justify your stigmatization of X back when you were institutionalizing dissenting normies. This is another good case for always doubling down, a la Greenblatt, I wonder how far down that path we are with regards to this topic.

Gluzman is an interesting character. Bukovsky is fairly well-known.

Do people really call your writing schizophrenic? Is that like...a default slur?

I could buy “manic” or maybe “autistic,” if I were desperate to label your style with a condition, but schizophrenic seems odd.

Thanks for high praise, hah.

Well, they do. In lesser venues, writing a lot (writing little is beneath me), and on unconventional topics too, is enough to get the diagnosis (unless it's rdrama and they call you a cute twink instead?)

By the way, there are estimates that SZ is overdiagnosed by 500% in Russia, so I could have received the same diagnosis from a shrink. In my real interactions with them this never happened; but then, I never tried motteposting at shrinks.

And hey, manifestoposting (which long posts can pattern-match to) is robustly associated with schizo and paranoid traits.

More comments

I have my doubts about that text

That's fair, but he hasn't denied it or responded to any comment requests from the articles I've checked. I think he would have made a comment to deny it if it were not authentic.

secondly possible that this is ‘tough love’ come from a genuine place of - if not actual altruism, then at least mutual self interest in Kanye’s life and career not imploding spectacularly.

I'm sorry, but I think it is completely absurd to call that threat "tough love." It is deranged and lends credence to Kanye's perception. This Newsweek article also paints Pasternak as a scandalized Jew, very upset that Kanye's anti-Semitic remarks got less attention than his "White Lives Matters" t-shirt:

Pasternak also told Newsweek on Monday, "I spoke to Kanye for about five hours yesterday, and his communication is very incoherent at this point. It doesn't forgive someone for being antisemitic. In fact, the lack of outrage over his tweet from people is very sad, regardless of whether he's mentally ill or not. It's not acceptable."...

Said Pasternak, "As someone who's been his friend for 15 years, I will not speak with him again until he issues a formal apology. He seems like he's either [having] or is on the verge of a mental break. This is a person who probably struggled understanding reality from not reality even in the best of times, and I'm extraordinarily saddened by the lack of outrage. The amount of outrage that came from a T-shirt that he wore a few days earlier was a millionfold more vocal than the tweet that he implied that he was going to wipe out a race of people."

That's not "tough love" when you are telling Newsweek that you are sad more people aren't piling on outrage, and interpreting the "death con 3" Tweet with the most uncharitable interpretation humanly possible. He'll tell Newsweek that everyone should be more offended by Kanye's anti-Semitism, but no denial of that deranged message he sent Kanye...

truly one of the best flameouts of all time.

Chappelle had a SNL monologue a few days ago where he walked a tightrope between supposedly condemning Kanye and Kyrie before slyly signal-boosting some of their talking points.

One talking point: Jews have disproportionate influence in the entertainment industry.

I would say that that's hardly the egregious element of the things they said but some people legitimately do respond with horror at the suggestion.

Chappelle has a long history of not liking cancel culture, doesn’t he?

Yep, he's a member of the old guard. I remember back a while ago he said in a comedy sketch that he was more "comedian" than "black" because he felt more sorry than angry at Michael Richards for his cancellation incident.

Dissident-right-adjacent writer David Cole (a Jewish filmmaker who got his start as a Holocaust revisionist, put that life behind him after being threatened by the ADL and the now-defunct JDL, became a respected Hollywood insider under a new name, then had his past exposed and suffered an early and very intense version of “cancellation”) recently pointed out that many of the high-profile dustups between black entertainers and Jews are a direct result of business disputes. Black athletes and entertainers (and, of course, many white ones as well) become wealthy despite having no financial literacy or business acumen, and they are extremely vulnerable to the predations of shockingly unscrupulous agents and lawyers - a great many of whom are Jewish. Examples such as Jerry Heller, Lou Pearlman, and Allen Klein come immediately to mind. Many athletes and entertainers feel that they are being exploited and victimized by Jews because they are, in fact, being exploited and victimized by Jews. (Of course, there are millions of Jews who are not involved with exploitative business practices in the entertainment and sports industries, but I can forgive individuals who have had millions of dollars stolen from them for focusing on what’s emotionally salient to them.)

So, yes, there certainly is a contingent of anti-Jewish sentiment in segments of the black community such as the Nation of Islam, the Black Hebrew Israelites, Hotep culture more generally, etc., but I think it’s useful and important to draw a distinction between those strains of thought and the type of Jew hatred you see among rich blacks, which is based on direct first-hand experience with the profoundly ugly underside of these industries. The average Hotep may not have ever even really interacted with Jews, so their antipathy is somewhat abstract and second-hand, whereas if you’re Kylie Irving or Kanye West (or Dave Chappelle) your interactions with Jews are constant and vitally important to nearly every aspect of your professional life.

Now, again, this is not true only of black entertainers. White entertainers and athletes are also, presumably intimately involved with Jewish lawyers, agents, executives, etc. However, most modern whites lack anything more than a rudimentary racial consciousness, and are especially uncomfortable with noticing anything about Jews, so it probably does not occur to a lot of these whites to even reflect on the Jewishness of those industries.

Most blacks, though, are primed for racial/identitarian thinking by their upbringing and cultural milieu, so they’re far more likely to Notice things like that. Black public figures have also come to enjoy a level of public immunity from mainstream criticism that white public figures don’t enjoy. The “shut up and dribble” mentality that used to be commonplace in audiences’ relationship to athletes has become extremely taboo and has been replaced by a fawning and indulgent tolerance of all manner of divisive public statements by black figures.

Frankly, I think that dissident rightists are really taking their eye off the ball by taking the side of insanely spoiled black multimillionaires who have accrued obscene amounts of money for things like throwing a ball into a net. Personally, if Kyrie’s cancellation is a price to pay for getting anti-white and anti-police activism back out of sports and music, it’s a price I’m more than happy to pay. Jews are absolutely correct to rain condemnation on the appropriation and theft of their history by black revisionists; now we just need whites more generally to begin reacting just as strongly to the theft of our own culture by Hoteps who would have us believe that blacks were the real first inhabitants of Britain, that blacks invented every major technology and that whites stole the credit, that blacks were Viking chieftains and Roman emperors, etc. Criticizing the Jewish scumbag agents who siphon off large portions of their earnings is understandable, but for me personally I feel no need to take the side of people who shouldn’t have anywhere remotely near that much money to begin with.

Personally, if Kyrie’s cancellation is a price to pay for getting anti-white and anti-police activism back out of sports and music

But this isn't happening and won't happen. Anti-white activism is so accepted that it's state-subsidized. It's official doctrine. I'm not sure how much evidence I need to cite for this, rest assured that I can provide more if people want.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-bbc-dramas-so-obsessed-with-rewriting-history-/

University admissions favouring blacks over whites.

https://www.mbda.gov/enterprising-women-of-color

/images/16684642640905871.webp

https://www.resumebuilder.com/1-in-6-hiring-managers-have-been-told-to-stop-hiring-white-men/

Frankly, I think that dissident rightists are really taking their eye off the ball by taking the side of insanely spoiled black multimillionaires who have accrued obscene amounts of money for things like throwing a ball into a net.

Right, but I suppose it is less about personal sympathy for someone rich and more about power dynamics in the US. These black elites are so rich that they get in touch with that world whereas most of us never will. So when there is conflict, these things get exposed. In other words, the "quiet part out loud".

White entertainers and athletes are also, presumably intimately involved with Jewish lawyers, agents, executives, etc. However, most modern whites lack anything more than a rudimentary racial consciousness, and are especially uncomfortable with noticing anything about Jews, so it probably does not occur to a lot of these whites to even reflect on the Jewishness of those industries.

Most blacks, though, are primed for racial/identitarian thinking by their upbringing and cultural milieu, so they’re far more likely to notice things like that.

I suspect one major difference is that White entertainment elites both tend to intermarry with Jews to a much greater extent (indicating greater social compatibility) but also that they can often fight back in ways that appears to elude the black community. A typical example would be Taylor Swift's fights against her former Jewish manager Scooter Braun. She actually read the contract and re-recorded the entire back catalog while simultaneously signing a new contract with much better terms for herself. Admittedly, Swift is probably way smarter than most White entertainers, but it is still an interesting data point.

Jews are absolutely correct to rain condemnation on the appropriation and theft of their history by black revisionists

Only some Jews do this. As intermarriage and admixture has become much more common in the last few generations, there has arisen a large number of people who are vaguely "Jewish" in the same way that a random person in Cleveland with the last name "Schmidt" is technically "German" somewhere up the tree but isn't likely to speak the German language, eat traditionally-German food, or care that much about Germany and "German-ness." With Jews, even ones that retain some connection to the culture and religion, this can dissolve into essentially modern progressive orthodoxy - not without reason has Reform Judaism been called "the Democratic Party at prayer". These people are far less likely to be hypersensitive to critiques of "the Jews," because they don't really feel themselves to be attacked when such a statement is made (unless, of course, the statement comes from a source which also flags as an enemy of their generic progressivism. Then, of course, it's "as a Jew..." all day).

now we just need whites more generally to begin reacting just as strongly to the theft of our own culture by Hoteps who would have us believe that blacks were the real first inhabitants of Britain, that blacks invented every major technology and that whites stole the credit, that blacks were Viking chieftains and Roman emperors, etc.

Extremely unlikely, because the progressive movement you'd be struggling against is, itself, a white movement. Ironically, abnegation of one's own history and patrimony appears to be a uniquely (at least at this point in history) white thing to do.

Also on the white thing, I don't consider myself white and I don't have anything in common with a Frenchman or a chick from Oregan just because we're whitish. My largest level of outrage about 'the other side' is the constant fomenting of whiteness where I feel personally attacked and have to stand against anti whiteness. Just because the other side is wrong, doesn't mean I can just objectively deny them. Just like the not so Jewy Jews of your post - but even less so.

Just a quick note - don't let its pronunciation fool you O-ree-gan it's spelled Oregon.

The ADL sucks because it's perceived as self-serving and intolerant of criticism. Anything outside of a narrow worldview of acceptable discourse is considered hate speech. Criticizing Christianity, or white people in general? Perfectly tolerated. Criticism or jokes about Judaism or Jewish people? Off limits.

Yeah, I think this basically boils down what their issue is: inauthenticity. You can't claim to fight bigotry in all its forms when you do it selectively depending on which ethnic group we're talking about.

It makes them very unsympathetic and their previous role in constantly pushing social media to censor more hasn't exactly helped their reputation either.

You can't claim to fight bigotry in all its forms when you do it selectively depending on which ethnic group we're talking about.

But of course you can, so long as you have the power to shape the narrative. I think it's very unlikely the ADL pays any price at all for exactly this behavior.

I really enjoyed Chappelle's monologue. Viewed as a tightrope act, it was quite a spectacle. And really, which part of "wrongthink about Jews cost Kanye one billion dollars" is supposed to persuade us that Jews aren't somehow pulling society's strings?

Of course, in reality there are millions of Jews, and only a very tiny percentage of them have any sociopolitical clout at all, and the possibility that even a large number of those are colluding on such matters is infinitesimal. As Chapelle notes--"there are a lot of black people in Ferguson, Missouri, it doesn’t mean we run the place."

But the way Chapelle ends is trenchant nevertheless.

My first Netflix special what did I say? I said I don't want a sneaker deal because the minute I say something that makes those people mad, they're gonna take my sneakers away. And the whole crowd was like ha ha ha ha ha. Now you see Kanye walking around L.A. barefoot... this guy lost a billion and a half dollars in a day.... It shouldn't be this scary to talk about anything. It's making my job incredibly difficult, I'll be honest with you. I'm getting sick of talking to a crowd like this. I love you to death and I thank you for your support. And I hope they don't take anything away from me. Whoever they are.

I think it would be very interesting to see what Chapelle could do with the Moloch egregore.

Of course, in reality there are millions of Jews, and only a very tiny percentage of them have any sociopolitical clout at all, and the possibility that even a large number of those are colluding on such matters is infinitesimal.

Is there a good way to describe a group like this? All ethnics are certainly not culpable for advocacy done on the behalf by people they didn't elect, much like whites as a group aren't responsible for white supremacist violence and blacks as a group are not responsible for violence committed by black criminals. But describing Jewish advocates like this feels strange and the ADL does seem to enjoy support from many more Jewish people than take active roles in it.

Ethnic descrimination does still happen and the optimal number of anti-discrimination groups is probably nonzero but it does seem wrong that anti-discrimination frequently turns into general advocacy for the group. Perhaps what is needed is some generic anti-discrimination group that handles all cases in a standard manner and rogue advocacy groups should be seen like the KKK as nakedly defecting on the social contract.

Failing that I find it hard to see why I shouldn't interpret an organization that actively advocates discrimination against my group in favor of their own, often more privileged group, as anything but a hostile threat worthy of nothing but disdain.

We should establish a norm that as a blanket rule advocacy groups should not be seen as actually representing the groups they claim to be doing advocacy for, but instead, their own personal interests first and foremost.

That's always been my take at least. And speaking as a liberal, I really do believe that doing this would dramatically reduce the amount of active bigotry that exists in the world. The activists and advocacy groups are creating their own boogiemen out of thin air, more or less.

They're the ones dreaming up the Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man in a Klan hat, and manifesting it into reality.

That’s a weirdly specific example. Please tell me it’s not an actual thing.

What, the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man in a Klan hat thing? No no no. I'm just riffing directly off of Ghostbusters, where I really do think people get to choose "the form of the destroyer" based upon what things they actually bother to react to. It's the best analogy to how I think these things work. At the very least, they get to amplify whatever they want to amplify into the big threat. Then Toxoplasma of Rage comes into play, and everything just gets ugly.

I don't know about the Stay-Puft Man, but Terminal Lance did have a Michelin Man in a Klan hood (I couldn't find the strip, though).

We should establish a norm that as a blanket rule advocacy groups should not be seen as actually representing the groups they claim to be doing advocacy for, but instead, their own personal interests first and foremost.

I'm not really sure that could work in practice or maybe I'm misunderstanding the suggestion. It seems not to fit the majority of advocacy groups, illustrative but exaggerated example: "Advocates for ending child sex trafficking should seen as advocating for their own personal self interests first and foremost" seems somewhat incoherent. I can see how it'd be true in some "It makes me feel good about myself to help others" way, but just the mechanics of advocacy require these groups to try and make their target population's needs feel salient and important.

But perhaps you mean that the group doing advocacy should be required to prove they have buy in to the credibility of the groups they're advocating on behalf of. Such that the ADL could only advocate for Jews in general if they collected vote or polling from the Jewish population and therefore criticism of the ADL would genuinely and legitimately be criticism of the Jewish people and thus the Jewish people would police the actions of the ADL because it would weigh on their own reputation?

I feel bubbling up from my gut sometimes an instinctual flinch away from "advocacy" like a boo word. As soon as I clock someone as an advocate, and it rarely takes more than a sentence, my defenses against bullshit go into overdrive. I prepare for bad faith arguments and to be buffeted by misleading quotes and word games. But advocates aren't only out there for issues that set my jaded culture war heart ablaze, and awarness sometimes should be raised on worthy problems. I don't think it's a good thing that my reflex when I hear that someone wants to make the world a better place is distrust. I hope I can go back to that credulity if we can build a world worthy of it, I hope my kids will live in that world.

I mean, even look at something like child sex trafficking that so often flies off into other things. (And also misses very critical vectors at times). But this isn't to say completely discredit their work and what they're doing...although I share the same instinctual flinch. My guard is certainly up as well. But it's not something we should shift on a larger group, is my point. Their arguments should stand and fail on their own, without being reflective of people outside of those making those arguments. Maybe that's pollyannaish, as usual. But I do think it's a very real problem.

Maybe a better way of putting it is that the power that advocacy groups wield can be dangerous in their own right, and while it shouldn't discredit their argument, certainly it's a reason that we should be careful and wary about it.

rogue advocacy groups should be seen like the KKK as nakedly defecting on the social contract

This is my actual view on La Raza. They are held in some esteem. Respectable ethnically Hispanic Americans visit La Raza meetings and give speeches. I've seen large public murals saying "La Raza".

In my opinion La Raza is the Mexican-American KKK. They are hard-core racists who just happen to be partly-not-white so they get a pass.

What is La Raza? Wikipedia lists a number of separate organizations with that name.

The National Council of La Raza. Which I now see changed their name a few years back. Those big murals still say "La Raza" to identify cultural centers for their racial movement.

La Raza

Translated literally as "the race," it's a conflagration of many organizations, some which are benign community centers, others which believe that the American Southwest should be its own country, or part of Mexico, and ruled by people of "the race."

Is there a good way to describe a group like this?

"Market-dominant Minority"

Note that Jewish people in the United States are not listed as an example of a "market dominant minority." The original article is here and it says:

In First World countries, markets have tended to reinforce the economic dominance of a perceived ethnic majority over those countries' most salient ethnic minorities-hence the controversial calls for (and backlash against) market-" correcting" affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics in the United States." In the developing world, the ethnoeconomic dynamic tends to be just the reverse: Markets often reinforce the economic dominance of certain ethnic minorities. In the First World, democracy poses no radical challenge to economically dominant ethnic groups. 2 By contrast, in the developing world, democracy characteristically pits a politically powerful but impoverished "indigenous" majority" against an economically dominant ethnic minority

So, she clearly sees this as a non-First World phenomenon. And note this discussion in which she defines "market dominant minority as "an ethnic minority, or ethnic minorities, who, along with foreign investors, can be expected to economically dominate the poor, indigenous majorities around them, at least in the near to mid-term future."

Again, she is talking about something more than a particular group being overrepresented in a particular sector. So, Jewish people in the US do not seem to be an example of what she is discussing.

I mean, Koreans and Indians are clearly market dominant minorities in poor urban regions, and Cajuns and Afrikaner’s fill similar roles in parts of the rural south.

These areas might be poor by American standards, but they’re globally very very wealthy, so the concept clearly applies regardless of what academic theories about race say.

I agree that Jews aren’t one, by the way, because they’re usually not owning capital.

Korean and Indians in poor urban regions often serve as middleman minorities, but I think that is a different concept.

TBQH, it seems like the distinction is one that only exists to claim that US whites are systemically advantaged over everyone else, no exceptions.

That would be a strange claim to be made by Thomas Sowell, who has written a fair amount about middleman minorities. As for market dominant minorities, as noted in the original link, Chua's concept is about such places as 'the Philippines, [where] Chua notes that the Chinese community comprise one percent of the population but control 60 percent of the private economy, with the result being resentment on the part of the Filipino majority against the Chinese minority creating an ethnic conflict. Similarly, in Indonesia the Chinese Indonesian community make up three percent of the population but control 75 percent of the economy. Similar patterns occur throughout other Southeast Asian economies." Clearly a different concept than middleman minorities, and neither has anything to do with US whites; not everything on the planet is about the current culture war.

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IIRC Chua discusses the issue in the book and notes that, quite simply, the Jews in the US are not a market-dominant minority because they do not in fact dominate the market (ie. control a majority, or even a great plurality, of private economy within the country) the same way as the MDMs she discusses do.

On the radio this morning, there was a pop news segment which mentioned the drama. They quoted Chappelle’s joke, something along the lines of:

I denounce this anti Semitic remark and stand firm with my friends in the Jewish community.

See, Kanye, that’s how you buy some time.

I concur with the hosts that the joke is decently funny. It certainly works better than some of Chappelle’s “snowflakes, amirite?” bits. The best part, though perhaps unintentional, is that when quoted it looks like an apology for a different joke until the punchline.

I remain skeptical of claims that this (or random bait on Twitter, as in that other thread) implies some sort of growing black/Jewish tension. Aside from being an obvious opportunity for selection bias, it’s firmly in the “to good to check” category for those who expect to see race warring everywhere. This includes a big chunk of the dissident right as well as, apparently, the ADL.

I think the cat's out of the bag. This particular (ever-growing) set of mini-controversies will subside eventually. But awareness/noticing will increase monotonically because once you notice you don't unnotice. The next controversy surrounding this question will have even more prima facie plausibility than this controversy started by Kanye's rant, and so-on. Look at what Elon Musk tweeted yesterday. It's a hop, a skip, and a jump away from anti-Semitism.

The reason I do think that this is symptomatic of a turning point is expressed pretty well in Chapelle's set. Chapelle isn't walking a tightrope because he is concerned about unethically disparaging a people. He's worried about a reprisal for saying true things. That's not a long-term stable state. The long-term stable state is that nobody even thinks about it, or they think it's morally wrong to believe it. What we are seeing is a growing awareness, and people are being quiet and walking a tightrope because they are afraid and not because they are morally on the side of the ADL.

once you notice you don't unnotice

Or do you?

Many years ago, as a teenager (probably 14 or so), I was at my friends' place playing Monopoly, and we had a TV turned on (not sure why. Also, yes, Monopoly, it was a long tradition and more of a cause to meet up by that point). Two other players went to the kitchen. The news host was blathering something generically loyalist about the rebirth of spiritual values, very distinctly phony – maybe Putin visiting some newly opened church or priests baptizing a rocket factory, whatever. By then, I've learned through some pain not to discuss politics in real life, so it was filtered out as background noise. My friend, a zealous Orthodox Christian and a devout patriot, and generally something of a cowardly conformist, looked into the screen for a bit, grimaced and suddenly said «...it's all bullshit, isn't it? Just a show. Complete unscrupulous profanation, just some window-dressing for the corruption of power-hungry slugs with not a iota of conscience. That's what you notice all the time, right? And that's why you used to mock us».

With me staying silent (it was a rather eerie moment), he thought a little more, by the looks of it sincerely weighing his options, to commit to one of them. «But suppose I accept that this is the way things are – what then? Do I pretend they aren't? Do I try to persuade my family and other friends? Do I argue with them? If I fail, will they trust me? Will I be able to trust them, knowing they know I don't believe what they believe? What will I even rely on? I don't know. No, no. No, sorry, this is going nowhere».

(If that sounds unnatural – I kid you not, that's how he spoke. I don't remember the exact lines but this is their style and meaning. He's a weird guy, nerdy and way more eloquent than me).

I shrugged, switched the TV off and we went back to the game.

Last I checked, he fully supported the «regathering of the Russian lands», the battle with Banderovites, and the Moscow Patriarchate. With any luck, he'll become a priest in a few years. This doesn't seem to be disingenuous at all.

The moral of this parable is that people can be entrenched in their views, resistant to persuasion, and very attached to received wisdom that ties them to their loved ones and the society they live in. Ben Shapiro is of course right that facts don't care about your feelings. But if you have feelings, you may find it easy to disregard even self-evident facts, and believe Shapiro-Solovyev's lies when your peers believe them already.

I get your point and I agree "feelings don't care about your facts" is a more insightful turn of phrase than Shapiro's slogan. But I think you may be underestimating just how unconscious the average American has been about Jewish power and influence. It's something that was hardly ever talked about, maybe only by small circles in the paleo-conservative movement, dissident publications, or the occasional faux pas from a Gentile in Hollywood. But it was totally invisible to the average American. Now we have celebrities openly talking about it on Twitter. I've even seen progressive-adjacent spaces asking questions about Jewish influence. Of course, they all agree that the answer is that Jews just have a really great culture that values education and achievement- end of story. I don't necessarily expect facts to influence the vast majority of them into embracing dissident thinking.

It's more like it's becoming impossible to deny that the Death Star exists. Kanye forced them to publicly display the power of their fully operational battlestation. And people are talking about it. A lot of people are rationalizing it and defending it. A lot of people are defending Kanye and Kyrie. But the time of the average person not being aware that the Death Star is something that exists out there is going to come to an end.

I think where we disagree is that you believe they will soon be able to fully flout the Death Star- "Yeah we have it, don't mess with us or you're going to get it." Greenblatt is clearly adopting that strategy- perceived by some to be a mistake. I also think it's a mistake and is going to backfire (and is already starting to do so- the genie has left the bottle).

In other words, a Prog saying "yeah Jews are overrepresented in all these institutions, because of their great culture" is a major shift from nobody thinking about Jewish power at all.

OK, so what's your solution to Jews being overrepresented in these institutions, assuming you think it's a problem? Actually, why do you think it's a problem? I would make this comment more high-effort by guessing answers to those questions but I don't think I have a good enough mental model to be using it for that yet.

First, it's a difficult question and I don't have complete answers. In essence I want relations to be normalized between Jews and Gentiles. This may be confusing because surely Jews would consider their status, power, and immunities they've enjoyed in the past 70 years in America to be what "normalized relations" is supposed to look like.

I'm not even bothered by overrepresentation per se, it's the ethnic hostility from the Jewish elite in our cultural, financial, and academic institutions that I discern and oppose. What does solving that look like? White racial consciousness is a fundamental requirement. White people need to accept their own identity and particularities (including their positive particularities) to at least some fraction of the degree of Jewish self-regard. They need the right to assert their identity and their ethnic interests. They also need the right to call out and name ethnic hostility towards themselves, rather than be expected to bow down to it or be completely destroyed if they try to oppose it.

The main problem is that the Greenblatts of the world are utterly convinced that Jews are existentially threatened by white racial consciousness or white racial advocacy, and they are increasingly using hard power to make sure that it never rears its head. I know a lot of Jews do not feel this way, but the fact remains. It is extremely difficult to foster any positive feeling of White identity when the levers of control in mass media, academic, finance, and culture are all massively influenced by a hostile opposition.

And yes, I expect that the greatest part of is the responsibility is placed on Gentiles. I don't expect or demand that Jews drop their own identities, ethnic nationalism, or self-regard. Only that they exist on more equal terms with non-Jewish white people. They can critique, especially constructively criticize, Gentile culture from the perpsective of their Jewish identities. Then, Gentiles must also have the ability to critique, or constructively criticize, Jewish power from the perspective of their own identity. Jews can assert their positive particularities and organize on behalf of their ethnic interests. White Gentiles must be able to do the same.

I am far more concerned about a change in consciousness than I am about political solutions, because consciousness will go a long way in creating checks and balances and incentivizing healthier relations on more equal terms. But that consciousness is downstream from culture and culture creators. I think the DR, despite its shortcomings, is an important sub-culture because it's carrying this torch (and the ADL knows it).

There is a problem here, and it's that you defaulted to assuming over representation is a problem, instead of what it is, an obvious fact which is verboten in public discourse (which is an actual problem). Perhaps you can answer it the other way - why isn't it a problem? When we have spent the last ten years setting up idiotic quotas in every corporation and government department for a percentage of staff to be a particular ethnicity or gender, why is Jewish over representation in some of the most prestigious industries in existence not a problem?

Here's a solution - nobody has to pay for mentioning this obvious fact with their jobs any longer, or their reputation, or millions of dollars. Nobody gets forced to call a deer a horse. I know, it doesn't seem like it would really solve anything to me either, but then I have to ask why the fuck Jewish advocates are so hell bent on carrying it out?

I think the quotas are dumb. We shouldn’t have make work job for underperforming minorities and/or women. We shouldn’t promote on such criteria either.

The same arguments for why those are problems (and many people are against affirmative action for articulated reasons) supports the argument it is fine Jews are rich.

Yeah, that's the joke, those policies are a result of the same racial politics they propagate. I don't care if Jews are rich and successful, they should get it if they can. And a culture of valuing intelligence often has that effect.

Even here is a good example - it used to just be you two and a few others who would even touch this conversation - look how much it has changed since Kanye went death con 3. The zeitgeist has shifted.

Nah, I think it shifted from the moment we moved over here. Not just for this topic but for HBD, general white supremacy, etc.

See the Carlsbad posts for example.

And for progressives, "overrepresented in all these institutions, because of their great culture" is a major shift- they don't accept that as an explanation for other groups, it's unearned privilege. Frankly I'm semi-skeptical that they even say that about Jews, although claiming Jews have unearned privilege is probably beyond the pale for them.

Look at what Elon Musk tweeted yesterday. It's a hop, a skip, and a jump away from anti-Semitism.

I'm glad I'm not going crazy cause I saw that and thought "this feels vaguely antisemitic even though it isn't".

We've been conditioned to recoil at the idea that this particular minority of white people may be disproportionately successful.

Look at what Elon Musk tweeted yesterday. It's a hop, a skip, and a jump away from anti-Semitism.

Only if you're looking for it. It would work just as well if the names were:

            "Sam Jones"             [was a student of, then regulated by]            "Gary Williams" 

[was fucking and working with]                                                   [was a former subordinate of] 

           "Caroline Smith"                   [is the daughter of]                     "Glenn Smith"

The incestuous relationships and regulatory capture are the point Elon was making; the ethnicity/religion, while notable, is orthogonal.

The most popular black rapper and one of the most popular black basketball players both published anti-semitism, and then were defended by the most popular black comedian. Kyrie was also halfways defended by LeBron. At a certain point, skepticism of noticing patterns is just hiding your head in the sand.

When did lil Baby, Steph Curry, and Kevin Hart get involved?

Black entertainers have a deep bench, they can afford to chuck Kanye, Chappelle, and Kyrie if they need to. Won't affect the culture, just Adidas' bottom line and the nets win loss (and Kevin Durant's legacy).

I get your point, but Chapelle and Kanye were the undisputable godfather-GOAT(generation?) of their respective genres in terms of combining popularity with critical success. Also, I don't think Steph is seen as a 'black' basketball player.

Black entertainers have a deep bench

And you'll find that these sort of opinions are pervasive throughout that bench. The biggest speak out, because they are the most immune (as much as you can be) to repercussions.

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