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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15640 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Yes, certain parts of the legal establishment have a blatant double standard against Christianity. I’m not exactly philosemitic, but it certainly to me doesn’t seem to be an example of Jewish domination and victory over Christianity or whatever. No doubt a Diwali or Ramadan display would be allowed to, because the relevant variable is certain parts of the blue tribe having a distaste for public expressions of Christian faith, not Jewish privilege.

I’m not exactly philosemitic, but it certainly to me doesn’t seem to be an example of Jewish domination and victory over Christianity or whatever.

If the Christian cross were permitted to be displayed on public land but Jewish religious symbols were banned, would you interpret that as symbolically meaningful? If so, how?

There’s really three possible explanations for that scenario- the people making the decisions have an animus against jews or Judaism, the people making that decision want to promote Christianity over other religions, and some combination thereof(eg the people making that decision want to promote Christianity over Judaism because they have an animus against Judaism). And you’d need to think about which explanation is likely correct based on the available evidence.

Well, we know that large portions of the blue tribe seem incredibly uncomfortable with the religious aspects of Christianity, and don’t share that discomfort with other religions(eg, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism). So banning nativity sets in public fits with that pattern, and forcing blue tribe preferences on people who seem like they might be red tribe sympathetic, while ignoring similar behavior that doesn’t have the same connotations, is fairly common and normal.

The "red tribe" and "blue tribe" heuristic is way overused, there are other types of tribes. The "Blue Tribe" dislike of Christianity has little to do with the driving forces behind the emergence of Public Menorah lightings. Joe Biden has now done two separate Menorah lightings at the White House where he's promised the Jewish People major financial handouts to Israel, Jewish causes, synagogues and Jewish community centers, as well as only this month created a task force to use the National Security apparatus to organize a government response against anti-Semitism.

Does any of this strike you as symbolically demonstrating the political and cultural power of Judaism in the United States government? You think it really reduces to a "blue tribe" dislike of Christianity?

I think that Jews as a group have lots of power in the US and that they're generally not interested in using this power to promote the Jewish religion, for the simple reason that they mostly don't believe in it themselves.

I also think that 'dislike of the religious aspects of christianity' is a real thing that really explains a lot of blue tribe behavior and hypocritical-seeming behavior of institutions under substantial blue tribe sway, and that rounding it all off to Judaism or whatever is dumb because almost none of these people are themselves religious Jews, and that even if a disproportionate number of them are ethnically Jewish it's still a very large majority of them that are gentiles.

I think that Jews as a group have lots of power in the US and that they're generally not interested in using this power to promote the Jewish religion, for the simple reason that they mostly don't believe in it themselves.

Their religion is themselves, and they are their religion. Their religion is a matrilieanly-inherited status to the Chosen people, and that membership is often extremely important even to "non-religious" Jews. Their influence to give themselves special financial and legal privileges as members of that group, handouts of federal funds to their synagogues and community centers, billions of dollars of taxpayer money to their ethnostate, and now a "task force" which will use the national security apparatus to "counter" people who dare to criticize them... That is all promoting their religion, even if "promoting their religion" does not involve great effort to convert gentiles.

You don't necessarily promote a religion by trying to convert others. You can promote it by giving it special status and privileges and protections, or by lighting giant menorahs in symbolically important spaces where Christians are denied a Nativity during the Christian's own very import holiday.

You think it really reduces to a "blue tribe" dislike of Christianity?

I'm not @hydroacetylene, but stated bluntly, yes. I really do think it reduces down to that.

In addition to this, it's focused around the specific parts of Christianity those complaining have unhappy memories of. There are Day of the Dead alters in public schools and libraries.

I'm less certain about Ramadan -- there would be endless complaints in Red areas, and it would probably be forbidden in places like schools and libraries, other than as a statement that it exists. I have not seen Passover celebrated in public institutions, despite most Christians feeling neutral to positive about it.

You may have a point about Ramadan, although it seems to me to also be relevant that Ramadan is usually not timed near a major Christian religious holiday, hence it doesn’t feature very often in diversity lessons.

And I have seen public institutions celebrate Passover, albeit less often than Hanukkah. I think this has to do with the time of year involved; Easter is just less of a big deal to nonreligious people than Christmas.

Ramadan is usually not timed near a major Christian religious holiday

Ramadan is set based on a lunar calendar and moves about ten days earlier every year. This may be true the last few years, but it'll start before Easter within the next decade.

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