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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21161 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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I'm not the guy you responded to, but the most enlightening explanation I've heard given of right-wing antisemitism is given in this substack article (sorry for the long text-dump, but I think it's very informative)

Anyway, perhaps we should get on with it. The first characteristic of the Far-Right mind is the desire for anthropomorphic theories of socioeconomic reality. What I mean by that is the need to fit the data of reality into a shape that makes sense in terms of a consciously conceived plan to move that reality in a particular direction.

This mindset is commonly given the term ‘conspiracy theorist’, but, on the whole, I think that is usually too generous. A conspiracy theory involves an attempt to tell a story in which the various pieces of data fit into place. Doing so inevitably leads to spiralling layers of complication in which anomalous information can only be accommodated at the cost of creating yet more anomalous data points that can’t be made to fit. Hence this meme:

The typical Rightoid doesn’t bother with any of that. What he does instead is notice some apparently contradictory information, then use innuendo and rhetorical questions to assert that this can only be explained by they planning it. He believes not in conspiracy ‘theories’, but conspiracy deities, shapelessly malleable and borderline omnipotent entities whose mere existence is enough, by their own terms of definition, to explain any kink in the matrix you might observe (and, Heaven knows, the matrix is kinky enough you can do this all day).

To this day, a good portion of my friends are Rightoids. Most of them are good people, and none of them are wholly devoid of positive qualities. The need to anthropomorphise complex social structures exists in them to various degrees of extremity, a product of how frequently they indulge it, but, in all cases, is central to their entire engagement with politics. What I learned after many years is that it’s an act of pure self-harm to try and argue them out of this. You can sit with them, as patiently as you can, for literally hours on end, forcing them to stop changing the subject and actually explain how the different parts of their ‘theory’ fit together, to verbalise each step and watch as it dissolves into undeniable incoherence, and then later the same week they’ll be back with the exact same thing. This is how they want to be. Some people like crackers, and some people like crack. No point in getting aggravated about it (another thing I wish I could go back 10 years and point out to myself).

To recap, the essential quality of the Far Right mind is the desire to explain the world around him in terms of the plan of a conscious intelligence. You therefore need a they; this is the whole point. Once we understand this, it’s pretty obvious why antisemitism exerts this queer magnetic attraction to all who enter the walls of the Far-Right asylum. If you have already decided that someone is behind the curtain driving everything going wrong around you, then who else it is supposed to be? The Yoruba? Inuits? The Jews are an obvious candidate not just because they are genuinely a big deal, but also because there is 150 years of antisemitic literature that you can read explaining how Jews do it and a small army of salesman eager to initiate you into their pyramid scheme. For years, I couldn’t understand why almost any dissident Right article on practically any subject would have at least one comment beneath with a fresh insight like ‘why do they call it the Cathedral, more like the SYNAGOGUE if you ask me!!!!’, but, when you think about it, it’s just good marketing. There’s always someone new who took a fistful of red pills and is looking for the next dose.

You can sit with them, as patiently as you can, for literally hours on end, forcing them to stop changing the subject and actually explain how the different parts of their ‘theory’ fit together, to verbalise each step and watch as it dissolves into undeniable incoherence, and then later the same week they’ll be back with the exact same thing.

Yes. This is why I go so hard on our Joo-posters. Because they do this every damn time. Doesn't matter how calmly and politely you ask them to explain why it's always Da Joos. They'll give you an eliiptical theory of Jewness that doesn't hold together, cobbled together bits of Holocaust apocrypha, and when someone bothers to patiently disassemble it, they curl their upper lip, go silent, and then come back in a couple of weeks repeating the same thing.

This phenomenon isn't unique to Joo-haters. We just got to the point of you disagreeing with yourself. I don't know if we've gotten an elliptical theory, but we've definitely had cobbled together bits of apocrypha. I think we're at the "upper lip curl, go silent" stage, but I have to imagine that when it comes up again (and it will), you'll probably be repeating the same thing.

An obsessive making everything about his obsession and trying to make it the topic regardless of context is on point, though it's not the point you think you're making.

That may be true, in the technical sense that you have affirmed a contradiction. From the principle of explosion, sure, you can probably show that to be true. Of course, you can also show the opposite to be true. And back in reality, you're not really accusing me of being a one-issue poster. That would be bonkers. You're just deflecting, again.

I'm just observing the phenomenon you've just described in this thread. The context is on point. It was your point!

Do you know how crazy you sound?

I did not take the strawberries.

Gotta be at least slightly less crazy than the person who has simply contradicted himself. Sure, you didn't take the strawberries. You probably also took the strawberries. Principle of explosion is a hell of a drug.

But deflect away. It's probably the best you can do if you can't manage to just curl your upper lip and go silent.

More shaking my head than curling my upper lip. I mean, I'm part of the problem by responding to you because I know you will keep going as long as I respond, but you really should try to step back and realize how nuts you've become on this. You're not going to get satisfaction, no one is going to validate your version of this absurd grudge you're holding, and trying to rekindle it in random threads just makes you look like a crazy person. And I'm guilty of indulging you because I always want to futilely talk down the crazy people.

You could easily just stop the problem and provide satisfaction. Just resolve the contradiction you created. This is not "my version" of anything. You literally just contradicted yourself! You said that you were wrong! We can just go look at your words and compare them to each other! You tried going silent as soon as this was pointed out, because you know it's true. And I'm guilty of always wanting to futilely talk down the crazy people to see if I can help them resolve obvious contradictions in their thinking.

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