This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The rest of the States you mention are all outside of the liberal western world. Japan has one foot in but they are still have sovereignty outside of western society. No Western State has a right to ethnonationalism.
Says who? I don't think anyone out side the usual gaggle of pink-haired harpies would bat an eye if the Prime Minister of Finland declared Finland to be a Finnish state or Denmark a Danish state.
WWII Germany isn't hated for being an explicitly German state, they're hated for aligning themselves against the rest of Western Civilization and engaging in the industrial slaughter of millions.
“Says who”
Currently there are zero white ethnic states besides Israel and one can say slightly Argentina. The fact none exists is a strong indicator it was being enforced though not absolute proof.
Well, firstly, Israel doesn't qualify, surely? Let's say that Ashkenazim are white, but Ashkenazim are, though dominant, a minority in Israel. The plurality of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi. If you count Israel as a white ethno-state, then I think you have to count pretty much every Middle Eastern country as a white ethno-state.
Secondly... no country considers itself a white ethno-state. Ethno-states tend to define themselves more narrowly than that. Russia is in a sense an ethno-state, but the dominant ethnicity is Russian. When you say 'white ethno-state', presumably you mean 'states that organise themselves around a particular ethnicity that falls within the broad category of 'white'', and some of those do exist? To pick the most infamous one at the moment, surely Hungary qualifies?
Maybe Hungary. But to note that the EU has frozen funds to Hungary and did some Article 7 TEU thing. Plus LePen was banned in France.
Sure I guess you can argue Jews are not pure white. But it is a loosely genetically related ethnostate if you want to conclude the different Jewish groups are both only partially genetically related to the original inhabitants.
Well, I think the Israeli case is somewhat complicated, because Israel understands itself as the state of 'the Jewish people', and that category is somewhat woolly. 'Jews' as a category includes lots of people who are usually considered white, and also lots of people who are clearly not white. In a sense Israel isn't an ethno-state at all, but a religious state; but of course, Jewishness is both a people and a religion. The racist right generally wants to reduce peoplehood to genetics or descent, and that doesn't really work in the case of Jews. Jews are clearly in some sense a people or an ethnos, but defining them genetically or in terms of traditional racial categories is difficult. Aliyah includes everyone from Sephardic Jews in Spain to Bnei Menashe in India, from the obviously white Ashkenazim to the obviously black Beta Israel.
I find it helpful to compare Israel to its neighbours. Is, say, Saudi Arabia an ethno-state? Not... really? It sort of views itself as a nation for Arab people, but not all Arabs belong there. It imports a large non-Arab underclass while enriching its Arab citizens. It's also a religious state, to a higher and stricter degree than Israel is. Ultimately I'm not sure the word 'ethno-state' actually helps us that much. Compare, say, Azerbaijan regularly getting shirty about Iranian Azeris and saying that all Azeris ought to be part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan clearly understands itself to be the national homeland of the Azeris, it encourages Azeris outside the country to identify with it, and it does horrible things to non-Azeris on territory that it thinks rightfully belongs to Azerbaijan. That seems a lot like Israel.
I think that Israel is a state founded upon a particular religion and a particular ethnicity, with the explicit goal of maintaining the supremacy of that one ethnoreligious group in a particular territory. In that light I don't think it's particularly unique; most of its immediate neighbours in the Middle East are similar. The clash with the Palestinians is notable because the Palestinians are no different to Israeli Jews in this respect. The Palestinian cause is that the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is firstly Arab and secondly Muslim. The Israelis are not unusual for their region, save perhaps in having more money and guns than their rivals.
I wouldn't say Mizrahi Jews are "clearly not white". As with other MENA populations, the 19th century scientific racists, the US census bureau, and model HBD-aware biologists would all consider them a white subgroup.
Ashkenazi-on-Mizrahi racism is a live political issue in Israel, but western anti-racists, even ones looking for an excuse to bash Israel, don't see it as the local Israeli form of white-on-non-white racism. And I'm not seeing western pro-white voices who make the distinction - either they see all Jews as white and love Israel, or they see all Jews as <insert anti-Semitic stereotype> and think Israel is ripping us off. So I think Mizrahi Jews count as "politically white" outside Israel.
In fact, the only people I see claiming Mizrahi Jews as non-white are people trying to disprove the claim that Israel is an ethnostate of a white ethnicity.
The US census considers MENA people white, but I think that if you asked the average competent user of English, "Are Arabs white?", "Are Turks white?", or "Are Iranians white?", they would answer "no", and if so, then I think Mizrahim cannot count as white either.
In general I think the central example of 'white people' is northern and western Europeans. Nowadays I think most people consider Slavs white and consider Italians white, but it starts to get a bit hazy when you ask if, say, Greeks are white. And then Turks or Arabs are definitely not white.
You're free to say that you count them all as white, but I would argue that is a non-standard usage. Mizrahim are, I would say, definitely in the same category as Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and so on, and most people do not consider them white. At the very least, they are not in the same category as northwestern Europeans.
If you asked them to arrange the groups according to how closely related they are to each other, how far from Europeans do you think an average English speaker would put them, relative to other non-European groups?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link