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 -
I thought I replied to this but it seems my internet connection was spotty.
You know, even leaving aside the logistics associated with securing foreign citizenship for 7 million people (9 million if you include the Arabs) and uprooting them from their homes – I think it only requires a very cursory understanding of the last nine decades of European history to appreciate why Jews might be reluctant to put themselves at the mercy of one or more Western governments. "Fool me once" etc.
It's this constant two-step with Jew-haters. They order the Jews to leave the Middle East and move to Europe or the US where they belong – then as soon as they do so, they start complaining about how many Jews there are in Europe or the US. Someone on Substack noted that people spent well over a millennium ordering European Jews to go back where they came from – but as soon as they did, these same people still weren't happy and immediately began accusing them of founding an illegitimate genocidal settler-colonial state. (Curiously, it's usually the only state they so characterise, the only state whose name is followed by the slogan "does not have a right to exist". Wow, what a crazy coincidence huh? The only state that doesn't have a right to exist is the one meant to be a safe haven for Jews? Who'da thunk it?) Wherever Jews go, Jew-haters aren't happy and wish they'd go somewhere else. Sometimes I wish Jew-haters would be honest and admit that the place they want Jews to live is not Israel or Madagascar or Europe or the US, but simply "nowhere".
Yes, I'm invoking the memory of the Holocaust to explain why Jews are uncomfortable about the prospect of abandoning their self-determination project and leaving themselves at the mercy of Western governments who might turn on them and scapegoat them at any time. Maybe you'll say that's tasteless and unfair, that nothing like that Holocaust will ever recur and that Westerners have learned their lesson. But have they, really? In most Western countries, antisemitic hate crimes are one of the most common kind per capita (cue the Joo-posters saying that these hate crimes are an understandable response to Israel's "genocide" in Gaza, a logic they conspicuously do not apply to hate crimes targeting Muslims). A significant proportion of Westerners deny that the Holocaust ever happened, or think it's been greatly exaggerated, and the proportion tends to be higher among young people than old (how can you learn the lessons of something you don't think took place?). There was a mass exodus of Jews from Poland beginning in the sixties in response to persistent ostracisation and scapegoating, with government leaders blaming things that went wrong in Poland on "Zionists" (wink wink nudge nudge). In your honest opinion, has the modal Pole become more or less friendly to Jews in the intervening six decades? And perhaps the most frightening thing is, this phenomenon is not restricted to Westerners of a particular political persuasion. Jew-hatred is a pathology which transcends ideology. Jews are blamed both for rapacious capitalism and surreptitious socialism. There is simply no Western political block that Jews can reasonably trust to be any more than temporary allies of convenience.
"Abandon the country you spent the better part of a century building and scatter its citizens to the winds, to be left at the mercy of governments who barely even pretend not to despise them" is not a serious proposal. It is either the product of staggering naiveté, or a proposal made in bad faith.
More options
Context Copy link