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 -
Douglas Emhoff, husband of Kamala Harris, posted a photo on Twitter celebrating the Jewish American Heritage Month.
I counted, give or take, 155 Jewish Staff Members. There are 474 White House Staff Members in total, meaning that Jews comprise 32% of all staff members. This is a radical over-representation of 1400%, or 14x what should be expected given the population of 2.2%. As everyone pictured is White, presumably this really is a photo with all the Jewish staff members who wanted to participate in the event (otherwise: why no black staffers present?). There may be some not pictured for various work-related or personal reasons, and perhaps some with Jewish spouses pictured. I had difficulty finding the figures on other demographics. According to an authoritative source, 14% of the staff are Black (this just happens to be the same number and is not a typo). I could find nothing on Asian members, but perusing the total list of White House Staff names I calculated give or take 50 with exclusively Asian names; this should be construed as a minimum because of high exogamy rates and names not always being obviously Asian. That puts Asians at 10.5%. Given that Black people sit at 14%, I would go out on a limb and say that the Latino constituents also comprise roughly their makeup in America; let’s peg it at a slightly lower 15% (if someone wants to check from the list of staffers’ names be my guest).
All of this puts the non-Jewish White percent at 28.5%, counting the Turkish and Arab names as White (and ignoring the probably ~2% Native American that Joe slipped in there). And so, among White House staffers, Whites are quite under-represented and Jews are enormously over-represented. This is problematic IMO, because the domestic founding population of a nation shouldn’t be so under-represented, and a single ethnic cluster with a strong activism network and their own influential nation state probably shouldn’t be 14x over-represented among White House staffers without anyone in established media criticizing or noticing. Alas, such topics have been posted frequently, but in previous cases the over-representation was among Cabinet Members and Supreme Court Justices and so on. This shows that even in a large sample size such as 474, the over-representation remains. If I could put my position into as few words as possible, I would steal from a random tweet on the subject: “Half of the White House staff is Jewish, but we get told that ‘White Supremacists’ run America lol.” What pains me is that while the default white Americans are so under-represented, they are the ones who face the most ruthless black propaganda against their demographic. It’s important to educate others on the problem of representation, I suppose.
I'm not sure what is the problem here, 100% of current US Presidents are exactly the group you feel "represents" you. So you should feel much more "represented" by it then "under-represented" by White House stuff, which mostly don't take any important decisions. Like, if the US President "represents" you but a janitor "represents" the filthy Jews, why you're feeling bad?
Of course, to some this approach seems utterly insane, as I don't see why any random Jew would "represent" me just because he's also a member of 10-million ethnic group, or why any random White person would "represent" any other random White person, just because they are both have pale skin and not happen to be Jews (I guess anybody with pale skin who is not a Jew is qualified as "founding population", right?). But I guess to some people it makes sense somehow?
Imagine in 100 years, Jews make up half the Politburo in China, nearly half of the General Secretary's staff, and the remaining staff disproportionately marry Jews, but the General Secretary continues to be Han Chinese. If China and Iran went from signing a 25-year cooperation agreements to Chinese nationals chanting "Iran delenda est"
Would your response still be "Nothing to see here, goyim, move along".
Even if say China and Iran went from signing a 25-year cooperation agreements to Chinese nationals chanting "Iran delenda est"?
What are you on about. Are you really suggesting the decisive factor in Iranian-US relations is the influence of Jews? Yes, I am sure nothing happened that may have impaired those relations in the intervening period between close co-operation and now.
Or is this about somewhere else?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link