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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 2023

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Is the left-right distinction really the relevant political metric we should look at the in US?

The president of NYU's student bar association lost their job offer after expressing support for Hamas. I say they, because it's a trans person who also happens to be black. Can you hit higher on the diversity bingo? Well, take the wrong side where Israel is involved and apparently that does not help you. And it's not like NYU is a conservative campus.

I'm sure this person has a history of anti-White statements (that is usually the case with black progressives). But what got them into trouble was taking the wrong side on Zionism. So, this isn't a case of being a leftist or a rightist. It's a case of being against perceived Jewish interests. Sometimes people talk about the progressive stack and we have once again found out that being black and trans is no defence if you go against Jews. No such punishment against being anti-White. This seems to imply two things:

  1. The highest position on the progressive totem pole is being Jewish, not black or trans.

  2. People who claim Jews are White must explain why making anti-White statements rarely carry punishments but going against Jewish interests does. In other words, Jews have relative privilege in America in a way that is not available to Whites.

Jewish concerns are an exception case which exist outside the Progressive hierarchy, because they have their own self-contained culture in which ethnic pride is good (indeed, obligatory). I think It’s important when we discuss “Jewish interests” to note that it’s a small percent of the Jewish whole who are committed to extreme pro-Jewish lobbying, but that these are the ones who are wealthy and/or have courted the wealthy, and have ties to Israel and rabbinical schools. It wouldn’t matter if 70% of Jews were hypothetically pro-Hamas because the remaining 30% are the ones who are well-connected to wealthy politically-active Jewry and all the important rabbis and organizations.

If you are envious of Jewish power then you can build up your own racially-conscious religion which emphasizes shared experiences of tragedy and historical uniqueness. It really is that simple. They can exert influence because they have a self-contained cultural ecosystem where “love of race” is encouraged and comprises half the point of the traditions and rituals.

Jewish concerns are an exception case which exist outside the Progressive hierarchy, because they have their own self-contained culture in which ethnic pride is good

Is that an exception? I think that progressive culture promotes pride among every ethnicity, except whites. Also, while LGBT is not an ethnicity, it literally has a whole month of pride now. (Even once we have a Wrath month, Envy month, Greed month, Gluttony month, Lust month, and Sloth month, we'll still be 5 sins short of a full calendar of sin.)

Is this ironic? Are you doing that thing everyone figured that guy who kept deleting his ops was doing, making deliberately terrible arguments that actually weaken the side you appear to be supporting? Why?

What specifically do you disagree with in my comment? The OP is asserting that Jews sit at the top of some progressive status hierarchy totem pole; I’m saying that instead they are outside it due to their culture. Then I explained why I think this is, and what you can do if you envy their position.

They were part of the stack when those tiki torch protests were going on, and when teenagers scribble swastikas on bathroom walls, and when Kanye went off his meds. Everyone is part of the stack/totem pole - that's one of the problems with it, you can't opt out, you are stuck being judged based on characteristics you have no influence over. What the op is missing is that the stack order changes depending on which grifter is most influential at the time, and that instability is part of the point - if you knew exactly how it was ordered, you might hate it but at least you can work with it and plan around it.

As for your suggestion to the 'envious' (sliding in the implication that jealousy is the only reason anyone could object to an ethnic hierarchy), "just go make your own 7000 year old religion" is one of the most ridiculous versions of the "well go make your own magazine/news channel/social media platform/government" meme I've ever heard.

But not every social judgment and censure comes from the “progressive stack”. The reason that Jews can exert the influence they are exerting right now re: Israel is that they have an ethno-centric culture built around self-love which doesn’t care an iota for the progressive stack. That’s why we see Bill Ackman asking for the name of every Harvard student who signed a petition (blaming Israel for the violence) so that he can prevent them from ever working on Wall Street. It’s why Jewish donors can prevent human rights leaders from getting positions at Harvard because they criticized Israel. This exists independently of any progressive status hierarchy.

You can make a religion tomorrow provided that you earnestly believe in the religion. It doesn’t have to be 6000 years old; Talmudic Judaism is no older than Christianity. Mormonism isn’t even 200 years old.

Ackman gets away with that stuff because he is allowed to get away with it, and he is allowed to get away with it because of the position of Jews in the stack. Everyone in the higher tiers of the stack gets to hold onto solidarity and exclusivity that would be called dangerous and frightening if done by a straight white man. Black people also put ingroup solidarity above the progressive stack, why aren't you praising them?

In fact you could consider the civil rights movement the religion black Americans started. We can simplify your message to "Be like black Americans." You'll endorse that right?

Fuck this fucking toilet hole of a planet.