naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Regarding Western liberal narratives on the Gaza war, I’m noticing something I find somewhat odd. I see mainstream liberals arguing that clueless college students are indoctrinated by loony leftist propagandists to be rabid enemies of Israel, our greatest ally, the only democracy in the Middle East etc. And they seem to be saying this without any reflection on the past, where conservatives they hate, like Ben Shapiro and others, have been warning everyone of the same trend for basically two decades, at least since the early years of Bush Jr’s presidency. Now that the true extent of anti-Zionist agitation on Western college campuses is revealed on prime TV for the first time in almost a decade (the last major Israeli military operation in Gaza was in 2014, I reckon, not counting the mass shootings at the border in 2018 or so), targeted at a nation and a people they actually care about, suddenly it’s a real problem, a real concern to be tackled.
Now I understand that one can come up with all sorts of cynical and mundane interpretations as to why this is, how it’s unsurprising and so on, and I get that. But then I remember that there were violent anti-police protests in the summer of 2020, the campaign to remove Confederate monuments, the various protests against Trump’s rallies, and in these cases the tone of the protests were, as far as I can tell, pretty much set by the same leftist college agitators who initiate the current anti-Zionist protests, the ones who call themselves anticolonialists, social justice advocates, antiracists and so on. And the big difference was that they weren’t criticized by mainstream liberals the way they are now, even though all their agitation and messaging stems from the same ideological tenets.
And they seem to be saying this without any reflection on the past, where conservatives they hate, like Ben Shapiro and others, have been warning everyone of the same trend for basically two decades, at least since the early years of Bush Jr’s presidency.
I've previously commented on this pattern where even relatively moderate left-wing commentators will refuse to acknowledge when conservatives have been right about something even while they agree with them. It's strange. I don't know how to describe being so overwhelmingly certain in your own beliefs that you refuse to consider the possibility you were wrong about conservatives on a topic even as you simultaneously switch to agreeing with them. The only guess I have is that young, politically active progressives have a uniformity of political views that simply doesn't exist in any other large political group within society, which there is some weak evidence for in the UK.
God, I hate to play the “both sides” card, but…who actually does this? Are there center-right Fox News hosts or Shapiro types saying “wow, that thing the libs said five years ago was totally right! Guess we didn’t own them after all.”?
I don’t think so. In most situations, there’s no alpha in public apology. This isn’t partisan; it’s bog-standard tribalism. Few groups want to signal accuracy so badly that they let the outgroup score free points.
It's not necessarily about a public apology, but rather admitting where the 'new' idea you are bringing in comes from. Something akin to "This is an idea that's been popular in right wing circles for a long time, and I think there's something we can learn from those ideas." There's a difference to suddenly saying you believe that college students have been indoctrinated to hate Israel as if it's an idea that came out of the void, and saying while also noting that some right-wing commentators have been banging that drum for years.
The right wing seems much more willing to take ideas from the left while acknowledging the origin of them, whereas left wing will take the ideas sometimes but without acknowledging the origin of them. Not that I have stats on it, of course.
From my own political experience, this topic does cut across partisan lines. Seeing antisemitism firsthand when I went to university was a moment of "mugging by reality" that made me pull out of the reflexively in, hip, progressive left-wing whatever you want to call it that most people of that age group in higher education automatically gravitated towards. It's one of the three major experiences that formulated my political beliefs.
That sort of admission does strike me as more plausible, but it’s still not something I expect to see. Not outside of Gray Tribe weirdos trying to calibrate their predictions.
Maybe as countersignaling, or an attempt to claim horseshoe theory? I could imagine Moldbug saying “the Cathedral is so wrong, they’re right about such-and-such.” But I don’t really know if that counts, since reaction is pretty open about looting the reasonable stuff from mainstream society.
Do you have any anecdotes in mind, where the right wing made such an acknowledgment?
I think you can find examples of Trump supporters saying Bernie and the far left in general were "right" about certain topics, like tariffs and economic protectionism, that used to be extremely unpopular among Republicans.
But for many of them, the "new" idea wouldn't come from conservatives but from the previous generations and iterations of moderate/pro-Israel liberalism, which have historically been a notable institution, and still are, and many of whom have also bashed the anti-Israel movement many times before.
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Notes -
Regarding Western liberal narratives on the Gaza war, I’m noticing something I find somewhat odd. I see mainstream liberals arguing that clueless college students are indoctrinated by loony leftist propagandists to be rabid enemies of Israel, our greatest ally, the only democracy in the Middle East etc. And they seem to be saying this without any reflection on the past, where conservatives they hate, like Ben Shapiro and others, have been warning everyone of the same trend for basically two decades, at least since the early years of Bush Jr’s presidency. Now that the true extent of anti-Zionist agitation on Western college campuses is revealed on prime TV for the first time in almost a decade (the last major Israeli military operation in Gaza was in 2014, I reckon, not counting the mass shootings at the border in 2018 or so), targeted at a nation and a people they actually care about, suddenly it’s a real problem, a real concern to be tackled.
Now I understand that one can come up with all sorts of cynical and mundane interpretations as to why this is, how it’s unsurprising and so on, and I get that. But then I remember that there were violent anti-police protests in the summer of 2020, the campaign to remove Confederate monuments, the various protests against Trump’s rallies, and in these cases the tone of the protests were, as far as I can tell, pretty much set by the same leftist college agitators who initiate the current anti-Zionist protests, the ones who call themselves anticolonialists, social justice advocates, antiracists and so on. And the big difference was that they weren’t criticized by mainstream liberals the way they are now, even though all their agitation and messaging stems from the same ideological tenets.
I've previously commented on this pattern where even relatively moderate left-wing commentators will refuse to acknowledge when conservatives have been right about something even while they agree with them. It's strange. I don't know how to describe being so overwhelmingly certain in your own beliefs that you refuse to consider the possibility you were wrong about conservatives on a topic even as you simultaneously switch to agreeing with them. The only guess I have is that young, politically active progressives have a uniformity of political views that simply doesn't exist in any other large political group within society, which there is some weak evidence for in the UK.
God, I hate to play the “both sides” card, but…who actually does this? Are there center-right Fox News hosts or Shapiro types saying “wow, that thing the libs said five years ago was totally right! Guess we didn’t own them after all.”?
I don’t think so. In most situations, there’s no alpha in public apology. This isn’t partisan; it’s bog-standard tribalism. Few groups want to signal accuracy so badly that they let the outgroup score free points.
It's not necessarily about a public apology, but rather admitting where the 'new' idea you are bringing in comes from. Something akin to "This is an idea that's been popular in right wing circles for a long time, and I think there's something we can learn from those ideas." There's a difference to suddenly saying you believe that college students have been indoctrinated to hate Israel as if it's an idea that came out of the void, and saying while also noting that some right-wing commentators have been banging that drum for years.
The right wing seems much more willing to take ideas from the left while acknowledging the origin of them, whereas left wing will take the ideas sometimes but without acknowledging the origin of them. Not that I have stats on it, of course.
From my own political experience, this topic does cut across partisan lines. Seeing antisemitism firsthand when I went to university was a moment of "mugging by reality" that made me pull out of the reflexively in, hip, progressive left-wing whatever you want to call it that most people of that age group in higher education automatically gravitated towards. It's one of the three major experiences that formulated my political beliefs.
That sort of admission does strike me as more plausible, but it’s still not something I expect to see. Not outside of Gray Tribe weirdos trying to calibrate their predictions.
Maybe as countersignaling, or an attempt to claim horseshoe theory? I could imagine Moldbug saying “the Cathedral is so wrong, they’re right about such-and-such.” But I don’t really know if that counts, since reaction is pretty open about looting the reasonable stuff from mainstream society.
Do you have any anecdotes in mind, where the right wing made such an acknowledgment?
I think you can find examples of Trump supporters saying Bernie and the far left in general were "right" about certain topics, like tariffs and economic protectionism, that used to be extremely unpopular among Republicans.
Also the isolationist right will say similar about left-wing anti-war positions.
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But for many of them, the "new" idea wouldn't come from conservatives but from the previous generations and iterations of moderate/pro-Israel liberalism, which have historically been a notable institution, and still are, and many of whom have also bashed the anti-Israel movement many times before.
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