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 -
A leftist talking point between 2017 and 2019 was that if someone seems to deny someone else their rights, then they forfeit their own rights. Therefore, it is okay to "punch Nazis".
Now, I'm hearing a lot of the opposite, that queers and feminists stand with Palestine because homophobic transmisogynists are human too.
It's hard to know for certain what happened. My hunch is that these are largely the same people, and that they've never been interested in meta level principles. But it's possible that these are totally different people who've replaced the leftist activists of a few years ago. That's certainly a more charitable explanation.
(I'm not posting this in the Israel/Gaza thread because it's not directly about that conflict.)
Will the pro Israel people promoting this line of argument so consistently try to pay a little attention to the pro Jewish far left?
Recently, Harvard declared that Jews are to be considered as non white as far as their policies go. Many far left donors decided that wokeness is just fine but not criticisms towards Jews or Israel. So what are you doing about the influential faction that is pro jewish and anti white, and wants Jews high in the progressive stack? Because it seems that only focusing on muslim wokeness is helping them to get their agenda through.
Also, unlike the fact that the woke left is promoting nonsense, Palestinians are genuinely oppressed. Both in West Bank and in Gaza. days ago I heard the number 10000 dead. Their homes have been mass obliterated.
It is the Jewish side which abuses identity politics. Of course if one looks at the politics of palestinians, they are if they are accepted as immigrants on mass join with movements against the native people. But they are oppressed in their homeland.
My problem with leftist whining is not the same with the Green Greenwald antiwar type of opposition to actual attrocities. It is ironically excessive tribalism, feelings over facts emotionalism, manipulative and identity politics to disminish real issues because of dichotomizing politics into different packages of beliefs and tribal allegiances. So we should reject as leading humanity into monstrous teritory to dismiss actual morality, due to our correct opposition to those who complain over BS and are actually the oppressive force in society. Actually the Jewish identitarians qualify more as part of this than being targeted by this and the reinforcement of Jewish victimhood including with Christians and Europeans as perpetrators is something we constantly see. My stance is that the obvious antiracist path is these cult of personalities for ethnicities to stop and to recognize that Jews didn't do nothing and is all evil non jewish, or white and christians and demonizing othe ethnic groups and calling any resistance and disagreement as antisemitism, is actually insanely racist hate speech, which shouldn't be tolerated. Actually the anti racist and less tribalist and more moral and factual path is to aknowledge that the Jews and also non jewish racists in favor of Jews, have done and are doing plenty against europeans, palestinians and should stop. Books like one written from a Jewish rabbi I found once about the Jewish role in multiculturalism and victimhood industry that is negative about it but has a reconciliatory tone.
Is there an element of third world nationalism islamist and even anti western in the broad sense civilization that is pro palestine? Of course. And same applies with pro Jewish, probably even more so among institutional power but probably less applied to the ground activists.
But that should be addressed directly, rather than us at any point thinking the correct attitude to it is to support atrocities against the Palestinians. At the end of the day, ethnic groups that I consider extremists (and I consider the Jews to be an ethnic group with pervasive problem of extremism and racism) and don't want them to rule over others still have human rights. So do others, since there are some Jews with sane politics and non Jews who are racists for Jews and other groups.
The way I talk about human rights and I don't have Israel in mind which actually is a country that routinely violates the genuine human rights of others its not a suicide pact, not an excuse to avoid self defense or pathological altruism. Its about avoiding predatory attrocities but still defending yourself and taking the right measures that do not allow criminal factions to act with impunity. Punishment is still a necessary element of justice and so is people with criminal agendas being stopped from enacting said agendas.
Also in regards to coalitional politics, you should try to give the anti woke you are trying to appeal a better offer. Because I see the Jewish supremacist antiwhite left (part of that are many neocons who are leftists and converge in most things ADL does and are the type to call for replacing the white working class) being the faction that gets most of what it wants. It includes in it those who pretend it doesn't exist by the way and promote postmodernist FUD on reality.
That some of the people this manipulative one sided offer aren't playing harder to get and making demands probably has something to do with why they are never getting a better offer. Its a relationship when one party makes unconditional demands and willing to call you a jew hater and evil or nazi if you don't go along with them, and the other party's reaction is grosslly idiotic if it just complies with this moral blackmail. It is also dishonorable Reek behavior. The attitude of "if you don't give us what we want we will slander you" is a very good reason additionally to be hostile to the pro jewish racist faction. Which slanders your ancestors and anyone who isn't subservient to them anyway.
Anyhow, in both the USA and in Britain, people are persecuted both for supposed Islamophobia and supposed anti jewish sentiment. The end result isn't targeting hatred but promoting supremacy of said groups and promoting totalitarianism.
Why shouldn't Christians and the native european types demand to be treated with respect and getting at least some level of protection instead of unconditionally supporting a faction that has been quite comfortable to a) mistreat them due to their identity politics and part of this mistreatment includes the enforced consensus of Jewish moral superiority and opposition to valid criticisms b) have been actually willing to make some common ground with third world nationalist especially non islamists (of course delegitimizing the rights of the native people also makes common cause with them) but even allow room against negativity towards muslims, at least when done outside pro jewish context, but have been very hostile to european tribalism. This is a very bad offer provided by those who are much more willing to promote aggressively pro jewish identity politics than work to support or tolerate the identity politics of others. Not to mention the support of the invade the world types for the invite the world agenda.
The end point of both islamist and pro jewish faction's agenda and what they are promoting is a progressive stack intersectionality that has some level of compromise among those two factions and is a totalitarian racist supremacist society at expense of right wingers, christians, europeans and other groups not part of the progressive stack alliance. While lying about how it is a society against racism, for freedom and the typical lies. Actually Britain is one example of a society already there and will go even further in said direction on the short term. However, I don't think the currently pro jewish direction is stable.
Of course, the pro jewish faction are going to find that their victories have plenty to do with native westerners being willing to stupidly side with them which doesn't apply actually to many of the people they invited over at the expense, especially with changing of the guard of power and even the guilible native westerners can just take so much abuse, especially as it intensified and new generations have been turning against them. Plus their cause is blatantly unjust also in Palestine. Lets just say that I don't expect on the long term the white-ish Jews to be treated very well as the west stops being the west and some of those of native descent identify with an antiwhite ideology which is going to be hostile to Jews too and remaining parts of the west in spirit too understand how hostile the Jews have been and are to them, and therefore are not pro Jewish when the Jews have consistently mistreated them. But for the majority of those Jews who have been participating in politics and the culture war it would be reaping what they have sowed.
*** But aren't the Jews supergeniuses who wouldn't pursue this strategy if it could prove detrimental? I don't see this display of supergenius. I see a disciplined fanatical attempt to promote jewish identity politics and a resentful prejudice agaisnt european christians. There is some method in the madness and to the racist agenda but plenty of irrationality too. Their arrogance exceed the Ashkenazi Jewish IQ. In their interaction with the right and europeans and christians they really are driven by irrational racist resentment with a heavy crossover with parts of non jewish left too which have succeeded also due to fanaticism, ruthlessness and probably some other advantages but also quite irrational and driven by resentment. They are more willing to compromise and respect ironically left wing identity politics despite the cynical targeting of it.
I blame the western right and native people in smaller part. The reason both the left and the Jews in west have become so resentful and unwilling of any sane compromise with them was the fact that the right wing have been complete pushovers and that feed into the arrogance of the Jews and he far left. This is why they demand that the right be self hating racist pushovers or else call them nazis. They have become accustomed to this, even though it would make more sense to be much kinder to the european natives.
Enforcing moderation and good rules and not allowing people to promote one sided racist demagoguery and propaganda at your expense and then pretend that they are antiracists and anyone else is a nazi antisemite, was the sane thing that the non Jewish establishment failed to do. Fixing things requires we do just that and not tolerate this kind of propaganda ever again.
This is a worthwhile post, but it doesn't relate to what I'm talking about and would better fit in the Gaza megathread.
The influence of the pro Jewish far left like the ADL and how just focusing on the woke pro muslims empowers it is definitely directly relevant.
Fundamentally my position has been that rather than hateful extremism the idea of the Jews as a racist party is the sane and less racist way to understand Jewish behavior, and Jewish identity politics are genuinely poison for western civilization. Contrarilly the idea of Jews as the people who never done nothing and have a legitimate grudge against others to demonize them and it is antisemitic to question it, is in fact extremist racist hatred. Of course this shouldn't be conflated with attrocities towards Jews or any group. Not tolerating racist propaganda is different than that and it is in fact possible to do so without having the same mentality of what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine.
Of course there are many ways I disagree with certain far righters. Fundamentally stopping all the annoying and immoral grudge stirrers against your civilization is the obvious way to go and this means stopping both the pro palestinian anti western far elft. But I have more of a moderate end. I don't want the dominant discourse to be propagandistic in the other direction. I do want of course to make the whole woke framework taboo. I am more into moralism than some people on the right.
Additionally, I always found a respectable decency in certain more fact based anti war leftists. If someone opposes warmongering and attrocities I see this as a good thing and different than someone who is out to get your civilization. The whole attempt to associate wokeness with pro palestinians which was part of your post foregoes actually analyzing the facts of the situation. We shouldn't reflexively side against a group when they are actually mistreated.
Lets just say that I think our reaction towards group X should be much different if they are a) promoting propaganda against your civilization and disrespecting its human rights promoting mass migration, and all sort of other policies b) Are getting bombed.
I have little sympathy for say the Palestinian cheering for Islamization of the west even if they are using the mistreatment of palestinians as part of their argument but much more for the Palestinian getting bombed and the argument against that. The problem of wokeness is they take the side of people in the wrong and have an extreme mentality for their ingroup and against their outgroup. It is the wrong reaction to that to always take the side of groups and against other groups. This applies also in cases were it would be favorable to Jews. Like I think when Jews were targeted by attrocities such as in WW2, opposing that would be the correct thing to do although now we should disentangle the past history with the modern movements milking it dry. It is more about opposing it as it happens.
Also we should be careful to not let sympathy against certain mistreatment mean tolerance for propaganda movements.
You shouldn't support say 19th century slavery but you should be intolerant of the movement using it as a weapon towards modern people and their general civilization and overly promoting narratives that also shit on their ancestors. Same with holocaust but with the Jews there is also a promotion of false narrative of Jews historically as always oppressed, victimized, doing nothing wrong and others as oppressors. Which narrative has plenty to do with authoritarian persecution of opposite facts. A few on the right thing that the way to go is to actually cheer for that as the way to counter the left and of course I disagree. The bigger problem is tolerance of propagandists out to get you, or thinking that said history is inherently sacred. Its not sacred but profane for people to use it against you and must be made taboo. A bit like Poland criminalized blaming the Poles for the holocaust.
The whole "wokeness muslim" argument as people here promote it is an arguement to completely forget the pro Jewish far left and join them in promoting authoritarian racist Jewish identity politics and also abandon considerations of human rights entirely but only in the case of regime approved targets and support Israel in its atrocities against Palestinians. Both of these approaches are wrong.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link