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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 2023

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In the past I've described antisemitism as anti-fragile. So let's say Jews are going to respond to antisemitism. What are they going to do that isn't going to further and visibly validate the arguments made by antisemites?

Indeed, there is nothing they can possibly do that would bring antisemites to change their position. There's another word for that sort of belief: unfalsifiable. Any action 'the jews' take that isn't obviously in line with the antisemite view is just evidence of ever more complex trickery. And so it is found that both 'pushing for greater authoritarianism' and 'staying mum' all leads to the same rotten conclusion.

Indeed, there is nothing they can possibly do that would bring antisemites to change their position. There's another word for that sort of belief: unfalsifiable.

No there isn't. You're conflating two different ideas and making your thinking on this matter less clear. Antisemitic beliefs are entirely falsifiable, but that has no bearing on whether people are willing to change their mind on that matter or not. As an example, I love my family members and would never sacrifice my mother to save some random financial criminal. I'm not changing my mind on this matter, but the belief is very clearly falsifiable and testable.

And so it is found that both 'pushing for greater authoritarianism' and 'staying mum' all leads to the same rotten conclusion.

Are those the only two possible answers? You've presented two options that won't work, and that's it? I agree with you that both of those options are bad and won't work, but I don't think that's a good spot to just stop thinking. There are a lot of other actions the jews could take, and a lot of them wouldn't actually lead to that same rotten conclusion.

The way SS presents his antisemitism, it’s both intellectually robust somehow (‘anti-fragile’) and dependent on the behaviour of jews. But we’ve established that it’s neither of those things.

As an example, I love my family members and would never sacrifice my mother to save some random financial criminal. I'm not changing my mind on this matter, but the belief is very clearly falsifiable and testable.

I think you’re conflating yourself, namely, the predictor and the subject of the prediction. “Luke says Mark would never sell his mother”. Luke is supposed to change his mind if mark sells his mother. SS says, if jews do X, it will “visibly validate the arguments made by antisemites “. SS is supposed to change his mind if they don’t do X. There is no way to validate or invalidate his argument if it just consists of his personal hatred of jews (or love of mother).

The way SS presents his antisemitism, it’s both intellectually robust somehow (‘anti-fragile’) and dependent on the behaviour of jews. But we’ve established that it’s neither of those things.

That isn't what "anti-fragile" means - anti-fragile here effectively means that efforts to suppress antisemitism will have a paradoxical effect and actually bolster it. You also haven't actually demonstrated that it isn't dependent on the behavior of jews - or at least not in any of the posts I've seen.

"Simply, antifragility is defined as a convex response to a stressor or source of harm (for some range of variation), leading to a positive sensitivity to increase in volatility (or variability, stress, dispersion of outcomes, or uncertainty, what is grouped under the designation "disorder cluster"). Likewise, fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading to a negative sensitivity to an increase in volatility.

In this particular case, he's claiming that if the jews decide to use their power over discourse to make sure that antisemitic speech is suppressed and the people who hold those ideas are driven out of society, that actually strengthens the argument "jews have control over societal discourse and use this for their advantage". He's straightforwardly correct here too - simply getting the government to ban criticism of jews isn't actually going to make people start liking them, and would most likely generate additional animus. The claim that some particular group has too much influence over societal discourse actually does get stronger when that particular group uses their influence over societal discourse to suppress criticism of said influence, and it isn't really hard to see why. Note however that there's no requirement for fragility/antifragility to match up to whether or not something is intellectually robust - this effect would take place whether jews did actually have a disproportionate amount of influence over societal discourse or not.

SS is supposed to change his mind if they don’t do X. There is no way to validate or invalidate his argument if it just consists of his personal hatred of jews (or love of mother).

But he has admitted that there would be things they could do to change his mind, he just thinks they aren't going to do them. You're correct when you say that there's no way to validate or invalidate his argument if it just consists of "I hate jews", but you haven't actually managed to convince me that that's his entire argument.

Furthermore, you're presenting an utterly false dilemma. SS is talking about how this particular strategy would actually bolster antisemitism, but that not adopting this strategy would also have negative impacts. Doing nothing or attempting a larger societal crackdown on this kind of speech would confirm his pre-existing beliefs, but those aren't the only options on the table. If the Israeli government came out and made an announcement that the recent surge in support for Palestine among people of colour means that encouraging white nationalism in the USA and Europe was better for their goals and long-term survival, and then took action to use their massive influence operation (AIPAC etc) to further the cause of white nationalism, I'd consider his argument totally falsified. Similarly, if there was a serious repression effort that actually worked and didn't engender a hostile reaction his argument would be proven wrong as well.

The claim that some particular group has too much influence over societal discourse actually does get stronger when that particular group uses their influence over societal discourse to suppress criticism of said influence, and it isn't really hard to see why.

The grand irony is, though, that if ‘authoritarian’ actions by Jewish elites were actually enough to eliminate antisemitism, the entire dissident right argument itself doesn’t work since almost definitionally they wouldn’t exist. The whole thesis is that powerful Jews eliminated white identity between 1945 and the present or whatever, which would either suggest that this plan does work, or that it wasn’t the plan.

There's another word for that sort of belief: unfalsifiable.

What would prove antisemites wrong would be for Jews to systematically exert their talents and influence for the interests of white people. Basically, for them to treat white people as they treat their own in-group, or even putting white people above their own in-group in political and cultural conflict. That's not going to happen, and I don't even necessarily blame them for it, it's just something that has to be accepted.

Look at 2rafa who has said that we can't support a White identity because it might be threatening to Jews. Accepting this premise is true, yes it is very difficult for Antisemites to be proven wrong with the remaining options for how Jews should respond to Antisemitism given that, you know, "be on the side of white identity" isn't an option.

So their failure to meet your hypocritical, admittedly impossible demands apparently constitutes a validation of your worldview. Try again for the falsifiable prediction.

Unless they agree to serve your interests above all others, they’re nefarious. I don’t even treat my own brother this way. I guess your philosophy boils down to egoistic militarism, which denies the converging of interests, where every man is in a death struggle against all the others. If there can be no convergence of interests with jews, I don't see why there should be with my brother, and all the less so with the very very very extended family which constitutes my race. And at this point, I'm related to jews as well, it's just one more 'very'.

So their failure to meet your hypocritical, admittedly impossible demands apparently constitutes a validation of your worldview.

If it's impossible for Jews to treat non-Jewish white people with the same interest that they treat Jews, then how is that not an admission of the underlying conflict and problem?

You said above or equal. I think you would agree it's impossible to treat a child on the other side of the world better or the same as your own child. Proximity matters. People, here jews, having a preference for their interests, their family, their race, their football teams, does not result in unavoidable conflict.

I think you would agree it's impossible to treat a child on the other side of the world better or the same as your own child.

This is exactly what white people do in self-policing expressions of White identity and interests while at the same time lending an undying loyalty to Zionism.

And jews for hitler was a thing, so there.

Why, when even white people will not do this themselves?

They did for the vast majority of the existence of the United States, and that radically changed along with the change in elite composition and saliency of prevailing Grand Narratives, specifically around WWII and later the Holocaust. White identity has been made taboo by these grand narratives formulated by our cultural institutions. If you ask the average person why advocating for White people is the most evil thing in the world, they will surely respond "What do you mean, haven't you seen Schindler's List?!"

The post-WWII and Holocaust narrative has formulated an anti-fascist dialectic on both the left and right. The left is anti-fascist because of their social liberalism, and the right is anti-fascist because of their economic libertarianism. But they all agree Hitler is the anti-Christ of this post-war moral Universe. This is the cultural context in which white people have turned against their own self-interests.

Jews who have supported ‘the interests of white people’ like Stephen Miller don’t change your mind, nor do Jewish reactionaries like BAP.

I could turn this around and ask why Jews haven't allowed their mind to be changed about supporting White identity given all of the benefits and friendly relations they have enjoyed from the West since the end of the Second World War.

To this day, Jews will go and wail like toddlers at a freakin' wall to constantly relive a thousands-year old offense, and they won't allow a single shred of advocacy for White people without invoking the Holocaust and "Never Again" to explain why it's beyond-the-pale. Anybody who wants to advocate for white people or White identity is absolutely correct that Jewish influence in cultural and political life is the most significant barrier to accomplishing this. Unless that changes, which it won't, it's misdirected to say that the Cart is driving the Horse, or claim that Dissident Right twitter is the reason Jewish influence is so hostile towards white identiy.

King Charles' very first speech featured a promise to construct the new Holocaust Temple in the gardens in plain view of parliament. That way, any lawmakers or citizens walking by the center of political power cannot do so without being reminded of Jewish suffering. There's just not much room to doubt the source of these cultural narratives that have inspired bitter hostility towards white identity.

If you ask the average person why advocating for White people is the most evil thing in the world, they will surely respond "What do you mean, haven't you seen Schindler's List?!"

No, the average person will say ‘huh? Whites don’t need the help. You some kind of racist?’

Mass immigration was radically altering American demographics in a way the Founding Fathers never intended as early as the mid-19th century. In that case of course it was famously a Jew who was perhaps the nation’s staunchest restrictionist. Hart-Cellar was in substantial part a Catholic project.

But again, it doesn’t really matter. You think that white people suddenly turned “against their own interests” because of Jewish mythmaking about World War 2 and the Holocaust narrative specifically, ie the KMac / ‘racist lib’ narrative. But widespread education and cultural messaging about the Holocaust began in earnest in the 1980s, well after the loosening of immigration laws in the US and well after mass immigration from the Islamic world had begun into Westen Europe from Pakistan, North Africa and elsewhere. And the movements that led to gay rights, women’s equality laws, the civil rights act, the sexual revolution and so on had a long ideological tail that stretched well back through the 19th century, they weren’t invented wholecloth by Jewish (or any) boomers.

The biggest obstacle to wignat advocacy is other gentile whites - over a hundred million of them - opposed to that ideology rather than several million Jews. Those gentiles practice an ideology that is clearly, demonstrably and directly descended from the principles of universality, rights, democracy, individualism and so on upon which the USA was founded and which was, ultimately, invented by their own kind. I don’t think this is a tenuous link at all.

But it’s always easier for ethnats to be angry at another people than their own.

Mass immigration was radically altering American demographics in a way the Founding Fathers never intended as early as the mid-19th century.

America was always from the very beginning identified as a "White" country. The very first immigration law restricted citizenship to Whites, not just Anglos. An aspect of America that I like is the aspiration for a pan-European nation. But yes, from the very beginning, European immigration was aligned with the foundational ethos of the nation.

But widespread education and cultural messaging about the Holocaust began in earnest in the 1980s, well after the loosening of immigration laws in the US and well after mass immigration from the Islamic world had begun into Westen Europe from Pakistan, North Africa and elsewhere.

The loosening of immigration laws in the US weren't perceived as going to have an impact on demographics, much less put America on the path to being majority non-White. I'm even willing to believe that those who lobbied heaviest for its implementation, who also invoked the Holocaust and "nobody wanted the Jews so now we have to accept looser immigration" argument in its defense, didn't predict it would change demographics like this.

The Holocaust civic religion peaked in saliency in public consciousness right at the demographic inflection point. So the DR argument that this civic religion, by design, worked as a memetic superweapon to drive demographic replacement without much complaint or opposition from white people is aligned with the sequence of events you describe. Of course, it's not just the Holocaust memetically driving White people to not care about demographic change. Like any civic religion, the dogma is accompanied by socially and legally authoritarian enforcement mechanisms.

And yes a mythos that formulates a curriculum taught to children as the most important and divine moral truth, coincided with a huge catalogue of films and other cultural output that broadcasts the mythos to mass audiences, coincided with authoritarian measures to punish those who dissent from the hegemony of the mythos is absolutely the mechanism around which a smaller number of people can direct the public opinion and behavior of a much larger group of people.

Do you not accept basic premises of Elite Theory when it comes to attributing any sort of accountability to Jewish influence over key institutions in intellectual and cultural life?

America was always from the very beginning identified as a "White" country. The very first immigration law restricted citizenship to Whites, not just Anglos.

Jews were explicitly considered white in those terms, and always have been (as well Maghrebis, as I recall).

And I think it’s ahistorical to dismiss the thoughts of Franklin and others about non-Anglo immigration.

Jews were explicitly considered white in those terms, and always have been.

Well I don't disagree with that, but I don't see how that's relevant to my point.

"Are Jews white" is a complicated question, to which I would say "Yes", but they are not Aryan. One of many reasons to bring back such a word to describe the real, common ancestry of non-Jewish European-descended people. Jews themselves make the distinction and assign a mythological meaning to it.

Are Iranians white? Are they Aryan? What about North Indians? Pashtuns?

I'm trying to understand your racial taxonomy.

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The ADL never says "Look at that 'It's OK to be White' poster, we have to oppose this to make sure blacks aren't re-enslaved." They say "we can never have the Holocaust again, so we need a whole-of-society effort to suppress this."