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Since special thread dedicated to current Middle Eastern issues fell into abeyance, I am posting latest
warculture war report from thescorching sands of Middle Eastcold and brutal streets of Gotham City.And the latest victim of the war is one Stuart Seldowitz, former humanitarian diplomacy consultant, National Security Council member and deputy director of the US State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs,who
fell in glorious struggle against terrorismwas arrested by NYPD for persistent harrassment of halal food street vendor.According to some reports, the street vendor was allegedly previously tearing down posters with dead and kidnapped Israelis.
Whole incident was covered on dead bird site in every possible angle, if you are even only casual deadbirders, you already learned about it and made your own minds.
What is my take?
In the best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because whole world, including Middle East, would live in peace and harmony, there would be no wars, no one would be killed, no one would be kidnapped, no house would be bombed or bulldozed.
In the second best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because no one living in Gotham City would care enough about some war going on the other side of the world to deface their beloved city.
In the third best possible world, no one would be tearing these posters, because there would be no such posters on the streets of Gotham City, because laws of Gotham City against posting and graffiti would be strictly enforced and people splattering around unauthorized posters and leaflets would be fined (and, in case of repeated and persistent vandalism, deported from the city).
Well, we do not live in any of these worlds.
Nah man. Jews are Americans and semi-western. Geopolitical allies. As much as I hate Jews for being the leaders of anti-white bigotry at the end of the day I still have their back. The international arena does matter. An attack on their people is an attack on me. They are part of the civilized world and I will defend them from barbarism.
In an ideal world we would deport the food cart guy. He clearly doesn’t share our values.
My issue with Jews are basically mistake theory. My issue with Isis and Hamas and those organizations is conflict theory.
You know, there's something uniquely wrong in this popular genre of «Western» «conservative» reasoning, that goes beyond what Seldowitz or any Arab terrorist could do. You serve unashamed tribalism of another tribe, and defend it with lofty universalist rhetoric about «civilization and barbarism».
What are those «our» values that the civilized abuser Seldowitz represents and the street vendor, whose transgression is in line with transgressions of white leftists, does not? Civilization is not about being educated enough to do more than sell street food. If there is anything to the Western civilization as a proposition and not pure empirical capability, it's the belief that «values» go beyond alliances of convenience, brute kinship and right of the mighty, that there exist principles and morally sound laws. Who plays more by the rules and laws of the West, and who exploits them more in this situation? Who reciprocates goodwill, and who has defected barbarically?
And, as you say, an attack on the Israeli is an attack on you, but does this work the other way around? Say, Bari Weiss, the kind of person who generates pretraining data for your soul, argues that antisemitism is a sign that the society itself is breaking down. Was the long culture war against whites and «the West», discussed in this community for so long, seen as a dire sign for the Jews? I suppose some clever and provocative ones saw it this way – in outlets so radioactive nobody would in their right mind cite them. Most others were just content to clarify they're not white, or at least not the hate-deserving shade of white.
And, I mean, that's fair enough. Every bloodline for itself, that's how the game is played since protozoa. I'm not under the impression that the CNN and the Guardian are paragons of «The West» or advocate for equal standards either: they report on Seldowitz solely because the progressive faction they represent and pander to is currently more sympathetic to Muslims, even Hamas supporters, than to Zionist Jews. But I appreciate that they do not invoke those ideas which I think would really deserve protection.
Why is ‘civilization and barbarism’ such a poor reasoning tool, after all?
It is entirely legitimate to value a people by the quality of civilization they are able to create. It is why it is inherently more reasonable to have respect for Yamato than for Fulanis, for example, it is why - for all my disagreement with mass immigration of Central Americans - I still respect the heights of Aztec civilization and wonder, sometimes here, what they did that modern governments in the region seem incapable of.
And the same, of course, is true in reverse, because there too civilizational quality is critical. Were Ashkenazi Jews of 90 IQ we would be a forgotten population. At most, we would be like the Roma, somewhat disliked in parts of Mitteleuropa but otherwise irrelevant. It is only because of the heights and the low points of outsized Jewish achievement that this is even a discussion at all.
‘Every bloodline for itself’ perhaps, but I have respect for great civilizations and disdain for poor ones, regardless of their opinion of me. That isn’t to say I would fight for people who hate me, or would not make peace with barbarians who are amenable to me, but it is to say, in Scruton’s words, that beauty matters. If Jewish civilization is incapable of beauty (and as I have argued here, this is at best an open question) then we deserve to perish. I leave it to you to determine whether the same is true for your own people.
Value is arbitrary, as are dimensions of quality under consideration. The particular kind of value system implied here is very Western and not Israeli at all. I suppose West Bank settlers create a certain kind of civilization; from the modern Western perspective, it's worthy of sanctioning, while from the Israeli one it deserves being subsidized and protected, even as they rebel against the secular powers. Because the latter's function of «quality» more or less collapses into boolean «Jewish or not».
More complex matters could be discussed but it doesn't matter. Only Westerners are weird enough to forget that, before all admiration for «civilization» measured in homing missiles or GDP or Nobel prizes per capita, there's the very simple concept of the political. Neither Arabs nor Jews will ever forget it.
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I would not want to live in Central America, but I don't think that modern governments there are worse than the Aztecs. Modern Central America is actually pretty stable politically, I don't remember the least time there was a major conflict, civil war, or revolution there. Many parts of it are poor and corrupt, of course, and there are problems with cartels, but it is not an utter civilizational disaster. The Aztec Empire was not very stable, it lasted only about a hundred years and many of its subject people hated it so much that they gladly sided with the Spanish when those came over from Europe. Plus of course there was the constant ritualistic bloodshed.
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