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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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I did not endorse Jewish "ethnocentrism."

Organizing with your co-ethnics to support your ethnic interests in the realm of economics, politics, and culture, and to oppose antagonism from other ethnic groups, is ethnocentrism. You are emblematic of the increasingly discredited status quo, by trying to claim that Jews organizing and applying immense economic and cultural pressure to steer narratives and platforms is just "opposing antisemitism, and who could be against that?" It is ethnocentrism.

You are straw-manning. Of course there exists hostility by Jews towards non-Jews, but scope and specificity matters. Y'all are very fond of quoting select verses from the Torah or Rabbi Meir Kahane as some sort of General Theory Of The Jew, even though hostility towards non-Jews and a campaign to enslave the goyim is not in any way widespread or mainstream among Jews.

Talk about straw-manning... We are in this thread talking about a stark gesture of hostility by Jews towards non-Jews in their lobbying for a hostile takeover of TikTok, in order to censor content that is critical of themselves and of Israel. Gen-Z doesn't have the right opinions, so TikTok must be reformed- this is incredibly hostile and it should be opposed and called out.

As for why Jews have faced hostility from other groups historically, I think we can actually read history with more nuance than that and find that the truth is somewhere between "psychopathology of all other ethnic groups Jews dindu nuffin" and "It's deserved because Jews really are That Bad and they had it coming."

Indeed, which is why it's reasonable to discern a hostility by Jews towards non-Jews in their ethnocentric, authoritarian measures censoring content on social media that is critical of them or of Israel. Whereas they constantly complain about the behavior of and affronts by non-Jews, and then they organize to censor complaints about their own behavior.

Organizing with your co-ethnics to support your ethnic interests in the realm of economics, politics, and culture, and to oppose antagonism from other ethnic groups, is ethnocentrism.

There is a lot of space in there. Basically every ethnic group does this, more or less. Under this definition, sponsoring scholarships and summer camps for Jewish students, or organizing a public Jewish celebration, is "ethnocentric," and so is waging race war to oppress the goyim. I am not going to accept you carefully crafting a definition that includes the former but which you can then immediately claim is endorsing the latter.

Talk about straw-manning... We are in this thread talking about a stark gesture of hostility by Jews towards non-Jews in their lobbying for a hostile takeover of TikTok, in order to censor content that is critical of themselves and of Israel. Gen-Z doesn't have the right opinions, so TikTok must be reformed- this is incredibly hostile and it should be opposed and called out.

Our disagreement is not over whether TikTok should be banned for hosting anti-semitism: we both agree it shouldn't. Our disagreement is that I think Jews wanting to ban antisemitism is rational and understandable (if wrongheaded, because I lean towards free speech absolutism and I think it's neither beneficial nor productive to try to ban bigoted opinions), where you think Jews wanting to ban antisemitism is because they recognize the antisemites are right and they want to suppress the communications of their enemy in the race war.

Indeed, which is why it's reasonable to discern a hostility by Jews towards non-Jews in their ethnocentric, authoritarian measures censoring content on social media that is critical of them or of Israel. Whereas they constantly complain about the behavior of and affronts by non-Jews, and then they organize to censor complaints about their own behavior.

"Many Jews are hypocritical and self-interested." Okay, no disagreement there. And? Again, I see selfish and unprincipled actors, you see a coordinated race war. Are black people who see white supremacy - and not just institutional, historical white supremacy, but intentional, coordinated white supremacy - in everything justified? Are radical feminists who see the hand of the Patriarchy in everything correct? Or are they both identifying genuine problems (there are a lot of people who don't like them and act against their interests) which they misdiagnose (therefore white people/men/Jews are out to get us).