site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't think historicity is relevant in evaluating the worth or meaning of a foundational myth, but it's worth noting that there's no historical basis for the enslavement of the Hebrews in Egypt. So this foundational myth entails the exaggeration, or more likely outright fabrication, of their oppression as a propaganda tool for justifying claims to land, hostility towards their neighbors, and their own racial supremacy.

You could likewise say the Aeneid entails mostly historical myth in order to do the same: justify violence, conquest, and racial supremacy- and I agree. But the Aryan mode of that foundational myth is claiming descent from Classical heroes who built a glorious civilization that was lost to conquest, not that they were slaves within a foreign nation and their tribal god murdered the first-born sons of their host.

Properly understanding the Holocaust as a modern-day Exodus myth, there's a basis of truth, exaggerations, and outright fabrications. The truthful basis being the actual attempt by Europeans to expel the Jews into a territory outside the European sphere, the hard conditions in the concentration camps especially in the closing months of the war, reprisals being that basis of truth. And nonsense about millions of Jews being gassed inside gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. buried, then unburied and disappeared so nobody could ever find them, is the outright lie. The particularity of the foundational myth points towards the particularity of the people.

You may be aware the Holocaust is said to entail 100% of Jewish deaths in WWII. So Jewish deaths under the influence of Stalin, before or after the war, or pogroms by local populations in the Soviet sphere which fell under the German occupation, give way to the "gas chamber" myth. The myth turns a more complicated issue- like pogroms in Ukraine due to the association of the Jews with Bolshevism and the suffering by the Ukranian people, and converts it into a simpler story of them all being killed by Germans in shower rooms purely out of racial animus.

The point being, "yes" there were pogroms in Russia, but the modern-day consensus of the genealogy of antisemitism that informs the perception of those events likewise is going to contain an element of truth and an element of exaggeration or outright fabrication. While I have not really studied pogroms in Russia, I have seen how a much more complicated story of antisemitism in Eastern Europe is transmitted into a black-and-white "history" of millions of Jews dying in extermination factories purely out of racial hatred. My priors would that there is a similar whitewashing of the "history" regarding the pogroms in Russia to make those events completely one-sided in their interpretation.

I don't think historicity is relevant in evaluating the worth or meaning of a foundational myth, but it's worth noting that there's no historical basis for the enslavement of the Hebrews in Egypt.

There's no historical basis for a lot of foundational myths, whether we're talking about Lamanites or Fir Bolg.

You may be aware the Holocaust is said to entail 100% of Jewish deaths in WWII.

I have not heard this claim, and like most of your statements, it's hard to parse since I don't know if you're claiming it's something some Jew once said and you're taking it out of context or what. (I mean, every army had some number of Jewish soldiers, some of whom were obviously killed in battle. So obviously the statement cannot literally be true.)

My priors would that there is a similar whitewashing of the "history" regarding the pogroms in Russia to make those events completely one-sided in their interpretation.

So essentially, "if it happened, the Jews had it coming" is correct?

There's no historical basis for a lot of foundational myths, whether we're talking about Lamanites or Fir Bolg.

Yeah, that wasn't my point. My point was that Aryan foundational myth larps as the descendants of classical heroes, and Jewish foundational myth larps as a slave caste to a foreign civilization, within which they unleash plagues and get expelled.

I have not heard this claim, and like most of your statements, it's hard to parse since I don't know if you're claiming it's something some Jew once said and you're taking it out of context or what. (I mean, every army had some number of Jewish soldiers, some of whom were obviously killed in battle. So obviously the statement cannot literally be true.)

When historians estimate the death toll of the Holocaust - the famous 6 million number, they explicitly include all deaths even of Jews who never fell under German occupation, or who died in combat, owing to German war guilt for starting the war. Assuming some number of Jews, likely very many, died under Stalin during or after the war, those are all tabulated as Holocaust victims of Germany. Or some Ukrainian villages taking revenge against the Bolshevik apparatus- also German Holocaust victims.

According to Court Historians, 100% of Jewish deaths in WWII are German Holocaust victims, and 0 Jews were victims of Stalin.

So you have a basis of truth, Jewish persecution and hardship during WWII, and then it gets exaggerated and mispresented until you have a mythos that bears little resemblance to reality but is a propaganda narrative created by and for the interests of Jews.

I remember Ilforte giving a translated account of an alleged Russian pogrom which was extremely dubious, some Jewish school claiming that Russians had trespassed and trashed the place and threatened to kill them. It was all based off eyewitness testimonies of the Jews, with no leads or suspects and law enforcement basically didn't believe them although they could not write that in their reports. Yes, I'm sure the history of the pogroms in Russia is a mishmash of truth and reality, which is ultimately condensed into a one-sided narrative.

Yeah, that wasn't my point. My point was that Aryan foundational myth larps as the descendants of classical heroes, and Jewish foundational myth larps as a slave caste to a foreign civilization, within which they unleash plagues and get expelled.

Yes, I understand your point. Your point is that your interpretation of "your" people's foundation myth casts you as the heroes, whereas your interpretation of your enemy's foundation myth casts them as invidious parasites. And my point is that all foundation myths are mythical, and can be characterized as heroic or villainous depending on how you want to write it. Look at how you represent Jews as "larping" while Aryans are "classical heroes." Why could we not say the Aryans "larp" as heroes when they were just an invading horde?

So you have a basis of truth, Jewish persecution and hardship during WWII, and then it gets exaggerated and mispresented until you have a mythos that bears little resemblance to reality but is a propaganda narrative created by and for the interests of Jews.

As I've said before, if the actual objective of you and other Holocaust deniers was simply to clarify history so we have as accurate a picture as possible, I wouldn't roll my eyes every time you wiggle and dance around whether any Jews were actually persecuted and whether they deserved it. Is the 6 million figure off by a few million? Possible - and I wish the question were not so politicized as to make investigating it off-limits. You are right there. But of course, you are the reason the question is so politicized, because your concern is not whether it was actually "only" 4 or 2 or half a million, but to convince people, once again, that it didn't happen and if it did, the Jews had it coming. So as much as you blame the Jews for their control over the narrative, I blame you more than them for making it impossible to honestly question historical details. Your narrative is as fixed and motivated as theirs. If you uncovered ironclad proof that the "official" Holocaust narrative is 100% true, it would not alter your agenda an iota. You'd find it more inconvenient to argue that the Jews are an enemy who only ever got what they deserved, but you would still argue that. Am I mistaken?

Why could we not say the Aryans "larp" as heroes when they were just an invading horde?

At the end of the day, Aryans are an invading horde. What are Jews? They are not that. They operate differently and this is actually reflected in their foundational myths. Yes, the Aeneid is an aesthetically sophisticated mythology to reify what is essentially an invading horde on the Italian peninsula. What's Exodus? To this day, Jews very publicly celebrate the myth of their tribal god murdering the first-born, non-Jewish sons of their host civilization.

So as much as you blame the Jews for their control over the narrative, I blame you more than them for making it impossible to honestly question historical details.

Yes, you would blame me wouldn't you. Even if it were to turn out Revisionists are 100% right, you would still blame them and not the people most associated with creating and maintaining those lies, and actually creating and enforcing the laws and rules you are complaining about.

You'd find it more inconvenient to argue that the Jews are an enemy who only ever got what they deserved, but you would still argue that. Am I mistaken?

No, I would not argue that, I would probably just argue "it's in the past so we shouldn't put so much weight on this mythos for the questions of our day", which is an argument that is common enough already on the Right. But I think Revisionists are correct, and I don't think the narrative can survive long-term, it's highly vulnerable. I find the issue interesting because it is such an important mythos, but it is vulnerable at the same time.

At the end of the day, Aryans are an invading horde. What are Jews? They are not that. They operate differently and this is actually reflected in their foundational myths

Are we supposed to treat foundational myths at face value or not? If we are, why should we view Jews are more sinister and untrustworthy than anyone else when everyone's foundational myths can be read as "These people were barbarians who did horrible things"? If we're not, then why are you using your uncharitable reading of the Old Testament as an argument that Jews are sinister and untrustworthy?

Yes, you would blame me wouldn't you.

I would and do blame you for polluting the discourse and hampering genuine efforts to examine history critically, because I value honest engagement and a genuine interest in the truth, whereas you are not actually interested in that, you are interested in prosecuting a campaign of racial animosity, for which history is either merely instrumental or an impediment.

Even if it were to turn out Revisionists are 100% right, you would still blame them and not the people most associated with creating and maintaining those lies, and actually creating and enforcing the laws and rules you are complaining about.

No, if you could prove you're 100% right, I'd have to reevaluate a lot of things. One of the problems, of course, is that you are pretty cagey about what you are actually claiming. You always vaguely handwave in the direction of "Jews bad/Holocaust fake," but it's hard to latch onto the part you think can be proven or disproven. 6 million Jews were not killed in World War II, sure, that's something that could theoretically be proven or disproven. "Jews are evil and we should remove them from all positions of power and influence" isn't really a truth proposition.

I think one of the most salient arguments of contemporary antisemites is that Jews as a people are a (somewhat) distinct biological entity.

Whatever evolutionary mechanisms brought about the association of white people with 'work ethic', 'politeness' or 'delayed gratification' by the Smithsonian could also explain the discrepancy in behavior between a 'Jewish population' and a Western one.

Genesis 41 essentially describes how a Jew was miraculously able to take over Egypt's economy.

I don't know how prominent this story is in the Jewish scriptures but a vaguely similar situation seems to have developed in Middle-Age England, to the point that the Magna Carta was chartered to curtail the jewish lenders influence on the kings and the country's real estate.

Ingeniously, as the noblemen increasingly turned to the Jewish moneylenders for funds, upon their defaulting of the loans, the king received the parcels of land used as collateral.

From grain to feudal lands to mortgage-backed securities... The problem is still ongoing.

How could somebody believe in underlying mechanisms that would explain HBD and not consider that the same underlying mechanisms would also apply to a population which for thousands of years spread while keeping a somewhat consistent set of moral guidelines they inherited from their ancestor 'Moses'?

"Jews are evil and we should remove them from all positions of power and influence" isn't really a truth proposition.

I think it would just be a healthy starting point for the average organization to consider that individual Jews have an unusual tendency to optimize for consolidating power to their own group's benefit over other considerations that might be beneficial to the organization. Does that make them 'evil'? That would be a subjective consideration.

For those who are just starting to notice that the US government's foreign policy seems to have a lot more to do with the interests of Jewish groups, whether American, Israeli or Ukrainian, wouldn't that be practical advice?

In nominal democracies where the people, who in majority (>95%) are not Jewish, knowing that Jewish leaders or Jewish-allied leaders are sometimes, if not mostly, working against their interest, seems like a somewhat important information.

Similar considerations would apply to say, top 1% Indian immigrants who go out of their way to only interbreed with fellow immigrants and keep their wealth and culture separate from the locals as much as possible.

If in 3 generations the descendants of these IT company founders roughly live the same way as their neighbors, then you're probably clear to work with them, but if they go around pointing to an old book that says that God chose them to rule over every other people and if you disagree you're oppressing them, it's probably a bad idea to put them in charge of your finances and government.

Jews as a "distinct biological entity" - what are they, literal lizardmen? Are they a separate species? Or somehow more genetically divergent than any other human ethnicity?

Sometimes I wonder if you lot have ever actually met any Jews.

I live around and work with plenty of Jews. They all act like me, and no one thinks their holy book says they're supposed to rule over me. Although maybe that's just the mask they're wearing around us goyim.

DEI enthusiasts make largely the same claim about white men, you know: that we need to be removed (or reduced) from positions of power because we have historically used it to benefit our own kind to the detriment of others.

I guess if you'd ironically "yeschad" that, then the paranoia about Jews makes more sense. But in fact I find Jews are a lot closer in alignment to me than, say, the average black or Asian or Muslim person. And I don't think any of them are sneaky aliens plotting against me as a race either, though historical and cultural grievances are, as you put it, more "salient."

Are they a separate species?

A separate subspecies perhaps. But the definition of biological boundaries is mostly political these days, just ask any college-educated Westerner what a woman is. It's a 'social construct'.

Or somehow more genetically divergent than any other human ethnicity?

Why would they need to be? Interestingly, the distinction does not need to be fully physiological. It's obviously a combination of underlying physiology and changes acquired during socialization as a member of the tribe.

DEI enthusiasts make largely the same claim about white men, you know: that we need to be removed (or reduced) from positions of power because we have historically used it to benefit our own kind to the detriment of others.

These people would be more credible if they 1 - stopped dating white men 2 - didn't in one way or another depend on white men's generosity for their basic survival. I'm personally not sitting in a Tel-Aviv basement on israeli welfare, so I don't think that criticism would apply to me.

I don't think there is anything wrong with seizing power and working to benefit your own group if your interests align with the interests of those you have power over. Westerns don't really have any reason to spend billions or trillions on defending the borders of Israel and Ukraine (more than their own), but the people in Biden's cabinet do.

I live around and work with plenty of Jews. They all act like me, and no one thinks their holy book says they're supposed to rule over me.

Or perhaps you act like them. Most Westerners don't work 'with plenty of Jews', and most influence they get is from TV, radio, social media, print. They go to church, spend time with their family and they have hobbies that have nothing to do with Jews, and if kept away long enough from all the electromagnetic jewish chatter, they would perhaps wonder why they have to care about terrorism in Israel or what flag is being flown in Ukraine.

no one thinks their holy book says they're supposed to rule over me.

Or possibly they don't tell it to your face because they know that's not serving their interests as well as simply creating a consensus that the interests of the Jews are what you wanted all along. In fact, they do, and there's not much you can do about it. For example : The ADL will not let you get away with expressing the same border policy about your own country that they do about Israel.

More comments

they explicitly include all deaths even of Jews who never fell under German occupation, or who died in combat, owing to German war guilt for starting the war

The Holocaust death toll includes Jewish-American soldiers who died in combat? Having googled it I see some articles about them from Holocaust memorial museums (which also write about Soviet civilians, Poles, military casualties in general and other topics, and which don’t insinuate that US/UK Jewish military casualties were Holocaust deaths).

In the United States and elsewhere, Holocaust Restitution payments by the German government and others explicitly require that the recipient was persecuted by the Nazi government on the basis of race/religion between 1933 and 1945. It absolutely does not apply to the spouses of Jewish American soldiers who died in WW2 fighting Germany. I don’t think these are counted as Holocaust victims. AFAIK some captured Jewish Red Army soldiers who were singled out and killed by the Wehrmacht or SS for being Jewish are considered Holocaust victims.

The number of Jewish-American soldiers who died in combat is completely irrelevant. Over 99% of the alleged death toll is said to have happened in Eastern Europe.

Very large numbers of Jews were evacuated from Poland and Eastern Europe deep into the Soviet Interior ahead of the German advance. Their fate is not well understood. Any of them, and there were certainly very many although we cannot know how many, were either outright killed by Stalin or died of exposure in gulags in Siberia or in subsequent war/post-war famines, historians count them all as German victims.

Or Ukrainian nationalists in a village who associated Jews with Bolshevism and took revenge against them, that's also counted as victims of Germany.

You can make the argument that historians ought to count things this way, but the point is the mythos obscures the underlying complexity to these issues. "Germans gassed 3 million Jews inside gas chambers disguised as shower rooms and then made the bodies disappear" is the mythological handwaving over the complexities of what actually transpired and why it did.