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PaperclipPerfector  22d ago (text post)   24303 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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If the weather seemed especially treif/haram this weekend, it is probably due to all these flying pigs. The guardian published an article on antisemitism in the US student protests which actually tries to be somewhat balanced.

They acknowledge that there have been unambiguous incidents of antisemitism.

Then there are gems like this:

“There is a distinction between being unsafe and feeling uncomfortable. It’s very notable to see the discourse around this issue because the right in this country that’s been talking about woke culture, and how young people are snowflakes, are suddenly adopting this narrative around safety, which is really a narrative around comfort,” he said.

“People do not have a right to feel comfortable in their ideas. This is a university. This is a place to challenge people’s ideas. Discomfort is not the same thing as danger.”

Of course, if issue one is "a work of literature containing rape" and issue two is "an Israeli student encountering protesters who say stuff like 'Zionists don’t deserve to live', I have my own ideas which of these I would classify as "making one feel uncomfortable" versus "making one feel genuinely unsafe".

Even so, Norman Finkelstein, the Jewish American political scientist who is a strong critic of Israel, advised the protesters to reconsider the use of slogans that can be used against them. Finkelstein went to Columbia to praise the students for raising public consciousness about the Palestinian cause but he advised them “to adjust to the new political reality that there are large numbers of people, probably a majority, who are potentially receptive to your message”.

[...]

Once Finkelstein has finished speaking, a protester took the microphone and led a chant of “from the river to the sea”.

I think that this illustrates nicely how most of the protesters are in it for the signaling value. This is not uncommon, after all, many things we do are mostly for the signaling value. My own position that Israel should do more to minimize civilian casualties while they crush Hamas is probably something a majority of US voters could get behind, but boy is it lackluster from a signaling point of view. A student protester expressing this opinion would not get any respect for their bravery from their peers. On the other hand, calling for an intifada might be utterly devastating to the aims of the protests, but it will earn the one expressing it a lot of respect for being so brave and likely get them laid.

While I am sure that there is some antisemitism, I'm annoyed by this being the standard for whether people that are trespassing, camping illegally, detaining others illegally, and so on are worthy of condemnation. I really don't even care whether what the mostly peaceful protestors are on about, whether I agree with them just doesn't actually play into whether I want them to knock off the nonsense. If you're trying to camp in a park, cops should show up and inform you that you that you're not allowed to do that. If you insist on doing it anyway, they should arrest you and remove your stuff from the park. The idea that the basics of evenly enforced law are up to whether the scofflaws are antisemitic or not is absurd (and plainly anti-constitutional).

I think there is a world of a difference between camping illegally and detaining others.

Believing in the rule of the law does not imply believing that every law should be rigorously enforced all the time. Just like I don't think you should go after every kid's lemonade stand for lack of a business licence, I also think that universities should have some leeway in deciding which of their student groups they tolerate having protest camps on campus.

I think as long as it is not the government deciding that would not be unconstitutional.

For example, a university might tolerate a protest camp to Save The Whales (as long as they do not single out Japanese students or something) but might decide not to tolerate a protest camp about God Hates Fags.

So the amount of antisemitism and especially the attitude towards Jewish students might matter a lot to the universities -- who I imagine are doing damage control. The question for them is if it is worse PR to call the police to dissolve the camp or to continue to tolerate it and thus to some degree be endorsing the messages they spread.

Believing in the rule of the law does not imply believing that every law should be rigorously enforced all the time.

But it does imply that if every laws was rigorously enforced all the time, they should be written in such a way that isn't blatantly oppressive if taken to that logical-by-words-on-paper conclusion.
Otherwise you get anarchotyranny rule by law where we just ban everything and selectively enforce against political enemies, which is what we have right now.

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