site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26256 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

and he's instead spreading "Jewish" values in his "gentile" society as part of the secret Jewish plot to subvert their host civilization

That is obviously not the intention of the writers. The intention of the writers is that he lives among the humans even though he can never truly be one of them. He protects them and guides them, and he's an avatar for Kryptonian values. Obviously the myth-creators do not view Superman as a subversive but as a superior being, leader, and moral teacher. That is their self-conception. It's the same self-conception as Freud, Franz Boas, the Frankfurt school. It was absolutely not "I just want to be one of you and adopt your way of thinking and living." In none of those cases.

Jewish writers portraying superheroes as fighting Germans, even before American entry into WWII, is an obvious demonstration of the ethnic motivation of the creation and depiction of superheroes. Captain America was created in 1940, well before Pearl Harbor and when America was in opposition to entering the war against Germany by over 90%. But then we get these Superheroes that inspire large audiences, who go out and fight the Germans and redefine American Values. It is absolutely subversive, even if the writers genuinely see themselves see themselves as doing a moral good:

In 1940, Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman responded to the growing popularity of superhero comics – particularly Superman at rival publisher National Comics Publications, the corporate predecessor to DC Comics – by hiring freelancer Joe Simon to create a new superhero for the company.[2] Simon began to develop the character by determining who their nemesis could be, noting that the most successful superheroes were defined by their relationship with a compelling villain, and eventually settled on Adolf Hitler.[3][4] He rationalized that Hitler was the "best villain of them all" as he was "hated by everyone in the free world",[4] and that it would be a unique approach for a superhero to face a real-life adversary rather than a fictional one.[3][c]

This approach was also intentionally political. Simon was stridently opposed to the actions of Nazi Germany and supported U.S. intervention in World War II, and intended the hero to be a response to the American non-interventionism movement.[5] Simon initially considered "Super American" for the hero's name, but felt there were already multiple comic book characters with "super" in their names.[6] He worked out the details of the character, who was eventually named "Captain America", after he completed sketches in consultation with Goodman.[2] The hero's civilian name "Steve Rogers" was derived from the telegraphy term "roger", meaning "message received".[2]

Goodman elected to launch Captain America with his own self-titled comic book, making him the first Timely character to debut with his own ongoing series without having first appeared in an anthology.[4] Simon sought to have Jack Kirby be the primary artist on the series: the two developed a working relationship and friendship in the late 1930s after working together at Fox Feature Syndicate, and had previously developed characters for Timely together.[7][8] Kirby also shared Simon's pro-intervention views, and was particularly drawn to the character in this regard.[4] Goodman, conversely, wanted a team of artists on the series. It was ultimately determined that Kirby would serve as penciller, with Al Avison and Al Gabriele assisting as inkers;[4] Simon additionally negotiated for himself and Kirby to receive 25 percent of the profits from the comic.[9] Simon regards Kirby as a co-creator of Captain America, stating that "if Kirby hadn't drawn it, it might not have been much of anything."[4]

These figures are, intrinsically, conceived by particularistic ethnic motivations to produce a moralizing or psychological effect on audiences. In the case of Captain America, he was created by Jewish mythmakers to inspire Americans to wage war on Germany during a time this was deeply unpopular. These myths are not inscrutable, they can be interpreted. The idea that there's no deeper meaning to a Jewish immigrant Abraham Erskine injecting Steve Rogers with a serum to fight the Germans is just totally preposterous.

I could make Jupiter and James Bond into crypto-Jewish superheroes if I tried.

Exactly, and that's the point. You could make James Bond African. That would be subversive. You are proving my point that Superheroes, and their creation and depiction in myth, is a medium for waging Culture War. But if you decide to write a myth portraying Jupiter as crypto-Jewish, it would rightfully be considered subversive, but it would also not change the fact that the origin of the character had a different ethnic motivation which you would try to change or subvert in your updated myth.

Captain America and Superman and many other comic-book heroes have a deep meaning regarding the self-conception of Jews in Gentile society, and it is not at all a story of assimilation with Gentile culture.

Captain America and Superman and many other comic-book heroes have a deep meaning regarding the self-conception of Jews in Gentile society, and it is not at all a story of assimilation with Gentile culture.

Okay, I'll play along - suppose this is true. Jews see themselves as a wiser, benevolent people here to guide us goyim, and they even create superheroes to reinforce this story. How is this different from Christians who create Christian stories and characters to perpetuate Christian values, or atheists or communists or...

Superheroes are cultural icons, therefore part of the Culture War? Sure. That's why we get so much screeching about whatever Hollywood has done with the MCU lately. But since you are (as usual) trying to bring this back to Jewish nefariousness, where is the nefariousness? Jews tell stories just like everyone else, and I'm sure their Jewishness does influence the stories they tell. You seem to leave it as an unsupported inference that this is somehow subversive or works to the detriment of non-Jews. (Otherwise, why does it bother you? Because you're mad that they duped us into fighting on the wrong side in WWII? Which is what I take to be your unstated thesis.)

It's about tracing the development of the modern-day myth of America, today in 2024. It's about establishing that it's totally untrue that modern-day American mythos was predetermined by Protestantism or Classical Liberalism, although I definitely grant those are necessary ingredients. But you cannot ignore the ingredient of Jewish influence on the culture, and that influence was and is not motivated by a desire to assimilate to Protestant values or White culture. It is and always has been hostile to White culture. This dynamic is foundational to so many of the most important myths that calibrate our moral compass and perception of the world: the Holocaust, desegregation, WWII, Hitler as the anti-Christ of our post-war universe...

Obviously, this does not describe the behavior of everyone, or every contribution, or every myth or body of art. But there is a systematic, underlying current that can't be denied and it's just silly and this point that people try to deny it.

Why does the "myth of America" matter anyways, though? I can understand the contours of the post-WWII "creation myth" of the US perfectly fine, but I can also sense that that narrative is probably going to be outmoded soon enough, if it wasn't already. The newer generations don't buy into the "America the righteous" story, and if anything, are ripe for a new narrative to be moulded.

I'm with Amadan and ResoluteRaven on this, that this all seems like pointless tilting at windmills. We're only in a culture war because there are no "real" wars to fight at the moment. The moment China or Russia move directly against us, though, I expect even the most radical of progressive American Jews to start frothing at the mouth and wrapping themselves in the Stars and Stripes, baying for blood.

I strongly object to your suggestion that Culture War falls by the wayside with real war. That isn't true. Our prevailing post-war American Mythos fundamentally revolves around the story of WWII and the Holocaust. Culture War gets racketed up during period of armed conflict, it doesn't go away.

I expect even the most radical of progressive American Jews to start frothing at the mouth and wrapping themselves in the Stars and Stripes, baying for blood.

Yes, at the outbreak of war in Europe American Jews started to froth at the mouth and wrap themselves in Stars and Stripes, baying for blood. That didn't lead to a "pause" in the Culture War it culminated in a complete reinvention of the American Mythos under the banner and ethos of pop-culture figures like Superman and Captain America, which were created by Jews with the conscious intention to redefine American Values in a way that accommodated their ethnically particularistic motives and, in my opinion, at the grand sacrifice of the legacy white American population and Europe as a whole.

But you cannot ignore the ingredient of Jewish influence on the culture, and that influence was and is not motivated by a desire to assimilate to Protestant values or White culture. It is and always has been hostile to White culture.

Ah, here we have the critical swerve, the place where you say uncontroversial, obviously true things so people will nod along, before you suddenly take the sharp right.

There is a great deal of Jewish influence on the culture? I don't know anyone who disputes that.

Jews don't want to assimilate to Protestant values? Well, that depends what you mean by "values" (some of Protestant and Jewish values are the same, some are not, given that they are different religions), but Jews have never claimed to be assimilating to Protestantism (and in fact object to it).

"White" - well, we've had this discussion before. Whether or not Jews are white seems to be a question answered purely based on who is asking and who is answering. What are the "white" values (as distinct from Protestant values) that Jews do not share?

"It is and always has been hostile to White culture."

This is what you keep claiming, and it's still nonsensical.

Obviously, this does not describe the behavior of everyone, or every contribution, or every myth or body of art. But there is a systematic, underlying current that can't be denied and it's just silly and this point that people try to deny it.

It is absolutely not silly, and easy to deny, given the incoherence of your thesis. Jews are out to get us, but not all Jews, and Jews do things like create stories, and identify with their religion and culture, and have political opinions, and they're not always Protestant ones, and therefore Jews are an existential threat to white people (which sometimes includes them and sometimes doesn't). Oh, and they don't want white people to identify as white people because only Jews should have ethnic solidarity, if I recall your main objection correctly. Who orchestrates this anti-white agenda? Either it's Jew genes or... storytellers, I guess.

What are the "white" values (as distinct from Protestant values) that Jews do not share?

Cultural relativism and race denial (i.e. Boasian Anthropology), Critical Theory (i.e Frankfurt School), Psychoanalysis (i.e. Freud) are major areas of intellectual and cultural influence which are widely regarding as introducing hostility towards White culture and traditional values, and the progression into what we call Wokeness. Would you agree with that? I think a lot of us here are aware of the implications of HBD denial, what even boomercons are calling "Critical Race Theory" and so-on. Freud was obviously hostile to traditional values, as were the Frankfurt School intellectuals who related traditional values and White ethnocentrism to anti-Semitism and the authoritarian personality.

So accepting that these intellectual movements perpetuated hostility towards White culture and traditional values, all that remains is understanding the motivation of these intellectuals. They were not rooted in empiricism: Boasian anthropology, Frankfurt School study of the "Authoritarian Personality", and Freudian psychology are known for ideological dogmatism and antipathy for empiricism. They were likewise not motivated by 18th century liberalism. They were motivated by their Jewish identity and their hostility towards Gentile culture and morality.

Who orchestrates this anti-white agenda? Either it's Jew genes or... storytellers, I guess.

Yes, it's storytellers. Alwayshasbeen.jpg. Stories orient us in the world, they direct our moral compass and perception of reality. The stories we tell and honor direct our behavior in all respects. It's an important insight. Stories matter, the people who tell stories can influence masses of people. Not a new insight by the way, Plato understood this.

Even if we accept that these ideas were the product of 20th-century Jewish immigrants channeling their conscious or unconscious bias against white gentiles, I don't think it necessarily follows that knowing their motivations would be that much help in your fight against their ideology, any more than knowing the biographies of Marx and Engels would be particularly useful if one were engaged in a geopolitical rivalry with a communist state (rather than understanding Marxism as interpreted by living party members).

Here I'll borrow a metaphor from Scott to make this more interesting:

I am pretty sure there was, at one point, such a thing as western civilization. I think it included things like dancing around maypoles and copying Latin manuscripts. At some point Thor might have been involved. That civilization is dead. It summoned an alien entity from beyond the void which devoured its summoner and is proceeding to eat the rest of the world.

I'd wager that most of us here believe something along these lines, although we differ in the details of what exactly the alien is, the merits of being eaten by said alien, in which century it was summoned, who did the summoning, etc. In any case, you seem intent on crafting weapons to fight the long-dead summoner and his kin, rather than engaging the alien directly, and it seems like an ineffective strategy to me.

The biography of Marx and Engels would be useless, but if you aspire to large-scale denazification or decommunization then the intellectual and mythological inspirations for the collective consciousness are at the forefront of relevancy. This is an all hands on deck audit and I wouldn't spare anything from scrutiny, not Christianity or the American mythos itself. I give a critical eye even towards those things I have held dear in my life. But I'm certainly not going to lie to myself about what is an obvious ethnopolitical undercurrent to Jewish political and cultural influence in the 20th century either.

Understanding the malady that haunts us absolutely requires us to understand these forces, including the means and motives. We need to be able to detect them, decode them, countersignal them. This is not historical trivia, these same forces I've described are at the absolute forefront of censorship, lawfare, lobbying, and culture-creation across the entire world. It's a present-day conflict that confronts you whenever you turn on the TV. It's not biographical trivia.

Cultural relativism and race denial (i.e. Boasian Anthropology), Critical Theory (i.e Frankfurt School), Psychoanalysis (i.e. Freud) are major areas of intellectual and cultural influence which are widely regarding as introducing hostility towards White culture and traditional values, and the progression into what we call Wokeness. Would you agree with that?

There are a lot of things embedded in that question, so my answer is a qualified "no."

"Cultural relativism" was not invented by Boas (in fact, I'll bet @FCfromSSC would assign this as a product of the Enlightenment), and "race denial" implies a lot of things in a binary way, because of course binary arguments are tactically more valuable to you. The specific Frankfurt school of Critical Theory is not the same as every single thing referred to as "critical theory" today, but sure, it's certainly been influential on post-modernism. I think the connection between Freudian psychoanalysis and modern progressivism is more of a stretch. Did all these things lead to progressivism and wokeness, or are they simply developments (good or bad) along the road from the Enlightenment to the present? You clearly prefer to see them as specifically Jewish inventions with a specific Jewish purpose; you have not made that case. As for your weasel-worded "widely regarding(sic) as" claim - certainly those things were a reaction to/against "traditional" values but again, that they were "anti-white" is your conviction which I find unconvincing (for the same reason I find your argument that Jews are all a separate race waging war against us unconvincing).

So you've named several non-empirical schools of thought largely led by Jews, and once again made a huge leap you are hoping won't be examined too closely to "They were motivated by their Jewish identity and their hostility towards Gentile culture and morality." Boas invented his school of anthropology because he was Jewish and hated white people? Freud invented psychotherapy because he was Jewish and hated white people? All the Jews in the Frankfurt School invented critical theory because they were Jews and hated white people? Are all the non-Jews just useful fools? Are Jews who invent things that aren't "anti-white" not members of the tribe, or are you a follower of the Ibrim X Kendi school ("All Jewish ideas are either pro-white or anti-white")?

Yes, it's storytellers. Alwayshasbeen.jpg. Stories orient us in the world, they direct our moral compass and perception of reality. The stories we tell and honor direct our behavior in all respects. It's an important insight. Stories matter, the people who tell stories can influence masses of people. Not a new insight by the way, Plato understood this.

Yes, yes, and I've read Campbell too. (Damn, it's a shame he was Catholic and not Jewish, I'm sure we could explain the Monomyth as an insidious Jewish subversion of traditional values too.) So Jews tell stories like everyone else - why do you think all Jews are telling "anti-White" stories? If non-Jews had created Superman and Captain America, would they necessarily have been different stories? Were Siegel and Shuster motivated by hatred of white people, or were they just following biological Jew imperatives?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats