site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   38783 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

If you want to make the case for why your brave fringe is right and everybody else is wrong, then make it

Yes, that is what I am doing. People who think that critique of Jewish influence in American political and cultural life is silly and immoral are wrong- all of them. That perception is just an artifact of the prevailing Culture, it's not based on reality. I'm interested in challenging that Culture, and my prediction is that J D Vance is going to be a manifestation for how easily NRx is subsumed by the prevailing Culture.

You aren't doing it though -- European anti-semitism is kind of lindy I guess, but it doesn't exactly stand on its own. What's exactly your issue with the jews? Like, what's wrong with them?

European anti-semitism is kind of lindy I guess, but it doesn't exactly stand on its own.

By their own account it's the most ancient prejudice in world history- with an uncanny commonality among enormously wide swathes of historical time and space. It certainly stands on its own, and suppressing it requires an enormous amount of effort, using all the levers of cultural influence and political power. Even that appears to be failing with every passing day.

By their own account it's the most ancient prejudice in world history- with an uncanny commonality among enormously wide swathes of historical time and space. It certainly stands on its own, and suppressing it requires an enormous amount of effort, using all the levers of cultural influence and political power. Even that appears to be failing with every passing day.

I'd like to second @jkf - why don't you just come out and say what's so bad about Jews? "They are powerful and exert enormous cultural influence." And? "People have hated them for thousands of years, it can't be a coincidence, there must be a reason." What reason?

In the past, you've just waved vaguely at assertions that they are waging war against "us" (how?) and that Jewish tribalism is inimical to everyone else (how?) and somehow different from everyone else who has a strong inter-ethnic identity (how?), and maybe someone else will mumble something about Jews being responsible for immigration and no-fault divorce and pornography, which even you say is not really the issue, so - why don't you just take the mask off in this place, one of the few places you can do that, and tell us what makes Jews so terrible that we must fight them?

Jews coordinate their actions to engage in Culture War with gentiles, for the benefit of themselves and at the detriment of their outgroup.

This takes various forms, like the ADL manufacturing a national panic to successfully lobby for hundreds of millions of dollars of handouts from DHS to Jewish NGOS, or it takes the form of cultural and intellectual movements that pathologize white ethnocentrism and elevate Jewish ethnocentrism as a moral imperative, or it takes the form of comic-book heroes that esoterically elevate Jewish moral standing and direct American cultural values in ways that benefit Jews, or it takes the form of Jews in the American government subversively directing America to wage as disastrous war on Iraq for the benefit of Israel, and is now agitating for war with Iran, or it takes the form of direct political action from hundreds of Jewish NGOS which promote immigration and demographic change in the United States and Europe while intensely advocating for Zionism, or it takes the form of Jewish lobbying groups spearheading influential campaigns to systematically censor criticism of themselves and their own behavior across social media. It takes the form of promoting anti-white cultural consciousness in all areas of public life while mobilizing enormous amounts of political and cultural power to suppress any criticism of Jewish behavior. It takes the form of the Holocaust narrative which serves as the founding myth for the entire post-war moral universe we live under today, a moral universe which is propagandized to children every which way and through an enormous catalogue of Holocaust movies which elevates Jewish suffering, using fake atrocity propaganda, as the most important thing in the universe.

Your demand is silly because my posts are collectively criticizing the Jewish engagement in Culture War with Gentiles. Why are you asking this question when you can just read my posts outlining the criticisms I have of Jewish behavior with respect to Culture War? You can accuse me of a lot of things, but accusing me of masking my "true problem" is absurd, I lay it out directly in my posts. My problem is they organize against me, they pathologize ethnocentrism among white people while demanding an intense fealty and commitment of blood and treasure to their own wildly ethnocentric behavior.

So basically (if you can forgive what might be a slightly crude summary) it's that they're successfully engaged in ethnic organization and politics, and you see that political action as being detrimental to your own ethnic block?

Is your objection that the jews are doing these things at the detriment to your ingroup, or is your objection to doing these things at all? Would you feel the same way about gentile whites organizing to their own benefit?

I've made it clear my problem with it is that it's hostile, subversive, and self-serving. If you simply dropped all the Jews in government and media, i.e. replaced Biden's virtually-entirely Jewish cabinet with Indians, and replaced Israeli Nationalist influence with Indian Nationalist influence, replaced the "I" in AIPAC with India, and replaced the Holocaust narrative with some Indian-derived foundational myth of twentieth century morality, I would have the same problem with it.

And it's funny that others here will point to the Indian Question, which is certainly highly relevant, but that question is relevant for the same reason the JQ is relevant times 1000.

What is going to happen when/if our elite apparatus is replaced with hostile foreigners who have deep-seated racial resentment towards white American culture and racial identity? We already know what happens, we're living in that reality right now.

If you simply dropped all the Jews in government and media, i.e. replaced Biden's virtually-entirely Jewish cabinet with Indians, and replaced Israeli Nationalist influence with Indian Nationalist influence, replaced the "I" in AIPAC with India, and replaced the Holocaust narrative with some Indian-derived foundational myth of twentieth century morality, I would have the same problem with it.

If you did the same thing, but instead of jews or indians it was gentile whites, would you have the same problem with it?

American whites did do this for most of the history of the country. No I would not have a problem with it, I do want white people to start to behave more like Jews in this regard. I want them to do what Jews are doing, in equal or greater measure.

More comments

So that's what you're going to go with? "Nothing has changed since the Middle Ages, Jews are bad m'kay"? This is not a convincing platform.

My platform is explained in my commentary, which ranges from issues of history to foreign policy, media, pop-culture, etc. Culture War is not about the latest trans fad, it's about the collective consciousness that orients us in the world. You cannot understand the collective consciousness without understanding this issue.

Your commentary is mostly quibbles about the mechanics of various Nazi policies AFAIR -- maybe the odd other historical digression?

What is bad about the Jews in the here and now? Why should I be concerned?

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