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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Israel is a Jewish highly nationalist state that affords privileges to Jews on the basis of ethnicity and very willing to commit mass violence against Palestinians on basis of benefiting Jews and hating the foreign group treated as a hostile outside threat. It is a highly nationalist state because the Jews are collectively a highly nationalistic people, which is why they are so hostile to the nationalism of other groups.
It is certainly an exclusive state that sees itself collectively. That not only Jews are part of that state does not make it a pluralistic state, nor is there any significant movement to open Israel's border even to high human capital mass migration. Plenty of nation states can have a minority group. You are just using pluralism as an excuse to support and defend the Jewish nationalism of Israel. You want to get away with double standards by using rhetoric of pluralism where if you genuinely had a problem with nationalism and collective group interests, you would be criticizing Israel for how it fails pluralism in the region by supporting violence and regime change against other groups (now I am not blaming Israelis alone for being the only nationalists in the region of course), not trying to come with a frame that allows you to keep your cake and eat it too.
Moreover, the point isn't just Israel it self but its supporters and the Jewish supremacist faction in general who are authoritarian who try to maintain through slander, cancel culture and authoritarianism and through even legislation a two tier system that has Jews as a superior caste where they are treated as in the right and other groups as their oppressors both historically, and presently and where resources and support is advocated to be directed in favor of them. Where politicians who don't support funding Israel and aren't controlled by AIPAC like Massie are slandered as antisemites, which of course such behavior and rhetoric qualifies as identity politics in favor of collective interests of Jews.
Now, I am not trying to debate this issue with Jewish supremacists who support it and think Jews genuinely are a superior people that a convenient false slander label they come up with of "antisemites" have a problem with because they are evil and there is nothing wrong with the Jewish supremacist agenda (it doesn't exist but it is good and one is evil to oppose it).
I dunno if you are willing yourself to advance such an argument and try to paint it as not qualifying as Jewish identity politcs.
I reject outright that viewpoint, but the point isn't to debate it with Jewish identitarians (including non Jews Jewish identitarians)who support it, but that Jewish identity politics are pervasive. My view is that they are of a supremacist. overzealous form at expense of other nations, and uncompromising nature, but even if one disagrees with that, their existence, including especially among republicans too, is even less up to debate.
But, I wouldn't say that Jewish collective interests are illegitimate if not of an overzealous parasitical nature, although collective Jewish interests of any nature become much more illegitimate when there are enough Jews and even non Jewish overzealous supporters of Jews who deny collective interests of other groups. Additionally, they become illegitimate if we adopt that ideology and promote it consistently. The more these people advocate such arguments, the more we should not grant rights to those who don't believe such rights should be granted to others.
Does Israel have a right to exist? Certainly far less so when you claim there are no collective interests. The law of reciprocity, and applying rules consistently argues against Israel's rights since it is a particularist state that denies the opportunity to countless non Jews to be part of it.
Claiming that there is a problematic white identitarian right is covering for an establishment right that goes way above and beyond in promoting the collective interests of various groups but especially authoritarian on Jews and Israel. In an overzealous parasitical manner at expense of others.
So theoretically you treat everyone the same even though when push comes to shove you don't actually do that in terms of your stated positions since you support a Jewish nationalist state that takes in consideration collective Jewish interests in its policy but oppose the collective interests of Europeans. Somehow your double standards are ok because Israel is pluralistic.
It isn't my fault that your positions are contradictory.
At the current situation Israel is guilty of genocide in accordance to the International Court of Justice. Is your argument that Israel is exceptional in its behavior to justify your massive double standards? Jewish exceptionalism is hardcore Jewish identity politics 101. It is different because Jews deserve more because of their innately better behavior would be identity politics in addition to being inaccurate general, but doubly so in the current circumstances to advocate the neocon arguement of Israel as shining beacon of light upon the nations above the nationalistic tribal conflict typical in humanity.
I find your claim of consistency to be inaccurate.
Hypothetically, it is different but in practice, we have been here before, the end result of people doing this motte and bailey and claiming to be in theory against collectivism, is to support the abuse and disregard of the rights of their European outgroup. And this comes along with hardcore cancel culture too and authoritarianism.
Have you been as loud about shutting down groups like ADL, NAACP, AIPAC, and many more which are much more influential to justify focusing upon over white collective? Have you taken part in the debate of the goverment, including local promoting hate speech codes, including republicans, in favor of Jews and against non Jews, by opposing this?
If not, how is a status quo with identitarian overzealous groups that actually are succeeding in mistreating whites, and one where there are no acceptable white advocacy organizations, one that leads to where you claim you favor going?
Unless where you favor going is a two tier society that is excused under the pretense of exceptionalism, or justification of historical oppression.
This is pretty communist way to see the duty of goverment and must be rejected outright even if someone supported it sincerely as it is a very extreme nonsensical idea that has worked very poorly and disregards fundamentally important facets of constitutional governance. In practice, when it comes to the end result of what they support there very few commited antinationalists of a consistent civic libertarian viewpoint and many more people advancing such viewpoint that are neocons. Indeed I can't but think of Gad Saad as an example who has promoted this mantra of opposing identity politics, is an overzealous Jewish identitarian and admitted that he worked for Mossad once in an operation in Canada.
Neither the goverment, nor private institutions should limit themselves to only issues like traffic lights. Who is you or anyone, to decide that governments should deny and not promote the collective interests of people in their own homelands? Especially when you are supportive of Israel which does exactly that.
To destroy all precedent of nation and constitutional order, in favor of a regime that through such excuses violates native rights in favor of foreign groups. Just because you don't want it, doesn't mean you have valid reason to not want it, and that it isn't a terrible idea to deny them their legitimate rights and create a totalitarian society that oppresses people who belong in ethnic communities in general, and also more so in specific ones in particular.
Of course issues relating to group relations, national history, and immigration need to be decided and governments have a duty to promote the interests of their nation and people, well to a point where they don't act parasitically against other nations and there is some room for debate about where that line is. A reasonable application would require shutting down the machine/network out to oppress, and or destroy the continuing existence of white ethnic groups though.
I am going to also defend the precautionary value of connecting the dots of what people directly argue and also taking in consideration the fact that people who promote arguments against collectivism because of reasons of antipathy and sympathy are so pervasive that we ought to assume that a denial of collective interests against Europeans is about denying collective interests of Europeans because one favors other groups too much and is acting out of antipathy. One would allow people to continue doing this unimpeded by being gullible.
It doesn't matter how one tries to excuse things, if they support the establishment and are satisfied with how they are against identity politics, then what they compromise with is a situation where they support the dominant ideology which is motte and bailey between "I oppose identity politics, collectivism, tribalism" and "I support and promote it through law and policy the collective interests of X, Y other groups at expense of whites". And it really is about using the pretense of universalism to harm a particular outgroup. If someone has some doublethink about this and isn't aware of what they align with, it doesn't change the consequences of the ideology of the faction they prefer.
Of course there are collective interests. Including on ethnic issues. And we also need decisions to be made about such issues. For example X group has a collective interest not to be blamed for things it did do, or for things it didn't do. It has a collective interest to not be a hated minority in its own country. To have national sovereignity and self determination. It definetly has a collective interest to have recognised collective interests and to suppress enemies that want to mistreat it or destroy it, by denying it any of its collective interests.
The reality is that people who claim there are no collective interests do take a side that favors some collective interests far more than others.
There are even possible collective interests that might go too far for one group that violates legitimate collective interests of other groups. Claiming that there are no collective interests is a clear falsehood that is not really up to debate based on the fact that it is self evidently false. It is easier to violate the collective rights and interests of a group if you deny them.
It is very arrogant of you to deny collective interest to nations and you are walking a path that has failed catastrophically. Imagine non nations, religions, collectives is an impossible dream that leads to a violent repressive dystopia. Although in my view you are inconsistent and are advancing an argument to promote it against the outgroup.
Individual circumstance are definitely affected by collective interests. Individuals together form groups who individually benefit through their collective interests on many more issues than traffic lights. There is a reason why foreign extreme nationalists oppose national collectivism and rootedness for the ethnic groups they have on their sights. And the reason is because they want to harm and prey upon them, which is harder to do against a people who defend their collective interests and have a nation that tries to stop treason. No collective interests for the outgroup, makes it easy to harm them.
Which is why activists that are definitely collectivists have been the key drivers of this. Because they opposed the collective interests of their outgroup. So at the current situation we are at where collectivists for other groups, that oppose collectivism for Europeans, are getting their way.
But in general, I would deny what you claim even outside the particulars of the problem of the motte and bailey being a core part of "no collective interests". It is highly destructive to humanity in general to throw aside the valid ground gained related to collective group interests, relating to the valuable concept of the rights of ethnic community, value of rootedness and connection with ones history and ethnic community, national self determination, nation state, national sovereignty and international justice which is about recognizing such collective rights and recognizing limits and reciprocal compromise. Replacing them with an ideology of denial is self destructive for any group that adopts this and enables racial hatred from other groups who are now entitled in not allowing others to have those things.
The activists know this which is why activists who highly dislike X group but support Z, oppose X taking collective group identity and their rights as a nation in consideration.
We clearly disagree about some important things, but at this juncture it seems like you are more committed to making personal attacks and aggressively mischaracterizing my position, than you are to understanding and dialogue. So there doesn't seem to be anything else to say. I am only responding now to note to anyone else reading this thread that you've put a lot of words in my mouth, here, and all of them are wrong.
I am confident that I understood your position when I tried to explore your position and found it contradictory and not much different with countless neocons who argued that nationalism for Israel is acceptable under pluralistic grounds but identity politics for whites is unacceptable. I even give people whose position fits into that, as supporting or tolerating identity politics of more extreme and pervasive type, but overly focusing on white identity politics, an opportunity to actually support changing the situation into one where rules are enforced equally and identitarian organisations of the form of ADL, NAACP and similiar are shut down. But they don't even do the cheap rhetorical commitment of doing that.
The reality is if you have a kid that is being ganged upon by a group of other kids, and some of these kids include the establishment right, and you see both clear supporters of other kids, and people whose position might be a little less obvious but still support the other kids, argue that the beaten kid shouldn't fight back, well that position is a) clearly against the other kid b) it is legitimate for people to conclude that the person advocating it is doing it because he is out to get the other kid, and isn't doing it by accident because of an ideological commitment to pacifism.
Which is why people who exercise freedom of speech like Orwell, made exactly such suspicions about some people who promoted pacifism but were actually USSR sympathisers.
I fully understand why people who have such position want people to accept that they are doing nothing wrong, but it is not understanding that you want, but complimentary misunderstanding. Perhaps you would be ok with complimentary understanding where people are willing to accept different standards for Israel and for Europeans as a good thing which we have seen plenty of such rhetoric in both the motte and outside of it. And you don't show hostility to it ever.
Not to mention it is fair to explore the end results of what you advocate, and all the shared ground you plural who advocate similiar positions, and you singular have with blatant ethnic activists and far left activists, and to note such similarities.
Also fully fair to note that the fact that collective identity politics don't exist, is a self evidently false statement, including about ethnic groups and also a very destructive and radical notion. Just one that is pervasive promoted against right wingers by gatekeepers in the USA because of the success of activists who have been antiwhite, and have used it as part of motte and bailey against whites.
Establishment types in the places where this radical ideologues and activists have been successful and all sort of lower level "thought leaders" who share this type of ideology, have constantly, just as you have demonstrated again, be completely hostile to discussing such issues, showing a complete lack of respect towards any dissenters.
Political correctness in favor of the position against collective group interest and positive identity, and also against especially europeans is enforced through slander, vilification and censorship and enormous lack of charity. One especially willing to use such methods have been those who want two tiers world in regards to Israel and Jewish nationalism and European nationalism, where they are willing to support a huge excess of the first, while opposing the healthy legitimate rights of the later.
This is to say, people who try to accurately explore these issues are attacked for doing so, by people who want to enforce a doublethink on them and get away with agendas that are very destructive against certain groups. Supporters of the modern antinative establishment and negative group identity for europeans, do not and have never shown anything but lack of charity against anyone who opposes this agend.
Accurately revealing the ugly side of how the sausage is made leads to such reaction. So there is typically and here again a lot of of projection about lack of charity, when you are being incredibly uncharitable in dismissing everything the other party has said.
Although, while such issues ought to be adequately explored, it is also true that the advocate of X or Y radical destructive position, isn't in itself someone who ought to have any megaphone. This machine/network which is so enthusiastic about shutting down any timid collectivism for their oppressed outgroup, should be suppressed.
It is justifiable in general for people to both criticize, and oppose agendas that are very destructive towards other groups, (especially when the other group being harmed is their own group), and even more so when they don't fit into grey areas.
Opposing such things is being charitable towards the innocent and those harmed by them, while not opposing them is being uncharitable. Those who do promote a very destructive agenda, are not treated unfairly if their agenda is stated accurately and therefore are in that manner criticized for it. Nor if they are criticized more directly than I did here. And neither if they are stopped from harming people.
We ought to look at consequences, have important moral priors and not excuse ideological window dressing that tries to frame something that is very destructive and comes along with double standards, or oppressive, by misstating it and promoting an inaccurately complimentary positive frame. Whether it is the positive version of the strawman, or it simply indifferent to the damage the ideology does.
But we do need a world that discusses and explores such issues, which is a requirement to understand why some perspectives are destructive. And part of this includes sharing good moral priors.
Like the ones I argued about reciprocity, consistency, understanding the successes that comes from internationalism of reciprocoal nationalism, and the destructive nature of not allowing nations to exist, etc, etc. Or the importance of not covering the substance of what is happening by frames that excuse and mislead. Believe me, I don't explore and argue such things just cause I woke one morning and thought "I have it out against naraburns" but because such issues that you devalue, in a manner that is genuinely extremely destructive against Europeans, are legitimately valuable. When I say this path had lead to disaster, is because it did and does. That doesn't mean that in a place here, I am not debating it. But it isn't an issue where your position is a reasonable way to explore the issue of european group interests, or of nationalism.
There is plenty of debate to be had about legitimate issues that exist in the grey lines, even though whether collective group interests, or collective group interests exist, is not only the case where the position you have advocated is wrong, but it also is one of those issues that we can explore and have correct conclusions about why you are wrong. Note that this isn't an opportunity for a claim that justifies censorship on the basis of opposing close midnedness. Because the view that your position is very wrong, and advocating something destructive and self evidently unreasonable is legitimate. People don't have to treat proposition like "collective interests don't exist" as valid, when they are highly invalid claims.
The existence of illegitimate issues that political corectness tries to enforce is why political corectness comes along with postmodernism as a means to promote and weaponize excessive subjectivity on the issues it can be demonstrated to be wrong. And then assert very radical positions confidently and cancel dissenters.
Such as the arrogant path against nations, that so often comes along with authoritarianism. The advocates of the "antinationalist agenda" are pervasively, and not only on those openly identifying as part of the left, or woke, those where they see some groups as inherently more reactionary, and some as inherently more equal. This is a common trend among the anti nationalist anti collective group interest faction.
Both an agenda against the existence of nations, and even more radically, collective group interest in general and specifically the agenda against particular nations like European nations, is not hard to decipher that it is a destructive position. The "no collectivism" arguement against whites isn't a mystery, of how it is connected with current antiwhite practices, laws.
Nor is it had to imagine how the current radical status quo will lead in the future in a worsening situation, as the demographics who supporting doubling down on such issues, increase, and as authoritarian measures against dissenters are intensified. And while those doing so, gain legitimacy by advocacy against collective group interests who focus their ire the "identitarian right" and cover up for the establishment in the places where such establishment has been sufficiently captured by racist radicals and those who compromise and comprise with them on such issues a unipaty. Saying that what the position you advocate for, ends in those consequences is an accurate observation about the influence of what you advocate.
Of course, people should explore such issues enough to understand how certain perspectives pave the way to hell. Even if you want us not to be able to do so.
But the end point is to understand what is happening and stop building the road to hell. Not deny its existence, attack those who point it. And certainly not to compliment the ideologies that lead us there.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link