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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   35134 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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I'm very happy about the direction and I hope it represents a sea change. However, I have strong reservations in this case specifically. He was recently hand-picked to rejigger the government, ostensibly on behalf on the American people. This past summer he tweeted "Normalize Indian hate", and "I was racist before it was cool." At best, this belies his immaturity. He already had a job at SpaceX, and he now has the sympathies of the richest man on the planet. He wasn't cut out for public service, and he'll be fine.

Vance said "I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life". I totally agree, but Vance is being your typical disingenuous politician. Either Musk is hiring kids to oversee the government, or this guy isn't a kid.

In principle, I'm against this specific re-hiring because I think he earned his firing more earnestly than he earned his hiring. It would have been better to issue an apology and do nothing. In practice, I'm just hopeful that more sympathetic cases become the norm. The left will continue to eat their own for some time, so this is a competitive advantage on the right. And the right is probably closer to a humanistic, empathetic understanding of people on this issue. My point is that it has limits.

I support his rehiring because it's the ultimate repudiation of cancel culture, and about time the right grew a spine. You don't win a culture war by accepting the opponent's moral framing or terms.

I agree, it's a welcome development.

At the same time, how would, 'Normalize Israelite hate.' have gone? Maybe Elon would take him on a field trip to Auschwitz.

I mean one of his tweets being quoted in news stories was literally “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”

Pessimistically I assumed this was the one that really got him fired (well, "asked to resign".)

Maybe if the left called him an antisemite rather than leading with the anti-Indian racism the charges would've stuck? Though maybe not, the Elon nazi salute thing passed from the zeitgeist very quickly, especially with the ADL coming out to defend him.

especially with the ADL coming out to defend him.

Can you point me to what they actually said? I can find lots of secondary sources claiming they did, but none containing a quote, and nothing on adl.org.

It seems plausible to me. Maybe something like "calling people who aren't killing Jews Nazis is like, kind of in poor taste, please stop."

https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403

I am not surprised by a primary source getting buried.

Interesting, I was hoping for more detail than that from them. Thanks for digging it up.

This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.

It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.

In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.

That's fun. Wasn't in the coverage I read.

Is indifference to the destruction of Gaza and Isreal, antisemitic? I guess if the ADL wants it to be.

I get your point. On the other hand, rehiring this guys is probably the strongest at to say, no we don’t do cancel culture anymore.

Somewhat ironically, the more transparently fair and judicious about this stuff the less power you actually have. We’ve seen this play out over the last half decade enough to known for sure. It’s why apologies don’t work. Unfortunately you can’t push against the tide with small reasonable discernments. You end up just breathing more power into the controlling frame.

The best thing to do would have been to not hire this person to this position in the first place.

The second best thing to do is to use the oppprtunity to tell activist journos to shove it.

This way the next time we can ignore them, and the time after that we can fire people justly in an understood isolation from the noise.

The among the worst things to do (in terms of efficacy) would be to tell the journos they’re right this time with their cancellations but not next time we promise!!

rehiring this guys is probably the strongest at to say, no we don’t do cancel culture anymore.

Yeah, I actually love this aspect of it. I might even be glad it happened overall. I do fear the monkeys paw with this one. I'm unsure, and I don't want to get swept up in the moment.

My principle and practice / ideals and realpolitik are in conflict. I could hew to my ideals (ie "yes, its totally reasonable to fire a brand new hire to visible public service who you just found out tweeted 'I'm racist' over the summer"), or embrace the realpolitik ("cancel culture is so toxic that it needs to be destroyed, and a morally ambiguous case is the most effective weapon").

One thing I must say, he really did hate Indians before it was cool.

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