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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Since that time they've posted at least one more thousand-word anti-Jewish manifesto. I say "at least one more" because I stumbled across it entirely by accident. There may have been more!

I kinda feel sorry for them, honestly; what kind of mental state causes someone to make (checks mod-visible info) 14 separate accounts to ban-evade on an obscure Internet forum to complain about the Jews?

My guess is that the JQ occupies the intersection of a conspiracy-theorist Venn diagram.

One circle is theories which scan as credible to the average public. Without taking the time to go into the quality of this credibility, it's an easier sell than Atlantis or anything to do with aliens. A big part of this is the well-fortified motte and bailey between Jewish overrepresentation and Jewish influence. Our passionate antisemite can hint about the movie industry or whatever and not immediately get dismissed. Call this circle the "plausible."

The other factor is emotional valence of a theory. I'm not sure how many people today have a visceral reaction to the thought that Oswald didn't kill Kennedy. Seventy years of never again, on the other hand, have ensured that antisemitism is vividly recognizable. It pattern-matches immediately to history's best-publicized villains. This edge guarantees our theorist the feeling of being an insider, of having moral nuance compared to the sheep. There's a whole signaling/countersignaling thing here, but suffice to say that having a theory denied is half the appeal. Call it "deniability."

Now take this "plausible deniability" to the rise of Internet culture. Anyone who wants to present as a bold free-thinker woke to the real powers at play has a ready-made adversary. Except their audience isn't stupid, either, and after the third time someone shows up Just Asking Questions, people start skipping to the bit where they run him out of town on a rail. The immune system develops a healthy skepticism.

Add 20-30 years of natural selection, and the barrier to entry gets pretty high. Getting through the high-strung immune response requires some practice dealing with adversity. That may or may not mean ban evasion. We are dealing with the evolved form of this edgy, uncowed archetype. Perhaps Zarathustra said it best:

I entreat you my brethren, remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of supra-terrestrial hopes! … Behold, I teach you the Übermensch.