site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

No thank you. But your presence here is very helpful in illustrating just how easily people go from pretending jews don't exist in the negative to praising them for things they didn't even do in the positive. Maybe take a moment to think just how little bad a person could say of jews if all they ever did was good.

In the normie world yes, but this forum was never afraid of calling (((them))) in the slightest.

My point was, even if we accept that Jews and Jews alone are to blame for what are they most often blamed by people who are not fond of (((them))), inventing mass murdering totalitarian doctrines of communism and monotheism, their total tally (for people who insist on making such "tallies" of whole nations and ethnic groups) is highly positive.

Your argument fell flat because your original example of Jewish misdeed that started this exchange, stopping Japanese runaway population growth is something that would be seen by any reasonable person as good thing.

Every exponentional growth has to end some day (unless your vision of paradise is sphere of Japanese flesh expanding at the speed of light).

Even if of all the good things they do only half is true. As a cursory glance at any of the history of the topics you raised can show.

So, achievements I listed in my post are stolen from gentiles or complete fake? Tell me more.

In the normie world yes, but this forum was never afraid of calling (((them))) in the slightest.

No I'm talking about the point of contention in this thread specifically. I said that people pretend jews don't exist as a group when there is a negative implication in play. And that they play deconstructive games of nihilism instead. Which is never done when the association being made is positive, like you illustrated.

My point was, even if we accept that Jews and Jews alone are to blame for what are they most often blamed by people who are not fond of (((them))), inventing mass murdering totalitarian doctrines of communism and monotheism, their total tally (for people who insist on making such "tallies" of whole nations and ethnic groups) is highly positive.

Which is the only form of discourse surrounding 'jews' that is even remotely acceptable. Your point is a step behind the conversation.

Your argument fell flat because your original example of Jewish misdeed that started this exchange, stopping Japanese runaway population growth is something that would be seen by any reasonable person as good thing.

I mean, to make a long argument short and to skip over a bunch of nuane, population control needs to be a controlled demolition, not a natural disaster. It also needs to be universal. What is happening in Japan is a travesty on multiple fronts and does little to nothing to address the problem of overpopulation.

So, achievements I listed in my post are stolen from gentiles or complete fake? Tell me more.

Some are, like a quick read on the history of Penicillin would tell you. Out of the 4 or 5 big players in that story there is only one jew. To put in perspective how silly your position is, it would be like me saying the post-war cultural revolution in Japan was entirely jewish. I'm not really sure if I should accept this as genuine. I mean, do I need to explain the importance of the legwork already put in place by gentiles that facilitated every single 'achievement' you link? All the co-authors and members of the various teams that worked on these problems?

But, again, this position of yours is at best supplementary to the point I was making. Jews would sooner take credit for things that make them look good even when they don't own all the credit, than they would own up to something negative they are solely or primarily responsible for.

Some are, like a quick read on the history of Penicillin would tell you. Out of the 4 or 5 big players in that story there is only one jew. To put in perspective how silly your position is, it would be like me saying the post-war cultural revolution in Japan was entirely jewish.

You did it, you called it a bad result of Jewish-American occupation of Japan. Not Anglo-German-Irish-Scandinavian-French-Italian-Black-Mexican-Slavic-Jewish-American occupation (no idea about precise ethnic composition of US forces in Japan at the time).

I'm not really sure if I should accept this as genuine. I mean, do I need to explain the importance of the legwork already put in place by gentiles that facilitated every single 'achievement' you link? All the co-authors and members of the various teams that worked on these problems?

Exactly, and the same thing is true about all bad things "The Jews" are usually blamed for.

Communism, for example, was invented by Gentile, spread and developed by many Gentile thinkers and embraced by masses of Gentiles worldwide, even in places where never were any Jews.

If it was not the case, if Jews and Jews alone were really responsible for all good and bad things that ever happened, it would mean that good rabbi Yosef is right and gentiles are nothing than herd of hopeless cattle.

An analogous example would be if I called it only a jewish imposed cultural revolution. But I didn't. I spread credit where it was due. Unlike what you did in your examples on jewish achievements. This error is also present in the final paragraph of your reply.

Exactly, and the same thing is true about all bad things "The Jews" are usually blamed for.

What? So there are no great or influential jews, good or bad, just because the ones you named in support of your hyperbolic superhero-esque view on jews didn't invent or discover stuff in a vacuum on their lonesome? That seems rather silly to me.

Just like you claim the inventor of something bad was a 'gentile' I contend that I should be able to do the same if the person in question was a jew. I don't stand on the ground that no man can claim that an American, Frenchman, Scot or whatever else did something bad.

Yet whenever I make a claim that insinuates that jews did something bad, even when it is wrapped up in a claim that Americans also did the same bad thing, I get people weaving these transparent logic pretzels just so they can try to squeeze in an argument against an inconvenient fact that places their ingroup in an unfavorable light.