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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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There is no such thing as British people. There is no such thing as black people. There is no such thing as white people.

You make a good case for that.

I would argue that there is such a thing as Jews

Are they atheist, reform, conservative, or orthodox? Mizrahi, Sephardi, or Ashkenazi? Beta Israel? (or should we go even finer? it was kinda weird that the Martians were all specifically Hungarian)

It's possible to come up with a definition (and if you don't like it, I have others!), but it's also possible to define "British" similarly well/poorly.

This thread brings to mind one very practical definition of Jewish people ("they're the ones who will get lumped together by anti-semites", which then ironically motivates an internalized identity in self-defense), but you could define "white" ("they're the ones who will get lumped together by modern 'anti'-racists") and at least historically you could have defined "black" (the 'one-drop rule' was meaningful because it was a rule to people who despised them) in a similar way.

Ah yes, hate. The one thing which brings us all together, allows us to ignore details and focus on what really matters.

Ah yes, hate. The one thing which brings us all together, allows us to ignore details and focus on what really matters.

Unironically yes. For all of evolutionary history, the most pressing matter for our ancestors was the other tribe from the other side on the river crossing the river to smash their skulls with big clubs.

See that "moral equivalents of war", struggles against inanimate threats always turns to struggle against other humans.

You cannot smash virus with your fist, but you can smash these bastards not wearing masks! It is their fault!

It was not part of their blood

It came to them very late

With long arrears to make good,

When the English began to hate.

The famous poem was not about hating people of color as it is interpreted today, it was about hating the Huns.

(of course, "Saxons" and "Teutons" were at the time seen as two different races, as distinct as angels are distinct from devils, and world's history was seen as tale of their eternal struggle)

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