site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 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.

They weren't "the opposite", ethnic tolerance developed over time.

"Developed over time" is doing a lot of work here, and ignoring the actual cultural and intellectual movements that were most closely associated with those developments, which was the subject of Kevin MacDonald's study. Kevin MacDonald doesn't even present concrete political solutions in his work, his work is dedicated to tracing the influences of movements which were most closely associated with what you call "ethnic tolerance" in the 20th century.

I remember seeing a polll indicating that American troops in WW-II preferred losing the war to ending segregation, it is the complete opposite of centuries of perception surrounding race.

Of course I condemn hardcore religious nutters in Jerusalem

I'm not asking if you condemn it, I am asking if you believe this behavior means Jews should not claim an ethnic identity. With respect to white people, are basically saying that since some white identitarians say mean things about blacks, nobody should have regard for a white ethnic identity. This was also an Israeli guard by the way, so basically police, not just a random hardcore religious nutter making a scene.

In real life I almost never discuss Jewishness and what Jewish identity I have is (as I have said before) mainly the result of being exposed to large amounts of white nationalist antisemitism on the internet

Is affirmation of your Jewish identity in every single high-status institution and culture in the West really not enough? An extremely small number of people sharing memes is enough to influence you in that way? I believe you, by the way, but you undermine your argument by admitting that some internet memes from a relatively small number of low-status people are sufficient to alter your presentation of your own ethnic identity. Then, you should also acknowledge that the European racial self-perception is also influenced by high-status institutions, not merely a small number of internet memes in a couple dark places on the internet.

You talk about how apathetic and demoralized Europeans are, yes, when they should in fact be highly energized if they had a healthy, racial self-regard that you do not want them to have, even while simultaneously admitting the importance of the demographic question.

I'm not asking if you condemn it, I am asking if you believe this behavior means Jews should not claim an ethnic identity. With respect to white people, are basically saying that since some white identitarians say mean things about blacks, nobody should have regard for a white ethnic identity.

I don't think Zionism is morally justifiable if it results in the extermination or extreme repression of Israeli Arabs, is that what you're asking me to say? I'm not saying 'white nationalism is wrong because some white nationalists say mean things about black people', I'm saying that I don't think it's a smart strategy for American conservatives. It isn't really my place to say what's 'right' or 'wrong', morally with an ideology, although as above I think if it comes to significant persecution on the basis of race then I think that is generally wrong.

The incident with the German priest is embarrassing because he is a foreigner and because it is embarrassing for Jews to be judged by the actions of the person shouting at him.

An extremely small number of people sharing memes is enough to influence you in that way?

When you're 14 and extremely online on 4chan it doesn't feel like an 'extremely small number of people'. In any case, obviously it had an effect as I'm sure it did for you, many of us are here because we read a bunch of smart conservative writers on the internet years ago. So it's probably best to say that a combination of NrX, far-right antisemitism and general trolling and online drama gave me the political identity I have now. It's easy to be radicalized into an identity when you're consciously shown endless examples of 'people who hate you'. Maybe the reason I didn't become antifa was because I also read Jewish reactionaries like Gottfried, Moldbug, Strauss and so on, who knows.

You talk about how apathetic and demoralized Europeans are, yes, when they should in fact be highly energized if they had a healthy, racial self-regard that you do not want them to have.

I don't have a problem with a 'European Zionism'. However, the rhetoric of most white nationalists is far more aggressively racist than that of all but the most extreme Israeli religious zionists. If non-whites, including Jews, were guaranteed the rights that Arab citizens of Israel have in this theoretical ethnostate then I wouldn't have any moral issue with it.

When you're 14 and extremely online on 4chan it doesn't feel like an 'extremely small number of people'. In any case

What about 14 year-olds engaged with the deluge of anti-white academic consensus and popular culture? You don't think that has informed their own ethnic self-perception and it could be changed?

I don't have a problem with a 'European Zionism'. However, the rhetoric of most white nationalists is far more aggressively racist than that of all but the most extreme Israeli religious zionists.

That is a stretch, any White Nationalist would be more than satisfied with a European state as equally assertive towards the interests and privileges of European-descended people, both internally and among the international diaspora, as Israel is towards Jews.

Most white nationalists would not accept American Jews remaining in America, certainly not with the same rights as Muslim/Arab Israelis.

You are kidding yourself if you don't think they are more pragmatic than that, "securing a future for white children" does not require, say, the Israeli-tier treatment of the Palestinians. But in any case if your ideal relies on these massive immigration reforms but you expect to accomplish that without fostering any sort of positive ethnic self-regard, and your reasoning for that is because you are concerned for Jews, you honestly sort of fit the bill for the problem White Nationalists tend to have with Jews: "No, no, you cannot have any healthy self regard because it might harm the 'rights' of Jews." You are literally giving that argument, so you must understand where WNs are coming from.

I think I’d be a little naive if I supported the coming to power of people who hated me. Would that not make me as bad as the aggressively progressive whites for whom you presumably have contempt (or at least pity)? Even a Jew with zero Jewish identity has every incentive to oppose the coming to power of people who oppose and distrust him on the basis of race and who would, in their dreams, disenfranchise and expropriate him to the extent he fled from the country. You can have healthy self-regard in any way you want, but if you threaten me then I have no duty to support you, and if (as many WNs do) you make the poor treatment if not expulsion of my people (as identified by you) a central pillar of “healthy self regard” for your tribe then I’ll oppose that on the basis of my own self-interest. In addition, if the price for immigration restrictionism is open antisemitism in American politics, then I kind of lose either way, don’t I, because the price for me getting what I want is me not being able to enjoy it, making me some kind of, what, cuck?

Jews have been part of the United States as a project since the beginning, indeed before many European ethnics were in the country in any numbers. The founding fathers / framers considered Jews to be white. George Washington himself explicitly declared that Jews would “possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” Jefferson and Adams, especially, were philosemitic, Adams declared that Jews had “influenced the affairs of mankind more and happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.” I have my problems with America’s founding ideology, but it is clear to me that while the founders would not have been happy with unlimited migration from Central America and vast immigration from Asia (or indeed from many other parts of Europe if you read Ben Franklin), they had no issue with a small Jewish population living in the United States. The British had allowed for the naturalization of Jews in the thirteen colonies as early as 1740, so this even predates much of the enlightenment. I think this grants me a stake in the American political project and that I therefore have no duty to put the needs of another citizen above my own.

But in any case if your ideal relies on these massive immigration reforms but you expect to accomplish that without fostering any sort of positive ethnic self-regard

I don’t believe that explicit ethnat sentiment is required. Denmark’s harsh restrictions on ‘non-Western’ immigration were passed by social democrats who in their opinions on these issues are largely aligned with social democrats in the rest of Europe and the United States. They did so purely for evidence based reasons and because the tide of public opinion (the average Dane is not a staunch ethnat) had turned against mass immigration.

So yes, I oppose antisemitism for reasons of obvious self interest, just as you oppose policies that would discriminate against you based on your race for the same transparent reason. But I also think that attempting to ignite a fervent, purposeful white ethnogenesis in modern America is, for a variety of reasons, a likely futile task, and that is true whether it is explicitly antisemitic or not.

Even a Jew with zero Jewish identity has every incentive to oppose the coming to power of people who oppose and distrust him on the basis of race and who would, in their dreams, disenfranchise and expropriate him to the extent he fled from the country.

If White identity is so intrinsically threatening to Jews, then that is a big problem, because I'm not going to accept the Africanization of Europe because the station of Jews in our institutions might be threatened by White racial consciousness. You are in fact endorsing the dialectic as framed by White Nationalists, but are simply falling on the side of Jews rather than on the side of European people. That's understandable, but I fall on the side of European people and it's not based on hatred of Jews. The Animosity comes from the dilemma that you are assuring me truly exists, and you prioritizing your own perceived interests over those of European people is the behavior that draws the ire of WNs. Why would I prioritize Jews over the existential threat of demographic replacement of European people?

I am more optimistic than you are that practical relations can exist between Jews and a racially-conscious European nation, but you are providing a demonstration of the WN argument that Jews will never accept white racial consciousness because they perceive it as threatening to their own racial interests. Even a secular Jews who reads NRx still opposes White identity lest we develop any degree of anti-semitism, which is apparently the worst thing in the world. Not anti-white hatred, no that's just some academic errors that have been made here and there, but anti-semitism is truly the most evil force in all of history.

In addition, if the price for immigration restrictionism is open antisemitism in American politics, then I kind of lose either way, don’t I, because the price for me getting what I want is me not being able to enjoy it, making me some kind of, what, cuck?

Of course "antisemitism" simply means any measure of criticism of Jews whatsoever, right? So I'm supposed to accept the denial of positive race-feelings of white people because it might lead to Jews being criticized in the public square? I'm sorry Jews may lose their complete immunity to being criticized in any measure that they criticize Gentiles, but again, it would be absurd of me to accept this as some disastrous outcome in the face of Europe being conquered by Arabs and Africans.

purposeful white ethnogenesis in modern America is, for a variety of reasons, a likely futile task, and that is true whether it is explicitly antisemitic or not.

White ethnogensis has already happened, both on a genetic and social level. People identify racially as "white", it already happens. But in any case what Hood and I are talking about is a movement in Europe rather than the United States. You've already demonstrated how easy it is for racial self-perception to be influenced by propaganda, so calling it a futile task flies in the face of all evidence to the contrary: it's extremely easy to use culture and propaganda to invoke racial feelings in a particular direction, and it always has been.

If White identity is so intrinsically threatening to Jews, then that is a big problem

White identity isn’t intrinsically threatening to Jews (as I said, Jews have been part of the ‘white’ identity in America since before 1776), but white identity that is openly hostile toward Jews is intrinsically threatening to Jews. A very large percentage of serious modern day American white identitarians are openly hostile to Jews. You claim Jews see all white identity as hostile to Jews, but it is in fact white identitarians who in great numbers describe themselves and paint themselves as hostile to Jews and perceived Jewish interests. If the Jew who reads the Occidental Observer comes to the conclusion that white nationalists will always be a threat to Jews, whose fault is this exactly?

Even a secular Jews who reads NRx still opposes White identity lest we develop any degree of anti-semitism, which is apparently the worst thing in the world.

Antisemitism is as important to me as anti-white racism is important to you, which is to say (from your writings here), very important. I don’t oppose European identitarianism, but I would act in my own interest if it should become explicitly hostile to me.

You claim Jews see all white identity as hostile to Jews, but it is in fact white identitarians who in great numbers describe themselves and paint themselves as hostile to Jews and perceived Jewish interests.

Both are correct: Jews are hostile to white identity, and white identity is hostile to the status quo of the station of Jewish identity in the West, in particular with its wholly unjustified legal and social privileges that give it immunity from any degree of criticism that Jews constantly levy against Whites. It's a genuine conflict of interest, it's not something that can be dismissed with the myopic accusation of irrational hatred. You are basically saying the WNs are right, but you have to take the other side because you are Jewish, which their world model would predict in any case.

More comments

Some, maybe, certainly not all. It's telling that the one historical example of a white nationalist state quite literally started the deadliest war in history and multiple genocides. I'm not saying it's impossible, and maybe the less aggressive wings of white nationalism might, indeed, win out (if perhaps more due to necessity of circumstance than any actual sympathy for non-whites), in a spirit of isolationist "ethnostates for everyone! wholesome national fascism" but on the other hand, there's frankly enough nasty (to the point of exterminationism) rhetoric running about I wouldn't call it a 'stretch', either. You really think an out-and-out white nationalist state is going to be buddy-buddy with everyone else? That they're not going to fan the flames about Rhodesia or South Africa (or any other "former white homeland"), or go to war with Israel or China? By necessity, unless they've somehow unified all of the West (or don't care much for the struggles of whites outside of its borders, which I doubt counts it as a white nationalist state anymore), they'll be drawn into conflicts involving the "protection" of white people in other nations—a fascist White Internationale, so to speak, aggressively providing support to comrades everywhere, to the point of military interventions perhaps... which will naturally involve a degree of civilian casualties—and it's not like they're going to be kind with differientiating military and civilian targets, even in the event they don't want to kill all non-whites to "get the problem over", so to speak.

It's telling that the one historical example of a white nationalist state quite

The United States was a White Nationalist state, and closer to the concept of a pan-European state before WW-II than Nazi German, which aspired for pan-Germanism. Citizenship was restricted to free White men at the founding. Of course everything changed after WW-II, but the US was a white nationalist state for the majority of its existence.

...And it conquered most of its land from native American tribes, had race-based slavery for a large chunk of its existence, briefly dabbled in global colonialism on explicitly paternalistic motives (White Man's Burden and all that). Not more than any other state in the same circumstance, maybe, but peaceful it was not, and what I'm objecting to here is you calling the imputation that a white nationalist state could ever be aggressive or racist a stretch... I never said it was the only possibility, but it's not all that unlikely either.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I hope that if a white nationalist state does come about, your assumption is the correct one, not mine. But I'm not that optimistic.

.And it conquered most of its land from native American tribes, had race-based slavery for a large chunk of its existence, briefly dabbled in global colonialism on explicitly paternalistic motives (White Man's Burden and all that).

Yes, it did, and it created a civilization that the rest of the world is clamoring to become part of.