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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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It has been interesting to see the inversion of blame posts like this attempt.

Like the theory that the ADL is funding neo-nazis. Why would they do anything like that? It's an insane proposition if they were actually being paid by the ADL. And it has zero upsides. If the ADL had a whistleblower moment it would entirely dismantle their whole organization.

I do have my own conspiracies regarding jewry, but "the ADL is actively stoking anti-semitism" is an incoherent proposition. Toss eggs at me later if there's leaks that show they were wiring money or writing checks funding neo nazi demonstrators, but you'll need to forgive me for being a bit skeptical at this overexplanatory theory that's cropped up the last few months.

I don't think they're consciously doing it, as in literally giving money directly to Nazi groups. I do think they're effectively doing it by things like signal-boosting irrelevant Nazis through calling them out and giving them a much wider audience, organizing industry-wide cancelling of anyone who opposes them, which promotes the idea that Jews run everything, and then calling the idea that Jews run everything a "baseless conspiracy theory", accusing people of anti-Semitism and then accepting payoffs from them, etc. All of these are things they can tell themselves are supporting their cause, but effectively do the opposite.

Like the theory that the ADL is funding neo-nazis. Why would they do anything like that?

I don't think they actually are, but there is a rational reason to do it: neo nazis are a safe enemy, no one likes them and they don't stand a chance to ever accomplish anything meaningful.

On the other hand progressive antisemitism is dangerous because it doesn't have all the negative associations that nazis have, it has an academic foundation and is part of an hegemonic ideology.

If you consider it, progressive antisemitism makes a lot of sense, jews are white passing, they are (greatly) overrepresented in positions of power and in the israel/palestine they are on the wrong side of the oppressor/oppressed and colonizer/colonized dichotomies (a pro-palestine position is common in the academic left).

So why isn't antisemitism on the left more common? Because nazis exist, so it would make sense for the ADL to want the nazis to continue existing.

That's exactly the line of reasoning and theories I'm rejecting until evidence comes forward.

For the record, I'm not denying that zionism, even jewish supremacist ideologies exist and are propagated without half the measure of scrutiny or being allowed to talk about it.

... is an incoherent proposition.

I don't think they actually are, but there is a rational reason to do it: ...

That's exactly the line of reasoning and theories I'm rejecting until evidence comes forward.

Isn't the point of this, is to try to understand? I agree that something like this needs very good evidence but it is not incoherent.

Do they have to fund them? I don’t think that’s the mechanism. What I do see as the mechanism is the antagonism against ordinary opinions, and constantly pushing the idea that there’s a mass hatred that afaik isn’t there. Telling people that stuff they disagree with is a form of bigotry, and claiming constantly to be oppressed when they’re not oppressed turns people off. It’s always come off for me like a rich guy feeling put out because he has to abide flying coach instead of first class. I could point to any number or other minorities that have things much worse than American Jews.