site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Will Jewish people start to lean towards the Republicans?

They'll more likely support Hamas than Republicans, exceptions like Kushner aside. That's how powerful Democratic hold over respectability is.

They'll more likely support Hamas than Republicans, exceptions like Kushner aside.

As a Jewish man, i can’t even begin to describe how misinformed this is. Believe you me, we are the furthest thing from a monolith, with the quirky Larry David-esque stereotype being but a minuscule sliver of the diversity of the American Jewish community.

Consider this: just today in my random internet readings, I’ve come across Jewish opinion running the full gamut: from far-right hawks like Ben Shapiro, to stereotypical campus, progressives, academic leftists, deeply religious orthodox and pickup-driving gun toting southerners. We are all of that and more, plus everything in between.

Your random internet readings give you a qualitative view, not a quantitative one. The vast bulk of American Jews, aside from the ultra-orthodox, are Democrats through and through.

This is meaningless though without the accounting for the political leanings of where Jews happen to live. I’m willing to bet if you the average Jew was no more democrat leaning than the median voter in his county, you’d still come away with Jews, measured at the national level, leaning democrat. But normalize for the political leanings of where Jews live and I guarantee you’d see a very different picture.

Even if their Democratic lean is caused by location (which I doubt), they're still not going to vote Republican; it's just not done.

Jews have been leaning more republican in the last number of elections

That's normalizing out the result though. If they had more political diversity, they wouldn't all chose to live in those places.

If they had more political diversity, they wouldn't all chose to live in those places.

What's your evidence that the causality always goes from location to political views?

I read the above comment as pointing in the other direction. That people with 'urban' political views are more likely to move to the city and less likely to move away.

Secular Jews have 70% intermarriage rates, Orthodox are more conservative politically. Realignment is already happening, but it will take a while for it to show up in polling data. The main thing that affects how Jewish populations vote is religious conservatism, not really secular politics (even zionism). British Jews are more Orthodox than American Jews and the majority vote Tory, in recent years this was construed as a backlash against Corbyn's pro-Palestinian sentiment, but this was incorrect. In 2015, before Corbyn and when the Labour party literally had a Jewish candidate for PM, polling suggested only 22% of British Jews would vote Labour, 69% planned to vote Tory. 65% of British Jews are at least nominally Orthodox, perhaps 15-20% (if that) of American Jews are.

As the American Jewish population becomes more Orthodox political alignment will slowly switch.

“become more orthodox” -> does this mean Jewish population goes up or down? I assume Orthodox Jews have more kids, but I assume way less than the super Orthodox ones in Brooklyn?

does this mean Jewish population goes up or down?

You need to define the term "Jewish population" for this question to make sense because the parent relies on an intermarriage rate.

People with Jewish ancestry? Probably up. People with Jewish ancestry >50%? Probably down. People who identify as Jews? Also probably down, unless it becomes trendy. That's the short term anyways, long term, the numbers could increase with the birth rates that the orthodox have.

Estimates of the US Jewish population vary significantly because of the high rates of intermarriage and large non-observant population. In the long term I’d guess the population would rise. Modern Orthodox have fewer children than Chareidim (Ultra-Orthodox), but often still well above replacement.

I don't think Jews are quite as captured by slave mentality/outgroup bias as other progressive whites.