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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Again though, you seem to be conflating Musk’s criticism of some Jewish communal organizations like the ADL with Kevin MacDonald tier antisemitism.
What Musk, Kirk, Shapiro etc are saying in the things you link isn’t fundamentally different to what Alana Newhouse says in her editor’s column in Tablet this week, it’s just phrased in a more tabloid, more incendiary way.
You overstate MacDonald-tier antisemitism. His entire thesis can be summed up with "Elite Jews throughout the 20th century have engaged in radical critique of Gentile culture, morality, and ethnocentrism while at the same time rejecting any critique of themselves as anti-Semitic pathology. This is how they engage in ethnic conflict to secure their ethnic interests." This is the exact thesis which has been directly accepted by Elon Musk recently.
Kevin MacDonald’s analysis of the role Jewish intellectuals have played in Western 20th century history, and his theory on group selection, isn’t really what I’m talking about when I discuss KMac antisemitism. I disagree with his theory, and I think it’s motivated by antisemitism, but I’m talking about his actual politics and those advocated by himself and his writers on TOO etc.
I do think it’s interesting though, that it’s unclear whether the criticism is that Jews engaged in radical criticism of ‘gentile culture’ (the traditional gentile culture they were critiquing was not substantially different in many social, sexual and moral dimensions from the traditional Jewish culture pre-Haskalah) at all, or that they engaged in it and didn’t criticize their own pathology. The latter (that critical theory could be turned on the left, turned on itself) was actually a major objection of orthodox Marxists to Derrida etc.
The key premise is that their criticism was motivated by their Jewish identification and was perceived to be in their ethnic interests, like their criticism of race science.
Specifically, it was the pathologization of White ethnocentrism which was identified by Kevin MacDonald while many of the key intellectual figures in that effort themselves engaged in Jewish ethnocentrism- a common pattern that an increasingly-large number of influential people are now calling out. To me this is the essence of "KMac antisemitism" and how to deal with that politically is an open question and I wouldn't even know what you mean by the "KMac solution."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link