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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   26068 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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I'm in grad school at Penn, which has recently hit the news for former Penn president Liz Magill's responses to the congressional hearing on anti-Semitism (even making it to the SNL cold open!!). The question about genocide wasn't even supposed to be the "gotcha" question in the hearing; the follow up was going to be "is the river to the sea advocating for genocide", which was where things were going to get dicey. Instead, Liz and the presidents of Harvard and MIT did not get past the first question.

Liz was under fire for a bit, starting with the "Palestine Writes" festival back in September. The recent confessional hearing was more so the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were. Since September, we've lost almost $1b in donations, from donors with names adorning buildings such as Huntsman, Lauder, and more. The most recent is $100m joint venture that included a non-discrimination clause, and a lawsuit by two Penn students about their experiences (which, even before Oct. 7, included swastikas drawn on campus buildings and an individual breaking into the Jewish center on the campus; we had a day of solidarity on campus to stand against antisemetic hatred, and the progressives who participated have all quietly removed those pictures from their social media).

Liz's administration has also refused to show the pro-Palestine movie "Israelism" and has changed certain policies to make an ongoing pro-Palestine "teach in" more difficult at Houston Hall. The middle east director resigned in protest. It isn't that Liz is pro-Palestine; she's just... Not doing a good job of attempting neutrality.

Penn is ranked the second worst school for freedom of speech by FIRE, a ranking that focuses less on stated policies and more on students' subjective experiences. Liz will stay on until a replacement is announced, and remains a tenured law professor at Penn regardless.

The new YikYak, known as sidechat, has provided a not-so-scientific look into the undergrads' anonymous processing of events. The following stand out to me:

  • how upset they are that donors influence the selection of President of the University, whose main role is to create more donations (donors are trying to get their money's worth)
  • how concerned they are about how much "worse" free speech will get on campus with Liz's removal (it's already pretty bad, but this may be the first time that they're experiencing any pushback for their speech/views)
  • the constant refrain that "Jewish students have no reason to feel unsafe here" (I want to note that buildings on campus have been tagged with "intifida" and Jewish owned businesses are being "charged with genocide" by chanting mobs)
  • a discussion around Jews being too white/privileged to claim that they're being discriminated against/should stay out of the "oppression Olympics"
  • how convinced they are that Liz only said what she said to avoid committing "perjury" (I don't think they understand what perjury means)
  • how unfair it is that certain companies are reserving internship spots for Jewish students
  • several jokes that people will now, finally, be able to tell Penn and Penn State apart.

It baffles me how much students (specifically, students without a personal connection to the conflict; those with a personal connection I completely understand) are getting so emotionally frothy about a conflict halfway around the world that Penn has zero influence over. Instead, we are able to influence how students, here on campus, are treated, and we are willing to sacrifice that to rant about the Middle East. Why?

I think it hits a sweet spot for virtue signaling. It’s a big newsworthy event that everyone is talking about, and that has very bad optics (the war footage is bad, although probably no worse than what happens in other wars we clearly don’t care about). The government is clearly on Israel’s side, and thus being against Israel is also opposing the us government and military intervention. The Christian’s are mostly pro-Israel for religious end-times reasons. All of this means that the “bad Americans” the deplorables are on one side. So there’s good aesthetic and political reasons to oppose it. At the same time, it’s pretty consequence free from the prospective of the students (who don’t yet have jobs). They aren’t going to be drafted, they don’t have to worry about being targeted by opponents, they aren’t going to seriously influence what happens in Israel.

That’s the sweet spot of divisive politics. No personal consequences, little chance of changing the policy, lots of news coverage, and enemies on a single side. Basically any issues that you can’t control through the political process, cost nothing to support, and are viral work for signaling.

Alright, I'll say it. Advocating for genocide is political speech. It does not incite imminent lawless action. It should not be categorically banned. Genocide could conceivably be a good policy option in certain hypothetical situations. Also most things labeled "genocide" are actually ethnic cleansing or forced assimilation.

America used to have entire political parties advocating for 'genocide.' The American Colonization Society comes to mind. The first amendment seems to just get whittled away over time, not unlike the second, not to mention the rest

American Colonization Society

Isn't that the group that set up Liberia? That's not genocide.

'Just take the people and move them somewhere else' is (one) absolutely 100% rock-solid acting definition of genocide these days.

No, that's "ethnic cleansing". Even the UN definition of genocide doesn't include that.

Unfortunately even Raphael Lemkin, after coining the term, quickly pivoted to including cultural cleansing or race-based eviction as "genocide".

God forbid we have a word for the uniquely evil act of cēdō-ing a genus!

I take a view that "genocide" rhetoric has been diluted to be meaningless.

No moral politics can accept genocide. But nowadays genocide is thrown about so casually that it's a meaningless term. The Jewish genocide, the Palestinian genocide, the Xinjiang genocide, the white genocide, the trans genocide.

Genocide is the mass slaughter of people based purely on their ancestral heritage. No one--not Israelis, and not Hamas--either publically or privately wants or plans for genocide. There are bad things outside genocide different sides may want, but they are desires centered on power, not murder as an end in itself. The fact that Hamas wants an Islamic caliphate from river to sea (to sea and sea again) is about as far from actual genocide as can be imagined: if Jews peacefully accepted Islamic dominance (and ideally converted), Hamas would be plenty content and wouldn't kill anyone.

Israeli culture, despite its flaws, is better than Palestinian culture, so many people want it to win. But they're uncomfortable acknowledging that some cultures are better than others, so they feel the need to frame Israeli desires as desires to avoid genocide. They're not: they're a desire to maintain Israeli dominance over Palestine because the alternative is worse, and that's a good thing.

Hamas's charter publicly advocates for genocide.

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.

That's their defunct charter from 1988; they dropped that language and their current charter from 2017 states their war is not with the Jewish religion but against Zionists occupying Palestine. Not saying they are lovely human beings, but they don't have that in their charter now.

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

Note that's a direct quote from an Islamic hadith.

I agree. The problem is that universities, especially the ones that were represented in the hearing, have not been enforcing this policy. Further, their policy has been nearly the exact opposite. "Silence is violence" after all. So please don't begrudge me a little bit of delectable schadenfreude.

And, indeed, it is generally protected speech under the first amendment - including at public colleges!

Part of the (in large part correct) justification for this is that strongly motivated political activism from all sides often comes along with calls for mass violence, and that criminalizing such calls would be an easy tool to shut down political speech one disagrees with.

Even without that, and even if you believe genocide is Always Bad, I still find it very personally valuable to let ideas circulate and grow and mutate and see what people advocate for and why without restrictions. Banning advocacy for various kinds of bad things stifles that.

Yeah, but it's pretty hard to make a free speech stand when you've been expelling students and revoking offers for racism, not to mention shaking your fist futilely at those damn kids who post the "It's OK to be white" papers.

Why am I supposed to care about this when anti-white and anti-Christian rhetoric has been coming out of these institutions for decades? It's especially hilarious considering Jews are between 20-25% of some of the student population of Ivies. Jews are also massively over represented in the faculty. I didn't hear a peep from them until Jews started being targeted.

I have to admit that Hamas has really succeeded here in terms or PR. I was initially very supportive of Israel (you can go back and check my post history) and my bias against Islam makes me extremely reluctant to support Muslims in any conflict. This has probably been exacerbated by the fact that I've been reading books about the 1960's and 1970's New Left radicals like the Weathermen (which I consider to be the proto-SJWs and anti-Whites of today) and realizing how many of these people were Jewish. And how many of the people who they were influenced by like Herbert Marcuse were also Jewish. Then you combine this with the contradictions of Zionism and Israel's behavior, and I really don't feel like I have any responsibility to care or speak up about any of this stuff.

Now if these big time Jewish donors want to add some protections for White Christians too and start pushing back against that narrative, then I might start listening. Until then, it's really not my problem. I just see different factions of people who are either my enemies or at best neutral towards me fighting it out and tearing each other apart. And again, that's really just not my problem or something I'm going to care about.

https://etgarkeret.substack.com/p/boohoo-to-you-too

Well for the record, here's a non-fiction short story/essay written by an Israeli Jew named Etgar Keret that you would approve of.

"A few days ago, I met an old friend. Like most Israelis I’ve seen since October 7, she looked broken and anguished. But in addition to the familiar feelings of grief, terror and loss, I picked up on something else she projected: a sense of betrayal.

As a staunch progressive, this had come out of nowhere for her. After all, she’d always been one of the good ones, she’d done all the right things: joined the most righteous protests, refused to use plastic straws, cancelled everyone that deserved to be cancelled. She was the first to switch her Facebook profile to the Ukrainian flag, the first to share the cartoon of Putin with a little Hitler moustache. For years, she stood with the weak and the oppressed, always identified with their pain and derided anyone else’s. And then, on the worst day of her life, on that bloody Saturday when a brutal terrorist organization murdered and kidnapped hundreds of her people, all those American and European partners to the struggle – the ones who’d always been at her side in various protest movements – were now suddenly giving her the cold shoulder.

“I don’t understand,” she lamented, her voice cracking, “don’t they have eyes? Can’t they see the massacre? The cruelty? The inhumanity? Can’t they understand that in the horrific story of October 7, we were actually the good guys?”

The answer is no. They can’t see that we’re the good guys because, in the world we now live in, there are no good guys: there are only bad guys and worse guys. The progressive paradigm has come to mean that you decide who the victims are, and you identify with them so completely that you utterly disregard the claims and suffering of the alleged perpetrator. And in that mode of thinking, it’s very easy to find yourself on the side that gets cancelled. Especially when you’ve been occupying another people for over 56 years. Reality is complex and ambiguous, while the progressive worldview is simplified, unequivocal and righteous—or at least it can appear that way when you’re part of the well-meaning crowd gathered for a public stoning."

(it continues)

Some background on Etgar Keret: not a hardcore Zionist, but also not in the "Israeli Jews are colonizers" perspective. A mind capable of nuance.

It's especially hilarious considering Jews are between 20-25% of some of the student population of Ivies... I didn't hear a peep from them until Jews started being targeted.

You never heard a peep from e.g. Jonathan Haidt (upenn)? How about Brett Weinstein (also upenn)? Ben Shapiro (Harvard)?

In the same way that blacks are less likely, Jews are more likely.

Did he speak up before this? These institutions have been running a sophisticated and deliberate anti-White demoralization campaign for decades. Presumably as a billionaire he could have said something 15 years ago and not been "cancelled". Curious how he only speaks out about it now. I'll need to see a lot more than that.

For one thing, have there been "anti-white" actions analogous to painting swastikas on buildings, attacking Jewish students, and breaking into Jewish buildings? Yes, after Floyd died and the subsequent madness.

If there was an analogous attack that killed 1000+ white Americans, subsequent student protests defending the terrorist, followed by institutional support for the terrorists, then there would be double a standard. But as it stands, I don't see an equivalence.

They attacked Israelis, not American Jews, who they are involved in a 80 year war with with atrocities on both sides. I'm no fan of radical Islam or Hamas (or Islam in general since I would pass a Muslim ban and ban Islam if could), but that is a huge distinction to make there.

we had a day of solidarity on campus to stand against antisemetic hatred, and the progressives who participated have all quietly removed those pictures from their social media

You would have to be trapped in an incredibly toxic and paranoid environment to be worried about getting cancelled for opposing hatred.

Not necessarily. Or rather, such environments aren't all That rare these days unfortunately. All it takes is that opposing hatred is interpreted to mean opposing hatred of and off you go.

Some time ago I shared on FB an IMO particularly well written letter to the editor from the local newspaper of record where the writer advocated for more tolerance of differing opinions (and was clearly very careful to frame it completely neutral). This resulted in several progressive leaning acquaitances unfriending me and we're all middle aged or close to that, so they were hardly even people enmeshed in ideologically pure student circles.

how unfair it is that certain companies are reserving internship spots for Jewish students

Are they? That sounds illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course, so are all those "POC" set-asides, but the EEOC and courts like to sing "la la la" loudly when those are brought up.

Palantir the other day, being cheered on by Chief Anti-Identity Politics Influencer, Ben Shapiro:

Students on campuses are terrified and have been instructed by administrators to hide their Judaism.

We are launching an initiative for students who because of antisemitism fear for their safety on campus and need to seek refuge outside traditional establishments of higher education. They are welcome to join Palantir, and we are setting aside 180 positions for them immediately.

Liz was one of the few remaining non-Jewish Ivy presidents, so presumably she will be replaced by a Jew or half-Jew of color.

There is this meme that's been going around about how, now that push comes to shove, Jews are being treated like White people in the oppression Olympics. No they aren't. None of what is happening in response to these student protests is at all thinkable if we assume that Jews are "in the same boat" as White people. They absolutely are not, so the faux attempt at solidarity between some of those on the right, like the BAP sphere, is just so obviously wrong.

Christina Paxson (Brown), Sian Beilock (Dartmouth), Christopher Eisgruber (Princeton), Martha Pollack (Cornell), Peter Salovey (Yale) are Jewish. Columbia and Harvard have non-white presidents. Liz was the only non-Jewish white president in the Ivy League.

I hope my ADHD diagnosis doesn't relegate me to the Oppression Paralympics.

I'll have to think deep and hard whether outrunning the people with Chronic Fatigue syndrome would be a good or bad thing in that context.

Looks like they ran that by their lawyers:

These opportunities will be open to all university students, regardless of background, who stand in opposition to the rising and unchallenged antisemitism at institutions of higher learning.

Emphasis mine. Ideological tests are not covered by the CRA, as progressives like to point out.

What if my ideology is that I prefer being around being like me?

Theoretically, there could be an ideological test which allowed only racists, but they'd have to allow racists of all races.

A compelling argument can be made that the quality of academia would greatly improve, if we replaced the current batch of professors with Jared Taylor and Gazi Kodzo locked in a room.

You're allowed that motte.

As an European coming from the outside, I had no idea how much power is in the hands of Jewish and pro-Zionist donors in the matters of american academia. And, reasoning about it, I think that for European-Americans it should be a clear bell of alarm; the Jewish donors will tolerate whatever anti-European, child mauling or intersectional feminism, but will never falter at Jewish interests.

Jews basically got it declared that talking about Jewish success is antisemitic.

I’ll note Jewish success as an acknowledgement of their success but it’s also done by some right wing antisemitism.

They get 40% of Nobels, at one point 30-40% of Ivy league spots (now lower due to affirmative action), I would guess 25-30% of US billionaires.

Their success is suppressed in the media but when things like this happen they definitely have the ability to hit back.

Jews basically got it declared that talking about Jewish success is antisemitic.

I’ll note Jewish success as an acknowledgement of their success but it’s also done by some right wing antisemitism.

They get 40% of Nobels, at one point 30-40% of Ivy league spots (now lower due to affirmative action), I would guess 25-30% of US billionaires.

Yet another consequence of the western belief in equality. If your society was set up in such a way that accepting that certain groups are better than others was completely mundane and unremarkable Jews wouldn't need to pull levers so that talking about Jewish successes became antisemitic. They only do that because they have correctly reasoned that in the modern western world people noticing their disproportionate success rate in society would lead to them becoming disfavoured compared to other groups, which is something nobody wants.

They only do that because they have correctly reasoned that in the modern western world people noticing their disproportionate success rate in society would lead to them becoming disfavoured compared to other groups, which is something nobody wants.

Another factor that I've heard and think is probably somewhat accurate is that they also want to avoid any pressure to feel a sense of noblesse oblige towards poorer whites.

You should see how much income tax they pay on those nobel prizes...

I don’t think the desire to suppress Jewish success is coming from modern wokism. I think it’s a legitimate fear that when you are 2-3% of population but 30-40% of elites it leaves you extremely exposed to becoming a scapegoat if something bad happens. I believe that is sort of what happened after WW1 Germany. Jews had a lot of people in elite positions in Germany so when they lost WW1 it was easy to pin the loss on them.

Jews had a lot of people in elite positions in Germany so when they lost WW1 it was easy to pin the loss on them.

Yeah, but the people who lost the war were Ludendorff and Hindenburg, Prussian Junkers both.

The real problem was the attempted communist revolutions in Bavaria and elsewhere, where you had massive Jewish representation amongst their leaders: Ernst Toller, Eugene Levine, Luxembourg and so on.

Yeah, but the people who lost the war were Ludendorff and Hindenburg, Prussian Junkers both.

That wasn't how a lot of Germans saw it at the time. The noble German army had been "stabbed in the back" by the elites.

Yes, the sprint to Paris through Belgium failed and lead to an extended trench war. Big L on the German high command.

But no one on planet earth could have guessed that America would get involved with the war. The Balfour Declaration was very openly made in response to the zionist promise that they'd bring America in to win the war. Who could been blamed for not seeing that coming?

This makes zero sense. By the time of the balfour declaration, the US had already declared war.

But no one on planet earth could have guessed that America would get involved with the war.

Everyone, first of all the germans, predicted it.

The nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival.[100][101] The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement. After the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond the protection of the "cruiser rules", which demanded warning and movement of crews to "a place of safety" (a standard that lifeboats did not meet).

By January 1917, however, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff decided that an unrestricted submarine blockade was the only way to achieve a decisive victory. They demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm order unrestricted submarine warfare be resumed. Germany knew this decision meant war with the United States, but they gambled that they could win before America's potential strength could be mobilized.[13] However, they overestimated how many ships they could sink and thus the extent Britain would be weakened. Finally, they did not foresee that convoys could and would be used to defeat their efforts. They believed that the United States was so weak militarily that it could not be a factor on the Western Front for more than a year. The civilian government in Berlin objected, but the Kaiser sided with his military.[14]

The Balfour Declaration was very openly made in response to the zionist promise that they'd bring America in to win the war

This makes zero sense. By the time of the balfour declaration, the US had already declared war.

A: If you get the US involved we will make the balfour declaration

B: Okay, we will get the US involved.

US gets involved

A: We make the balfour declaration

What about this makes zero sense?

More comments

This has been the biggest complaint albeit some donors said something to the effective of “I failed when I was silent when woke wasn’t hitting my group.” Question will be whether they put their money where their mouth is today

"First they came for the _____, but I was not _____, so I stayed silent."

"I never thought the leopard would eat my face!"

"Do not call up that which you can not put down."

Nothing new under the sun....

Like who? Whom dost thou quote?

Update — Ackman’s open letter re firing of Gay specifically targets DEI and notes that it discriminates against, inter alia, straight white males.

My recollection which I will try to dig up is one of the Apollo founders

Question will be whether they put their money where their mouth is today

My money is firmly on "some will, some won't, but plenty of woke organizations will just refuse to stop calling for genocide so lots of these donors will continue to take a more anti-woke track, because after all these are mostly normie libs not ultraprogressives".

The Persecution of the Internet Historian

Internet Historian is a popular YouTuber whose best content is retelling interesting, fairly obscure stories with janky animation and luscious voice over. He’s an excellent storyteller and the videos are insanely easy to watch.

Left wing breadtuber Hbomberguy recently released an almost 4 hour video about plagiarism on YouTube. One of the subjects of the video was Internet Historian, and I think Hbomberguy credibly shows that IH was in the wrong. For his most watched video, Man in Hole, IH heavily copied the story and format of a Mental Floss article, as well as directly quoting entire paragraphs. IIRC, IH did cite the Mental Floss article in the original video, but it would be fairer to say that the entire video was an animated telling of the original article, and IH should have described it as such.

Furthermore, after Man in Hole was DMCAed, IH seemingly purposefully concealed what he had done, made excuses, and never fully acknowledged the extent to which he plagiarized, even after reuploading the video with heavy edits.

I think IH did a bad thing by committing plagiarism. Then he did another bad thing by trying to cover it up. I don’t think his life should be destroyed, but I think he deserves some score for this and my opinion of him has been lowered.

But if you ask some very online leftist people what’s wrong with IH, they won’t say plagiarism, they will say he is a literal Nazi - https://old.reddit.com/r/youtubedrama/comments/18dotzf/internet_historian_is_a_nazi/

That thread is by far the most popular ever on that subreddit, and lists evidence that IH is a Nazi. I’d summarize the evidence as “IH has a 4-chany sense of humor, has made some edgy jokes, and follows mainstream conservatives on Twitter.”

What I find most interesting about this affair is how difficult to convey to the breadtubey online leftists how vapid and dumb I think this evidence is. I think that’s because there’s actually a lot of cultural complexity here tied into some big gaps in moral intuition.

For instance, many of the evidence points are that IH has made jokes in his videos about Nazis and the KKK. In one video, he put 14/88 in the background, in another he uses a KKK caricature, and he has also sarcastically listed his birthday as 4/20 (Hitler’s birthday, though this might also just be a weed lmao thing). To the OP and most of the commenters, this is strong evidence that IH is a literal Nazi. Even if they acknowledge that these are edgy jokes, they can’t comprehend why someone would make light of something so awful unless they were secretly sympathetic to it. Or they just say that IH is straight up “dogwhistling” to align himself with all the Nazis watching his videos.

These arguments strike me as so divorced from reality that it’s difficult to bridge the gap. These jokes are not actually making light of Hitler, Nazis, and the KKK. They are making light of online lefties being pathologically obsessed with speech. Referencing Hitler isn’t funny; what’s funny is watching online lefties think that referencing Hitler indicates a deep seated hatred of Judaism and a real desire to exterminate non-whites. It’s the overreaction that’s funny. Or another way to put it – edgy Hitler jokes are shibboleths indicating that the speaker doesn’t buy into the predominant lefty internet culture. The speaker signals that he has such little concern for the culture that he considers stifling, censorious, and ridiculous, that he invokes the greatest taboo possible. IMO, this is the essence of edgy 4-chan humor.

Is this an accurate take? Or am I being too nice to IH?

To talk about the plagarism allegation specifically:

Such an allegation is a bit rich when Hbomberguy is close friends with Hasan Piker, is who is the king of freebooting and stealing content. But I guess it's okay because in the video Hbomberguy makes one, tiny joke about Hasan where he doesn't even mention him by name and he got permission from Hasan to make the joke beforehand. So I guess that's fair and Hbomberguy is principled in criticising everyone, right.

The whole of "BreadTube" rife with plagarism and stealing content - it's just selective outrage against IH because he's an ideological enemy. At the very least, IH did cite the article and substantially valued added even if he could have done more.

It's not a particularly surprising reaction, no.

Nor is the rolling over and acting offended that people reacted to IH the way that was entirely expected and predictable?

"Ah yes, these edgy jokes we used caused the expected reaction. Now, we will be offended on IH's behalf toward the people who took the bait."

It would be bad bait if no one took it, no?

I feel like Popehat's Rule of Goats applies. "Yea I made a bunch of Nazi references, but I wasn't doing it sincerely!" Ok, well you still made a bunch of Nazi references. I am somewhat sympathetic since I had my own edgy-4-chan-humor phase when I was younger, but I also did actually have a bunch of unironically racist opinions at the time.

These arguments strike me as so divorced from reality that it’s difficult to bridge the gap. These jokes are not actually making light of Hitler, Nazis, and the KKK. They are making light of online lefties being pathologically obsessed with speech. Referencing Hitler isn’t funny; what’s funny is watching online lefties think that referencing Hitler indicates a deep seated hatred of Judaism and a real desire to exterminate non-whites. It’s the overreaction that’s funny. Or another way to put it – edgy Hitler jokes are shibboleths indicating that the speaker doesn’t buy into the predominant lefty internet culture. The speaker signals that he has such little concern for the culture that he considers stifling, censorious, and ridiculous, that he invokes the greatest taboo possible. IMO, this is the essence of edgy 4-chan humor.

I am confused. If this is what IH is doing then isn't getting threads like the ones you've linked the point? Those threads (the leftist overreaction) are the punchline to the joking references, right? The point of the jokes was to make leftists think he was a Nazi! Is it surprising or disturbing that he succeeded? So he spent a bunch of time and energy making references to try and convince certain people he was a Nazi, he succeeded, and now... those same people need to be convinced he's not a Nazi? Why spend all the time and energy in the first place convincing people you were a Nazi!

One of the important points this misses is that, when they don't actually have power over you, Hitler and the Nazis are funny, in the sense of ridiculous, starting from that mustache and going on down to the troops. Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" made use of this during his reign, and many have done so since. The Downfall memes and Inglourious Basterds could never be made about Stalin, for instance. The serious Stalag 13 was recast into the successful and humorous Hogan's Heroes... SCHULTZ!. Goose-stepping troops became a staple of comedy. So yeah, the Nazis are a great source of humor, and a great source of humor your opponents find it offensive to use... that's even greater.

(ETA: the KKK is ridiculous too, from the titles to the bedsheets)

Otoh, there was Death of Stalin, though it featured comparatively little of Stalin.

The relative lack of literal Stalin isn't really a strike against the comparison, since the whole plot revolved around the ruthless power struggle around who will succeed him. But Death of Stalin is notable precisely because it is so uncommon to poke fun at the communists.

There’s team america world police and the interview, featuring stalin’s premier fan family.

And even when it did it treated him with deadly seriousness right up until the second he died, unlike rest of the cast, the flesh lumps in waistcoats. Regardless, fantastic movie!

Why spend all the time and energy in the first place convincing people you were a Nazi!

Why do Satanists spend so much time and energy convincing Christians they literally worship Satan? Because, they know it will strike a nerve.

They could just be garden variety secular atheists, but that doesn't get the same kind of reaction in the post-war world.

Mocking someone's beliefs or taboos does not mean you like the thing you are mocking, even though if it vanished that would remove the assumed context for your work. Making Postal 2 doesn't mean you want people to believe that violent videogames cause violence, rather the fact that they already believe that is part of the premise and context. Chris Ofili can make The Holy Virgin Mary and sell it for £2.9 million regardless of what his own views might be on taboos involving pornography, dung, or christianity.

I agree in general but it's not clear to me the IH references in question, as described, are mocking the things they're referring to.

I think the simple answer is, it's probably not so rational, precise, and conscious an effort as OP sells it. It's transgression as catharsis, nothing more, nothing less. "Vibes", all the way down. As stated:

edgy Hitler jokes are shibboleths indicating that the speaker doesn’t buy into the predominant lefty internet culture. The speaker signals that he has such little concern for the culture that he considers stifling, censorious, and ridiculous, that he invokes the greatest taboo possible

The response is not at all surprising, it never is, but that's doesn't mean I don't understand the temptation to transgress.

If he made the references out of indifference towards those who find those references taboo, then that is even less reason to believe "The point of the jokes was to make leftists think he was a Nazi!". Same thing if he made those references without knowing that some people would consider them proof of Nazism. My point was that, even if he deliberately transgressed the taboo because it was a taboo as a means to mock those who find it objectionable, that does not mean he 'wants to be viewed as a Nazi'. As tends to be the case with people engaging in deliberate transgression, he does not actually support the existence of the taboo he is transgressing. Like most 4channers, he would probably prefer the internet of 15 or so years ago when people made Nazi references and jokes all the time and nobody of relevance tried to harm them over it.

Incidentally this inspired me to look at the KYM page for Downfall memes. The meme dates back to 2006 and the first controversy mentioned was 2010:

On December 8th, 2010, Jefferies investment bank executive Grant Williams was fired after sharing a Downfall parody video in a company newsletter e-mail. The video in question, which is thought to have been uploaded on December 6th, 2010, satirizes JPMorgan's financial bet against silver in 2010 and the subsequent online grassroots campaign that was launched to buy silver and thus counter the firm's efforts.

In July 2013, a Hong Kong judge ordered the international investment bank to pay its former executive $1.86 million USD for damages covering lost salary and bonuses between June 2011 until July 2013, ruling that the termination of Williams for sharing a video was "hypersensitive" and "irrational." The story was reported on by Bloomberg[21], The Atlantic[22] and The Huffington Post.[23]

The interesting thing is that if you look at the linked Huffington Post article from 2013, the most left-leaning source linked, there is absolutely no mention of the idea that sharing Hitler memes (as part of your job in the official newsletter for an investment bank!) is offensive or creates a hostile work environment for minorities or is dogwhisting by making light of Nazism or anything like that. In fact even the company's argument quoted in the Bloomberg article is just that it “insulted in a quite humiliating way a competitor and business partner”.

I think IH was certainly at least alt-right, he had a whole series of videos about how /pol/ left Shia permanently divided (which was pretty funny) and had another one about how they hunted down bike-lock man who tried to beat up some rightists at a protest. And there was another one about Tay AI. We can assume that he spent a fair bit of time on /pol/. He had a bunch of standard /pol/ perspectives. That plus the 14/88 in the bikelock video makes it a pretty reasonable argument IMO. How is 1488 a joke? It's a political statement in its purest form!

However, Internet Historian's content as a whole is not Nazist or even altright - he still has a youtube channel for one thing. It's overwhelmingly about funny videos and he's gotten markedly less political over time. You can sort of see the same thing with E;R. He's done a bunch of dog-whistling and hinting and it's pretty obvious where he is politically but primarily his content is about critiquing media.

If someone says 'Mao was right about landlords' then you can assume they lean in a Maoist direction, that they could be described as a Maoist. They might not be serious hardcore Maoists or know much about it, they might not be violent or do much more than wishing (on occasion) to kill their landlords and complain on twitter. But it's not unreasonable to call them a Maoist or a communist. They come out and say that, it's a window into what they believe.

It's like when leftist youtubers put in anti-capitalist digs to their videos, or make references or you can just tell from their presentation/word choice/choice of what they make videos about... Their content might not be predominantly political but we can use human wisdom to tell what the creator thinks.

That thread is by far the most popular ever on that subreddit, and lists evidence that IH is a Nazi. I’d summarize the evidence as “IH has a 4-chany sense of humor, has made some edgy jokes, and **follows mainstream conservatives on Twitter.**”

The issue with the bolded part is that that's not a defense. In particular, the ones they cite are Libs Of Tik Tok, Gavin McInnes, and Ron Desantis. You could maybe excuse Desantis, but you still have to grapple with the question of whether mainstream conservatism itself moved in the direction of Nazism in recent years, which is probably something IH's accusers don't have any issue believing. They might be wrong, but it's not a trivially dismissed point of evidence.

For instance, many of the evidence points are that IH has made jokes in his videos about Nazis and the KKK. In one video, he put 14/88 in the background

You're improperly summarizing the actual point that post made - The game being referenced where he put "14/88" in doesn't allow values for that field if they aren't divisible by 5. He had to choose that number.

These arguments strike me as so divorced from reality that it’s difficult to bridge the gap. These jokes are not actually making light of Hitler, Nazis, and the KKK.

This is a valid defense, but it's impossible to prove just from IH's actions where he actually stands on the topic, and so you can't tell he's saying these things to just mock the left or he's doing it because he's inserting what he actually thinks as jokes. It's not an unheard of strategy - Nick Fuentes has a clip of him saying that humor was a way to promote his brand of politics and that he couldn't obviously be forthcoming about what he actually believed.

I've watch IH's videos, including the ones mentioned in the post you linked. The Bike-lock professor one was straight up "4chan does good thing by catching attacker" and mocks neopronouns at the beginning of the video. Which part of this is mocking the lefties?

Ultimately, IH needs to cease his policy of silence and be forthcoming - both about the plagiarizing and where his actual politics stand. That's inherently the burden you take on when you aren't in the Overton Window. That applies to literally anything a person does.

  • -14

The issue with the bolded part is that that's not a defense. In particular, the ones they cite are Libs Of Tik Tok, Gavin McInnes, and Ron Desantis.

Gavin McInnes is the only one alt-right of those three, and even that's debatable.

You could maybe excuse Desantis, but you still have to grapple with the question of whether mainstream conservatism itself moved in the direction of Nazism in recent years, which is probably something IH's accusers don't have any issue believing. They might be wrong, but it's not a trivially dismissed point of evidence.

Umm, following Desantis and Libs of Tiktok in particular doesn't necessarily mean that a body supports them, though, does it? It seems to me that if you were making a list of top 100 accounts to follow to keep ahead of current controversies, those two would be on it. And Mcinnes seems in the general wheelhouse if not quite as notable.

I looked at the IH's followers, but I can't see the whole list (746 total, but I only see about 50). I was going to argue that he doesn't seem to be following politics accounts in general or whatever and so it might be more informative that he follows people like DeSantis, LoTT, McInnes, etc. But I can't see all his follows, so I can't say for sure.

I'm fine with the idea that he might be following just to see what they say, but if the sampling I got from the "follows" tab for him were accurate, it's like 90% various e-celebs (on the Youtube/Twitch space) and some conservative figures. I don't think it's unrealistic to imagine he follows because he's at least partially attuned to the message.

You could maybe excuse Desantis

The idea that someone needs an excuse to follow a popular Republican governor and presidental candidate is absurd.

What kind of statement would you like "I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the nazi party"? I'm not defending the plagiarism, but this is ideological witch-hunting. Does every reference to che guevara have to result in a groveling apology for the crimes of communism?

I don’t know why he bothered with the edgy jokes and dogswhistles. He should have simply called for the genocide of jews, then the presidents of harvard and co would find his behaviour compatible with a strongly inclusive code of conduct.

No, just a statement about what he actually thinks would be enough for me. I'm not on the anti-IH train.

Does every reference to che guevara have to result in a groveling apology for the crimes of communism?

If you insert sneaky references to Che and make videos portraying him in a positive light, then yeah, people are going to think you support Che. The "it's just a joke" thing is a valid defense if you actually explain your position as not defending him or just sticking it to the Che haters, otherwise you're remaining in ambiguity and might suffer some consequences if anti-Che sentiment becomes so powerful that they start demanding people be socially ostracized for any perceived defense of Che.

Is it good? Probably not. Is there a clear way out? Yes.

I don’t know why he bothered with the edgy jokes and dogswhistles. He should have simply called for the genocide of jews, then the presidents of harvard and co would find his behaviour compatible with a strongly inclusive code of conduct.

Can you indicate to me a prior instance in which a Harvard student was punished for stating "death to all (insert progressive-favored group here}" to no one in particular?

otherwise you're remaining in ambiguity and might suffer some consequences if anti-Che sentiment becomes so powerful that they start demanding people be socially ostracized for any perceived defense of Che.

Answering legitimizes the witch-hunt. Their goal is not to discuss, but to silence. Their language is that of power. That behaviour is incompatible with a free and open society.

Can you indicate to me a prior instance in which a Harvard student was punished for stating "death to all (insert progressive-favored group here}" to no one in particular?

What? Professors have to write DEI statements (also known as “I love pocs” statements) as part of the application process. Mere indifference towards protected classes, not murderous intent, is disqualifying, insufficiently inclusive.

This fire article has a few examples of the free speech atmosphere at harvard, notably a student whose acceptance was revoked over comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, which contained racial slurs.

Or for Penn:

In January 2022, Penn Law Professor Amy Wax came under public criticism for an interview in which she said the United States would be “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.” Penn Law Dean Theodore Ruger issued a report asking Penn’s faculty senate to impose a “major sanction” against Wax — up to and including termination — for her extramural speech.

I can't find calls for genocide because conservatives already get banned for expressing any antagonism at all. But if you have examples of calls for the genocide of protected classes that went unpunished, I'm all ears.

Answering legitimizes the witch-hunt. Their goal is not to discuss, but to silence. Their language is that of power. That behaviour is incompatible with a free and open society.

As I said elsewhere, the existence of bad actors shouldn't be a justification to avoid responding.

This fire article has a few examples of the free speech atmosphere at harvard, notably a student whose acceptance was revoked over comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, which contained racial slurs.

That's not what I asked for. I explicitly said "student", not "acceptee". The reason I was specific here is that I'm aware of this case, but I don't see why it compares. I don't see a reason why the body of students should necessarily be held to exactly the same standard as the body of those who would be joining the school eventually. Maybe there's a good argument for it, but I'm not aware of one.

Ultimately, IH needs to cease his policy of silence and be forthcoming

I don't believe that you believe that.

Originally I wrote that this is like demanding that progressives cease their policy of silence about grooming, but even setting aside accusations of hypocrisy, how, given everything we've seen over the years, can you say that? Even if he becomes "forthcoming" and declares his political beliefs, and it turns out that (surprise, surprise) they're not anywhere near Nazi, how will that help? If he says he's conservative, he'll still be a Nazi in the eyes of the people you're defending. If he says he's a liberal who doesn't like the woke, he'll still be a Nazi. If he says he's an outright Leftist, who doesn't like the woke, he'll still be a Nazi.

I've seen all of these variations happening to all sorts of people. I've never seen the progressive mob back down when someone explained their beliefs in good faith. You've been here long enough that you should know that, and I feel like if you're putting this argument forward in good faith, you should pre-emptively bring evidence for how this step could result in anything good-to-neutral for IH.

You cannot use the existence of bad actors to hand-wave away the need for good or proper behavior. There are people who will never see socialism in a good light or give it a fair hearing, that doesn't absolve any good-faith socialist from being truthful and honest in their argumentation.

You cannot use the existence of bad actors to hand-wave away the need for good or proper behavior.

So if someone is accused of believing in something, they are duty bound to be open and forthcoming about what their political beliefs actually are, regardless of how flimsy the evidence presented that they believe in it?

Hard not to see this as just a more elaborate form of "have you stopped beating your wife?" If you hear IH jokingly stating that his birthday is 4/20 and your brain immediately goes to "Hitler's birthday" and not "dude weed lmao", I'm going to assume you see the face of Jesus Christ in the last piece of toast you ate too.

Check out how uncharitable one can be:

@drmanhattan16, your username is a reference to the character Jon Osterman (a.k.a Dr. Manhattan) from the 1986 comic book Watchmen. During the story of this comic, 37-year-old Osterman has an affair with a 16-year-old girl named Laurie Juspeczyk, which constitutes statutory rape in many jurisdictions (including New York, in which Osterman and Juspeczyk had their affair). When his partner Janey discovers the affair, she accuses him of "chasing jailbait" and calls him "sick" for getting involved with a teenager - then leaves him.

There's no way you would have chosen this username without being familiar with the fictional character of the same name. Naming yourself after a famous fictional statutory rapist is an obvious dog-whistle to indicate your support for ephebophilia and relaxing age of consent legislation. In the interests of good and proper behaviour, will you address these allegations and clarify your actual beliefs on the matter?

Back in the real world, I didn't look at your username and think "wow, this guy supports lowering the age of consent". Nor would any reasonable person acting in good faith. I thought "hehe, the guy with the blue cock lol". But if you're setting up a societal standard of "if you're accused of believing in something, you can't just stay silent - you have to immediately be forthcoming about what you really believe, even if the evidence presented is flimsy and weak", that's just incentivising bad actors to look for flimsy evidence with which to smear anyone they dislike, and you are duty-bound to respond to my (ironic) accusations above. Given Brandolini's law, smearing your enemies like this and interpreting their remaining silent as an admission of guilt amounts to a sort of interpersonal lawfare, functionally equivalent to SLAPP lawsuits: if you can't get someone you hate to stop expressing their opinions altogether, forcing them to waste hours and hours of their time laboriously refuting bullshit accusations made in bad faith is the next best thing.

So if someone is accused of believing in something, they are duty bound to be open and forthcoming about what their political beliefs actually are, regardless of how flimsy the evidence presented that they believe in it?

Perhaps "good" is a bit much, I'll stand back from that claim. But I do think it would be useful for him to actually clarify, now that it's a subject of discussion.

If he doesn't, then so be it. But he'd avoid quite a bit of headache if he at least stated it was all humor. Then we can have a more rational conversation in his defense. Until then, we're just left fumbling in the dark.

Check out how uncharitable one can be:...

Wow, haha, that is a crazy coincidence. Genuinely, I didn't pick the numbers with any mind for his girlfriend, I was actually just 16 at the time and had read the Watchmen comic.

In any case, the point I'm getting at is that bad actors will do what they want, but there can be obligations or good ideas which one should obey regardless. I have no doubt that a statement would do nothing for his accusers, in the same way that you could just dismiss the defense I gave above as obviously a pro-ephebophile person trying to hide their stance. But rational discussion would probably be aided by such a statement regardless.

Osterman has an affair with a 16-year-old girl named Laurie Juspeczyk,

Oh Jesus, what an unfortunate set of numbers to append to your username.

There's nothing bad or improper about what he did, or didn't do, regarding the sharing of his political beliefs. And I can use the existence of bad faith actors to point out that these demands for transparency are dishonest. This is like demanding people be honest when responding to Nazis asking if there are Jews in your basement.

Also, if a commie wants to make funny videos with an occasional "eat the rich" meme thrown in, he should be able to do so, without being forced to go through bizarre struggle sessions.

This is like demanding people be honest when responding to Nazis asking if there are Jews in your basement.

It is nothing like this. The appropriate analogy would be someone accusing you of hiding Jews in your basement under Nazi Germany. You should probably issue a denial regardless of what those people say.

Also, if a commie wants to make funny videos with an occasional "eat the rich" meme thrown in, he should be able to do so, without being forced to go through bizarre struggle sessions.

The question is precisely if he is or isn't a commie, in this case. Which you can certainly be, but if you're not, it would probably be better to clarify once this level of scrutiny arrives.

I will back down from "good/proper behavior" to "useful behavior", though.

It is nothing like this. The appropriate analogy would be someone accusing you of hiding Jews in your basement under Nazi Germany. You should probably issue a denial regardless of what those people say.

Fair, I'll take that bit of constructive criticism.

The question is precisely if he is or isn't a commie, in this case.

Allow me to rephrase then - if a person is making funny videos on the internet, with occasional jokes about eating the rich / gulags / etc., I don't think the question should be if he's a commie, or not.

I will back down from "good/proper behavior" to "useful behavior", though.

Well, I can't tell you what's useful to you, so fair enough.

IH needs to cease his policy of silence and be forthcoming (...) where his actual politics stand.

Plagiarism aside, this is a terrible idea. I have never seen this go well for anyone ever. Even a groveling apology/delete videos/promise to do be better rarely works.

Ever since I read FCfromSSC's Quality Contribution it's been stuck in my head. This part in particular seems relevant:

The other side is not looking for dialog. We are not participating in a good-faith conversation.

There is no way for IH to be forthcoming on what he believes without it being used as more evidence that he is a Nazi. IH's crimes are that he is clearly not a leftist and he has used many 4chan memes, including but not limited to Hitler references. For some, that is enough. For everyone else, the best he can do is not give the Stasi any more ammunition.

In a Bayesian sense, following mainstream MAGA Republican accounts on Twitter is very weak circumstantial evidence that someone is a "Nazi" (in the sense that the Very Online left use the term - which encompasses a lot of alt-right politics that has nothing to do with the OG NSDAP) - most MAGA Republicans are not alt-right, but most alt-right Americans are MAGA. Following GOPe accounts on Twitter is circumstantial evidence that someone is not a "Nazi" - the GOPe despise both actual Nazis and the "Nazi" alt-right as much as the left does. Whether DeSantis counts as mainstream or GOPe is left as an exercise to the reader.

But that isn't the context. The question is given that we all know the guy posts 14/88 memes, is he doing so because he actually has "Nazi" political views, or is he posting ironically. And in that context, affiliation with mainstream Republicans is much stronger evidence that the guy is serious - the overlap between "mainstream Republican" and "posts 14/88 memes ironically" is basically zero. People who post 14/88 memes ironically are either nihilistic trolls or lefties, and following mainstream Republicans on social media is good Bayesian evidence that someone is neither of those things.

In any case, I am happy to enforce the Rule of Goats against someone who LARPs as a Nazi absent very strong evidence that their heart is in the right place. As in I actually want to the Nazi character get chased round Europe by an old drunk and a cripple, or at least slip on a banana skin while goose-stepping.

following mainstream Republicans on social media is good Bayesian evidence that someone is neither of those things.

No, it isn't. It's bayesian evidence of wanting to keep abreast of political news.

Which, in my experience, is negatively correlated with being a nihilistic troll.

And in that context, affiliation with mainstream Republicans is much stronger evidence that the guy is serious - the overlap between "mainstream Republican" and "posts 14/88 memes ironically" is basically zero. People who post 14/88 memes ironically are either nihilistic trolls or lefties, and following mainstream Republicans on social media is good Bayesian evidence that someone is neither of those things.

That's a hell of a lot of sweeping generalisations based on the use of four digits, twice. Yeah no one on the planet has ever been an edgy idiot saying stupid shit because it causes a reaction. No, we're rationalists, we're smart, we're Bayesian so we can calculate that 1488 + nihilist/leftist = irony and 1488 + any affiliation with mainstream republicans = hide and protect the Jews.

The funny thing is, the rule of goats says I have to pretend I don't understand trolling either and treat you like an IFLS short busser.

In particular, the ones they cite are Libs Of Tik Tok, Gavin McInnes, and Ron Desantis. You could maybe excuse Desantis, but you still have to grapple with the question of whether mainstream conservatism itself moved in the direction of Nazism in recent years, which is probably something IH's accusers don't have any issue believing. They might be wrong, but it's not a trivially dismissed point of evidence.

There was a running non joke that white supremacy is the most inclusive social movement right now since people accused of being white supremacists included - whites, blacks, Indians, Hispanics and east asians. With libs of tik tok being run by a jewish woman - seems like nazism with will be the next wide tent pole coalition.

"He Must Respond" is a tactic used to justify further attacks against the target in environments where the original accusations don't carry enough weight.
When the attackers use the response as an excuse to escalate because the victim "did not reflect on his guilt" or "perpetuated further harm by minimizing his offenses", the debate can be shifted away from the original accusations to a deconstruction of the victim's conduct during the ordeal.

This tactic works extremely well on discussion forums where people are inclined to entertain hypotheticals and can be led away from the original topic. For example, the endless rounds of "Damore should have phrased it better," which ignored the absurdity of the accusations and shifted the burden of proof back to the defender.

In particular, the ones they cite are Libs Of Tik Tok, Gavin McInnes, and Ron Desantis. You could maybe excuse Desantis

None of them are Nazis. Easy.

it's not a trivially dismissed point of evidence.

It is trivially dismissed, it's a classic Motte and Bailey. Libs of TikTok is a Nazi -- No she's not -- OK, but she represents a Nazi-ward shift in the Republican base -- -- -- Stop there, that's a different (unjudgeable) question.

None of them are Nazis. Easy.

I didn't say any of them were. I said moving in that direction.

Half of all available moves will be "moves in the direction of" if you assume a one-dimensional axis, with arbitrarily chosen endpoints. The left has been steadily moving in the direction of pedophilia, for example.

Sure, I'm willing to admit that my evaluation of his political follows was incorrect. I was correcting someone for what I had actually said.

X believes Y implies Z. Of course, their belief is batshit insane. So if A is Y, then yes to X that is evidence of Z. But the problem isn’t A; it is X having an idiot view.

I dunno, this seems basic information theory. Meta can't be decoded without other info, ie if you share the signal as another meaning there is no way for the receiver to disambiguate, without extra info.

Now your Bayesian based on his work etc leads you to conclusion X. But you also have to account for his potentially hiding his true views. Perhaps he's hiding his true depth of nazi feeling, trying to fly undercover with a few subtle references here and there?

Perhaps he actually doesn't know his own Nazi sympathies because coming from 4chan world he has constantly engaged with meta that can't be unambiguously decoded as meta, and his mind is the same superposition?

I think honestly if this is the state of the evidence, I would not take it seriously. Sarcastic references don’t mean much, especially if he doesn’t seem to hold any position that Nazis actually hold. It’s never been my experience with political radicals that a person can hide a set of beliefs far outside of the mainstream for long periods of time. There don’t appear to be any posts or comments on his Twitter or other accounts that even the Nazi-hunters find out of line — and they were definitely looking for it. How is it that someone could seriously believe in Great Replacement and be putting “references” in his videos yet never ever talk about that belief anywhere. I follow some breadtubers and it’s very obvious where they’re coming from. They don’t make vague references, they’re definitely on the left.

Yeah, I can imagine finding it humorous to get the internet a-stir with these things, and there is a legitimate point you can make so sounds credible.

My go to tell over whether a person actually means what they’re (accused of) saying is watching what they do. If you’re only making jokes about a topic, but never expressing the belief behind that action anywhere and not acting as if you think it’s true, I see no reason not to be charitable and say that sometimes a joke is actually just a joke or a story is just a story, or whatever the case may be. People do take creative license with their art and their shows. IH may well be playing a character that’s nothing like who he actually is. His persona doesn’t seem to be him.

I think so many people especially on the left have no understanding that someone might well create a persona for the purpose of making a video much like an actor might take on a role that’s nothing like who they are off the set. John deLancie has played a demigod, a Nazi, an evil pony, and I’m sure lots of other things. None of those things are who he is. Why couldn’t an influencer on YouTube do the say thing and create and play a character who isn’t them?

Or another way to put it – edgy Hitler jokes are shibboleths indicating that the speaker doesn’t buy into the predominant lefty internet culture. The speaker signals that he has such little concern for the culture that he considers stifling, censorious, and ridiculous, that he invokes the greatest taboo possible. IMO, this is the essence of edgy 4-chan humor.

Well said. I've had arguments along these lines with leftist family members before, about how making Hitler memes online is basically just the disenfranchised-feeling white persons equivalent of BLM rioting. "No one condones looting, but you have to sympathize with people who feel like they don't have other options." Edgelords don't post the n-word because they are racist (well, some maybe), they post it simply because they know it is the worst thing you can possibly say, so saying it is cathartic in a similar way I'd imagine smashing a windshield is.

While in some cases I'm sure some people are taking "conservative" and "edgy 4chan humor" to extrapolate to "actually a Nazi using the pretense of irony to cover for it", for others "conservative" + "edgy 4chan humor" = "Nazi", no further layers needed.

And you have people here suggesting maybe that is unfair. Think about that for a second.

I thought about making a similar post on Internet Historian (IH) here, but I thought it might be a bit too much like aping /r/drama, which would be this site's most obvious failure-mode. People seem fine with it though (which might be a bad sign, or I might be just reading too much into it), so I'll leave my thoughts.

The only thing to really fault IH for is insufficiently crediting the article in his original video. He did credit it, but should have been more explicit that the video was a dramatization. Even with this, though, there's leeway since copying is absolutely rampant on the internet. 95% of modern journalism articles are regurgitated from social media or copied from other journalists. Most prestige articles from things like Substack are using the main arguments from other people, repackaging them, and changing them only slightly. It's how humans work, and usually nobody bothers to cite sources. In many cases it would be very difficult to tell where one person's thoughts start and another's begin. HBomber seemed to think copying words was the obvious smoking gun, but apart from a few segments most of IH's video was so heavily paraphrased that this mostly falls flat.

The supposed "coverup" is just a maximally uncharitable way of looking at the situation. HBomber is trying to collect a scalp here so he's taking things out of context and manipulating the story to seem as damaging as possible.

Then the wider internet gets involved, and since IH tilts conservative the cancel-happy leftists see blood in the water and out come the Hitler analogies. By their own logic, anyone who's made a dead baby joke should be presumed to be a murderer.

Honestly given the amount of work it takes to make his particular style of video and the fact he's retelling historical fact, it's just silly to accuse him of plagiarism. At worst he wasn't sufficiently forthcoming with his sources.

Being a journalist, which is what IH is at core, is literally just retelling what others already told in a more entertaining or more accessible way. And if making intricate animation on top of historical fact that is inherently impossible to alter or copyright isn't transformative enough to prevent accusations of plagiarism, then nothing is.

Nobody believes this is anything but a political hit job.

You're thinking about it wrong.

Internet leftists have decreed it is okay to Punch Nazis and to advocate for punching Nazis. Therefore, if you dislike someone, the way to get the green light to assault them or call for others to assault them is to contort and twist until you can paint them as a Nazi, and then anything you want to do to them is a-ok.

Internet leftism and especially "breadtube" is a mean girls' club of spiteful bullies who justify their bullying by contriving reasons as to why their targets "deserve" it, while cloaking themselves in the shallow virtue of selling out their own racial group/sex for minority approval.

They don't hate IH because he's a Nazi, IH is a Nazi because they hate him. If it wasn't him it would be someone else, the group always needs some target to pick on.

4/20 (Hitler’s birthday, though this might also just be a weed lmao thing)

There's like a 98% chance this is a weed joke. Maybe more like 99%.

It's the 100th anniversary of his birthday, which imo decreases those odds somewhat.

Hitler was not in his teens and twenties when he was Furher.

I don't know if I'm getting wooshed here, but the "it's" was referring to "4/20, 1989" which was the birthday IH listed. Not "it's" as in "it is right now".

The 100th anniversary of his 34th birthday

Hitler turned 34 on april 20, 1923. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything; IH listed his birthday as 4/20(almost certainly a weed reference) 1989(probably his real birth year, but also 100 years after Hitler was born).

That sounds more likely to be a real answer. Mine was not a real answer.

Btw have 4channers tried to spread a "stoners are secret nazis because 420 is Hitler's birthday" story yet?

Dunno, but a google search turned up 1) a history channel documentary called "High Hitler" which appeared to have been produced in their transition from "WWII 24/7" to "aliens and reality shows" and 2) a failed segregationist politician named J.B. Stoner who apparently described Adolf Hitler as "too moderate".

I can't be the only one who has noticed that nazi official's tended to get fired while soviet's tended to get shot

The most important anniversary of course

It commemmorates that he lived at least one year longer than the world's most famous Jewish person.

Albert Einstein? Moses? Yeshua ben Joseph?

It was just sarcasm on my part

How sure are we that internet historian didn't just change the birth date in his real birth year? That would be my initial assumption when seeing an internet personality list a birthday of 4/20.

I think to online Internet lefties, the term for outgroup members is Nazi. IH has signaled that he is outgroup through his jokes. Therefore they call him a Nazi. You're taking too literal a meaning to the term.

In general, it seems apparent that leftists typically believe whole swathes of all possible political ideologies are either overt fascists, crypto-fascists, fascists in training or fascists in denial.

Understanding this explains a tremendous amount of their behavior & speech.

It’s also additionally amusing because these same people make fun of their republican uncle for saying something like “single payer is communist.” They do the same thing except even worse because it’s even less accurate.

The idea that a beltway libertarian or classical liberal is a fascist but just doesn’t know it yet is so absurd on its face that’s it’s laughable. But it’s a common belief on the hard left.

Back when I was a smug liberal, I used to make fun of FOX News for saying there was a war on Christmas. And in my defense, FOX and Conservatives did a terrible job of making their case (which will become clear later why). I was recently shocked to learn that Hanukkah isn't even an important Jewish holiday. From WaPo :

It's easy to get the impression that Hanukkah is a marquee event of the Jewish year, falling as it coincidentally does right around the time of that other blockbuster December occasion and likewise seeming to revolve around presents, parties and recollections of a miracle long ago. The sense of Hanukkah's importance is further stoked by lively decorations, beautiful menorahs, delectable feasts and even, nowadays, kitschy sweaters and tongue-in-cheek competitions.

But as any rabbi would be quick to explain, Hanukkah is one of the least important occasions on the Hebrew calendar. Unlike major holidays such as Passover, Sukkot and the weekly Sabbath — all of which include extensive ritual requirements as well as prohibitions against work — Hanukkah is categorized as a minor festival whose only real decree is to light candles for eight nights. Everything else is custom or adaptation.

It seems pretty clear that the only reason Hanukkah is even celebrated like an important holiday in Christian countries is because it is close on the calendar to Christmas. From that same article:

That's not to say, however, that all the hubbub around Hanukkah is accidental. Its elevation to its current status in the United States goes back to the 19th century, when rabbis concerned about Jewish children feeling envious of their Christian neighbors realized that Hanukkah could let kids indulge in a joyous occasion around the same time of year. As Jewish historian Dianne Ashton recounts in her book "Hanukkah in America," the holiday's "timing in the midst of the Christmas season offered a way [for people] to perform their Jewish commitment through the holiday's rite and, for a moment, to resolve the ambiguity of being an American Jew."

The of course there is Kwanzaa, which is a made up holiday by Black Activists and the New Left in the 1960's. It literally wasn't even celebrated until 1966. It is a straight up made up holiday that shouldn't even be mentioned alongside Christmas and Hanukkah. I know this is not charitable but to me this is trivially true. I have never seen a single person celebrate Kwanzaa in my entire life and I am in my early 30's and have lived in cities with large black populations. So we can throw out Kwanzaa without any consideration.

That brings us back to Hanukkah, which again, is not an important Jewish holiday. This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday. Obviously this is absurd on its face and would never be taken seriously.

I don't want to blame this on "da Jews" because secular gentiles played a role in this as well. In fact, they were probably the biggest drivers of this because I actually know many Jews who celebrate Christmas (more on this later). The argument that they would make is that they want to say "Happy Holidays" is because if you make Christmas a big deal it makes non-Christians uncomfortable. This would be one thing if it was still a very Christian holiday, but the bottom line is that Christmas is pretty much a secular holiday at this point that anyone can celebrate. To give some context for this. the Bay Area town I grew up in had a street that was famous for having an amazing Christmas lights celebration. People would come from all over to see the cool Christmas lights people on this street put up. This area also had a huge Indian population and about a third of the street was Indian by the time I moved. Instead of getting butt hurt about it, they kept up the tradition. Some even incorporated some Indian culture into theirs to make it look pretty cool and unique. Plus, a lot of Jews I know celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday and don't seem to have any problem with it. So I don't see how anyone could make a credible argument that as long as it's just Santa and basic benign Christian decorations that it makes anyone feel uncomfortable. But this is all subjective.

The number one reason why it is ridiculous to say "Happy Holidays" though is that there are literally no other holidays that are important during that time period for any major ethnic or religious group in the US. If it wasn't for Christmas, it would literally not be the "holiday season". It would just be a time close to New Years. There is no reason to say "Happy Holidays" other than to diminish the role of Christianity, even in its most benign and secular form, in the United States. In my opinion, Left wing activists used identity politics (Kwanzaa), "inclusivity", and guilt about the Holocaust and Jews (Hanukkah) to make up a fake "holiday season" so it wouldn't be the Christmas Season anymore. I'd love to see someone counter this, because I really don't see how this isn't more or less 100% true.

And I actually have a much better post I'm working on now about how academia and first wave feminism conspired to create the fake Wicca religion and the modern idea of witches. And if you want a taste, here is a good summary that inspired me: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7tz-PBkF720&ab_channel=GreshamCollege

This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday.

So? How Christians have celebrated Christmas has changed dramatically over the last 2k years, and easter and christmas have sort traded places as most important holidays. It's entirely possible that easter will again become the bigger holiday than christmas

I would like Christmas to be banned for the sole reason that I'd rather die than hear ASDA's speakers belt out Santa Baby again.

That brings us back to Hanukkah, which again, is not an important Jewish holiday. This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday. Obviously this is absurd on its face and would never be taken seriously.

The single most important Christian holy day is near Passover.

It's a bit amusing to me that you story you tell about Hanukkah not being that important actually also applies to Christmas, to an extent? Christmas is important, but it isn't and has never been the most important Christian holy day, which is definitely Easter. I'd argue that Christmas is probably around equal to Pentecost in terms of importance?

But the summit of the Christian year is the Easter triduum - nothing surmounts the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

Holidays ebb and flow in popularity.

Easter is theoretically the most important Christian holiday, and there have been times when banning Christmas was a popular opinion among certain populations. (Especially some of the Founding Fathers.)

The OG "banning Christmas" meme was never about removing Christmas from the Christian calendar of holidays, or even downgrading it in importance. It was about secular governments with established Puritan churches (including Cromwell's England and colonial Massachusetts) banning the traditional secular celebrations around Christmas in order to force people to take the religious aspect more seriously.

The unpopularity of Cromwell's "War on Christmas" is a large part of why the UK still has a monarchy. There is a reason why the British secular left's approach to Christmas is to flood the zone with trees and Santas, rather than talking about a "Holiday Season" (which any Brit would assume referred to August).

The OG "banning Christmas" meme was never about removing Christmas from the Christian calendar of holidays, or even downgrading it in importance. It was about secular governments with established Puritan churches (including Cromwell's England and colonial Massachusetts) banning the traditional secular celebrations around Christmas in order to force people to take the religious aspect more seriously.

Actually, I'm fairly confident that it was about removing it from the calendar. The Directory of Publick Worship (see the last section), passed at the time, abolished "holy-days," with the exception of the Lord's Day (Sunday). It did allow for days of thanksgiving, but only on special occasions, not as part of a church calendar.

Re: Kwanzaa, I finally met someone who celebrates it instead of Christmas last year. Otherwise, my only exposure was Nickelodeon ads for the Rugrats Kwanzaa special (which I somehow never managed to catch), and TFS throwing in a mention into one of their holiday videos.

Speaking of Rugrats, that's also the majority of my education on Hanukkah. Never did get the origin of the potato pancakes thing, since potatos are not a crop I'd generally associate with Iron Age Israel. Something to do with a prohibition on leavened bread?

But the Rugrats Hanukkah special did make Hanukkah out to be a bigger deal than Passover, which in hindsight is kinda clearly coming from the present, given that the Passover special focused primarily on the Exodus story, while the Hanukkah special spent more time on the characters, while the backstory got like two short scenes. (But Grandpa Boris's narration on the finale was oddly intense and sincere for a NickToon, IIRC.)

Oh, and in college one year, a Jewish student taught his friend group how to play Dreidel, and we also watched the original Godzilla Vs Mothra, so that was fun I guess.

Speaking of Rugrats, that's also the majority of my education on Hanukkah. Never did get the origin of the potato pancakes thing, since potatos are not a crop I'd generally associate with Iron Age Israel. Something to do with a prohibition on leavened bread?

That's because potato pancakes are not an Iron Age Israel thing. The only significance to potato pancakes is that they're fried in copious amounts of oil. Jews are basically willing to eat anything fried for Hanukah in order to celebrate, because the Hanukah miracle was that supposedly the oil necessary for keeping the lamps lit to purify their temple lasted for 8 days when there was only enough for one day. Potato pancakes came out of eastern European traditions, from countries like Poland and Germany where potato pancakes were already consumed as a local food, and the local Jews there adopted it as their Hanukah tradition. But Jews elsewhere eat donuts, fritters of all types, fried cheese cakes, fried pumpkin cakes etc. Indian Jews even eat gulab jamun to celebrate.

The prohibition on leavened bread is an entirely separate holiday, Passover (which as OP notes is actually a much more important holiday to Jews than Hanukah). Leavened bread is fine for Jews to eat at Hanukah.

I appreciate the point you're trying to make, but it kind of feels like it's ignoring how culture happens in a way that's hard to describe.

Like, yeah, Hanukah wasn't previously a major Jewish Holiday? And now it is.

How do we know it's a major Jewish holiday? Because of how much people talk about it and celebrate it and make a big deal about it and etc. Because of how much Hannukah paraphenilia is sold in stores.

The exact same way we know that Christmas is a major Christian holiday. Because Christians treat it as such.

It's not like Christmas has been what it is in modern America since 0AD. The date wasn't even known as Jesus's birthday until they made that up in the 200s. The holiday is descended from winter solstice festivals. In the 900s it was just celebrated by reading a special liturgy, and had nowhere near the importance of Easter or Good Friday. Gifts weren't exchanged until the latter half of the 19th century, most of what we recognize as the cultural event of 'Christmas' is a capitalist invention over the past century.

Christmas became 'important' for various reasons at various times, which is exactly what happened to Hannukah. Now they're both important and people treat them as such appropriately.

There are hundreds of holidays I've never even heard of celebrated all over the world - why are all these people talking about and celebrating and making a big deal about hanukah etc

Are you a jew?

The date wasn't even known as Jesus's birthday until they made that up in the 200s.

That part isn’t true, Jesus’ birthday is on December 25 because it’s 9 months after March 25, which was assumed to be the date of the annunciation based on the belief that Jesus was conceived the same day as he died. Saturnalia, the winter solstice festival that would have been most familiar to early Christians, takes place before Christmas and it’s not unreasonable to trace a few customs from saturnalia to Christmas(certain decorations, for example), but they were thought to be different holidays even at the time.

This explanation is often repeated but it's a lot less certain than people would have you believe. The theory goes "it was a widespread belief among ancient jews that prophets lived perfect lives and died in the same day they were born", also known as the "integral age theory".

There's two problems with this, the first one is that it is almost completely unsourced. The only source that exists is in the Rosh Hashanah and states that only Moses was born and died on the same day (for rather contrived reasons). Now, that text is about right in terms of dates for the establishment of Christmas and Jesus was supposed to be better than Moses, so it makes sense. However there is another problem: Jesus didn't die on the day of his birthday.

So the entire argument is moot, someone placed Jesus birthday on the 25th for some reason, that reason has been deleted from history. It is plausible that the integral age was used as a contrived excuse to place it there, but we don't know for sure. It can not be the real reason (because a straightforward application would just tell you that he was also born on easter). The real reason has likely been deleted from history.

Sources:

Like, yeah, Hanukah wasn't previously a major Jewish Holiday? And now it is.

It's not though. And considering that Jews comprise only about 1.8% of the US population and live in only a few parts of the country, Hanukkah’s presence in America’s public square is clearly astroturfed. From a quick google search, only 38% of Israeli Jews think Hanukkah is one of the three most important Jewish holidays. And I'm willing to bet that number there is also inorganic due to American influence. If you asked that question 50 years ago, it would probably be significantly lower. Hanukkah isn’t even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It along with Kwanzaa (fake holiday) were memed into reality so "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year" could become "Happy Holidays".

Who cares about what Israeli Jews think?

Please write as though everyone is reading and you would like them to be involved in the conversation. "Who cares what $GROUP thinks" is not permissible rhetoric here.

I didn't mean it in a disparaging way towards Israeli Jews, my point was more like "why is it important that Israeli Jews don't care about Hanukkah" - but I could have been clearer.

It's a control group to compare with Jews who live in Christian majority countries showing that Jews only care about Hanukkah if they live in a place where Christmas is culturally dominant.

Halloween was much bigger in the US than other countries, and still is. Different countries are...different. Suffice to say I don't think the presence of difference WRT holiday celebration/importance means much. There is no "true" Judaism from which all other Judaism must be compared.

That doesn't mean that Hanukkah isn't a major Jewish holiday in America, which is what the guy was saying. Cultures are different in different places.

Let's review. We have Kwanzaa (fake holiday made up in the 1960's), Hanukkah (a non-important holiday in Judaism celebrated by an ethnic group that is less than 2% of the population in the US), and Christmas, which according to polls approximately 85% of Americans celebrate. Furthermore, it was the Christmas Season until very recently, and Christianity is the religion of the vast majority of Americans now and historically. Yet now it is "The Holidays". Let's take this down to Sesame Street level logic here. One of these things is not like the other. It's really that simple. And the only reason it's even considered important is because it happens around the same time as Christmas, and some Jews wanted to have a holiday near Christmas and because it's useful as a narrative tool to make the cultural change to Holidays instead of Christmas.

It's frankly absurd it has as much cultural cache in the US as it does considering all those factors. There's almost as many Indian Americans as Jews. Diwali should be considered just as important as Hanukkah by this logic. It only makes sense since it happens during the holiday season. Diwali is the most important festival of the year in India after all.

I wonder if you live in one of the few areas with a high % of Jewish residents, because I grew up in one and Hannukah was fairly high profile but now I live in a place without many/any Jews and there's no Hannukah presence which makes me feel as though there was no "astro turfing" but rather a natural reflection of the population of a place.

Yeah, American Jews wanted a holiday for their kids to celebrate around the time their Christian friends were celebrating Christmas and so Hanukkah rose in importance. It's quite clearly a major Jewish holiday in America.

Which one of these is not like the other?

  1. Hanukkah - an objectively non-important holiday in Judaism celebrated by an ethnic group that is less than 2% of the population in the US

  2. Kwanzaa - fake holiday made up in the 1960's

  3. Christmas, which according to polls approximately 85% of Americans celebrate. Furthermore, it was the "Christmas Season" until very recently, and Christianity is the religion of the vast majority of Americans now and historically.

If you need more evidence, there literally wasn't a "Happy Holidays" until after WW2: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22happy+holidays%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

It really didn't even start being a major thing until the New Left and proto-SJWs started showing up in academia and pushing for inclusiveness and PC shit in the 1980's.

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Yet now it is "The Holidays".

Don't Christians celebrate New Year's right around Christmas as well? I always assumed "the Holidays" started as a Christian thing and not an inclusive thing.

A little bit, but also St Nicholas Day, Epiphany/Theophany, and Three Kings Day.

New Year's is an important holiday in the Catholic Church but not Christianity more broadly, and it's not really that important of a secular holiday- just a day off work.

Where I live it is always happy holidays since mid December if you don't expect to see the person till the next year. But on 24-25 it is Merry Christmas and on 31-1st it is happy new year. And if you are fossil enough to send a postcard it is We wish you merry christmas and happy new year.

To culturally appropriate sjw slang - the one is the lingo of inclusion, the other of erasure. Holidays shouldn't be thought of as replacement for christmas, but as a complementary catch all.

It doesn't start until after world war 2: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22happy+holidays%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

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Yeah, I've never heard of Jews getting offended about acknowledging Christmas. It seems like most of them celebrate it, albeit by eating Chinese food.

a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday.

The most important holiday on the Christian calendar is reasonably close to Passover, as in the event it commemorates took place at the same time. If Israel made any pretense for caring about political correctness(which it does not) it would be reasonable to expect a "secular passover season" set of decorations in Tel Aviv or whatever to include some Easter eggs or whatever.

A better metaphor would be demanding Roodmas get equal standing to Yom Kippur in Israel. This is obviously stupid; roodmas is not a particularly major holiday, and it's only celebrated by a small percentage of the population in Israel.

Yeah, I've never heard of Jews getting offended about acknowledging Christmas

I kinda disagree. I, for example, used to date a Jewish girl who kinda hated Christmas and objected to institutions she was in from doing things like putting up Christmas trees. It's not every Jew, but a lot of them do seem to have a stick up their ass about Christmas, as if it were some personal offense to them.

A Jewish American manager just forbade our European office from doing a Secret Santa precisely because Christianity might offend people who don’t celebrate Christmas.

Here in America an acquaintance of mine found himself in charge of his social group's Christmas party this year, and some attending nonobservant Jew insisted it be called a holiday party in the name of inclusiveness.

Maybe this doesn't rise to "being offended," but clearly there are people who have no qualms about using whatever fashionable terminology there is available at the time to issue a veto-by-empathy. For whatever reason, probably just because earnest Christians gross some people out for tribal reasons we talk about every day on here.

That is a much better example.

I think the line, "Everything else is custom or adaptation." is carrying a lot of your argument. The Rabbi claiming the holiday isn't important does little to make the day seem less special to the kids getting a bunch of presents. I would argue holidays are almost entirely born of "custom", and whether or not their origin story is still relevant or meaningful in a cultural or religious sense has little to do with how much modern participants value them.

I've also never heard anyone actually get upset by "Merry Christmas" in real life. I've a pretty large sample size of generally liberal folks and literally nobody has ever had a problem with the phrase. Anecdotal of course, but are we sure we're not just confusing Twitter with real life here?

I don't disagree on your point that modern "holidays" are largely promoted or manufactured, but many traditional societies have midwinter celebrations around that time: the Roman Saturnalia, or the Germanic Yule are historically relevant and also both heavily influenced the way in which Christmas is celebrated. The Bible has perilously little to say about decorated evergreen trees or reindeer.

Even among Christian nations, there is some difference in celebrations: Saint Nicholas Day is largely ignored in the US, but is popular elsewhere, and the entire Orthodox branch of Christianity celebrates most holidays at different times.

and the entire Orthodox branch of Christianity celebrates most holidays at different times.

That isn't actually technically true. Orthodox churches in majority Orthodox countries use the Julian calendar for religious purposes, which delays most holidays, but the calendar date is technically the same, and in the west most Orthodox churches use the Julian calendar only for Easter.

The Bible has perilously little to say about decorated evergreen trees

I'd say Christmas trees are banned according to Jeremiah 10:3-4. Don't be doing that pagan tree decorating thing.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

Colossians 2:16-17 - you are pharisaic - you are not saved.

Wow, I forgot how utterly terrible many translations of that passage are. Huge oof when you look at the Greek, then back to this translation, then back to the Greek. Just amazingly atrocious attempts to squeeze in the translators' preferred beliefs.

Where do you think it's gone wrong? The original is:

Μὴ οὖν τις ὑμᾶς κρινέτω ἐν βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει ἢ ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς ἢ νεομηνίας ἢ σαββάτων, ἅ ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ.

My rough translation would be something like, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you concerning food or drink, or in respect of a feast or a New Moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of the things coming; the body, however, is Christ."

The NIV... mostly sticks to this? It does mess around a bit with plurals (it's definitely feast singular, New Moon singular, Sabbaths plural, but the NIV has made them all singular), and translating σῶμα as 'reality' is certainly an odd move, but the substance of the verse is intact?

That said I think its applicability as a proof-text here is a bit weak. Jeremiah 10 is clearly talking about idols in the classical sense - the point is not that decorated trees are somehow evil, no more than the Golden Calf proves that goldsmithing is inherently evil, but rather that you should not create idols to worship. It's the same argument as Isaiah 44:9-20. "Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" Do not worship your own creation! But a Christmas tree is not an object of worship by any means, so it's not the target of the critique.

Colossians 2, however, is an argument against rigorism - the mention of Sabbaths means that the Judaizers are probably in Paul's sights there, but it's possible he's also thinking of the same controversy as in 1 Corinthians 8, regarding food sacrificed to idols. Paul's perspective, I think, is that excessively policing the likes of food or festival observance is itself a sign of lack of faith - a dependence on what is seen, rather than faith in what is unseen. It's striking that Paul advances this argument from both directions, in different places - neither the Jews (with the law and the sabbaths) nor the Greeks (with feasts and sacrifices) are permitted to place stumbling blocks before the saints.

At any rate, declaring that people are unsaved Pharisees is pretty evidently contrary to the spirit of Christianity. When you think a person is making a mistake, the correct approach is to explain the truth in a spirit of gentleness and charity (cf. Acts 18:24-28, 1 Peter 3:15-16). Better to be not swift in leaping to condemnation.

translating σῶμα as 'reality' is certainly an odd move

This is the glaring odd move. You translate σῶμα as 'body', which is in agreement with more literal translations as well as how the NIV translates it throughout Colossians (and elsewhere). It's especially glaringly messed up when you look at other uses of σῶμα from the author of Colossians. [Emphasis added for the location of σῶμα.]

1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

1:22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

1:24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

2:11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ,

2:19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

2:23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

It's clear that σῶμα is used in two senses in this letter, either referring to a physical body of an individual or referring to a 'body of Christians'. So when you say:

Colossians 2, however, is an argument against rigorism

That seems somewhat reasonable. So, if we were to look at something like a more literal KJV translation (pulling out the the 'is', which, uh, isn't there), we see something like:

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days (which are a shadow of things to come) but the body of Christ.

It's pretty easy to read this as saying, "Just don't pay attention to what non-Christians are saying. Just stick with what the Christians are doing." This still allows the group of Christians to accept/reject different days/foods/etc., but that they need to look internally within the group rather than what the Jews/Greeks are saying. It takes a lot of stretching to pull on what is basically one inelegantly constructed sentence here to get to the pretty sweeping conclusions that I think @Hawaii98 wants to make.

The 'hey honey, come look, I've discovered something all the world's top experts missed' meme except unironically and it's you

Nah. There are some good translations. The world's top experts do those. Just some of the world's top experts really strain to put their interpretation in there. To be flippant like you, it's the 'hey honey, come look, I found a few experts who say that caloric intake has nothing to do with weight loss' meme except unironically it's you.

This is actually interesting. What would you propose is a reasonable translation?

See the discussion here.

Influenced via Victorians with history books who wanted to turn Christmas from a St. Patrick's esque drinking holiday to something more family friendly rather than via converting pagans.

In my opinion, Left wing activists used identity politics (Kwanzaa), "inclusivity", and guilt about the Holocaust and Jews (Hanukkah) to make up a fake "holiday season" so it wouldn't be the Christmas Season anymore.

The "Holiday Season" is Thanksgiving to New Years Day; no need for Hanukkah, though it's in there. It's certainly true Hanukkah got jumped up in importance, but that happened long before the push against "Merry Christmas"; I suspect it was mostly done by Jews to make Jewish children feel better. It was later used mostly against athiest activists basically as an excuse to allow state-supported Christmas celebrations "see, we've got a menorah too".

It is no real surprise Hindu Indians would go right along with putting up lights either; like Jews, they have a holiday associated with lights in the winter.

It was later used mostly against athiest activists basically as an excuse to allow state-supported Christmas celebrations "see, we've got a menorah too".

I don't disagree with anything you wrote, but I would suggest that this problem didn't exist until modern atheists created it.

This reminds me of the video game localization done by Cygames (a Japanese company notable for mobile game Granblue Fantasy). In every localization that they've ever done, "Merry Christmas" becomes "Happy Holidays", and all references to the word "Christmas" get removed.

However, they generally don't dub their games, so you can read "Happy Holidays" in the text while hearing the voice actors say "Merry Christmas" in heavily accented English.

That brings us back to Hanukkah, which again, is not an important Jewish holiday. This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday

In Israel, Christians have the right to paid days off on several Christuan holy days. AFAIK, Jewish employees in the US are not entitled to paid leave on Hanukkah, nor on any other Jewish holy day.

This is not remotely the same thing. We're not just talking about days off, but the culture at large. This is iconoclasm.

I assume they intended this to mean a reciprocal situation to the US, so, in the hypothetical the Christians are demanding that nobody talk about Passover in anything that could be considered general/public communications specifically and just refer to the time around Passover as "Holiday Time" because Saint Mark's Day falls around the same time.

Also the paid leave system in Israel is fundamentally different and more religiously based than the US model. From reading your link, it is just that all people get 9 paid holidays for holy days, and which days you are expected to take is broken down by religion (four religions listed, not sure what they do with atheists). In the US, Christmas day, just the one day, is the mandatory federal holiday. The vast majority of holiday time is private policy specific to an organization. I think this reflects a fundamental difference between how these counties view religious holidays that is almost totally orthogonal to the social engineering point the OP is trying to grapple with.

Nevertheless, OP's factual claim (which s/he apparently deemed relevant to their social engineering point, or they would not have mentioned it) was factually incorrect.

AFAIK, Jewish employees in the US are not entitled to paid leave on Hanukkah, nor on any other Jewish holy day.

This is obviously going to vary by state and local jurisdiction, but my (red state) public schools growing up always had a holiday (at least kids didn't have to go to school) for Rosh Hashanah and frequently also Yom Kippur. It looks like at least Texas recognizes it as a state holiday (but that doesn't mean even state employees get the day off necessarily.) Florida seems to allow, but not require, courts to be closed on those days. Your mileage may vary.

Which state, and which district? NYC public schools close on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for practical reasons: the number of Jewish teachers and students is so high that absentees will be extremely high on those days anyhow.

Yeah, the school district was probably a similar situation, but I don't remember any similar dates of convenience for, say, Eid, Diwali, or Lunar New Year even though those probably had at least as many practitioners as there were Jews in the district.

Which district was that?

Christian (or other) employees in the US are not entitled to paid leave on Christmas or any other Christian holy day either.

In the US, most people indeed get Xmas as a paid holiday. For example, it, and all other federal holidays, is a paid holiday for federal employees, and I believe all state and local govt employees.

Yes, most people in the US with full-time jobs get Christmas as a paid holiday. But they are not entitled to it by labor law.

AFAIK, Jewish employees in the US are not entitled to paid leave on Hanukkah, nor on any other Jewish holy day.

If Hanukkah is during Christmas, don't they get that off as part of ordinary holidays? Passover would be different as it doesn't coincide with Easter all the time, but if Easter is a secular holiday (Spring Break?) then everybody gets that as well.

And then there are the purely American secular holidays, like Thanksgiving.

EDIT: Okay, I looked it up, and Hanukkah is a moveable feast because it depends on the lunisolar calendar, and follows the moon to determine when months start. So it's not a fixed date like Christmas.

So while it would be good to give other faiths days off for their holy days, it might be awkward if some of your staff were taking the first week of December off, when the official shut-down is for the third/fourth week (how long are the Christmas holidays in the USA?) If the custom has long been established that "This date is the date when we have holidays" then that's the compromise to follow so that you're not having people taking time off all over the calendar and trying to work out "Should Bill be working today because he took the twelfth of February off but we're shutting down for the seventeenth of March so it's not worth opening the entire factory just for one guy to be in, on the other hand the rest of the staff will complain that Bill gets extra days off when they have to work".

how long are the Christmas holidays in the USA?

Christmas day itself, but most offices are closed from Christmas-New Years, inclusive, and have a half day on Christmas eve. Schools usually let out sometime in the week before Christmas and start back up again in the week following New Years, blue collar workers generally work every day except Christmas and New Years. You're not entitled to any of this by law but only gas stations, waffle house, and (very ethnic)Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas.

Don't forget movie theaters, many other restaurants, and the major drug store chains

If Hanukkah is during Christmas, don't they get that off as part of ordinary holidays?

As you found out, Christmas does not always coincide with one of the eight days of Hanukkah. But, suppose it did? Why does that matter? You were complaining about supposed special dispensation given to Jewish people. If I happen to be born on Dec 25, would you complaint that I am getting special dispensation because I get a paid day off on my birthday, and others don't? I assume not.

And then there are the purely American secular holidays, like Thanksgiving.

Yes, and Presidents' Day, and the Fourth of July, etc. I don't understand what secular holidays have to do with anything.

So while it would be good to give other faiths days off for their holy days, it might be awkward if some of your staff were taking the first week of December off, when the official shut-down is for the third/fourth week (how long are the Christmas holidays in the USA?)

  1. I am not advocating that the US or anyone else adopt Israeli law. I was simply pointing out that your assumption about how minority religions are treated in Israel was incorrect
  2. Schools are usually closed for two weeks, but otherwise the only official holiday is Xmas day itself, and most businesses are open on the day before and the day after Xmas

I'm not complaining about a special dispensation; if it were decided that a particular major Jewish religious holiday was now a public holiday, or that Jewish workers could take the day off as paid leave, I'd be fine with that.

I'm saying that most places shut down for Christmas holidays on a fixed date, so trying to work out a different date each year for when a sub-set of your workers want time off is inconvenient. Now, if it's an all-Jewish or majority-Jewish workplace, I'd have no problem with them deciding "we shut down for Hanukkah, we're open for Christmas", and any non-Jewish workers there would need to talk about their own plans with the boss.

If you're living in a majority Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist nation, and they have their own public holidays and times they close down, you deal with that. You don't get to demand "I want my particular event to be publicly marked even if there are only 0.1% of the population of this faith!", though I think you should have the right to negotiate with your boss about taking time off for X or Y if it's a big day in your religion. But if your boss says "No, we don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day" then tough, you gotta come in to work.

though I think you should have the right to negotiate with your boss about taking time off for X or Y if it's a big day in your religion. But if your boss says "No, we don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day" then tough, you gotta come in to work.

US labor law mandates that employees with a de facto religious holiday are entitled to take time off for it, although the boss doesn't have to pay you. Employers can't ask for evidence of regularly practicing the religion in question(although I've had employers ask for evidence that the holiday in question is a big deal in my religion, they always took a wiki article).

I'm saying that most places shut down for Christmas holidays on a fixed date, so trying to work out a different date each year for when a sub-set of your workers want time off is inconvenient.

I was referring to your initial post. As I specifically said: "I am not advocating that the US or anyone else adopt Israeli law."

You don't get to demand "I want my particular event to be publicly marked even if there are only 0.1% of the population of this faith!",

No one has "demanded" that. It has happened because it is good PR for businesses to make all their customers feel welcome (and in a mood to spend, in general and at at their establishment). Moreover, why not acknowledge the holidays of minority religions? Who does it hurt?

The main problem is not "let everyone have a turn celebrating their own festivals that are all roughly around this time of year". The more, the merrier; Diwali seems to be celebrated around November which very handily links up with the American Thanksgiving.

So a string of bright events through the winter months is not a bad thing.

The problem comes in when it's "let's celebrate all these diverse events - except the main one. Your one. In this country where the majority culture was based around such main holidays." If you can have every holiday except Christmas, then it's not really "Happy Holidays", it's "Happy Not Talking About That One".

And I never said anything specifically about Israel, I'm delighted to find out that Christians there can have Easter off (though since it often coincides with Passover, is that the same thing?) I'm in agreement with the person who said the equivalent here would be somebody demanding that Israel institute "Happy Holidays" because St. Mark's Day is around the same time. I want Israel to have its own national holidays, even religious ones! I just want Over Here to have the same ability too, without people taking lawsuits over "they had a NATIVITY SCENE out in public where everyone could see it, I demand that be taken down because this country is not 100% Christian!" Yeah well the country isn't 100% Jewish either, but that's no reason for a human face-ache to go around demanding that any menorahs be taken down if they're out there on public land. Ditto with Kwanzaa symbolism, whatever that might be, and if the Taoists and Buddhists and Zoroastrians have any festivals for this period, let them have a shot at putting them out on display too!

Even the stupid Satanist crap, though I wish they'd be a little bit more original than just slapping Eliphas Lévi's Baphomet on everything. Though if they wanted to do the "radical socialist" version, I'd be intrigued 😁

If you can have every holiday except Christmas,

If you think that Christmas is not celebrated in the US, you are mistaken. My local Starbucks is playing nothing but Xmas music.

they had a NATIVITY SCENE out in public where everyone could see it, I demand that be taken down because this country is not 100% Christian!"

You are missing the point re that issue. If the nativity scene is meant to be govt celebration of the birth of Christ*, then it would be a First Amendment violation even if the country indeed was 100% Christian.

*As opposed to a holiday celebration.

In Britain, which is more secular and much less Christian than the US, people still say “Merry Christmas” and movie trailers still say “coming this Christmas” and TV ads still talk about about Christmas. The same is true in Germany. It doesn’t appear to have made much of a cultural difference, and the US is still by far the most religiously Christian of those three countries.

So I’m skeptical that the “war on Christmas” by calling it “the holiday season” in the US makes a particular difference. If anything, Christmas in the US is still, even in its current state, a little more religious than it is in the UK, at least in my impression. British Jews are generally more religiously conservative than American Jews, but seem much more likely (in my experience) to have a Christmas tree or even to open presents on the 25th, precisely because the customs are now essentially fully divorced from religion.

British primary schools/kindergartens still put on (as Love Actually appreciators will know) nativity plays every year, and this too - despite literally being about Jesus - has been essentially divorced from religion. Christians should pick their poison. It might be better to keep their customs as particular ones than to fully secularize even the religious elements the way the Brits have.

The "war on Christmas" narrative flies in the face of the fact that Christmas is the biggest it's ever been in history and is growing every year.

Yeah, I love Christmas, but even I'm tired of seeing it creep ever earlier in the year, swallowing up other holidays like Thanksgiving. I hate that I've had Thanksgiving dinner immediately followed by my mom and sister taking off for a "Black Friday" sale on Thursday that they went to in order to buy presents for Christmas. Frankly, Halloween seems like it is the only thing stopping Christmas from seeping even earlier into the year.

This is such a commonly expressed idea that is so alien to me I would love to get more details on it.

I don't even particularly love Christmas, I have spent more than a couple of them alone, but the only part of Christmas Creep that I find even slightly objectionable is the music. I enjoy Christmas decorations, I think they are cozy and festive, and often well done. It takes a lot of time and effort to put up good Christmas decorations, and it seems crazy to me to go through all that trouble and only put them up a hand full of days in advance and take them down immediately. Enjoy the atmosphere. Light a fire in the fire place. Drink more hot coco and mulled wine.

Thinking about my own preference here, it reminds me of Diamond Age, and the phyles/claves which I absolutely loved. I guess to try and name this nebulous concept I am feeling, it might be something like Aesthetic Intentionality. Anything that pushes against the dead aesthetics of 'universal culture' is at least interesting if not strictly preferable to me.

Then bring Christmas forward into January, not backwards into Autumn.

The traditional pattern was a fast before Christmas, then a 12 day feast encompassing New Years and Theophany, after feast of Theophany, then a break before Lent. This is, of course, less convenient for shopping, so public venues won’t do it, but I do think it’s an overall more satisfying structure.

I agree completely. January is miserable, let Thanksgiving breathe a bit more and keep the pretty lights up into the worst month of the year.

I'm trying to convince my parents (who have decorated their house with huge numbers of lights since I was a kid) to keep the lights up into January. I'm hopeful they'll actually do it this year, that always makes me joyful to go to their house and see the pretty lights.

I hate January.

You lot make me feel so much better. It's not that I'm a lazy bum who can't muster the will power to take down the Christmas decorations, it's that I'm doing a public service to make January less depressing!

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When I was a Christian, I was annoyed about the commercialism growing and the Christ declining. So secular Xmas can continue to grow and the religious types will still bemoan the decline of religious Xmas. A kind of cultural approbation, perhaps.

The biggest attack on Christmas happens because of capitalism not any particular group. It’s really strange to think about but Christmas wasn’t destroyed by people saying happy holidays, as it was already moribund before that. It was killed by having Santa and reindeer and presents, thus as the marketing took over, any aspect of the holiday that doesn’t revolve around parties (which means buying fancy food) and decorating (buying stuff that matches the season) and media (wherein they sell ads) and of course presents (do I even need to say it) was stripped out and replaced with saccrine sweet smalls about peace, love, joy, and wonder — with no reason for those emotions. The reason is that for big companies, obviously don’t want people to see the holidays as primarily religious, as about Jesus, because going to church interferes with the buying of crap.

I have less hate of the phrase happy holidays because Christmas is already secular, and there are other holidays like Hanukkah and New Year’s Day. And at this point, the horse is twenty miles up the road. Closing the barn door now doesn’t matter. I think for those who want a religious Christmas, the best you could do is pick another date (orthodox Christmas is January 6) and ignore the marketeers.

Except when you strip all that stuff away, what do you have left? A liturgical festival that no one cares to much about except the extremely religious. If you're looking for holidays like this there's no shortage of them—Pentecost, The Ascension, The Immaculate Conception, The Annunciation, All Souls Day, Ash Wednesday, etc. Maybe there are some traditions associated with these that aren't strictly religious in some places, but I'm not aware of any. They also aren't very fun, since the most exciting thing that happens is maybe a special liturgy, and some of them don't even have that. I'm no fan of the excessive commercialization of Christmas, but if the alternative is dealing with religious prudes telling me that I can't have any fun, I'll deal with it. If I didn't want to celebrate holidays I'd become a Jehovah's Witness.

That may be true in England, but in the United States, Christmas celebrations initially grew thanks to the massive waves of German immigrants, who had always considered Christmas very important. The commercialization of Christmas came later.

I wouldn't object so much to "Happy Holidays" if it hadn't been made explicitly anti-religious. I agree that the commercialisation has destroyed a lot of past traditions (and jumbled up time so that this year the Hallowe'en and Christmas branded confectionery were on shop shelves at the same time, and as soon as the new year comes the Easter eggs will be out on the shelves, then by the end of summer the Hallowe'en stuff starts).

But when it was pushed that "oh we must say holidays because Christmas is religious and we can't be prioritising one religion over others and lots of people aren't Christian, you know", that brought the religious element roaring in.

It's possible to have both; we have a local 'celebration' (more a desperate marketing event to get shoppers/consumers into the city centre at the start of the 'shopping season') called "Winterval" (God help us) but it certainly hasn't replaced Christmas as a greeting or celebration.

If you let people have both "Happy Holidays" and "Merry Christmas", without getting offended (on behalf of others, which is where the real objection comes in) about wishing people either, then it isn't a culture war event.

If a Jewish person says "Hey, I don't celebrate Christmas, so while I appreciate your good intentions, please don't wish me a Merry Christmas", that's okay. It's when somebody who isn't Jewish or anything but white secular liberal from a formerly Christian background goes "Well this is offensive to non-Christians and I'm speaking up on their behalf" that you want to throw a snowball at their nose.

I've never been wished "Happy Diwali" or "Happy Eid" or the likes, but if I were, I wouldn't get bent out of shape about it, despite being a Catholic. Unless the person doing it were very ostentatiously doing it to show off how they were being a good ally using their white privilege to centre the marginalised.

I’ll agree that the white knighting around such things are annoying. It’s just that I find it hard to understand how Christmas is still considered religious when almost everyone celebrates 90% of it, and the religious message of the holiday — specifically that Jesus was born to bring salvation to humanity. It’s barely religious and only religious if you make a special effort to make it religious. So when people try to claim that modern Christmas celebrations outside of churches and religious homes is somehow a religious thing, I ask them which part. I sometimes jokingly refer to the largely secular tradition as “giftmas” simply because that’s what most people are actually doing.

So when people try to claim that modern Christmas celebrations outside of churches and religious homes is somehow a religious thing, I ask them which part.

I do think that's what they're trying to do with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", to expunge the last lingering link with the original religious roots. Like new Puritanism, the way Cromwell did away with Christmas because it was too secular a merry-making holiday. But the Calvinist-inclined didn't make Christmas Day a church holiday, either, they enforced that it was just an ordinary day (presumably because even keeping that much of the roots was too Roman Catholic for them), and I think that's what always happens with Christmas: if you try to shape it to your preferred new model, you have to end up eliminating it completely because there are too many echoes. So yeah - Giftmas or Festival or 'the Holidays' because "Christmas" is still a term radioactive with its religious meaning.

I think it would be better all round if everyone agreed "Yeah, it's Christmas and not 'the Holidays' and yeah, it's all about Santa and gifts and big traditional meal and boozing and having fun, not prayers and commemoration, nowadays for most people".

Agree, but I don't think it's entirely correct to just blame capitalism, although obviously the profit motive and marketing play a big role - capitalism or not, modern technology would produce an abundance of consumer goods and enjoyable experiences, and also drain away the practical function of communal rituals about seasons and harvests and group purpose.

This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday. Obviously this is absurd on its face and would never be taken seriously.

There are two minor random Christian holidays around Passover. The one is Palm Sunday the other Easter.

TIL Easter is a minor holiday.

Well we are not going to make a big deal for a guy finding his way out of a cave after all.

Let's go. In n out. 3 day adventure.

Literally the second most important Holiday for the Christian goys

Edit: I should have said second most widely celebrated

Easter is the most important Christian holiday. The secular perception that Christmas is more important than Easter is an artifact of secular society widely celebrating (a secular and commericalised version of) Christmas.

For some Christians, sure.

But as a former American Christian it’s definitely Christmas among most American Christians in terms of both religious and secular celebration and emphasis. Revealed preferences and all that.

I am an elderly one legged korean midget woman

Source: trust me, I say so.

Do I really need to somehow demonstrate evidence that I was raised a devout Christian in America?

Anymore than anyone else in this thread, for you to consider my views not simply made up, for some reason?

I’m not exactly making a significant claim here, and elsewhere in the thread there is discussion on how different flavors of Christianity celebrate and emphasize in diverse ways.

The whole of Easter involves the passion of Christ, His crucifixion, His redemption of mankind's sin, and His death, ressurection and eventual assumption. It's literally the point of Christianity, and the core holy-day. In this case I would just say the American Christians who think Christmas is more important than Easter from a Christian point of view are just wrong and have been unduly influenced by the secular popularity of Christmas.

I'm arguing empirical reality, not doctrine; I agreed above that it's almost certainly because of the dang holy men bringing gifts, which meshes nicely with secular Santa and consumerism.

Perhaps my personal experience doesn't generalize, but Christmas also involved more religious emphasis than Easter as well, in my childhood, with special programs and celebrations.

You may be right about most Baptists and non-denominational evangelicals, but I’d say you’re wrong about most Catholics and lectionary-following Protestants. Christmas is preceded by four weeks of preparation and followed by twelve days of celebration (and accompanied by a secular gift-giving celebration that happens at the same time). Easter is preceded by 40 days of preparation and followed by 40 days of celebration. There’s fasting, extra services, “giving up something for Lent….” The difference is that these are much less visible to the outside world, including to the aforementioned Baptists and evangelicals.

Raised Catholic in America, it feels kind of like an apples to oranges comparison. I remember way more church stuff going on around Easter for sure, but I feel like there was more 'energy' around Christmas. Obviously a child's perspective might be skewed what with the gifts but Christmas was the bigger deal for me.

Well, as a Puritan Atheist, I don't consider those Papists and quasi-papists real Christians anyway. /s

Also, I don't know that the length of "preparation" and "celebration" is the best way to compare the relative level of celebration between the two holidays, but the admixture of the secular bits definitely muddies the waters a lot. In a slightly different universe, perhaps the Christian West managed to make Easter a major commercial holiday (beyond mere candy) and so it became far more significant culturally than Christmas across the board.

It's interesting that in the West our winter celebration is so much bigger than our spring/fall/summer ones. The Chinese New Year is on the tail end of winter celebrating the coming of spring, "Greater Iran" has Nowruz in the spring, the Islamic world has Ramadan on a rotating basis, Rosh Hashanah is fall, as is Diwali.

Is it? I think many Christians would say otherwise. Christianity isn't like Judaism where Rabbis can make these decisions for people, especially Protestants.

Christianity isn't like Judaism where Rabbis can make these decisions for people, especially Protestants.

Judaism doesn't have a church hierarchy like Catholicism. Jews famously don't agree on the interpretations of their religious commandments.

According to the Catholic Church, Eaater and Good Friday are #1 and #2. We worship Christ because of his passion, execution, and resurrection. He died and came back so that those who believe shall live.

Any Christian that celebrates Christmas over Easter has missed the point.

I know that but does the average Christian? I'd be willing to bet church attendance is higher on Christmas.

You can take the redditor out of reddit, but you can't the reddit out of the redditor.

You think the average Christian knows anything about Christianity? I can assure you that they don't.

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Easter is generally a bigger religious holiday than Christmas, yes. Of course Christmas is a bigger deal to Christians who don't actually go to church.

Literally the most important and most ancient, in fact.

This would be like if Christians in Israel started demanding if a minor random Christian holiday near Passover be given equal standing to their most important holiday. Obviously this is absurd on its face and would never be taken seriously.

Christians could never accomplish such a feat, because the Meek will Inherit the Earth. Fortunately for Jews, they don't believe that tripe so they get their Menorah on the White House lawn with no Nativity or Cross in sight.

As Nietzsche said, the command 'love your enemies' had to have been invented by the best haters there have ever been. You can say "I don't want to blame this on 'da Jews'", but yeah, the cultural dynamic is the accomplishment of a concerted effort by da Jews.

This is valid about plenty in modern Christianity but historical Christianity wasn't like this. If you study the history of Christianity and many of the Church's fathers although not as tribal for their own group and hostile to outsiders as the Jews, they were pro Christian and against non Christians. They saw as Christians the new chosen ones. And had plenty of negatives to say about the Jews both related to religious dogma and in general condemning what they saw as a bad character and behavior in the Jews. Especially against Christians.

It is no accident that this Christianity that is more like this exists is in a more progressive, secular age and in addition to the progressive ideology, we also had the influence of Jewish organizations playing a part too.

Its like quoting the passages in the old testament that are extremely pro Jewish, or even Jewish supremacist, but not the parts in the new testament that are negative towards the Jews.

Scofield bible is also a part of modernity and not part of historical Christianity.

It is a choice to focus on such quotes, while Christianity has other quotes and history one can focus upon. So, there is something that can be found in Christianity to promote such narratives, but it is a choice to focus upon this exclusively. And no accident that often non Christians did this.

To be fair, it matters more what is the current Christianity, or what calls itself that than historical. It still would be wrong to write off all modern Christians as self-flaggelating or pushovers towards the Jews. We should try to separate the faction that are with those that aren't. It is also true that the later can claim more authenticity.

That's really interesting, what would be some anti-Jewish stuff in the New Testament?

And actually, do any of the books of the New Testament ever go after other groups (ie Roman pagans, Persian Zoroastrian monotheists?)

In addition to the two passages cited by Belisarius below, I would add Matthew 27, which IMO is even worse than those given the context:

22 Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” 23 And he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” 24 So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.” 25 And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

It is very strongly implied that "all the people" are the Jews.

As a counterpoint, during Palm Sunday, the (Christian) congregation explicitly takes personal responsibility for the death of Christ. As humans, we all have the capacity for getting carried away as part of a mob, and so we all have to confront the fact that we innately have more in common with the jeering crowd than with Jesus. "All the people" is therefore understood in those terms.

My theology and history isn't good enough to guarantee that this has always been the case everywhere since 0 AD so caveat emptor, but I think it's the usual interpretation.

That's true, but Christians were originally the Jews who supported Jesus. Modern Judaism is descended intellectually from the Pharisees who were explicitly the enemies of Christ and the ones who condemned him. The idea that the struggle is racial is a Nazi contrivance, but the idea it is ideological is just history.

I consider it negative on Jews but not Anti-Jewish because the term has been abused to an extreme degree by one sided complaining and excessive complaining where it isn't warranted without any sense of proportion. Of course if you search for the Talmud and the Torah you can find far worse. Including against non Jews in general. One of various examples: https://www.sefaria.org/Jerusalem_Talmud_Kiddushin.4.11.7?lang=bi

See 257 reference which says:

Rebbi Simeon ben Ioḥai stated: Kill the best of Gentiles

Also, Christian Zionist Judeo-Christian interpretation of Christianity and the general movement is anti-Christian and promotes a mentality servile to the Jews so a version of Christianity if one takes it as Christianity has anti-Christian elements. The Bible includes the Old Testament which does have some extremely racist passages favoring genocide and mistreatment of non Jews and Jews lording over others as God's chosen people.

For the bellow passage and the quote one could interpret it as meaning perhaps the Jews of this incident. A pro Christian interpretation would be that it is about the Jews but precisely because Christ's Godly way is more moral than how the Jews interpret their tradition. Frankly as a Christian who isn't very literalist about everything in the old testament, nor very religious (I have a complicated relationship with faith) but it is still my culture and religion, and my people, especially a subset of them I can't but see a difference between the New Testament and Old Testament, with the first advocating a more merciful morality than the later. In general, it is better if certain passages of the old testament especially are not taken too seriously by anyone through interpretation. While there are quotes in the old testament too that are wise like Thou shalt not kill.

But no reason for Christians to allow themselves to be psyopped in letting others dominating them and mistreating them which is different than the historical Christianity. Of course, while I want Christians to stand up for themselves and not tolerate Anti-Christian hatred and haters, if Christians go full Old Testament, that wouldn't be ideal from a more universalist ethical point of view and not my preference.

So here it is one, see especially John 8:44:

You can read it from the beginning in the bellow link.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%208&version=KJV

19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.

20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.

21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.

22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.

23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.

24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.

26 I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.

27 They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.

28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.

29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.

30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.

31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.

36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

37 I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.

39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.

41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.

42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?

47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?

49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.

50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.

51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

There is also the bellow quote from revelation 2:9.

I know thy works and tribulation and poverty (but thou art rich), and I know the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.

These are examples that I recalled. This isn't necessarily a list of everything that might qualify.

Super interesting, and you're quite correct: relatively mild criticism as it goes

Christians could never accomplish such a feat, because the Meek will Inherit the Earth. Fortunately for Jews, they don't believe that tripe so they get their Menorah on the White House lawn with no Nativity or Cross in sight.

What do you mean? Christians have done this over and over again in every country they have gained power in. They took axes to the sacred groves. They toppled pagan statues. They expelled Muslims from Jerusalem. There are still blasphemy laws in many Christian countries.

I feel like there's some tension here.

Is Christmas a particularly Christian holiday, so that attacks on the prominence of Christmas are attacks on Christianity? Or is Christmas so secularized as to have not much association with Christianity, and so non-Christians should have no objection to celebrating it?

I feel like this comment is trying to have it both ways. Whenever Christianity is under attack its a distinctly Christian affair so that attacks on Christmas are attacks on Christianity. Whenever Christmas is being celebrated, though, it's merely a secular holiday with no particular religious associations that no one should feel uncomfortable celebrating! This might be rhetorically convenient for Christians but seems like there's some tension here too me.

There is definitely tension. The Santa Claus version of Christmas with the reindeer and the elves and the North Pole is the new, secular, version of the festival. And even that is being improved upon with Mrs. Santa Claus, black Santa Claus, you name it (I think I'm still waiting for mainstream gay Santa, why no Mr. and Mr. Claus yet? No "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus"?*). The popular notion of Christmas is increasingly separate from the original Christian feast day. And yet they are still tangled together at the roots.

It's when those secular symbols get objected to, and insistence that you have to have the 'randomly chosen symbol from other faith or tradition' displayed alongside them or instead of them, that the murkiness sets in. Is Christmas a religious feast or a secular festival? Both? If we emphasise the secular festival, have we done away with the sectarian religious element?

If you're objecting to Santa because he's still Christian, then secular Christmas is not standing on its own, and claiming that this particular holiday is not uniquely Christian and so should be packed in with a grab-bag of "Happy Holidays" doesn't work. You can only have "Happy Holidays" if the festival being celebrated is, in effect, Yule (and long divorced from its original roots, and I don't count Wiccan/Pagan Yule as traditional) so it can be packaged alongside Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and any other scraped-together 'at the same date' festival from other traditions.

*Looks like the Norwegian postal service got there in 2021!

Whenever Christianity is under attack its a distinctly Christian affair so that attacks on Christmas are attacks on Christianity.

It helps when the attackers clarify that they are, in fact, targeting Christians with their statements. For example, see this excerpt from the Canadian Human Rights Commission:

Only through better understanding of how religious intolerance takes place in Canada can our legislation, policies and programs be crafted to address the causes and consequences of this intolerance.

Discrimination against religious minorities in Canada is grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism. This history manifests itself in present-day systemic religious discrimination. An obvious example is statutory holidays in Canada. Statutory holidays related to Christianity, including Christmas and Easter, are the only Canadian statutory holidays linked to religious holy days. As a result, non-Christians may need to request special accommodations to observe their holy days and other times of the year where their religion requires them to abstain from work.Footnote 4

Canada’s history with religious intolerance is deeply rooted in our identity as a settler colonial state.

(Any non religious attacks on Christmas are so utterly banal that they've slipped my mind. Something something commercialization? Something something bad family dynamics? Snow is cold?)

Whenever Christmas is being celebrated, though, it's merely a secular holiday with no particular religious associations that no one should feel uncomfortable celebrating!

When's the last time that you saw a Christmas movie that included mass? How about the last time you've seen a government agency or an official (not a politician) celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour? Heck, I can't remember the last time I've heard a "Bethlehem and Jesus" style song on the radio instead of a "Presents and Reindeer" one.

The religious connotations haven't been entirely removed, but it's not far off.

I can't remember the last time I've heard a "Bethlehem and Jesus" style song on the radio instead of a "Presents and Reindeer" one.

Really? Joy to the World, Mary did you Know, Oh Come all ye Faithful, etc. are all pretty commonly played on the radio in late December where I am. What they don't play is actual religious hymns, but did you really expect them to?

I'll start counting from now on, and (if I remember) I'll post the results in a month. Currently, I'm at 3 secular, 0 religious Christmas songs.

EDIT: 24-0

Heck, I can't remember the last time I've heard a "Bethlehem and Jesus" style song on the radio instead of a "Presents and Reindeer" one.

A point that rankles my American other half, year after year, is that the "Christmas Music" played publicly here in Ireland is a completely different canon to what she grew up with back home. And, unusually, there is just a total failure of Americanisation in the domain of Christmas music - her canon seems ancient (many tunes from the 1950s versus a tilt towards the 1980s here, because of different population pyramids - we don't have a bulge of 60-70 year olds monopolising all the cultural memory space) and painfully schmaltzy to most Irish ears, including my own.

For example, the universally-acknowledged GOAT of Christmas music in Ireland is The Pogues' Fairytale of New York, a thoroughly secular 1980s ballad that consistently rankles schoolmarmish woke types not because of overt Christofascism, but because the word "faggot", in the pejorative sense, is a key lyric. This song gives rise to the only occassion in modern Ireland where a person can drunkenly chant the word "faggot" at a stuffy office (Christmas) party and recieve no censure.

Overtly religious stuff is also played publicly (a fine example is Mary's Boy Child by Boney M, a jaunty German-calypso tune) because it's a religious holiday. The modal Irish person under 35 sounds like a Q-Anon believer when discussing Catholicism (it's a giant conspiracy run by paedos to amass wealth & get a go of children), yet will still tolerate religious music at Christmas because, come on. I don't know how American culture has managed to get away from this. Maybe it really is semitic sour grapes from the pullers of American cultural levers.

In stores and malls, I haven't heard any religious Christmas music since sometime in the 1990s. It's just one billion repetitions of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "Chestnuts Rosting on an Open Fire", and various pop abominations.

My two local malls (Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria) and the stores in them, in fact, have really been skimping on Christmas decorations in the past few years. In the 1980s, the whole place used to get transformed: tinsel and colored lights everywhere, decorated trees in every shop window. Seeing this used to be one of the things I most looked forward to about the Christmas season.

Nowadays, there are just a few anemic strings of white lights hanging from the ceiling (colored lights seem to be permanently out of fashion for some reason) and almost no stores have any decorations put up at all!

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the area now has a sizable Muslim population (when I go there now, maybe a quarter to a third of the women are wearing headscarves or hijab) who'd rather not see a Christian holiday celebrated, although I doubt anyone would admit publically that that's the reason.

there are just a few anemic strings of white lights hanging from the ceiling (colored lights seem to be permanently out of fashion for some reason)

I think this is part of a wider aesthetic shift towards being sleek/minimalistic that has been happening for a long time. I distinctly remember noticing as a kid in the early 2000s that there was a trend with upper-class people more likely to do white lights and lower-class being more likely to do colored lights. I tried to get my folks to put up colored lights instead of white lights, but the compromise ended up being all one color (I chose blue, which led to people asking if we had converted to Judaism).

Colours can be tasteful if they're used with care but generally less is more. Our neighbours use multicoloured lights but it's offset by each bulb being very small. The bigger the display the more the colours will clash. Red and white could be a suitable combination for the season but monochrome white makes an effective Schelling point for a whole neighbourhood to converge on and create a semi-coordinated appearance.

For me blue lights don't say Christmas (or Judaism), they say either "blue LEDs hit the market and everyone began using them in order to look more futuristic... twenty years ago" or "emergency vehicle". The one positive is that it's not as eerie and unearthly as green. Blue is cold and eye-catching and that's why it's such a confusing choice to have a big bright one on the front of so many TVs, but again: "futuristic". Christmas lights should be warm and festive, like a log fire reflected on a brass coal scuttle or candlelight shining through stained-glass. White lights are bland but at least they're reminiscent of frost and snow and fit a wintertime palette.

I've noticed a lot of people don't distinguish between warm and cold white though and end up using the bluish white lights indoors where a warmer tone would be much cosier and more inviting, leaving their sitting room with a similar lighting ambience to a commercial kitchen.

I guess that now LED ropes are getting cheaper soon everything will look like Tron. "Bloop bloop bloop! Merry twelve slash twenty five."

I've definitely heard "Silent Night" recently. And the vastly overplayed Trans-Siberian Orchestra compilation includes religious songs.

Skimping on Christmas decorations is probably a result of the general decline of in-store shopping.

general decline of in-store shopping.

YMMV - malls in my area are absolutely packed right now. There seems to be a kind of resurgence going on now that the recession is cancelled.

I think acknowledging the Christian roots of these holidays and wanting acknowledgements of other religious holidays is distinct from being an attack on Christianity. The obvious reason why holidays like Good Friday and Christmas are holidays acknowledged by the federal government is religious, specifically Christian, influence. This is distinct from other non-religious holidays (like Canada Day or Thanksgiving). The question is whether the elevation of those specific holidays comport with our present values. What's the justification for having a federal holiday for Christian holidays but not Jewish ones? Or Muslim ones? Or any other religion? Having your nation's federal government have specific holidays that correspond to Christian holidays, but no other religion's, certainly feels like religious bigotry to me!

Oppressing the majority and being intolerant to their culture and religion for the sake of accommodating minorities is not a good idea if one wants to combat religious bigotry. It actually what you do if you want to enforce it, and that is why conquering religions did just that on majorities they conquered.

What you suggest is not the end of bigotry but the elevation of it by an oppression of the majority by an alliance of minorities. AKA progressive stack religious edition the anti-Christian version.

In the case of an atheist allying with religious minorities against the majority then you still got bigotry of the atheist and the religious minorities. Not only are atheists not exempt from bigotry, but in the modern world have been some of the worst participants in it, with Christians being often the victims.

And if someone has the goal of an atheistic state oppressing all religions, you got an oppression there too. Both that and nor not allowing the majority the right to celebrate their religion are a case of a worse value system and not a better one.

Moreover, like non Christians have their own countries and there is no agitation of this nature, so do Christians have theirs. In fact there is no agitation of this extend about avoiding actual mistreatment of Christians neither in Israel nor in Muslims countries the two examples you mentioned. There is some by the Christian community in Israel but not much attention by those eager to complain about religious bigotry. Albeit, the worst state about mistreating Christians is one of the Muslim ones and not the Jewish one. Maybe Pakistan.

I guess a final point to be made is that experience with the progressive movement and identitarians who align with it tells us that even one-sided multi-culturalism has not been the end point. In fact we see some double standards even now and it is rather plausible that once Christian religion has been even further delegitimized, this will be enforced savagely with the tactic of associating Christianity with evil oppression and hatred, while there will be more tolerance towards other religions like the Jewish and Muslim ones you mentioned. This fits with the general pattern of an alliance of minorities against the majority. So if Christians want to avoid bigotry, the last thing they ought to do is listen to the Anti-Christians.

It seems to me there is a trade off between inclusivity and tolerance. Tolerance permits the majority to arrange society as they like while permitting effectively opt out whereas inclusivity encourages society to either be neutral or even adopt according to the minority.

When's the last time that you saw a Christmas movie that included mass? How about the last time you've seen a government agency or an official (not a politician) celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour? Heck, I can't remember the last time I've heard a "Bethlehem and Jesus" style song on the radio instead of a "Presents and Reindeer" one.

Good observation. Lately I've been feeling like Christmastime begins and ends on the 24th, when I go to church for once in a year. And I'm not even religious. The Advent season, which in my childhood spanned late November to early January, used to be festive and distinctly Christian - but over the last thirty years, the Christian connotations indeed seem to have been lost, and it cheapened the whole affair to the point where it really is all about chocolate and presents and seemingly random themes like reindeer and jolly santa clauses.

Something's been lost. I guess I could still get the original Advent feeling if I actively sought it out, but it's no longer "in the air", as they say.

I'm an agnostic so I'm not particularly concerned with Christianity. I'll put it simply. There is no such thing as "the holidays". So any direct call to name it "the holidays" is a direct attack on Christianity by its definition. Christmas is more or less a secular holiday at this point, so attacking Christmas underlies an anti-Christian worldview since the average non-Christian is fine celebrating Christmas. The only person that would care about this from the anti-Christmas perspective is one who is against Christianity having any public rituals or any role in society.

I mean, I'm an atheist for whatever that's worth.

For my part I think of the "holiday season" as encompassing all the holidays from Thanksgiving to New Years. Christmas is the biggest of those but not the only one. I'm also unconvinced that because Hanukkah is not that big in Judaism it deserves to be ignored.

I'm also unclear on how attacks on Christmas can be anti-Christian if Christmas is not particularly Christian. Are people opposed to Christmas because of its celebration of consumerism anti-Christian?

I'm also unclear on how attacks on Christmas can be anti-Christian if Christmas is not particularly Christian. Are people opposed to Christmas because of its celebration of consumerism anti-Christian?

I'm not convinced that you're describing people who exist. The main critics of toyotathon and Christmas sales are religious Christians who see it as taking away from the true meaning of the holiday. The main criticism of public Christmas celebrations is Christianity.

This is looking for a loophole and a gotcha to justify attacks on Christians which are anti-Christian.

Christmas is particularly Christian and to the extend it has been de-Christianized it is still attacked on the basis of Christian origin and being too Christian.

Are people opposed to Christmas because of its celebration of consumerism anti-Christian?

But that isn't the primary argument you have used against Christmas but that it is Christian and it is religious bigotry for not equal space to be given to other religions and not undermining the Christian one. So it isn't correct that opposition to Christmas is mainly about anti-consumerism.


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