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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35661 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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As @themottealt9000 said, I feel like your response here kind of illustrates my point.

You're associating "rootless cosmopolitan bankers" with a racial phenotype because you (and everyone else in your secular progressive bubble) are predisposed to frame things in terms of race. In short you can hear the racist dog-whistle because racism (IE judging people on the basis of race) is an integral component of your worldview. You're the dog.

Meanwhile outside that bubble "rootless cosmopolitan bankers" is simply an accurate description of "the Davos set" and their various allies, cheerleaders, and hangers on.

Everything you said is wrong, I use that example because I am a terminally online right winger and browse racist Twitter/forums where people post about (((bankers))) all the time. My point is that if you are an otherwise upstanding anti-racist progressive citizen who finds their way into dissident-right Twitter or /pol/ you’re not a “dog” for recognizing what people mean when they bring up wooden doors or “joggers” or whatever vague phrase is being used to avoid getting banned from normie internet spaces. Perhaps the confusion is that you wouldn’t consider those examples to be “dogwhistles” because they are so obvious? I agree with you entirely that the term “dogwhistle” 99% of the time is used as a political smear to associate politicians the left doesn’t like with ebil nazis even when it has no basis in reality.

Again I feel like you're just illustrating my point.

I don't think you're a "terminally online right winger" so much as just "terminally online". That the dissident-right on twitter ought to stop pretending to hate woke-left and start making out has been a running joke amongst the wider right for years now.

What exactly is your point then? I agree I am a “dog” by whatever definition you’re using. Fair enough, but that was not your point. Your original point was that identifying a dogwhistle means you are the “dog”. You are on here enough that I assume you are at least passively familiar with various dogwhistles like “jogger” or the three parentheses thing. Because you understand that these are dogwhistles, does that mean that racism is an integral part of your worldview? Pick your favorite “real right winger” who doesn’t use the internet. If I told this person that certain people use the term “jogger” instead of black person, and then I show this person a 4chan post saying that joggers commit too much crime and should be sent back to Africa. Is he supposed to say “wow this guy really hates runners huh?” And if he doesn’t say that and correctly parses the 4chan post, does that mean that racism is an integral part of his worldview now?

And then this happens...

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/351854/berkeley-develops-jewish-free-zones/?fbclid=IwAR1RyY1u7FeYbL9YYVgmo2DNs258oEdm6JiKLR3WhdW8ZpQ77PyAOFKSAcE

He's associating "rootless cosmopolitan bankers" with Jews because historically, that phrase has been used on Jews. Your argument could be made about any epithet. What makes you think that "crackers" refers to lower class white people? After all, he just said "crackers", he didn't mention their skin color at all!

In short you can hear the racist dog-whistle because racism (IE judging people on the basis of race) is an integral component of your worldview.

I can hear the racist dogwhistle because i'm familiar with history. The other times people said that, it was predominantly in a context where it meant "Jews". In other words "racism is an integral component of my worldview" in the sense "racism actually exists". And, you know what? Racism does exist.

@SSCReader made a good point up thread but I feel like this instance in this context is closer @ApplesauceIrishCream describes. IE if someone who is not a Jew keeps trying make everything about the Jews in itself is a red flag. Ditto, male feminists, and white academics who wont shut up about black victimhood.

The phrase has historically been used to refer to Jews. The people who are "making" it be about Jews are the people who've said it in the past.

I think this is a case where the phrase just has too much obvious use even with absolutely no knowledge of that history. John Fetterman [D] is literally running his campaign almost entirely by accusing Mehmet Oz [R] of being the sort of person to whom "rootless cosmopolitan" would apply. Insisting it's a dogwhistle in all cases comes off like the people who get mad when "literally" is used figuratively, except the literally person is a Nazi.

It's not the concept literally described by the phrase which means Jews, it's the actual phrase. If all you want is the concept, there are plenty of ways to say it without using those exact words, and it's unlikely you'd stumble upon the words by chance unless you blindly copied it from someone who did use it to mean Jews.

you blindly copied it from someone who did use it to mean Jews.

Suppose I did - does that imply anything? After all, the whole point of a dogwhistle is supposed to be that it's unrecognizable to non-dogs. So I read the term, take it at face value, because the implication is obscured (or because I encountered out of context), think it's a good description, and reuse it without being aware of the original speaker's meaning.

The end result is the same as coming up with it by myself: I'm using the term at face value and it's not a dogwhistle.

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