A Discussion of The Revolt of the Elites; Lorenzo Warby on Critical Constructivism; Rabbi Jason Rubenstein on anti-semitism; Ruth Wisse on anti-semitism; Lukianoff and Schlott on cancel culture
"Some of the leading opponents of cancel culture are women."
File under, "Exceptions which prove the rule." Also, most are of a certain age. For many, they're only contrarian against the cancel culture zeitgeist to the extent yesterday's normal - to which their commitment became subject to the inflexibility of age - fell out of fashion. Also, a few prominent examples who I won't name very obviously only seem to complain about "cancel culture" on the rare (0.01%) occasion that the right is actually effective when it insists that leftists die by the sword they choose to live by. "We want bilateral disarmament but if you won't agree we must stay armed," is different from "we are the only ones with a right to be armed, and furthermore, we are morally compelled to use them against you, and also, we love to do it!"
Finding an otherwise normal young woman who argues for robust free speech norms on principle and in a balanced fashion is the "exception which proves the rule"^10.
You may well have a point (statistically-speaking you almost certainly do)....but it does at least seem to me that young women are not entirely absent from Substack comment threads like these. But perhaps this is just my hope springing eternal.
Do you believe that a counter factual in which Israel's history was the same except it was founded by Dutch or Swedish or Russian settlers would have resulted in any less "hatred".
If "anti-semitism" is the driver then the replacement of Jews with someone else ought to change the situation, but I don't get the impression that if you take the history of Israel as it is and race swap out the founding stock that it changes the situation at all.
In fact I will go one further. I think Israel gets a lot more slack and a lot more support because its Jewish then it would otherwise. If Israel wasn't Jewish I expect it would be treated the way South Africa under apartheid was treated, or any of the white settlers in post colonial areas were treated. Did anyone pass billion dollar aid packages to support whites in Zimbabwe against ethnic cleansing by the blacks?
I think Israel gets more support then any equivalent country would get in the exact same circumstances by virtue of Jews being rich and important and people wanting them on their side. Call this "pro-semitism" if you will. "The Jews do control everything, better be on their side!"
Every time you accuse some BLM lefty who thinks racism is the worst thing in the world of being "anti-semitic" you feed into this victim narrative that is driving the whole thing. You will never be able to convince people that Jews are the victim. They are too successful today and the bad things that happened to Jews are way in the past.
The way forward is to stop with the victim bating. It's a contest you can't win. It's time to strike back at all victim baiting, not just try to squeeze the Jews into it on some favorable terms.
Jews control Israel BY RIGHT OF CONQUEST. They are the better people and they deserve it. That's it. Own it.
I think there are some historical examples that show a possible counter factual for Israel founded/conquered by someone else that doesn't result in that much hatred. Tibet comes to mind, for instance. While there are some free Tibet folks still bouncing around, one doesn't see much international grouchiness about it, no student marches, no UN resolutions. Likewise you don't see much international fuss about various African countries fighting over various bits of the region, or even much in the middle east. Hell, I had never even heard of the whole Saudi Arabia/Yemen situation until a I had a student from there explain it to me.
So while the Palestinians might be pretty well angry for quite some time, and rather understandably so, the amount of hatred generated among people who are indirectly affected at most is pretty unusual. Now, how much of that is anti-Semitism in general vs perhaps Soviet era propaganda targeting the US via destabilization, or any number of other things, I don't really know. But when I see people from all over the world who have no ancestral or other relevant dog in the fight going nuts over the situation, it does strike me as a little unusual, a special case.
People do complain about Tibet or Uighur, but what are they going to do about it. China won’t take anyone’s shit and has the power to do so. The groups involved themselves are tiny and insignificant. And we aren’t giving billions in military support to China every year.
If it were just the Palestinians I think people wouldn’t care, but it’s clearly the fact that the entire Arab world supports them that makes their plight matter. That a lot of people and a lot of money.
People could protest China just as easily and ineffectually as they do Israel, and they certainly could do the same with regard to Saudi Arabia or Rowanda or whatever. It just isn’t the same level. I don’t know how many Palestinians there are outside the region, but it isn’t like it was a large population to begin with.
Claiming the Arab world supports them is a bit off I think. The Arab world likes to use them as apolitical football, but they clearly don’t care about the people. I suspect if you polled Jordanians, Egyptians or Syrians they would more or less say “eh, hell with those guys”. They certainly don’t seem to be clamoring to invite them into their countries to live.
They lost three wars in what was it, 30 years? Then did nothing for 50 or so. That suggests they stopped caring outside of it being a fun political football.
More importantly, they have resolutely closed their borders to the refugees (are they still refugees after 70 odd years?) That isn't even not shoulder a heavy burden, that is actively rejecting them.
It seems to me that they dislike the same people, but the Palestinians are disliked only a bit less. The other Arab/Muslim nations don't seem to hate Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, but rather for other reasons.
I wouldn’t t want Palestinians in my country, it’s hard to judge anyone else that doesn’t. Didn’t Palestinian refugees try to overthrow Jordan? I suspect they would have a similarly destabilizing effect in Egypt.
Anyway, their stance is that Israel should not exist, but that it is militarily beyond their power to change that situation.
So like the Ukrainians not recognizing that Putin has conquered part of their country and they can’t do anything about it, the Arabs don’t acknowledge Israel’s control over the Palestinians even though they can’t do anything about it.
Just like we pay the Ukrainians to banzai charge into minefields while their country gets bombed, the Arabs provide hamas with money to destroy themselves too.
It’s not about the Palestinians anymore then ukraine is about the Ukrainians.
You say a lot that is interesting and makes sense. Thank you for stating a perspective I hadn't heard before. That said, I think you miss one important point. Jews have a historical claim on the Holy Land quite different and much stronger than whites in South Africa, nevermind that blacks were still the majority living in South Africa and whites weren't kicked out or even mistreated when control reverted. I'm not saying that makes their conquest right, just much different than South Africa. It's more like American Indians taking back a bit more of the land in the Americas or maybe declaring a separate country on occupied lands. After 70+ years maybe it's reasonable to acknowledge their claim to the land.
That seems really weak to me. Sky God said it was yours thousands of years ago is infinitely weaker then "my people lived here for thousands of years until you got rid of us in a war like 75 years ago."
"whites weren't kicked out or even mistreated when control reverted"
I would strongly dispute this claim.
"It's more like American Indians"
I think that if American Indians were 50% of the population and that there were a billion or so co-ethnic co-religionist Indians in the general region flush with oil wealth that supported them that we would have constant strife and land disputes.
But it is actually the truth of the matter. If the Israelis hadn't been able to conquer it, there would be no Jews there today- they would have been forced out by the mid 70s. If they can't defend their borders today, they won't be there in a generation. I think the Israelis are in a fight to the death, and the outcome isn't certain- I only know you can afford to lose such a fight.
America belongs to Americans by right of conquest, and whatever the native Americans think about it they are shut out of luck.
Hamas is still and issue because the Palestinians have a demographic parity with Jews in greater Israel and Jews are dramatically outnumbered by Arabs more generally.
My understanding is that when god gave the land to the Jews it involved genociding a lot of the people who lived there, but god was really down with that (even ordering it).
Enjoyed, as usual, your link pointers and will explore. But the best sentence in this post is the last. Quiet contemplation is far too underrated and under-promoted. Any time we can find respite from the chaos of modern life we should grab it. One recommendation I'd offer is Deresiewicz's "Solitude and Leadership", particularly the second half, from a talk he gave some years ago at West Point.
I like listening to podcasts when I have household chores to do, like washing dishes or dusting. The lack of information density isn't so big a problem when you're periodically distracted by what you're working on anyway.
"Critical Constructivism does this by seeing our cognitive framings, and our reasons for action, as socially constructed. It denies any definitive knowledge of—or reference to—reality: the Constructivist bit."
It is hard for me to see any argument that our cognitive framings are almost entirely socially constructed. If we look at past societies, and even the variations today, it seems obvious that such great variations are almost certainly socially constructed. That's not a claim that genetics don't influence our cognitive framings but the variations seem too great to deny the influence of our social environment.
"It claims all human interactions are based on power relationships.
Surely parent-child and governing-governed are mostly power relationships. Even rich-poor, educated-uneducated, and high-low social standing are mostly power relationships. I'd agree claims they (relationships) are ENTIRELY power relationships goes too far but I'd still say mostly.
"They’re also irretrievably polluted by past sins through failing to live up to the imagined, transformative future: the Critical bit."
Irretrievably goes too far but given the human tendency to focus on the negative - the rustling in the brush might be a lion stalking me - there is good reason to understand how it is hard not to see the past more negatively than it was.
"This is the revolutionary doctrine that attacks Western civilization."
No. I think one can mostly agree with the given description and be mostly ok with western civilization. The attack on Western civilization comes from an extremist view of our society. It is when what is mostly true is taken too far.
In an earlier post, Lorenzo Warby mentioned that women are less likely than men to be team players. For example, he observed that women are more likely to harass their teammates during a game. This sounds very much like Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans who “fight,” but spend far more time fighting other Republicans than anyone else.
Perhaps MAGAs are feminized beta males trying to convince themselves and everyone else that they are alphas. That would go a long way toward explaining MAGA dogma that Trump, who famously whines until he gets his way, is the quintessential alpha male. Any guy who thinks that Trump is the last word in manhood has serious masculinity issues.
“The market dance of reknitting a new division of labor in response to a shock does depend crucially on the extent and sophistication of the division of labor.”
Good links all, but right now the Jewish questions dominate my thoughts, so the longish letter by the Rabbi Rubenstein, and the excerpts from Ruth Wisse are The Current Thing, which I'm also following on X (recently tweeted that Israel should flood the tunnels). The Rabbi was so correct on how a fired pro-Palestinian chaplain was wrong 2014 in a prior Hamas killing: "because he placed the blame for the murder of innocent Jews on Jews, exonerating our attackers".
The libel: "Jews are evil" Calling a person or group evil is stark demonization. And bad. American Jews are now surprised by being demonized by mostly Dems (80% media?) but also Reps (19%). It's fear and hatred of Jews having power - but it's also envy and resentment that they seem so successful, far more than the non-Jews in the neighborhood (Mid East).
Wisse is excellent about it not being so much purely about the Jews: "But antisemitism is about the antisemites, those who need this, those who have formed this ideology, who constitute this movement, who use this movement." Antisemitism is one form of demonization. An easy to see Jew hate demonization*, but: The Democratic Party has run 4 elections based primarily on demonization of Trump, and Trump hate. The Russia hoax headlines by NYT against Trump were recently redone as the NYT Jew-hate headline about Israel bombing & destroying a hospital, with 500 killed, and a picture of (another!) hospital that was highly damaged.
Media had, and has, many Trump hate articles, full of false charges but basically calling Trump "evil", as well as his supporters the kind of "folks who support evil" Many of these demonization articles were written by Jews. Jews willing to include false facts but more often merely attributing evil motives to Trump.
American tolerance for peaceful disagreement has been under attack by Democrats since before "Bush Derangement Syndrome" was coined to describe demonization and hate being promoted for political purposes.
"RW: Antisemitism, the organization of politics against the Jews, is something very distinctive because this is a political movement, and it is to be taken very seriously because people are trying to get power through this, and they are coming to power through this. "
Actually, it is DEMONIZATION that is so often used to get power. In 2020 Trump was the target, tho BLM also claimed to be "anti-racist", while claiming Trump was a racist (for wanting to enforce border laws).
She lists real world problems, that Hitler claimed and Hamas claims are the fault of the Jews: You're unemployed. The Church is failing. The country is being taken over. The press is being taken over. Music, culture, legal profession - they're everywhere.
Those Jewish Demons.
BLM claims it's the white supremacist Demons, and the The Great Demon Trump, echoed by most Dems.
Trump sometimes claims it's the Demon Democrats, but he's erratic about it-and while I take him seriously on problems, his insults are not the literal truth. But he does do lots of insulting; not quite the same but close.
"What unites them all? ... they all unite against the negative image" of the Demon. In this case, Israel. Previously, Trump. Or Kavanaugh. Or Palin, Bush43, Reagan, Nixon, Goldwater.
For the many noted reasons, Jews make a good target for Demonization, plus there are a couple more: High IQ - so many Nobel Prizes! Discrimination by Jews against non-Jews ... one Jewish father denies that he discriminates, he has many non-Jewish friends. Another father asks "but would you let your daughter marry one of them?" Tevye from the great Fiddler on the Roof answers: "No".
Jewish discrimination has kept the minority Jews a people for thousands of years - but also is a source of resentment. (Hugely changing among the less religious Jews in America since the 60s). This is related to racism - close enough for Jew haters to call them racists; "Zionism is racism."
Finally, how hate is fun. Hating the Demon, Jew or Trump or whatever target*:
"RW: It’s a love fest of hate. And that’s something that one should not discount, the fun of sadism, the fun that they’re able to have in the name of some political ideology, like let’s cleanse the world of Jews, or let’s cleanse the world of Israel. This is not madness. There’s a tremendous ..."
How to get out? Require colleges who get tax exempt status to have at least 30% Republican professors and staff. Use "Diversity and Inclusion" - like the US Congress, with Republicans disagreeing about policy with Democrats.
I have a little bit of Holocaust fatigue, since Jews so often think Jew-hate is so different than hate of the Other, but it's not:
*The Muslim Azeris hate the Christian Armenians (and are ethnically cleansing 10s or 100s of thousands), with many other ethnic cleansings since WW I, 100+ years ago.
Chinese hate Muslim Uighurs
Russians hate Nazi-like Ukrainians, like those who support suppression of the Russian language
Many Burmese hate the Muslims in Myanmar (Burma, with 135 ethnic groups)
Pakistan Muslims hate Afghan Muslims, and are cleansing Pakistan of some 1.5 million refugees, often anti-Taliban, who will be forced back into Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
Rwandan Hutus hated the more successful minority Tutsis.
Malays in Malaysia hated the Chinese Malaysians.
Less educated Khmer Rouge Cambodians hated and murdered 25% of their population - the biggest genocide in my life.
Ottoman Turks hated and murdered Armenians as WW I ended; the lack of world outrage might have encouraged Hitler.
Demonization and hatred is NOT just a problem for Jews. It's always a problem. Tho in the USA, and "The Judeo-Christian Capitalist West", Jew hating Islamofascists are big Current Thing. Which will stay current for a long while, now that it's more in the open than previously.
Hamas should be destroyed - we need to live in peace, meaning peaceful disagreement.
"Peterson talks about differences in the way that feminine and male aggression play out. About minute 20, Peterson claims that women cannot run universities without ruining them. He asserts that the authoritarian temperament is correlated first of all with low IQ and second with being female."
In general I've liked and agreed with a lot of what Peterson says. He has made a few claims I've been unable to confirm, like the US military not taking people with IQs below 80 and that Scandinavian men and women diverge more in career choices. He has also said a few things I either misunderstood or understood and find repugnant. Having not listened to the full podcast yet, I can't help but have at least one very basic complaint about the second sentence I quote. The bell curves for capabilities of men and women have far more overlap than not. Maybe the list of women who could "run universities without ruining them" is small, smaller than for men, but saying it is zero seems illogical and impossible to determine with any certainty.
Note: It seems a bit ironic he makes a declarative of what women CANNOT do yet any measurement of that seems rather gray and fuzzy. (1) does "run universities" mean the president, a critical mass of senior management, or something else? (2) Other than bankruptcy, how do we determine that a university is ruined? (I'd be a little surprised if Peterson didn't think universities were already "ruined.")
On a separate point, given the history of western civilization and almost all other civilizations, I have a hard time aligning authoritarianism with women. I'm not claiming causation but it seems our society has become less authoritarian as women gain a more equal standing.
Do you think colleges are less authoritarian now, with far more women as professors and in admin, than 20 or 40 years ago? They have less freedom of speech, or thought.
Cancel culture is a social mob form of authoritarian, without any single dictator, to take credit or blame.
Smartphone mob authoritarianism (you read it heat first).
As I noted, my opinion suffers from the possibility of correlation not causation, or not correlated doesn't mean not caused. What you say not only suffers from the correlation issue but it's hard to prove colleges are even more authoritarian, though I tend to lean that way too. But note most people not white males would surely argue colleges are less authoritarian.
"Some of the leading opponents of cancel culture are women."
File under, "Exceptions which prove the rule." Also, most are of a certain age. For many, they're only contrarian against the cancel culture zeitgeist to the extent yesterday's normal - to which their commitment became subject to the inflexibility of age - fell out of fashion. Also, a few prominent examples who I won't name very obviously only seem to complain about "cancel culture" on the rare (0.01%) occasion that the right is actually effective when it insists that leftists die by the sword they choose to live by. "We want bilateral disarmament but if you won't agree we must stay armed," is different from "we are the only ones with a right to be armed, and furthermore, we are morally compelled to use them against you, and also, we love to do it!"
Finding an otherwise normal young woman who argues for robust free speech norms on principle and in a balanced fashion is the "exception which proves the rule"^10.
Some amazing exceptions though:
Heather Mac Donald: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
Margaret Thatcher: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
Can't think of any greater opponents of our Western hyper-progressive cultural suicide than these two women.
I can name dozens of living examples. The problem is that ZERO are under 40.
You may well have a point (statistically-speaking you almost certainly do)....but it does at least seem to me that young women are not entirely absent from Substack comment threads like these. But perhaps this is just my hope springing eternal.
Arnold,
Do you believe that a counter factual in which Israel's history was the same except it was founded by Dutch or Swedish or Russian settlers would have resulted in any less "hatred".
If "anti-semitism" is the driver then the replacement of Jews with someone else ought to change the situation, but I don't get the impression that if you take the history of Israel as it is and race swap out the founding stock that it changes the situation at all.
In fact I will go one further. I think Israel gets a lot more slack and a lot more support because its Jewish then it would otherwise. If Israel wasn't Jewish I expect it would be treated the way South Africa under apartheid was treated, or any of the white settlers in post colonial areas were treated. Did anyone pass billion dollar aid packages to support whites in Zimbabwe against ethnic cleansing by the blacks?
I think Israel gets more support then any equivalent country would get in the exact same circumstances by virtue of Jews being rich and important and people wanting them on their side. Call this "pro-semitism" if you will. "The Jews do control everything, better be on their side!"
Every time you accuse some BLM lefty who thinks racism is the worst thing in the world of being "anti-semitic" you feed into this victim narrative that is driving the whole thing. You will never be able to convince people that Jews are the victim. They are too successful today and the bad things that happened to Jews are way in the past.
The way forward is to stop with the victim bating. It's a contest you can't win. It's time to strike back at all victim baiting, not just try to squeeze the Jews into it on some favorable terms.
Jews control Israel BY RIGHT OF CONQUEST. They are the better people and they deserve it. That's it. Own it.
I think there are some historical examples that show a possible counter factual for Israel founded/conquered by someone else that doesn't result in that much hatred. Tibet comes to mind, for instance. While there are some free Tibet folks still bouncing around, one doesn't see much international grouchiness about it, no student marches, no UN resolutions. Likewise you don't see much international fuss about various African countries fighting over various bits of the region, or even much in the middle east. Hell, I had never even heard of the whole Saudi Arabia/Yemen situation until a I had a student from there explain it to me.
So while the Palestinians might be pretty well angry for quite some time, and rather understandably so, the amount of hatred generated among people who are indirectly affected at most is pretty unusual. Now, how much of that is anti-Semitism in general vs perhaps Soviet era propaganda targeting the US via destabilization, or any number of other things, I don't really know. But when I see people from all over the world who have no ancestral or other relevant dog in the fight going nuts over the situation, it does strike me as a little unusual, a special case.
People do complain about Tibet or Uighur, but what are they going to do about it. China won’t take anyone’s shit and has the power to do so. The groups involved themselves are tiny and insignificant. And we aren’t giving billions in military support to China every year.
If it were just the Palestinians I think people wouldn’t care, but it’s clearly the fact that the entire Arab world supports them that makes their plight matter. That a lot of people and a lot of money.
People could protest China just as easily and ineffectually as they do Israel, and they certainly could do the same with regard to Saudi Arabia or Rowanda or whatever. It just isn’t the same level. I don’t know how many Palestinians there are outside the region, but it isn’t like it was a large population to begin with.
Claiming the Arab world supports them is a bit off I think. The Arab world likes to use them as apolitical football, but they clearly don’t care about the people. I suspect if you polled Jordanians, Egyptians or Syrians they would more or less say “eh, hell with those guys”. They certainly don’t seem to be clamoring to invite them into their countries to live.
They care about them enough to hate their enemies, but not enough to shoulder heavy burdens for them.
That’s a very common story.
In fairness they did try to wipe Israel out of existence three times through aggressive wars they lost. They didn’t do “nothing”.
They lost three wars in what was it, 30 years? Then did nothing for 50 or so. That suggests they stopped caring outside of it being a fun political football.
More importantly, they have resolutely closed their borders to the refugees (are they still refugees after 70 odd years?) That isn't even not shoulder a heavy burden, that is actively rejecting them.
It seems to me that they dislike the same people, but the Palestinians are disliked only a bit less. The other Arab/Muslim nations don't seem to hate Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, but rather for other reasons.
I wouldn’t t want Palestinians in my country, it’s hard to judge anyone else that doesn’t. Didn’t Palestinian refugees try to overthrow Jordan? I suspect they would have a similarly destabilizing effect in Egypt.
Anyway, their stance is that Israel should not exist, but that it is militarily beyond their power to change that situation.
So like the Ukrainians not recognizing that Putin has conquered part of their country and they can’t do anything about it, the Arabs don’t acknowledge Israel’s control over the Palestinians even though they can’t do anything about it.
Just like we pay the Ukrainians to banzai charge into minefields while their country gets bombed, the Arabs provide hamas with money to destroy themselves too.
It’s not about the Palestinians anymore then ukraine is about the Ukrainians.
You say a lot that is interesting and makes sense. Thank you for stating a perspective I hadn't heard before. That said, I think you miss one important point. Jews have a historical claim on the Holy Land quite different and much stronger than whites in South Africa, nevermind that blacks were still the majority living in South Africa and whites weren't kicked out or even mistreated when control reverted. I'm not saying that makes their conquest right, just much different than South Africa. It's more like American Indians taking back a bit more of the land in the Americas or maybe declaring a separate country on occupied lands. After 70+ years maybe it's reasonable to acknowledge their claim to the land.
"Jews have a historical claim on the Holy Land"
That seems really weak to me. Sky God said it was yours thousands of years ago is infinitely weaker then "my people lived here for thousands of years until you got rid of us in a war like 75 years ago."
"whites weren't kicked out or even mistreated when control reverted"
I would strongly dispute this claim.
"It's more like American Indians"
I think that if American Indians were 50% of the population and that there were a billion or so co-ethnic co-religionist Indians in the general region flush with oil wealth that supported them that we would have constant strife and land disputes.
Luckily, smallpox.
Saying that Israel belongs to the Jews by right of conquest is exactly what causes these wars. Hamas wants to conquer it back.
See Rashi Genesis 1:1... The traditional Jewish thought is that G-d owns everything, and He gave Israel to the Jews. It's a spiritual argument.
But it is actually the truth of the matter. If the Israelis hadn't been able to conquer it, there would be no Jews there today- they would have been forced out by the mid 70s. If they can't defend their borders today, they won't be there in a generation. I think the Israelis are in a fight to the death, and the outcome isn't certain- I only know you can afford to lose such a fight.
America belongs to Americans by right of conquest, and whatever the native Americans think about it they are shut out of luck.
Hamas is still and issue because the Palestinians have a demographic parity with Jews in greater Israel and Jews are dramatically outnumbered by Arabs more generally.
My understanding is that when god gave the land to the Jews it involved genociding a lot of the people who lived there, but god was really down with that (even ordering it).
Enjoyed, as usual, your link pointers and will explore. But the best sentence in this post is the last. Quiet contemplation is far too underrated and under-promoted. Any time we can find respite from the chaos of modern life we should grab it. One recommendation I'd offer is Deresiewicz's "Solitude and Leadership", particularly the second half, from a talk he gave some years ago at West Point.
I like listening to podcasts when I have household chores to do, like washing dishes or dusting. The lack of information density isn't so big a problem when you're periodically distracted by what you're working on anyway.
"Critical Constructivism does this by seeing our cognitive framings, and our reasons for action, as socially constructed. It denies any definitive knowledge of—or reference to—reality: the Constructivist bit."
It is hard for me to see any argument that our cognitive framings are almost entirely socially constructed. If we look at past societies, and even the variations today, it seems obvious that such great variations are almost certainly socially constructed. That's not a claim that genetics don't influence our cognitive framings but the variations seem too great to deny the influence of our social environment.
"It claims all human interactions are based on power relationships.
Surely parent-child and governing-governed are mostly power relationships. Even rich-poor, educated-uneducated, and high-low social standing are mostly power relationships. I'd agree claims they (relationships) are ENTIRELY power relationships goes too far but I'd still say mostly.
"They’re also irretrievably polluted by past sins through failing to live up to the imagined, transformative future: the Critical bit."
Irretrievably goes too far but given the human tendency to focus on the negative - the rustling in the brush might be a lion stalking me - there is good reason to understand how it is hard not to see the past more negatively than it was.
"This is the revolutionary doctrine that attacks Western civilization."
No. I think one can mostly agree with the given description and be mostly ok with western civilization. The attack on Western civilization comes from an extremist view of our society. It is when what is mostly true is taken too far.
In an earlier post, Lorenzo Warby mentioned that women are less likely than men to be team players. For example, he observed that women are more likely to harass their teammates during a game. This sounds very much like Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans who “fight,” but spend far more time fighting other Republicans than anyone else.
Perhaps MAGAs are feminized beta males trying to convince themselves and everyone else that they are alphas. That would go a long way toward explaining MAGA dogma that Trump, who famously whines until he gets his way, is the quintessential alpha male. Any guy who thinks that Trump is the last word in manhood has serious masculinity issues.
Brad Delong channels Arnold!
“The market dance of reknitting a new division of labor in response to a shock does depend crucially on the extent and sophistication of the division of labor.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/braddelong/p/when-is-it-a-depresion-and-not-a
Good links all, but right now the Jewish questions dominate my thoughts, so the longish letter by the Rabbi Rubenstein, and the excerpts from Ruth Wisse are The Current Thing, which I'm also following on X (recently tweeted that Israel should flood the tunnels). The Rabbi was so correct on how a fired pro-Palestinian chaplain was wrong 2014 in a prior Hamas killing: "because he placed the blame for the murder of innocent Jews on Jews, exonerating our attackers".
The libel: "Jews are evil" Calling a person or group evil is stark demonization. And bad. American Jews are now surprised by being demonized by mostly Dems (80% media?) but also Reps (19%). It's fear and hatred of Jews having power - but it's also envy and resentment that they seem so successful, far more than the non-Jews in the neighborhood (Mid East).
Wisse is excellent about it not being so much purely about the Jews: "But antisemitism is about the antisemites, those who need this, those who have formed this ideology, who constitute this movement, who use this movement." Antisemitism is one form of demonization. An easy to see Jew hate demonization*, but: The Democratic Party has run 4 elections based primarily on demonization of Trump, and Trump hate. The Russia hoax headlines by NYT against Trump were recently redone as the NYT Jew-hate headline about Israel bombing & destroying a hospital, with 500 killed, and a picture of (another!) hospital that was highly damaged.
Media had, and has, many Trump hate articles, full of false charges but basically calling Trump "evil", as well as his supporters the kind of "folks who support evil" Many of these demonization articles were written by Jews. Jews willing to include false facts but more often merely attributing evil motives to Trump.
American tolerance for peaceful disagreement has been under attack by Democrats since before "Bush Derangement Syndrome" was coined to describe demonization and hate being promoted for political purposes.
"RW: Antisemitism, the organization of politics against the Jews, is something very distinctive because this is a political movement, and it is to be taken very seriously because people are trying to get power through this, and they are coming to power through this. "
Actually, it is DEMONIZATION that is so often used to get power. In 2020 Trump was the target, tho BLM also claimed to be "anti-racist", while claiming Trump was a racist (for wanting to enforce border laws).
She lists real world problems, that Hitler claimed and Hamas claims are the fault of the Jews: You're unemployed. The Church is failing. The country is being taken over. The press is being taken over. Music, culture, legal profession - they're everywhere.
Those Jewish Demons.
BLM claims it's the white supremacist Demons, and the The Great Demon Trump, echoed by most Dems.
Trump sometimes claims it's the Demon Democrats, but he's erratic about it-and while I take him seriously on problems, his insults are not the literal truth. But he does do lots of insulting; not quite the same but close.
"What unites them all? ... they all unite against the negative image" of the Demon. In this case, Israel. Previously, Trump. Or Kavanaugh. Or Palin, Bush43, Reagan, Nixon, Goldwater.
For the many noted reasons, Jews make a good target for Demonization, plus there are a couple more: High IQ - so many Nobel Prizes! Discrimination by Jews against non-Jews ... one Jewish father denies that he discriminates, he has many non-Jewish friends. Another father asks "but would you let your daughter marry one of them?" Tevye from the great Fiddler on the Roof answers: "No".
Jewish discrimination has kept the minority Jews a people for thousands of years - but also is a source of resentment. (Hugely changing among the less religious Jews in America since the 60s). This is related to racism - close enough for Jew haters to call them racists; "Zionism is racism."
Finally, how hate is fun. Hating the Demon, Jew or Trump or whatever target*:
"RW: It’s a love fest of hate. And that’s something that one should not discount, the fun of sadism, the fun that they’re able to have in the name of some political ideology, like let’s cleanse the world of Jews, or let’s cleanse the world of Israel. This is not madness. There’s a tremendous ..."
How to get out? Require colleges who get tax exempt status to have at least 30% Republican professors and staff. Use "Diversity and Inclusion" - like the US Congress, with Republicans disagreeing about policy with Democrats.
I have a little bit of Holocaust fatigue, since Jews so often think Jew-hate is so different than hate of the Other, but it's not:
*The Muslim Azeris hate the Christian Armenians (and are ethnically cleansing 10s or 100s of thousands), with many other ethnic cleansings since WW I, 100+ years ago.
Chinese hate Muslim Uighurs
Russians hate Nazi-like Ukrainians, like those who support suppression of the Russian language
Many Burmese hate the Muslims in Myanmar (Burma, with 135 ethnic groups)
Pakistan Muslims hate Afghan Muslims, and are cleansing Pakistan of some 1.5 million refugees, often anti-Taliban, who will be forced back into Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
Rwandan Hutus hated the more successful minority Tutsis.
Malays in Malaysia hated the Chinese Malaysians.
Less educated Khmer Rouge Cambodians hated and murdered 25% of their population - the biggest genocide in my life.
Ottoman Turks hated and murdered Armenians as WW I ended; the lack of world outrage might have encouraged Hitler.
Demonization and hatred is NOT just a problem for Jews. It's always a problem. Tho in the USA, and "The Judeo-Christian Capitalist West", Jew hating Islamofascists are big Current Thing. Which will stay current for a long while, now that it's more in the open than previously.
Hamas should be destroyed - we need to live in peace, meaning peaceful disagreement.
When I go for a walk, I have no devices. For me, podcasts are for when I am driving.
"Peterson talks about differences in the way that feminine and male aggression play out. About minute 20, Peterson claims that women cannot run universities without ruining them. He asserts that the authoritarian temperament is correlated first of all with low IQ and second with being female."
In general I've liked and agreed with a lot of what Peterson says. He has made a few claims I've been unable to confirm, like the US military not taking people with IQs below 80 and that Scandinavian men and women diverge more in career choices. He has also said a few things I either misunderstood or understood and find repugnant. Having not listened to the full podcast yet, I can't help but have at least one very basic complaint about the second sentence I quote. The bell curves for capabilities of men and women have far more overlap than not. Maybe the list of women who could "run universities without ruining them" is small, smaller than for men, but saying it is zero seems illogical and impossible to determine with any certainty.
Note: It seems a bit ironic he makes a declarative of what women CANNOT do yet any measurement of that seems rather gray and fuzzy. (1) does "run universities" mean the president, a critical mass of senior management, or something else? (2) Other than bankruptcy, how do we determine that a university is ruined? (I'd be a little surprised if Peterson didn't think universities were already "ruined.")
On a separate point, given the history of western civilization and almost all other civilizations, I have a hard time aligning authoritarianism with women. I'm not claiming causation but it seems our society has become less authoritarian as women gain a more equal standing.
Do you think colleges are less authoritarian now, with far more women as professors and in admin, than 20 or 40 years ago? They have less freedom of speech, or thought.
Cancel culture is a social mob form of authoritarian, without any single dictator, to take credit or blame.
Smartphone mob authoritarianism (you read it heat first).
As I noted, my opinion suffers from the possibility of correlation not causation, or not correlated doesn't mean not caused. What you say not only suffers from the correlation issue but it's hard to prove colleges are even more authoritarian, though I tend to lean that way too. But note most people not white males would surely argue colleges are less authoritarian.