The colonization thing is so weird to me. Israelis have lived in this part of the world for thousands of years. They're colonists because the Jewish state was created by the rest of the world after the Holocaust? I think these students don't know any history.
Yeah this bothers me a bit. I don’t think it was necessarily fair for Jews to be given land in palestine, but out of all countries that are examples of colonialism, Israel is maybe the most innocent. Jews have a historical and cultural claim to the land, they had nowhere else to go, the brits/UN gave them legitimacy, it wasn’t setup by a superpower to plunder resources for the mainland, and all further land acquisitions (except arguably the settlements) were won through defensive wars. I don’t think it was innocent but compared to e.g. the US and canada, uruguay and argentina, Australia and new zealand etc, Israel’s origin story seems less bad (I think), and yet it’s the only country that people today think should be destroyed
i always find it ironic bc the anti zionist crowd is always preaching anti colonialism, when israel technically is one of the few examples of actual anti colonialism (and if anything proves that anti colonialism is dysfunctional in practice). it was also essentially reparations for the holocaust. its definitely debatable whether it was the right move considering the domino affect of conflict that has occurred since, but nevertheless it happened and it cant exactly be taken back. as a jew, i do really resent all the responsibility and blame for the current turmoil falling solely on jews/israelis, when really its a product of western (european) mistakes that israelis have to now clean up.
I attended a public lecture recently to raise money to support a cultural institution located on a university campus called Japan House, it features an authentic house surrounded by Japanese gardens and hosts Japanese cultural events.
Before the lecture, a student gave a land acknowledgement saying we were on tribal land and that they (i.e., the university & Japan House) reject colonialism.
And the churn of peoples in all regions at that point could have been called colonialism. (Late 19th century). It was colonies all the way down. Prior to colonization would have been mass genocides. So humans are improving slowly. But underneath all of this I think American SJW are simply aligning with a people group based on relative wealth and average skin color. I think it's that crude. Or perhaps, whether the group had trained in the mid-20th century with other Marxist groups from South America, etc. So you get these strange mission statements from BLM and Social Democrats regarding specific conflicts in Israel.
animated by nina paley! of the heterodorx podcast (I can't remember if you listen to them). nina (she is an artist that was canceled by trans activists) and corinna cohn (who is a trans woman) mostly discuss trans issues, but the latest episode they discuss the i/p discourse a bit, if it interests you. this clip is from a longer feature length film Nina animated, which is a retelling of the book of exodus.
One (obviously secular) theory I've come across is that - granted there's no evidence of a massive ancient Egyptian slave class, an explanation of where they'd have come from, or of a large migration including alleged battles fought - Judaism was formulated around 800 bc by local religious leaders to help unify the disparate local pagan people under a commom banner to resist Assyrian rule. In which case, Jews did not take what's modern Israel from the Canaanites, etc. They're descended from that region's *actual indigenous population.* That'd throw a wrench into the "colonist" works.
I believe there was a period between Roman era and 1880s when most of the Jews were out of that part of the world. So the return to the area took a lot of effort, and the Zionist project began. But fact check me someone please.
Over the last few years, a lot of stuff (in particular the insane positions people hold on gender) has made me feel at times like I'm going mad. But the response this week to what's happened in Israel has truly made me feel insane. Celebrating the brutal assaults of women, mass slaughter, murdered babies, hostages taken. I've been lost for words. So thanks M&S for putting some sanity back out there.
This was a good discussion, and I enjoyed it. I do want to give a little bit of a defense of Matt Walsh, from the little throwaway comment near the end where Megan said the solution wasn't to "be like Matt Walsh."
Throat clearing first, I'm a liberal, I voted for Obama and Biden, and I think Trump is dangerous, and I used to canvas for my local Democrats etc, etc. Anyway, a couple of years ago (2021ish), I found myself talking to a friend and one of us was saying "I just have no idea why THEY keep supporting Trump, what they see in him" and one of us was agreeing, and I had a moment where I realized that...that was "find out able." How in 5 years had I never even read anything from a conservative perspective. It was all just racist racist something something from the mainstream media. So I started to seek out some conservative media coverage, because the mainstream press is largely incurious about what a legitimate conservative perspective is, and now I have a better idea of the dynamics that led to Trump.
Which brings me to my question, have you ever listened to his show, or are you just treating him as kind of a caricature of a conservative extremist? I mostly listen to his coverage because at the time he was one of the only people really talking about trans stuff. His opinions on that largely align with what you guys say about it. The difference is, he's not nice. The other significant difference is that he does have more trad views (most notably he wants to get rid of gay marriage). But really, he says the same stuff all the heterodox people say about gender. Lots of the same stuff about race issues.
His film, What Is A Woman is what finally exploded trans issues into the mainstream in a way the liberal medial has been unable to ignore. (And yes I know he didn't reach out to feminists who are working on gender, but frankly I no longer care who gets what done, or gets the credit.) While his style is off-putting, being nice liberals isn't helping us make any progress, so I've gotten a little more tolerant of rhetoric that is less conciliatory.
I watched the documentary; haven’t followed most of his other commentary. I suspect he toned down some of his more conservative views to make the documentary acceptable to a broader audience. I recall it as being a largely reasonable (from his point of view) and bitingly witty polemic. There were a few lines about religion and family structure that hinted at a conservative worldview that I would find objectionable, but most of it was just him somehow convincing various academics to say things that were obviously insane.
I remember watching SIcko (the Michael Moore documentary on American healthcare) as an aspiring physician, and there were certainly a lot of things in there. And with time and the opportunity to fact-check, there was a clear slant and a lot of it was misleading as well. That doesn’t mean it lacks any value. Ideological diversity just means there’s a lot of different ways of being partially wrong and partially right. I struggle to believe that Walsh is any worse.
Yes, based on his output, Michael Moore is less committed to factual accuracy than he is to propagandizing for particular conclusions, he is a propagandist masquerading (falsely) as a revealer of truth.
Which is why most of the extremists, whether it be on feminism, race, trans, Palestine, whatever, make every effort to avoid any substantive discussion of their views.
Great episode. I very much hope Meghan is right that this is a tipping point that brings clarity around the absence of moral reasoning of the identity synthesis movement but I fear Sarah is correct that the institutions who have succumbed are too far gone to meaningfully course correct. My guess is this will rightly be perceived as a threat to the supremacy of that worldview and as a result there will be the predictable entrenchment and further doubling down with increased vigilance to root out and eliminate increasingly marginal heretics. I think things get worse not better.
I’m not optimistic about existing institutions, but I think they can be replaced relatively rapidly. If there’s still a United States and still a Supreme Court in twenty years, there’s no reason the next justice can’t come from the University of Austin School of Law. And the next one after that might be a homeschooler who was self-taught by AI. If we’re not all dead, that is.
I guess I am more of an optimist on that point. The only reason Harvard is Harvard, or the NYT is NYT, is because people believe it. I think that can change (and already has to a significant extent).
I also look at all the cancel culture and the techno-fascist stuff and think yes, it’s terrible, but it reeks of desperation. Like there was a movement of people marching in the street to liberate “the 99%” from “the 1%”, and it seems like the 1% are exercising every lever of power to prevent anyone from coming after them. But I see it as potentially like the end of the Wizard of Oz movie where the Wiz is saying “no one pay attention to the man behind the curtain”. Censoring people on Twitter for reporting facts about COVID is disturbing, but it’s also a bitch move that a genuinely strong person wouldn’t be doing. Sarah was kind of peeved that the LA Times article about her debate completely ignored her presence, but to me, that’s because the sort of people that write these things don’t want anyone to even know she exists. They didn’t forget her, they’re afraid of her.
And maybe technology gets to the point where all of us are living out an Orwell novel and we can’t fight back, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
Great conversation. Does the history of the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the history of the creation of the Middle Eastern states after the British left matter?
I would argue that it only matters a bit and not as much as pro-Palestinian groups want it to. All states are born out of some injustice, because the creation of states requires the consolidation of power over a territory and its inhabitants and the creation of citizens. There will always be individuals or groups that will object to that state in that specific formulation. There will be losers.
The creation of Israel is no different. Non-Jewish Palestinians “lost” to Israel or rather proto-Israelis at the end of the British rule; but rather than consolidate their losses into a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel, its leaders have consistently chosen to not recognize Israel and to seek to destroy it. Early on it was with the help of other Arab states, and later on their own. The reality is that Palestinian leaders WILL NOT recognize ANY claim of sovereignty of Israel. They want Israel and its Jews destroyed. They don’t seem to accept that Israel is a living state and give no value Israeli life at all- a murderer or assault of an Israeli or a Jew killed in the West Bank or Gaza will be celebrated; a murderer of a non-Jew in Israel will be investigated for murder by the Israeli authorities. Does that mean there are not Israelis who don’t want Palestinians dead, or Palestinians who want to live in their own state beside Israel? Of course not, but the authorities in their respective states could not be any different with their respect for human life and dignity for the “other”.
So the specifics of the conflict about this or that can be dismissed when you boil it down to how each side values human life.
When considering the barbarity of the Hamas attacks- I agree- the history isn’t important.
But the history is what the leftist activists point to, so it’s good to have an understanding of the conflict. Unfortunately- this situation is a rabbit hole unlike any other. I attempted to get up to speed on all of it some years ago and was left with the feeling that, even though the Palestinians might have a legitimate grievance (they do) it’s still not enough to hang an entire liberation movement on.
Here’s my attempt to summarize my (admittedly incomplete) understanding of it-
(TLDR) Maps are redrawn after wars....
....and not just in the Middle East. Look at a map of Europe in 1914 or the USSR in 1960. Nations (and sometimes empires) lose wars and as a result- often lose territory. The Ottoman Empire had included Palestine for hundreds of years before the Zionist movement began. Jews started immigrating to the region (and also to the US) in the late 19th century because they were being brutalized in Russia and Eastern Europe. WW1 broke out and the Ottomans bet on the wrong horse. They allied with the Central Powers which included Austria Hungary and the German Empire, also known as the scumbags who started the war.
During the war there were several other ‘subplots’ nested within- including but not limited to- the Armenian genocide and the Bolshevik revolution. But the subplot that we’re dealing with today is the handling of Palestine by the British. And some would say- the double crossing of the Arabs by the British.
The activists will point to the following-
The Balfour Declaration (Brit co-signs the Zionist project in order to secure Jewish support in the war effort )
McMahon Hussein letters (different Brit supports an eventual Arab state in exchange for Arabs turning against their Ottoman overlords.)
Sykes Picot agreement- (secret deal between British and French to divide up areas of the Levant after the war.)
Churchill White Paper (Churchill attempts to sort through the confusion created by the Balfour and McMahon deals. I’m sure a more cynical reading of this development is warranted, but whether or not Churchill was a fair arbiter, someone was going to need to step in and clean things up)
It sounds kind of bad but there is important context. Based on my reading- neither of these deals say to the respective parties ‘this land will be yours and yours alone’. Quite the opposite in the case of the Balfour Declaration. And in the case of the McMahon Hussein letters, it’s not super clear where the boundaries of various regions would even be. It’s important to remember- many of the countries in that area that we know today didn’t exist yet.
As for British motivation- they were in an absolutely brutal military conflict. There was no guarantee that the Entente (Allies) were going to win but if they did there was no way in hell that they weren’t going to break up the empires of the Central Powers.
To give an idea of the brutality of that war- the Brits lost around 890,000 people (almost entirely men). They lost around 19,000 in one day during the Battle of the Somme. 890K ended up being 6% of their adult male population. In the US, right now, the adult male population is roughly 100 million. 6% of that is 6 million. It’s insane to think about when you look at the proportionality.
So the Brits were in a desperate situation when these negotiations were happening. After WW1 they controlled the region until the UN partition plan of 1947. The world had just witnessed the attempted (and partially successful) eradication of European Jews and many westerners said enough is enough. So the UN proposed a 2 state solution which was promptly rejected by the Arabs. The Jews took the deal, declared an independent state and were immediately invaded by several of their Arab neighbors.
Since then they’ve been invaded again and again. They’ve prevailed every time and gained more territory in the process (again- maps, wars). Some of which- in the case of Egypt- they gave back.
In the meantime the other countries in the Middle East have become increasingly inhospitable to Jews (see- Farhud)
Still- there have been other versions of the 2 state solution proposed. It just never works out. Never mind the fact that there are something like 23 Arab nations, 6 of which surround Israel on 3 sides (they don’t all share a border with Israel but looking at a map makes the point clear)
The other day I saw a video clip of Judith Butler describing Hamas as part of a larger ‘Global Left’. It’s an insane thing for her to say but this is how these people think. Everyone on the far left has had Nazi fever for the last decade or so, but anytime I’d bring up the atrocities of ISIS (who mentioned Sykes-Picot in their propaganda) to one of these people, all they would respond with was some rehearsed bullshit about US foreign policy. Never mind the fact that here was a villain who actually deserved some type of Hitler comparison (slaughter of religious minorities, taking captured women as sex slaves, murders of gays etc- not the Holocaust but give ‘em time)
The last thing I’ll say is this- the far left coalition is obviously concerned about race above all else- specifically the legacy of slavery. Do they have any idea of just how bad the Muslim world has been on this issue? One of the earliest recorded slave revolts happened in Mesopotamia in 869 AD. Fast forward- Saudi Arabia didn’t outlaw slavery until 1962! That is a seriously long run!
The various Islamic regimes come up over and over again in the historical record about slavery (African slave trade, Black Sea etc).
I think you did very well. I will just fill in some stuff on older history: Jews have a long history in Israel. It was named Palestine by the Romans when they exiled the Jews 2000 years ago with the goal to delegitimize the Jewish connection to the area. Even so, there have always been some Jews in Israel and Jews never stopped calling the land Israel. Jews built a religion centered on their desire to return to their homeland or Zion (another name for Jerusalem). The land of Israel is at the center of all Jewish holidays (except shabbat and Purim) and Jews still pray for rain in Israel three times a day. People have a hard time wrapping their heads around this connection because it's odd, unlike other relationships that people have with their homelands. Under Ottoman rule Jews were only allowed to live in three cities (Tiberius, Jerusalem, and Hebron) and the Ottomans worked very hard to prevent Jews from moving to Israel as did the British at various times during their colonization of Palestine. There was no such prohibition against arabs and as Palestine had few inhabitants a 100 years ago, many of today's Palestinians were also fairly recent arrivals to the land. I say this not to deny Palestinian connection to the land but to highlight how complex the situation is. Finally, I want to add that Israel is a country of refugees with most inhabitants coming there to escape attacks and more than half the Jewish population of Israel is from the Middle East/North Africa. These populations are old predating Islam, like the Jews of Yemen or the Jews of Iraq who had been living there for 2500 years.
Great comment. Yes- the Jews of Iraq- who endured the Farhud pogrom in 1941 Baghdad, where (at minimum-180, possibly many more) Jews were killed. This is around the same time the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was cozying up to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. (Some will say that “collaborator” is too strong a word to describe the Grand Mufti. At the same time “sympathizer” and/or “admirer” would be the most charitable descriptions available given the details of the historical record.)
The context regarding Roman occupation is definitely important. After all, it was from this period that the charge of deicide was leveled at the Jews, inspiring centuries of Christian antisemitism. Also- this ‘country’ of Palestine- which never existed, but instead was a region that changed hands from one Imperial force to another for the better part of 2000 years.
I read somewhere that the oldest record of anything resembling nationhood in this region dates back to King David. At the very least this should matter to the land acknowledgment crowd. I plan on following up and doing some more reading on this period of Antiquity.
Reading your comment (coupled with the apparent fact that I’m often thinking about Ancient Rome anyway) caused me to immediately cue up the Carl Anderson version of “Heaven on their Minds”- knowing that the lines- “We are occupied. Have you forgotten how put down we are?”- would instantly render me emotionally defenseless. Works every time.
I’ve thought a lot about how the Civil Rights movement in the US (at least the religious wing of it) was deeply informed by Old Testament imagery. Looking at the pro Palestinian protests and the secular black nationalism that is undoubtedly a part of it- I feel like the aforementioned kinship and experience of common struggle (exile, subjugation, Pharaoh) is officially a thing of the past.
Where does this leave me as an (atheist leaning) agnostic? I have no idea other than the fact that I feel sheepish about my own paternalism and yet- I know that something incredibly important has been lost.
I am not enough of an expert to identify any mistakes in your history summary. On the contrary, everything you said matches very well with my understanding of this history.
Thanks for that episode both. I also feel that the veil has lifted and so many people have outed themselves as having selective empathy. They can’t unequivocally condemn the cruellest and brutal slaughter and torture without checking in with their tribe and its ‘flat pack’ box of preordained beliefs. As you said Sarah, you can be as pro Palestinian as you like, but when you see evil you should be able to state what you saw and how awful and inhumane it was.
I don't usually comment but I've been horrified about what happened in Israel and the response. I have friends and family there and it is shocking how everyone seems to know someone who was killed or kidnapped. Asaf, an Israeli who I am very close to (I was his surrogate mom for 7 months when he lived here 6 years ago) knows 10 people who were murdered, most at the music festival. His roommate's brother was shot in the head and killed leaving two kids and a pregnant wife. He was in the U.S. when this happened and I met him and his sister-in-law for dinner. She was connected to one of the attacked kibbutzim, meaning she knows so many murdered people. A family of 10 that disappeared is her cousin's in-laws. Now, everyone is being called up to serve and there will be so much more death. I am so worried about Asaf. He is in the prime of life and all I have is foreboding. Israel has to destroy Hamas because if they don't they will not survive but what will take its place? So much death to come and no good resolution not even in the short term.
p.s. Unfortunately, I thought Sarah's pessimism was on target at least when it comes to Jews and Israel but her embarrassment at being referred to as a Zionist took me aback. To be a Zionist is just to believe that Jews have a right to their homeland in Israel. It doesn't mean anything more than that. I was shocked to see that the general consensus is that Zionism is an extreme ideology. Clearly the left's equating Zionism with Nazism has had its desired effect.
Regarding the comments about being like the NRA and not compromising: Compromise is honorable, flexibility is good, nuance is often proper, provided the end result brings progress overall. The problem with compromising on the primary institutional goals for pursuing a “Social Justice״ agenda such as DEI as it is often/usually being implemented is not that such compromise is inherently wrong, it is that the trade-offs actually being made here have a bad/negative cost/benefit ratio. There is little reason to think the identity centered approach is effective, good reason to think it may be counter-productive, even when measured by its self-goals, all the more so given how doxastically closed, intolerant, slanderous, superficially pseudo-intellectual without the needed factual grounding (like theology), and thus authoritarian, it is, while the loss of integrity for the self-acknowledged institutional goals is substantial, much more so than those institutions appear to be willing to acknowledge (which suggests that some of those institutions may have cynical leadership). Neither political party deals with this well. Former president Obama speaks out against it, but the Biden administration does not oppose the Social Justice agenda. The Social Justice movement is being promoted by at least some executive branch agencies. This is probably one of the reasons NGO institutions surrender to it so readily, the existing legal context may not provide a clear way for them to successfully oppose it. The Republicans are, if anything, even more partisan, intolerant, and authoritarian in their anti-Social Justice approach. The more reasonable, genuinely liberal, non-authoritarian, fact grounded, advocates are stereotyped and targeted by both the equally aggressive left and right ideologues, and squeezed out.
As you can infer from the above, I tend to agree more with Sarah’s pessimism about how deeply entrenched this is and how bad it is, I think she has a better read on the reality here.
As for the discussion on the war between Israel and its enemies, I think the mass media has very much focused on whatever Israel does that can be reported on negatively, and has carefully avoided doing the same for Israel’s enemies. This persistent biased/distorted coverage has, unsurprisingly, had an impact on people’s understanding of the conflict. Although I have not followed the conflict very closely, and I know this is, on its face, an astonishing claim, and accordingly I accept that reasonable people will object, I am nevertheless convinced that it is true.
The attack on Israelis is consistent with the rhetoric from Hamas which has always advocated for defeating Israel with war and against acceptance of Israel beyond postponing fighting until conditions are more favorable for their ultimate victory. They have rationalized away ethical constraints, such as the distinction between soldiers and civilians, a distinction they reject for Israelis. They consider a single Palestinian state that displaces Israel to be a political/Islamic principle (they do not separate Islam from politics) over which they say they will never compromise. So while they want an airport and seaport, transportation infrastructure, etc. they refuse to abandon their rejection of Israel and their building their capacity to militarily defeat Israel asa condition for receiving such assistance. The primary difference between Fatah and Hamas appears to be over whether an approach which priorities preparing for, and engaging in, direct war is a good strategy. Fatah tends towards fence straddling, they do not clearly favor a two separate state peace, they do not govern very effectively, and they reject compromising sufficiently for Israel to reach an agreement with them that addresses Israel’s security needs, all of which creates an impression that they are weak. They are unpopular with their own constituency and would very likely lose to Hamas if there was an election. Nor will they risk holding an election that blocked Hamas from competing (even though there is no reason to believe Hamas would hold subsequently elections if they won). Israeli policy does Fatah (I am using Fatah and Palestinian Authority as synonyms, although technically they are no doubt different entities) no favors. I assume this is because Israel (in this context Israel is referring to those who set government policy) does not see what Fatah offers them either currently, or in the foreseeable future, as being sufficient to justify adjusting Israeli policy to be more accommodating to Fatah. They simply do not trust the Palestinian Authority that they helped to create even though they do cooperate against their common foes.
A two state peace outcome is more likely to be achievable after more Palestinians, and their leadership, give up on their notion that they will have a single state that displaces Israel, and when Israel concludes that neighboring states (including Iran) have done the same. I therefore agree with the approach that prioritizes establishing open relationships between Israel and Arab/Muslim countries as being the path most likely to end the conflict.
As bad as Netanyahu and the West Bank settlements are, Hamas is an even larger barrier to eventual peace. The world can either have a Palestinian state, or it can allow Hamas to exist; it cannot have both. The sooner Israel annihilates these monsters, the better.
Thank you for another wonderful and stimulating conversation.
About the point at 1:14:40 regarding the brouhaha around Coleman’s TED talk demonstrating Meghan’s point that wokeism is on the decline: Sorry, Meghan, but that incident proves the opposite of what you’re saying. Yes, it’s true that there was a vibrant discussion that revealed just how many people agree with Coleman’s perspective, but we only had that discussion because Coleman bravely pushed back on it and spoke out about what was happening behind the scenes. But what was revealed from it all was just how badly TED had been ideologically captured, and how its leader had felt it incumbent to capitulate to the ideologues and tried to sideline Coleman’s moderate, normie perspective. That is what this debacle revealed, just how much wokeism is still very much controlling the dialogue and pulling the levers of power, not “it showed how so many people actually agree with Coleman”.
No one's ever doubted that most people aren't actually on board with wokeism. That isn't the issue, and never has been. The issue is that, despite that fact, wokeism is able to inject itself into so many arenas of society, and all the people in charge who should know better just roll over and let it happen, like Sarah said. And that's exactly what happened at TED.
Patience. The fact that Coleman was even invited to speak in the first place indicates an institutional awareness (at least among leadership) that the scope has to broaden. Change will be slow and incremental. But two years ago, his ideas wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the TED stage. Yes, he was throttled. But it's significant that he was there at all.
I agree that the fact he was invited indicates a vibe shift that they're less in thrall to these ideas than a few years ago. And yes, that's a good thing to see. But I feel, like Sarah, that this on its own isn't really enough for us to feel confident about the situation. These ideas have to be actively, and thoroughly, routed out. As the TED debacle revealed, guilty liberals timidly feeling more breathing room to express disagreement isn't enough to withstand the woke guilting that inevitably hits them when they push back.
Looks like google searches for the term "TED Talk" started to fall around the time of the pandemic/George Floyd. I think they might be trying to claw back with a wider range of opinions.
The scary part of this is not that every person in America hates Coleman Hughes, it’s that his success depends largely on alternative media, and there is a massive government/corporate effort to shut down alternative media.
I appreciated the optimist/pessimist argument at the end of today's podcast. I have been meeting with a Solid Ground/Counterweight group since 2021, all of us terribly alarmed by identitarianism wrapped in a pretty veneer of "social justice."
All I can say is this - I think optimism or pessimism is irrelevant. The apparent infestation of tolerance for antisemitism is an opening, an opportunity, for aggressive and relentless anti-identitarian rhetoric and ethical posturing to put organizations who support practices which maximize "seeing everything through an identity lens" on the defensive. We must loudly and uncompromisingly shame individuals and orgs that promote identitarianism and illustrate clearly how DEI, Critical Theory, so-called "antiracism" and Wokeism in general act as trojan horses for this concept.
One need not look further than the Middle East for an example of how identitariasm plays out in the real world. It leads to scape-goating and violence (real violence - not the silence kind). In the multicultural hotspots that are Western countries (USA, Britian, Canada, etc.), identitarianism is a recipe for our collapse. Like Sarah says, we need to be uncompromising on our principles of fairness and blindness to identity in law and in culture.
As for how it goes? Like, will it work/will not not work? You must strategize like there is a very good chance you could lose this, but act like - if you do it right - you will win. Devote your energy to winning and never give up. Even in the face of an army of giant elephants with barbed tusks on the battlefield, reform the line!
Have to say it's been a bit disappointing seeing some of Sarah's tweets this week when she admitted to being largely ignorant about the conflict. I too am ignorant beyond the basic history, which impelled me to remain a passive observer of the discourse. I'm not sure what Sarah was expecting. Merely condemning the killing of innocents doesn't make for a discourse, so obviously people are going to discuss the history that led to such acts. Explanations will sound more or less like justifications, but that's just the nature of these discourses. Ultimately, all explanation can be construed as justification. If Sarah even dismisses the people that say "killing innocents is wrong, but...", one might as well skip the condemning of the killing of innocents part.
I also don't understand why Sarah keeps saying this discourse is "radicalizing" her if that doesn't mean turning her into a Zionist or militantly pro-Israel. She suggests at the end that this radicalization may be toward rethinking her priors, but that seems to differ from her earlier meaning. Either way, radicalizing yourself by nutpicking or disaster porn is bad.
Finally, it was strange for much of this conversation to be framed in terms of anti-wokism/idpol in America when pretty much the entire Israel/Palestine conflict is idpol in a way. Perhaps the point was our identity shouldn't be so tied to these foreign identities, but then in that case maybe we shouldn't be concerned with this event in the first place. Idk
You have some good points in here but I will say there is absolutely zero need to “nutpick” in order to be pushed towards the pro Israel side of things. Following one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent memory, thousands of people across the entire western world took to the streets in celebration. It’s not at all nutpicking to notice this, the nuts are spitting in our faces
this was a very good conversation and i really agreed. and great for MD for pointing out racialization of our culture
Loved the IBW roundtable.
When Razib mentioned he went through a Benny Morris phase around 2002, I felt soooooo behind. My copies of his books are coming in the mail now.
When I sort by newest posts, this is at the bottom, and yet no mention of “first”.
:) it was
Yes, almost to the point of colorism.
The colonization thing is so weird to me. Israelis have lived in this part of the world for thousands of years. They're colonists because the Jewish state was created by the rest of the world after the Holocaust? I think these students don't know any history.
Yeah this bothers me a bit. I don’t think it was necessarily fair for Jews to be given land in palestine, but out of all countries that are examples of colonialism, Israel is maybe the most innocent. Jews have a historical and cultural claim to the land, they had nowhere else to go, the brits/UN gave them legitimacy, it wasn’t setup by a superpower to plunder resources for the mainland, and all further land acquisitions (except arguably the settlements) were won through defensive wars. I don’t think it was innocent but compared to e.g. the US and canada, uruguay and argentina, Australia and new zealand etc, Israel’s origin story seems less bad (I think), and yet it’s the only country that people today think should be destroyed
i always find it ironic bc the anti zionist crowd is always preaching anti colonialism, when israel technically is one of the few examples of actual anti colonialism (and if anything proves that anti colonialism is dysfunctional in practice). it was also essentially reparations for the holocaust. its definitely debatable whether it was the right move considering the domino affect of conflict that has occurred since, but nevertheless it happened and it cant exactly be taken back. as a jew, i do really resent all the responsibility and blame for the current turmoil falling solely on jews/israelis, when really its a product of western (european) mistakes that israelis have to now clean up.
I attended a public lecture recently to raise money to support a cultural institution located on a university campus called Japan House, it features an authentic house surrounded by Japanese gardens and hosts Japanese cultural events.
Before the lecture, a student gave a land acknowledgement saying we were on tribal land and that they (i.e., the university & Japan House) reject colonialism.
I practically chocked on the irony.
And the churn of peoples in all regions at that point could have been called colonialism. (Late 19th century). It was colonies all the way down. Prior to colonization would have been mass genocides. So humans are improving slowly. But underneath all of this I think American SJW are simply aligning with a people group based on relative wealth and average skin color. I think it's that crude. Or perhaps, whether the group had trained in the mid-20th century with other Marxist groups from South America, etc. So you get these strange mission statements from BLM and Social Democrats regarding specific conflicts in Israel.
In case you haven't seen this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tIdCsMufIY&ab_channel=NinaPaley
OMG thanks. I needed that.
animated by nina paley! of the heterodorx podcast (I can't remember if you listen to them). nina (she is an artist that was canceled by trans activists) and corinna cohn (who is a trans woman) mostly discuss trans issues, but the latest episode they discuss the i/p discourse a bit, if it interests you. this clip is from a longer feature length film Nina animated, which is a retelling of the book of exodus.
One (obviously secular) theory I've come across is that - granted there's no evidence of a massive ancient Egyptian slave class, an explanation of where they'd have come from, or of a large migration including alleged battles fought - Judaism was formulated around 800 bc by local religious leaders to help unify the disparate local pagan people under a commom banner to resist Assyrian rule. In which case, Jews did not take what's modern Israel from the Canaanites, etc. They're descended from that region's *actual indigenous population.* That'd throw a wrench into the "colonist" works.
I believe there was a period between Roman era and 1880s when most of the Jews were out of that part of the world. So the return to the area took a lot of effort, and the Zionist project began. But fact check me someone please.
If nothing else events of the 1180's likely reduced the Jewish population of the region significantly, one way or another.
Yes, that’s right.
Over the last few years, a lot of stuff (in particular the insane positions people hold on gender) has made me feel at times like I'm going mad. But the response this week to what's happened in Israel has truly made me feel insane. Celebrating the brutal assaults of women, mass slaughter, murdered babies, hostages taken. I've been lost for words. So thanks M&S for putting some sanity back out there.
See this is why I like being alone with nature.
This was a good discussion, and I enjoyed it. I do want to give a little bit of a defense of Matt Walsh, from the little throwaway comment near the end where Megan said the solution wasn't to "be like Matt Walsh."
Throat clearing first, I'm a liberal, I voted for Obama and Biden, and I think Trump is dangerous, and I used to canvas for my local Democrats etc, etc. Anyway, a couple of years ago (2021ish), I found myself talking to a friend and one of us was saying "I just have no idea why THEY keep supporting Trump, what they see in him" and one of us was agreeing, and I had a moment where I realized that...that was "find out able." How in 5 years had I never even read anything from a conservative perspective. It was all just racist racist something something from the mainstream media. So I started to seek out some conservative media coverage, because the mainstream press is largely incurious about what a legitimate conservative perspective is, and now I have a better idea of the dynamics that led to Trump.
Which brings me to my question, have you ever listened to his show, or are you just treating him as kind of a caricature of a conservative extremist? I mostly listen to his coverage because at the time he was one of the only people really talking about trans stuff. His opinions on that largely align with what you guys say about it. The difference is, he's not nice. The other significant difference is that he does have more trad views (most notably he wants to get rid of gay marriage). But really, he says the same stuff all the heterodox people say about gender. Lots of the same stuff about race issues.
His film, What Is A Woman is what finally exploded trans issues into the mainstream in a way the liberal medial has been unable to ignore. (And yes I know he didn't reach out to feminists who are working on gender, but frankly I no longer care who gets what done, or gets the credit.) While his style is off-putting, being nice liberals isn't helping us make any progress, so I've gotten a little more tolerant of rhetoric that is less conciliatory.
I watched the documentary; haven’t followed most of his other commentary. I suspect he toned down some of his more conservative views to make the documentary acceptable to a broader audience. I recall it as being a largely reasonable (from his point of view) and bitingly witty polemic. There were a few lines about religion and family structure that hinted at a conservative worldview that I would find objectionable, but most of it was just him somehow convincing various academics to say things that were obviously insane.
I remember watching SIcko (the Michael Moore documentary on American healthcare) as an aspiring physician, and there were certainly a lot of things in there. And with time and the opportunity to fact-check, there was a clear slant and a lot of it was misleading as well. That doesn’t mean it lacks any value. Ideological diversity just means there’s a lot of different ways of being partially wrong and partially right. I struggle to believe that Walsh is any worse.
Yes, based on his output, Michael Moore is less committed to factual accuracy than he is to propagandizing for particular conclusions, he is a propagandist masquerading (falsely) as a revealer of truth.
That's exactly what it was. He did the most effective thing he could have done which was to let them talk.
Which is why most of the extremists, whether it be on feminism, race, trans, Palestine, whatever, make every effort to avoid any substantive discussion of their views.
Great episode. I very much hope Meghan is right that this is a tipping point that brings clarity around the absence of moral reasoning of the identity synthesis movement but I fear Sarah is correct that the institutions who have succumbed are too far gone to meaningfully course correct. My guess is this will rightly be perceived as a threat to the supremacy of that worldview and as a result there will be the predictable entrenchment and further doubling down with increased vigilance to root out and eliminate increasingly marginal heretics. I think things get worse not better.
If the "institutions" you speak of are heavily dependent on alumni donors, I'm actually feeling optimistic.
I’m not optimistic about existing institutions, but I think they can be replaced relatively rapidly. If there’s still a United States and still a Supreme Court in twenty years, there’s no reason the next justice can’t come from the University of Austin School of Law. And the next one after that might be a homeschooler who was self-taught by AI. If we’re not all dead, that is.
If only our obsession with pedigree and prestige was so easily washed away.
I guess I am more of an optimist on that point. The only reason Harvard is Harvard, or the NYT is NYT, is because people believe it. I think that can change (and already has to a significant extent).
I also look at all the cancel culture and the techno-fascist stuff and think yes, it’s terrible, but it reeks of desperation. Like there was a movement of people marching in the street to liberate “the 99%” from “the 1%”, and it seems like the 1% are exercising every lever of power to prevent anyone from coming after them. But I see it as potentially like the end of the Wizard of Oz movie where the Wiz is saying “no one pay attention to the man behind the curtain”. Censoring people on Twitter for reporting facts about COVID is disturbing, but it’s also a bitch move that a genuinely strong person wouldn’t be doing. Sarah was kind of peeved that the LA Times article about her debate completely ignored her presence, but to me, that’s because the sort of people that write these things don’t want anyone to even know she exists. They didn’t forget her, they’re afraid of her.
And maybe technology gets to the point where all of us are living out an Orwell novel and we can’t fight back, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
Great conversation. Does the history of the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the history of the creation of the Middle Eastern states after the British left matter?
I would argue that it only matters a bit and not as much as pro-Palestinian groups want it to. All states are born out of some injustice, because the creation of states requires the consolidation of power over a territory and its inhabitants and the creation of citizens. There will always be individuals or groups that will object to that state in that specific formulation. There will be losers.
The creation of Israel is no different. Non-Jewish Palestinians “lost” to Israel or rather proto-Israelis at the end of the British rule; but rather than consolidate their losses into a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel, its leaders have consistently chosen to not recognize Israel and to seek to destroy it. Early on it was with the help of other Arab states, and later on their own. The reality is that Palestinian leaders WILL NOT recognize ANY claim of sovereignty of Israel. They want Israel and its Jews destroyed. They don’t seem to accept that Israel is a living state and give no value Israeli life at all- a murderer or assault of an Israeli or a Jew killed in the West Bank or Gaza will be celebrated; a murderer of a non-Jew in Israel will be investigated for murder by the Israeli authorities. Does that mean there are not Israelis who don’t want Palestinians dead, or Palestinians who want to live in their own state beside Israel? Of course not, but the authorities in their respective states could not be any different with their respect for human life and dignity for the “other”.
So the specifics of the conflict about this or that can be dismissed when you boil it down to how each side values human life.
When considering the barbarity of the Hamas attacks- I agree- the history isn’t important.
But the history is what the leftist activists point to, so it’s good to have an understanding of the conflict. Unfortunately- this situation is a rabbit hole unlike any other. I attempted to get up to speed on all of it some years ago and was left with the feeling that, even though the Palestinians might have a legitimate grievance (they do) it’s still not enough to hang an entire liberation movement on.
Here’s my attempt to summarize my (admittedly incomplete) understanding of it-
(TLDR) Maps are redrawn after wars....
....and not just in the Middle East. Look at a map of Europe in 1914 or the USSR in 1960. Nations (and sometimes empires) lose wars and as a result- often lose territory. The Ottoman Empire had included Palestine for hundreds of years before the Zionist movement began. Jews started immigrating to the region (and also to the US) in the late 19th century because they were being brutalized in Russia and Eastern Europe. WW1 broke out and the Ottomans bet on the wrong horse. They allied with the Central Powers which included Austria Hungary and the German Empire, also known as the scumbags who started the war.
During the war there were several other ‘subplots’ nested within- including but not limited to- the Armenian genocide and the Bolshevik revolution. But the subplot that we’re dealing with today is the handling of Palestine by the British. And some would say- the double crossing of the Arabs by the British.
The activists will point to the following-
The Balfour Declaration (Brit co-signs the Zionist project in order to secure Jewish support in the war effort )
McMahon Hussein letters (different Brit supports an eventual Arab state in exchange for Arabs turning against their Ottoman overlords.)
Sykes Picot agreement- (secret deal between British and French to divide up areas of the Levant after the war.)
Churchill White Paper (Churchill attempts to sort through the confusion created by the Balfour and McMahon deals. I’m sure a more cynical reading of this development is warranted, but whether or not Churchill was a fair arbiter, someone was going to need to step in and clean things up)
It sounds kind of bad but there is important context. Based on my reading- neither of these deals say to the respective parties ‘this land will be yours and yours alone’. Quite the opposite in the case of the Balfour Declaration. And in the case of the McMahon Hussein letters, it’s not super clear where the boundaries of various regions would even be. It’s important to remember- many of the countries in that area that we know today didn’t exist yet.
As for British motivation- they were in an absolutely brutal military conflict. There was no guarantee that the Entente (Allies) were going to win but if they did there was no way in hell that they weren’t going to break up the empires of the Central Powers.
To give an idea of the brutality of that war- the Brits lost around 890,000 people (almost entirely men). They lost around 19,000 in one day during the Battle of the Somme. 890K ended up being 6% of their adult male population. In the US, right now, the adult male population is roughly 100 million. 6% of that is 6 million. It’s insane to think about when you look at the proportionality.
So the Brits were in a desperate situation when these negotiations were happening. After WW1 they controlled the region until the UN partition plan of 1947. The world had just witnessed the attempted (and partially successful) eradication of European Jews and many westerners said enough is enough. So the UN proposed a 2 state solution which was promptly rejected by the Arabs. The Jews took the deal, declared an independent state and were immediately invaded by several of their Arab neighbors.
Since then they’ve been invaded again and again. They’ve prevailed every time and gained more territory in the process (again- maps, wars). Some of which- in the case of Egypt- they gave back.
In the meantime the other countries in the Middle East have become increasingly inhospitable to Jews (see- Farhud)
Still- there have been other versions of the 2 state solution proposed. It just never works out. Never mind the fact that there are something like 23 Arab nations, 6 of which surround Israel on 3 sides (they don’t all share a border with Israel but looking at a map makes the point clear)
The other day I saw a video clip of Judith Butler describing Hamas as part of a larger ‘Global Left’. It’s an insane thing for her to say but this is how these people think. Everyone on the far left has had Nazi fever for the last decade or so, but anytime I’d bring up the atrocities of ISIS (who mentioned Sykes-Picot in their propaganda) to one of these people, all they would respond with was some rehearsed bullshit about US foreign policy. Never mind the fact that here was a villain who actually deserved some type of Hitler comparison (slaughter of religious minorities, taking captured women as sex slaves, murders of gays etc- not the Holocaust but give ‘em time)
The last thing I’ll say is this- the far left coalition is obviously concerned about race above all else- specifically the legacy of slavery. Do they have any idea of just how bad the Muslim world has been on this issue? One of the earliest recorded slave revolts happened in Mesopotamia in 869 AD. Fast forward- Saudi Arabia didn’t outlaw slavery until 1962! That is a seriously long run!
The various Islamic regimes come up over and over again in the historical record about slavery (African slave trade, Black Sea etc).
Anyway- I should probably go chill out now.
Let me know what I got wrong
I think you did very well. I will just fill in some stuff on older history: Jews have a long history in Israel. It was named Palestine by the Romans when they exiled the Jews 2000 years ago with the goal to delegitimize the Jewish connection to the area. Even so, there have always been some Jews in Israel and Jews never stopped calling the land Israel. Jews built a religion centered on their desire to return to their homeland or Zion (another name for Jerusalem). The land of Israel is at the center of all Jewish holidays (except shabbat and Purim) and Jews still pray for rain in Israel three times a day. People have a hard time wrapping their heads around this connection because it's odd, unlike other relationships that people have with their homelands. Under Ottoman rule Jews were only allowed to live in three cities (Tiberius, Jerusalem, and Hebron) and the Ottomans worked very hard to prevent Jews from moving to Israel as did the British at various times during their colonization of Palestine. There was no such prohibition against arabs and as Palestine had few inhabitants a 100 years ago, many of today's Palestinians were also fairly recent arrivals to the land. I say this not to deny Palestinian connection to the land but to highlight how complex the situation is. Finally, I want to add that Israel is a country of refugees with most inhabitants coming there to escape attacks and more than half the Jewish population of Israel is from the Middle East/North Africa. These populations are old predating Islam, like the Jews of Yemen or the Jews of Iraq who had been living there for 2500 years.
Great comment. Yes- the Jews of Iraq- who endured the Farhud pogrom in 1941 Baghdad, where (at minimum-180, possibly many more) Jews were killed. This is around the same time the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was cozying up to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. (Some will say that “collaborator” is too strong a word to describe the Grand Mufti. At the same time “sympathizer” and/or “admirer” would be the most charitable descriptions available given the details of the historical record.)
The context regarding Roman occupation is definitely important. After all, it was from this period that the charge of deicide was leveled at the Jews, inspiring centuries of Christian antisemitism. Also- this ‘country’ of Palestine- which never existed, but instead was a region that changed hands from one Imperial force to another for the better part of 2000 years.
I read somewhere that the oldest record of anything resembling nationhood in this region dates back to King David. At the very least this should matter to the land acknowledgment crowd. I plan on following up and doing some more reading on this period of Antiquity.
Reading your comment (coupled with the apparent fact that I’m often thinking about Ancient Rome anyway) caused me to immediately cue up the Carl Anderson version of “Heaven on their Minds”- knowing that the lines- “We are occupied. Have you forgotten how put down we are?”- would instantly render me emotionally defenseless. Works every time.
I’ve thought a lot about how the Civil Rights movement in the US (at least the religious wing of it) was deeply informed by Old Testament imagery. Looking at the pro Palestinian protests and the secular black nationalism that is undoubtedly a part of it- I feel like the aforementioned kinship and experience of common struggle (exile, subjugation, Pharaoh) is officially a thing of the past.
Where does this leave me as an (atheist leaning) agnostic? I have no idea other than the fact that I feel sheepish about my own paternalism and yet- I know that something incredibly important has been lost.
I am not enough of an expert to identify any mistakes in your history summary. On the contrary, everything you said matches very well with my understanding of this history.
thanks for the primer
I hope your comment gets some traction and replies - most of us could use a 'coles notes' on this thing and I'm willing to hear from all perspectives
Thanks for that episode both. I also feel that the veil has lifted and so many people have outed themselves as having selective empathy. They can’t unequivocally condemn the cruellest and brutal slaughter and torture without checking in with their tribe and its ‘flat pack’ box of preordained beliefs. As you said Sarah, you can be as pro Palestinian as you like, but when you see evil you should be able to state what you saw and how awful and inhumane it was.
I don't usually comment but I've been horrified about what happened in Israel and the response. I have friends and family there and it is shocking how everyone seems to know someone who was killed or kidnapped. Asaf, an Israeli who I am very close to (I was his surrogate mom for 7 months when he lived here 6 years ago) knows 10 people who were murdered, most at the music festival. His roommate's brother was shot in the head and killed leaving two kids and a pregnant wife. He was in the U.S. when this happened and I met him and his sister-in-law for dinner. She was connected to one of the attacked kibbutzim, meaning she knows so many murdered people. A family of 10 that disappeared is her cousin's in-laws. Now, everyone is being called up to serve and there will be so much more death. I am so worried about Asaf. He is in the prime of life and all I have is foreboding. Israel has to destroy Hamas because if they don't they will not survive but what will take its place? So much death to come and no good resolution not even in the short term.
p.s. Unfortunately, I thought Sarah's pessimism was on target at least when it comes to Jews and Israel but her embarrassment at being referred to as a Zionist took me aback. To be a Zionist is just to believe that Jews have a right to their homeland in Israel. It doesn't mean anything more than that. I was shocked to see that the general consensus is that Zionism is an extreme ideology. Clearly the left's equating Zionism with Nazism has had its desired effect.
Regarding the comments about being like the NRA and not compromising: Compromise is honorable, flexibility is good, nuance is often proper, provided the end result brings progress overall. The problem with compromising on the primary institutional goals for pursuing a “Social Justice״ agenda such as DEI as it is often/usually being implemented is not that such compromise is inherently wrong, it is that the trade-offs actually being made here have a bad/negative cost/benefit ratio. There is little reason to think the identity centered approach is effective, good reason to think it may be counter-productive, even when measured by its self-goals, all the more so given how doxastically closed, intolerant, slanderous, superficially pseudo-intellectual without the needed factual grounding (like theology), and thus authoritarian, it is, while the loss of integrity for the self-acknowledged institutional goals is substantial, much more so than those institutions appear to be willing to acknowledge (which suggests that some of those institutions may have cynical leadership). Neither political party deals with this well. Former president Obama speaks out against it, but the Biden administration does not oppose the Social Justice agenda. The Social Justice movement is being promoted by at least some executive branch agencies. This is probably one of the reasons NGO institutions surrender to it so readily, the existing legal context may not provide a clear way for them to successfully oppose it. The Republicans are, if anything, even more partisan, intolerant, and authoritarian in their anti-Social Justice approach. The more reasonable, genuinely liberal, non-authoritarian, fact grounded, advocates are stereotyped and targeted by both the equally aggressive left and right ideologues, and squeezed out.
As you can infer from the above, I tend to agree more with Sarah’s pessimism about how deeply entrenched this is and how bad it is, I think she has a better read on the reality here.
As for the discussion on the war between Israel and its enemies, I think the mass media has very much focused on whatever Israel does that can be reported on negatively, and has carefully avoided doing the same for Israel’s enemies. This persistent biased/distorted coverage has, unsurprisingly, had an impact on people’s understanding of the conflict. Although I have not followed the conflict very closely, and I know this is, on its face, an astonishing claim, and accordingly I accept that reasonable people will object, I am nevertheless convinced that it is true.
The attack on Israelis is consistent with the rhetoric from Hamas which has always advocated for defeating Israel with war and against acceptance of Israel beyond postponing fighting until conditions are more favorable for their ultimate victory. They have rationalized away ethical constraints, such as the distinction between soldiers and civilians, a distinction they reject for Israelis. They consider a single Palestinian state that displaces Israel to be a political/Islamic principle (they do not separate Islam from politics) over which they say they will never compromise. So while they want an airport and seaport, transportation infrastructure, etc. they refuse to abandon their rejection of Israel and their building their capacity to militarily defeat Israel asa condition for receiving such assistance. The primary difference between Fatah and Hamas appears to be over whether an approach which priorities preparing for, and engaging in, direct war is a good strategy. Fatah tends towards fence straddling, they do not clearly favor a two separate state peace, they do not govern very effectively, and they reject compromising sufficiently for Israel to reach an agreement with them that addresses Israel’s security needs, all of which creates an impression that they are weak. They are unpopular with their own constituency and would very likely lose to Hamas if there was an election. Nor will they risk holding an election that blocked Hamas from competing (even though there is no reason to believe Hamas would hold subsequently elections if they won). Israeli policy does Fatah (I am using Fatah and Palestinian Authority as synonyms, although technically they are no doubt different entities) no favors. I assume this is because Israel (in this context Israel is referring to those who set government policy) does not see what Fatah offers them either currently, or in the foreseeable future, as being sufficient to justify adjusting Israeli policy to be more accommodating to Fatah. They simply do not trust the Palestinian Authority that they helped to create even though they do cooperate against their common foes.
A two state peace outcome is more likely to be achievable after more Palestinians, and their leadership, give up on their notion that they will have a single state that displaces Israel, and when Israel concludes that neighboring states (including Iran) have done the same. I therefore agree with the approach that prioritizes establishing open relationships between Israel and Arab/Muslim countries as being the path most likely to end the conflict.
As bad as Netanyahu and the West Bank settlements are, Hamas is an even larger barrier to eventual peace. The world can either have a Palestinian state, or it can allow Hamas to exist; it cannot have both. The sooner Israel annihilates these monsters, the better.
Thank you for another wonderful and stimulating conversation.
About the point at 1:14:40 regarding the brouhaha around Coleman’s TED talk demonstrating Meghan’s point that wokeism is on the decline: Sorry, Meghan, but that incident proves the opposite of what you’re saying. Yes, it’s true that there was a vibrant discussion that revealed just how many people agree with Coleman’s perspective, but we only had that discussion because Coleman bravely pushed back on it and spoke out about what was happening behind the scenes. But what was revealed from it all was just how badly TED had been ideologically captured, and how its leader had felt it incumbent to capitulate to the ideologues and tried to sideline Coleman’s moderate, normie perspective. That is what this debacle revealed, just how much wokeism is still very much controlling the dialogue and pulling the levers of power, not “it showed how so many people actually agree with Coleman”.
No one's ever doubted that most people aren't actually on board with wokeism. That isn't the issue, and never has been. The issue is that, despite that fact, wokeism is able to inject itself into so many arenas of society, and all the people in charge who should know better just roll over and let it happen, like Sarah said. And that's exactly what happened at TED.
Patience. The fact that Coleman was even invited to speak in the first place indicates an institutional awareness (at least among leadership) that the scope has to broaden. Change will be slow and incremental. But two years ago, his ideas wouldn't have gotten anywhere near the TED stage. Yes, he was throttled. But it's significant that he was there at all.
I agree that the fact he was invited indicates a vibe shift that they're less in thrall to these ideas than a few years ago. And yes, that's a good thing to see. But I feel, like Sarah, that this on its own isn't really enough for us to feel confident about the situation. These ideas have to be actively, and thoroughly, routed out. As the TED debacle revealed, guilty liberals timidly feeling more breathing room to express disagreement isn't enough to withstand the woke guilting that inevitably hits them when they push back.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=TED%20Talk&hl=en
Looks like google searches for the term "TED Talk" started to fall around the time of the pandemic/George Floyd. I think they might be trying to claw back with a wider range of opinions.
The scary part of this is not that every person in America hates Coleman Hughes, it’s that his success depends largely on alternative media, and there is a massive government/corporate effort to shut down alternative media.
And yes, women and children no longer matter.
Antisemitism is a helluva drug. Great conversation. Thank you
Hat tip to the great Rick James.
I appreciated the optimist/pessimist argument at the end of today's podcast. I have been meeting with a Solid Ground/Counterweight group since 2021, all of us terribly alarmed by identitarianism wrapped in a pretty veneer of "social justice."
All I can say is this - I think optimism or pessimism is irrelevant. The apparent infestation of tolerance for antisemitism is an opening, an opportunity, for aggressive and relentless anti-identitarian rhetoric and ethical posturing to put organizations who support practices which maximize "seeing everything through an identity lens" on the defensive. We must loudly and uncompromisingly shame individuals and orgs that promote identitarianism and illustrate clearly how DEI, Critical Theory, so-called "antiracism" and Wokeism in general act as trojan horses for this concept.
One need not look further than the Middle East for an example of how identitariasm plays out in the real world. It leads to scape-goating and violence (real violence - not the silence kind). In the multicultural hotspots that are Western countries (USA, Britian, Canada, etc.), identitarianism is a recipe for our collapse. Like Sarah says, we need to be uncompromising on our principles of fairness and blindness to identity in law and in culture.
As for how it goes? Like, will it work/will not not work? You must strategize like there is a very good chance you could lose this, but act like - if you do it right - you will win. Devote your energy to winning and never give up. Even in the face of an army of giant elephants with barbed tusks on the battlefield, reform the line!
You two are playing an important role. THANK YOU.
Have to say it's been a bit disappointing seeing some of Sarah's tweets this week when she admitted to being largely ignorant about the conflict. I too am ignorant beyond the basic history, which impelled me to remain a passive observer of the discourse. I'm not sure what Sarah was expecting. Merely condemning the killing of innocents doesn't make for a discourse, so obviously people are going to discuss the history that led to such acts. Explanations will sound more or less like justifications, but that's just the nature of these discourses. Ultimately, all explanation can be construed as justification. If Sarah even dismisses the people that say "killing innocents is wrong, but...", one might as well skip the condemning of the killing of innocents part.
I also don't understand why Sarah keeps saying this discourse is "radicalizing" her if that doesn't mean turning her into a Zionist or militantly pro-Israel. She suggests at the end that this radicalization may be toward rethinking her priors, but that seems to differ from her earlier meaning. Either way, radicalizing yourself by nutpicking or disaster porn is bad.
Finally, it was strange for much of this conversation to be framed in terms of anti-wokism/idpol in America when pretty much the entire Israel/Palestine conflict is idpol in a way. Perhaps the point was our identity shouldn't be so tied to these foreign identities, but then in that case maybe we shouldn't be concerned with this event in the first place. Idk
You have some good points in here but I will say there is absolutely zero need to “nutpick” in order to be pushed towards the pro Israel side of things. Following one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent memory, thousands of people across the entire western world took to the streets in celebration. It’s not at all nutpicking to notice this, the nuts are spitting in our faces