We have family in Sderot that barely escaped with their lives. In the aftermath of the carnage, I pointed out to my leftist cousin that virtually all the celebration of terrorism was on the far left because the narrative of oppression fits neatly with antisemitism. She hasn’t responded for a few days now. Hopefully, this is hitting home because, if the left leaning Jews don’t abandon progressive politics now, then the brainwashing is beyond repair.
Prayers for your family, Lucy. Asians are in the same position as Jews. There is no reason they should be voting 2:1 for a part whose members attack them in school boards and city streets.
Has anyone made the DSA, Latin American marxism/ Nazification(Odessa road) of countries that Nazis went to hide in connection? It's easy to see when one considers it.
Nope they were totally opposed to each other. The Nazis who fled to Latin America ended up as foot soldiers for the conservative juntas, doing things like operation condor to kill the native Marxist guerrillas.
Matthew Goodwin's Substack today https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/what-people-think-about-the-war has some truly chilling polling statistics about the advance of the woke-brat anti-Israel 'Decolonisation' mentality amongst the young. The polling data shows (amongst other things) that more young people sympathise with Hamas' genocidal barbarism than with Israelis trying to continue to exist. (at least amongst those who answer polling questions). The comprehensive ignorance of these people can of course be guessed at - and this despite, no doubt, large helpings of 'higher education'. A few of us have been warning for decades now about the deluge that must inevitably follow from allowing an up-itself 'Progressive' intelligentsia to entirely 'colonise' our Western academy. I do believe that with the appalling levels of indifference to this latest Jewish pogrom, the dam has finally broken and Western Liberalism is reaping what it has sown. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
Eugenics and Soviet Communism...but it's way more than 'acceptance'. Over the last 50 years the universities have been the petri-dishes and spreaders of each and every kind of moral-relativist decadence that Hilary Clinton's 'deplorable' people recoil from in 2023. (And the hugely influential Oxbridge-Bloomsbury Set too were into every kind of 30s-style woke nonsense going.)
I agree....and the roots are even deeper than that. I have written on this very thing in the past: "One thing not well understood about Britain’s heyday as the great 19th century bastion of capitalist enterprise is that, right from the start, the rapid expansion of its middle class gave rise to a contrary force. The hard driven, muck-and-brass first generation often spawned a second generation class disdainful of ‘trade’ and wanting to feel more sophisticated than thou – the seed bed of a nascent Progressive intelligentsia." https://www.takimag.com/article/the-fatal-flaw-of-western-liberalism/
My chief problem with “intersectionality” is that it aggregates all the multiple identities within an individual as collective victimhood. It’s all the many ways a person is “oppressed.” This fails critically and empirically. There are persons of color who are entrepreneurs, successful, conservative, have a faith perspective etc. The “intersection” is of a demographic category like race, beyond their influence, and psychographic category like self-efficacy and personal ambition, which is not static and driven by values. Many Blacks are not supportive of BLM, many Hispanics reject the term “LatinX.” The left tries to destroy individual identity, as they claim to elevate identity.
A Washington Post posts today a picture of an young Israeli women with the caption "Hadas Kalderin....two of her children have been "detained" by Hamas (my quotes). The far left has officially morphed into Nazis.
You are correct - our Bourgeois Radicals are not fundamentally different from National Socialists, a fact which needed only circumstances to make plain.
The idea that any ideology (e.g. National Socialism) is unique is error - there is an underlying conceptual - and ultimately practical - unity of all ideologies. That Bourgeois Radicalism should have some time ago lost interest and even promoted slavery should have made that plain.
"a fact which needed only circumstances to make plain"
Yes, that's what is so infuriating. To watch ostensibly educated people go down this road for decades, with what always looked (to me) as an obvious end point... Only to have them ignore every historical parallel pointed out to them, until it's so transparent that even they can no longer deny it.
Tacitus spent many years witnessing, reflecting and writing upon the gradual collapse of his civilization - and documented every insufferable excuse, delusion and moralism of which we might conceive.
The truth itself is simple, but we are deceived by appearances - we don't penetrate them.
No Name Here, sadly, it has not yet gotten to "...until it's so transparent that even they can no longer deny it." Quite the opposite. The left has been invigorated now that the carnage is out in the open. The evil forces are gathering. For example: They have stepped up their attack on free speech in the media.
No such thing as terrorist - just militants No hostages, just detainees. No evil, that would be one-sided.
The nihilistic, misanthropic hatred of the left is on display for all the world to see. Not sure it will make much difference though. So many people are so invested in this identity that they will jump through any number of hoops to maintain their cognitive dissonance. Ah well, at least the 2A is celebrated and revered in my neck of the woods if things continue to devolve.
And in Texas, the Marxists all protect themselves and hire more Marxists in the universities. They need a lot more journalist muscle to expose them to public. I can connect interested journalists with faculty wanting to tell their stories.
I'm optimistic by nature, but have a hard time being optimistic about people pivoting their beliefs despite the evidence currently smashing them in the nose.
It helps identify what BLM is all about. They bragged that were Marxists, but people attracted to them either were sympathetic to black causes, such as fighting ghetto poverty, or bought into the police violence jive. Their decolonization schtik fits with their CRT teachings. It’s a good day for those looking for signs that a roll back of their ideology is possible.
The title 'Ivy League Professor' now holds as much the prestige as 'Celebrity Astrologer' or 'Breast Enlargement Consultant': the epitome of charlatanism.
Just days after a 21st century pogrom against Jewish people, Israelis had to witness virtually the entire Western MSM jumping with alacrity at the chance to spread some patently mendacious and manipulative propaganda about the Gaza hospital tragedy. Hamas has obviously figured out that nothing is too absurd for the Western MSM to fall for just as long as it has a whiff of anti-Western-civilisation about it. The grovelling MSM apologies have of course not been so forthcoming.
Oct 20, 2023·edited Oct 20, 2023Liked by Christopher F. Rufo
For ideologists, the World is merely symbolic - the higher realities are utopic and demonic - they are Manicheans. So, evil "Whiteness" etc. etc. is preventing a "New World." "Israel" and "The Jews" are versions of this - Jew-hating is an old gnostic theme, which has become the ideology of anti-semitism in modernity.
Gnostic hope is false hope - our neighbors are suffering from a religious mass delusion. To be fooled by their moralism is another delusion - there is nothing peaceful or hopeful about ideology (or moralism, for that matter).
I’m as pro-Israel as they come. But I say to the commenters here, how does responding reflexively to any difference of opinion with an accusation of antisemitism differ from the left shouting “racist!”anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to woke nonsense? Such accusatory responses only serve to shut down debate. To be intellectually honest, we must all admit that the Israeli/Palestinian struggle is one of crippling complexity. Discuss accordingly.
It’s complex in its history, sure, but the Hamas terror attack was one of the most shocking and brutal incidents in recent memory. Supporters of the attack are rightly considered enemies of Israel and the West.
Drop the academic arrogance. And drop the moral relativism. There is nothing superior about moral relativism. There IS such thing as evil and only a fool would think otherwise.
FYI, good and evil is literally built into our DNA. You must accept it. And I do mean DNA. The more we study the genome the more we find that good and evil is a part of our human nature. It is what it means to be human. Denying
or disrespecting our nature (or God, or Karma) leads to evil because it is a falsehood. No goodness can be built on a foundation of falsehood. Goodness demands Truth.
FBW, you may think moral relativism makes you wise and peaceful but do not be fooled. When confronting evil, moral relativism just begets more evil. It disobeys everything that makes us human.
In this case it is different due to the initial tone. I responded to James' post to Rufo of "simple answers from simple minded people... that is how i'd summarize your post "
Seeing that response, I know I'm dealing with a DEI foot soldier as they always attack and dismiss any alternate discussions and especially dismiss Rufo's writings. So I gave him what he deserves, a taste of his own behavior. Being intellectually honest is great for you and I, but it doesn't apply to the DEI crowd.
Spot-on! But you need to condemn with equal conviction the Leftists who wrap themselves in the Stars and Stripes and claim to be patriotic when in truth they adhere to contemporary Marxist theory that would destroy our Constitution and the natural rights it protects. For example, Bernie Sanders, and ancient Stalinist to whom our feckless POTUS pays court. I pray for the Israeli and Ukranian people, as well as the Palestinians who are oppressed by their own Quislings and the proxies of Iran. It's time to stand and be counted Americans. As Coolidge said, "Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray."
<i>All of the groups have long promoted the violent “decolonization” of not just Israel but also the United States.</i>
Great - but only if the 'decolonization' BEGINS with the ejection of all the colonizing lefties who've seized the majorities and the powers of excluding all but lefties from the professoriate of most Universities in the USA - and all of their heirs, successors and assigns.
I am sorry to hear about your family and the others against whom these atrocities were committed. But I am also sorry to report that my leftist Jewish friends and family are taking the side of Palestine (not Hamas, of course, as they assure me). You cannot take the sympathy for the perceived underdog (the oppressed fighting their oppressors) out of the leftist mind. To the coddled American Jew, Israel is not necessarily worth saving; they do not see a need for a Jewish state as previous generations did. (And even many older American Jews generations removed from Europe are also contra-Israel.) Israel is the oppressor. Full stop. And amazingly, they still insist that MAGA and the "white supremacy culture " is the threat. The arguments on both sides are rather cartoonish but that doesn't stop the arrogance. I hate to come to this conclusion but the anti-Semitism, now in stark relief, will not hit home for a lot of leftist-type Jews. Why? Because they don't feel threatened. Of course many Jews felt equally safe in Germany 100 years ago.
I have a question, which is not an easy one: Is the "moral progress" which Reform Judaism expects to present in the world truly based in Judaism, or is it a compromise - or even a consecration - of the ideology of Progress?
My impression is that the continued existence of conservative and Orthodox Jewry implies that this expectation of moral progress is not based in Judaism, but rather outside of Divine Scripture/Rabbinical commentary.
We have family in Sderot that barely escaped with their lives. In the aftermath of the carnage, I pointed out to my leftist cousin that virtually all the celebration of terrorism was on the far left because the narrative of oppression fits neatly with antisemitism. She hasn’t responded for a few days now. Hopefully, this is hitting home because, if the left leaning Jews don’t abandon progressive politics now, then the brainwashing is beyond repair.
I'm so sorry to hear this and hope your family is safe.
Prayers for your family, Lucy. Asians are in the same position as Jews. There is no reason they should be voting 2:1 for a part whose members attack them in school boards and city streets.
Secular White-Asian-Jew-Castizo alliance vs. the uncivilized commie hoards is the future of world politics.
Latin Americanization of the globe. Alberto Fujimori! Bukele!
Has anyone made the DSA, Latin American marxism/ Nazification(Odessa road) of countries that Nazis went to hide in connection? It's easy to see when one considers it.
Nope they were totally opposed to each other. The Nazis who fled to Latin America ended up as foot soldiers for the conservative juntas, doing things like operation condor to kill the native Marxist guerrillas.
Matthew Goodwin's Substack today https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/what-people-think-about-the-war has some truly chilling polling statistics about the advance of the woke-brat anti-Israel 'Decolonisation' mentality amongst the young. The polling data shows (amongst other things) that more young people sympathise with Hamas' genocidal barbarism than with Israelis trying to continue to exist. (at least amongst those who answer polling questions). The comprehensive ignorance of these people can of course be guessed at - and this despite, no doubt, large helpings of 'higher education'. A few of us have been warning for decades now about the deluge that must inevitably follow from allowing an up-itself 'Progressive' intelligentsia to entirely 'colonise' our Western academy. I do believe that with the appalling levels of indifference to this latest Jewish pogrom, the dam has finally broken and Western Liberalism is reaping what it has sown. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
In the 1930s, it was the academic acceptance of eugenics across academia. Today it is the academic acceptance of moral relativism.
We must all fight it since it is the classic fight of good vs evil. It has gone was beyond modern politics.
Eugenics and Soviet Communism...but it's way more than 'acceptance'. Over the last 50 years the universities have been the petri-dishes and spreaders of each and every kind of moral-relativist decadence that Hilary Clinton's 'deplorable' people recoil from in 2023. (And the hugely influential Oxbridge-Bloomsbury Set too were into every kind of 30s-style woke nonsense going.)
I'd say it was over the last 100 years if you dig deep enough.
I agree....and the roots are even deeper than that. I have written on this very thing in the past: "One thing not well understood about Britain’s heyday as the great 19th century bastion of capitalist enterprise is that, right from the start, the rapid expansion of its middle class gave rise to a contrary force. The hard driven, muck-and-brass first generation often spawned a second generation class disdainful of ‘trade’ and wanting to feel more sophisticated than thou – the seed bed of a nascent Progressive intelligentsia." https://www.takimag.com/article/the-fatal-flaw-of-western-liberalism/
That is a very good article. Thanks for sharing. Reminds me of the Fabian Society.
How true. 😓
After 1945 a lot of these same people spent a lot of time & money hiding their involvement n Eugenics.
It's why planned Parenthood exists. Eugenics Sangerites.
Thank you!
What we are seeing is the fruits of of 30+ years of Progressive ownership of Schools Of Education.
And thanks for the Thank you! If you care to press the subscribe free button there's plenty more on this very theme on my Substack.
Am Yisrael chai
My chief problem with “intersectionality” is that it aggregates all the multiple identities within an individual as collective victimhood. It’s all the many ways a person is “oppressed.” This fails critically and empirically. There are persons of color who are entrepreneurs, successful, conservative, have a faith perspective etc. The “intersection” is of a demographic category like race, beyond their influence, and psychographic category like self-efficacy and personal ambition, which is not static and driven by values. Many Blacks are not supportive of BLM, many Hispanics reject the term “LatinX.” The left tries to destroy individual identity, as they claim to elevate identity.
Well said!
Thank you. Trying to stay up to your standards 😏
"Identity" is fundamentally fallacious and dissolves into individuals under examination.
People of all identities can be oppressors, and people of all identities can be oppressed.
The concept was born from, and can only survive under, authoritarianism.
A Washington Post posts today a picture of an young Israeli women with the caption "Hadas Kalderin....two of her children have been "detained" by Hamas (my quotes). The far left has officially morphed into Nazis.
Sickening.
"Detained..."
You are correct - our Bourgeois Radicals are not fundamentally different from National Socialists, a fact which needed only circumstances to make plain.
The idea that any ideology (e.g. National Socialism) is unique is error - there is an underlying conceptual - and ultimately practical - unity of all ideologies. That Bourgeois Radicalism should have some time ago lost interest and even promoted slavery should have made that plain.
"a fact which needed only circumstances to make plain"
Yes, that's what is so infuriating. To watch ostensibly educated people go down this road for decades, with what always looked (to me) as an obvious end point... Only to have them ignore every historical parallel pointed out to them, until it's so transparent that even they can no longer deny it.
Apparently, this is why I pay taxes.
Tacitus spent many years witnessing, reflecting and writing upon the gradual collapse of his civilization - and documented every insufferable excuse, delusion and moralism of which we might conceive.
The truth itself is simple, but we are deceived by appearances - we don't penetrate them.
I share your sentiments.
No Name Here, sadly, it has not yet gotten to "...until it's so transparent that even they can no longer deny it." Quite the opposite. The left has been invigorated now that the carnage is out in the open. The evil forces are gathering. For example: They have stepped up their attack on free speech in the media.
No such thing as terrorist - just militants No hostages, just detainees. No evil, that would be one-sided.
Things will get a lot worse, I fear.
Intelligence in reporting as always Mr. Rufo. Thank You.
The nihilistic, misanthropic hatred of the left is on display for all the world to see. Not sure it will make much difference though. So many people are so invested in this identity that they will jump through any number of hoops to maintain their cognitive dissonance. Ah well, at least the 2A is celebrated and revered in my neck of the woods if things continue to devolve.
I think people are waking up to this fact now! The mask of compassion has fallen.
The public is, which is encouraging. But universities in Florida still require DEI loyalty oaths: https://twitter.com/BowTiedShrike/status/1715193010445582553
And in Texas, the Marxists all protect themselves and hire more Marxists in the universities. They need a lot more journalist muscle to expose them to public. I can connect interested journalists with faculty wanting to tell their stories.
I'm optimistic by nature, but have a hard time being optimistic about people pivoting their beliefs despite the evidence currently smashing them in the nose.
Being as well-read as you are, I am sure you are familiar with Mass Formation, but other readers of your substack may not. I cannot recommend this interview more highly: https://mattiasdesmet.substack.com/p/my-interview-with-tucker-carlson
his book is quite good.. i recommend it also..
May the ‘left’ bite and devour one another. They have held their sway over the public far too long.
It helps identify what BLM is all about. They bragged that were Marxists, but people attracted to them either were sympathetic to black causes, such as fighting ghetto poverty, or bought into the police violence jive. Their decolonization schtik fits with their CRT teachings. It’s a good day for those looking for signs that a roll back of their ideology is possible.
Yes, it’s not utterly clear what BLM is.
The title 'Ivy League Professor' now holds as much the prestige as 'Celebrity Astrologer' or 'Breast Enlargement Consultant': the epitome of charlatanism.
Funny!
I’m always happy to repost your writing. I hope more people will become aware. But I’m frightened by what i see and read.
Just days after a 21st century pogrom against Jewish people, Israelis had to witness virtually the entire Western MSM jumping with alacrity at the chance to spread some patently mendacious and manipulative propaganda about the Gaza hospital tragedy. Hamas has obviously figured out that nothing is too absurd for the Western MSM to fall for just as long as it has a whiff of anti-Western-civilisation about it. The grovelling MSM apologies have of course not been so forthcoming.
The media was awful and digested Hamas propaganda without questions.
For ideologists, the World is merely symbolic - the higher realities are utopic and demonic - they are Manicheans. So, evil "Whiteness" etc. etc. is preventing a "New World." "Israel" and "The Jews" are versions of this - Jew-hating is an old gnostic theme, which has become the ideology of anti-semitism in modernity.
Gnostic hope is false hope - our neighbors are suffering from a religious mass delusion. To be fooled by their moralism is another delusion - there is nothing peaceful or hopeful about ideology (or moralism, for that matter).
“Decolonization” is just Slave Morality. Revenge of the nerds, a violent uprising of the social failures. Communism in its purest form.
I’m as pro-Israel as they come. But I say to the commenters here, how does responding reflexively to any difference of opinion with an accusation of antisemitism differ from the left shouting “racist!”anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to woke nonsense? Such accusatory responses only serve to shut down debate. To be intellectually honest, we must all admit that the Israeli/Palestinian struggle is one of crippling complexity. Discuss accordingly.
It’s complex in its history, sure, but the Hamas terror attack was one of the most shocking and brutal incidents in recent memory. Supporters of the attack are rightly considered enemies of Israel and the West.
Drop the academic arrogance. And drop the moral relativism. There is nothing superior about moral relativism. There IS such thing as evil and only a fool would think otherwise.
FYI, good and evil is literally built into our DNA. You must accept it. And I do mean DNA. The more we study the genome the more we find that good and evil is a part of our human nature. It is what it means to be human. Denying
or disrespecting our nature (or God, or Karma) leads to evil because it is a falsehood. No goodness can be built on a foundation of falsehood. Goodness demands Truth.
FBW, you may think moral relativism makes you wise and peaceful but do not be fooled. When confronting evil, moral relativism just begets more evil. It disobeys everything that makes us human.
Also, I think you underestimate everyone here. This is not "reflexology." Please check your hate at the door.
In this case it is different due to the initial tone. I responded to James' post to Rufo of "simple answers from simple minded people... that is how i'd summarize your post "
Seeing that response, I know I'm dealing with a DEI foot soldier as they always attack and dismiss any alternate discussions and especially dismiss Rufo's writings. So I gave him what he deserves, a taste of his own behavior. Being intellectually honest is great for you and I, but it doesn't apply to the DEI crowd.
Spot-on! But you need to condemn with equal conviction the Leftists who wrap themselves in the Stars and Stripes and claim to be patriotic when in truth they adhere to contemporary Marxist theory that would destroy our Constitution and the natural rights it protects. For example, Bernie Sanders, and ancient Stalinist to whom our feckless POTUS pays court. I pray for the Israeli and Ukranian people, as well as the Palestinians who are oppressed by their own Quislings and the proxies of Iran. It's time to stand and be counted Americans. As Coolidge said, "Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray."
Well said.
<i>All of the groups have long promoted the violent “decolonization” of not just Israel but also the United States.</i>
Great - but only if the 'decolonization' BEGINS with the ejection of all the colonizing lefties who've seized the majorities and the powers of excluding all but lefties from the professoriate of most Universities in the USA - and all of their heirs, successors and assigns.
I am sorry to hear about your family and the others against whom these atrocities were committed. But I am also sorry to report that my leftist Jewish friends and family are taking the side of Palestine (not Hamas, of course, as they assure me). You cannot take the sympathy for the perceived underdog (the oppressed fighting their oppressors) out of the leftist mind. To the coddled American Jew, Israel is not necessarily worth saving; they do not see a need for a Jewish state as previous generations did. (And even many older American Jews generations removed from Europe are also contra-Israel.) Israel is the oppressor. Full stop. And amazingly, they still insist that MAGA and the "white supremacy culture " is the threat. The arguments on both sides are rather cartoonish but that doesn't stop the arrogance. I hate to come to this conclusion but the anti-Semitism, now in stark relief, will not hit home for a lot of leftist-type Jews. Why? Because they don't feel threatened. Of course many Jews felt equally safe in Germany 100 years ago.
Shocking.
I have a question, which is not an easy one: Is the "moral progress" which Reform Judaism expects to present in the world truly based in Judaism, or is it a compromise - or even a consecration - of the ideology of Progress?
My impression is that the continued existence of conservative and Orthodox Jewry implies that this expectation of moral progress is not based in Judaism, but rather outside of Divine Scripture/Rabbinical commentary.