When is anti-whiteness not anti-white?
“Whiteness”, in the eyes of the progressive Left, is an ideology, a social construct that should not be confused with “being white”, which is simply a statement of an individual’s race (which does not, officially, exist–it’s just a social construct). By “whiteness,” generally they mean “bourgeois”, as least as it’s been conventionally understood. “Being white”, by contrast, just means you don’t tan.
If only these clowns had real problems to solve … hold on, they do … . But it’s so much easier to do the job you want to do rather than the one you’re actually employed to.
We can only hope that her flock keep voting with their feet and that she ends up preaching to a literal echo chamber. That is if she still does any front line work.
I don’t think your second proposition (whiteness = bourgeois in the old money) is quite right. The only people who talk about whiteness *are* bourgeois (or hangers-on such as the underpaid but zealous ngo activists whom the bourgeois need in order to bestow conscience-salving acts of generous patronage). More correctly, Whiteness applies to what was the working class in the old money, whose old-left saintliness has been superseded in blamelessness by the new-left’s “oppressed”, and who are now despised by the new bourgeois for their uselessness and uncouth ways.
The distinction between whiteness and whites is used to mask antiwhite hatred. Just as patriarchy is used to mask anti-male hatred. When confronted with obvious hatred, they’ll use these abstraction to mask their true intent.
IMO, “whiteness” refers to no less than western civilization.
B Emery
9 months ago
“let’s have anti-whiteness, & let’s smash the patriarchy.” Sounds good. But what’s this? “That’s not anti-white,” she added. “That’s anti-oppression.”
There are no words for this kind of stupidity.
I thought God botherers were supposed to love thy neighbour as thyself and turn the other cheek – all that malarkey. What are we doing now, love thy neighbour as thyself unless they are white? She is not a very good Christian.
Wtf even is a ‘conference on whiteness.’ and what is it’s purpose? I have never heard of anything so ridiculous nor can comprehend what the content would be. I’m pretty sure would rather remove my own eyeballs with a teaspoon than sit through such a thing.
The West is loosing it’s mind.
Peter D
9 months ago
The more this goes on, the more I feel as if our backs are up against the wall and that we are fighting for our existence. Whether it is the MSM or Hollywood attacking us as we are low hanging fruit and the risk of a backlash is very low; I feel as if we are being herded silently into a cul-de-sac which leads to a cemetery.
I feel as if we are being bullied into submission and every time someone sticks their head above the parapet, it gets shot at. That some people are sticking their heads up, I admire you greatly. I support you however I can. These are the people keeping things civil.
Because once it goes too far, it will not be civil.
Read this essay and it prompted me to listen to the podcast between Peterson and Destiny. Have to say Destiny held his own against a formidable debater. Peterson said as much.
The most contentious issues were climate change and vaccines. I think Peterson made a couple mistakes that trip up many sceptics in these debates.
In regards to vaccines, Peterson overstated the harms. I think a better approach is to acknowledge that vaccines were beneficial for a great number of elderly people and those with compromised health. It’s more important IMO to focus on the mandates and the hyperbolic claims made about the efficacy of vaccines.
In regards to climate change, Peterson spent too much time challenging the extent that CO2 is causing increased temps. Temps have definitely increased and the degree to which CO2 caused this is impossible to quantify, so it’s almost pointless to argue about it. He should have focused on the benefits of warming temps, the extent of failed predictions, the poverty created by energy insecurity and the economic damage of net zero.
Look. I am tired of the crap argument that keeps saying old people should get the jab. The older I get, the less I want to do with anything Big Pharma shoves my way. Thank you very much. Keep the needles to yourself. And most of the pills. Jeez!!!
I never said old people should get the jab. That decision is up to each individual. Many older people are in excellent health and likely didn’t need the jab, but I would need some very convincing evidence that the vaccine didn’t save millions of lives of elderly and infirm people..
Haha. Sorry about the outburst. I have seen that phrase you used, “vaccines were beneficial for a great number of elderly people and those with compromised health”, repeated ad nauseam for years now, and finally, when I saw it for the 1000th time, I lost patience.
My impression is that the vax was peddled without regard for people’s health, viz pushing it on pregnant women. I have seen claims that in fact it killed unusual numbers of old and frail people. I may be old, but I am not stupid. I would never take a jab of unknown substance that Big Pharma is pushing like mad, as they did then.
Sadly, Steve Kirsch is nuts. About vaccines, at least. He lives about 15 minutes away from me and I’ve been following his antics for the couple of years since his startup M10 fired him for going off the deep end. He’s even nuttier than Bobby Kennedy about vaccines, and that’s nuts.
I am cautious about the various claims he makes. But his point of view… there are many many other voices, and sane. How is it nuts to be skeptical of what the Big Pharma dishes out, esp. when they went out of their way to make sure they bear no responsibility?
As I said at more length in a post here UnHerd did not post, I don’t have a problem with people who have different views. There’s a lot of uncertainty about Covid-19 and the vaccines. It was hard to tell what was happening at the time, and it’s still hard to tell in hindsight. It’s good to discuss these issues.
I do have a problem with people like Steve Kirsch and Bobby Kennedy who pretend to have all the answers and who lie without shame. I can’t look into their hearts, so maybe their motives are good. But I can look at their data, and the tactics they use to promote their views, and that bothers me greatly.
I don’t know Steve Kirsch, but I do know some people who know him, and it does seem like he went off the deep end sometime in 2021. He can sound reasonable, as he did in an interview with Tucker Carlson, but he’s not. I don’t trust anything he says. When you cited that “study” he gave on his Substack, I thought I should raise a red flag.
He is to be commended. Not for refusing per se, but for not compromising on his principles and giving in to peer pressure, especially at such a young age.
Good points. The clip of the debate here was enough for me — I didn’t watch more. Vaccines and climate change are interesting issues, but debates on the topics don’t help much. They tend to be too binary, and we live in a non-binary world. We need to recognize as Thomas Sowell said, “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs”.
We humans are driven more by emotions than reason. Our knowledge is incomplete, particularly about causation, and we don’t evaluate risk well. Yet we confidently stake out our positions and are loath to leave them. We are herd animals, even here on UnHerd.
I saw this play out last week in the Covid-19 origins debate. The two sides are the natural spillover-ists and the lab leakers. Both sides have some compelling evidence to support them, but neither side has a solid case. There’s just too much that is still unknown, and since the Chinese government has covered up crucial evidence, will likely never be known.
That hasn’t stopped either side. On the lab leak side, two scientists at Rutgers, Richard Ebright and Bryce Nickels, have long been hyperbolic in labeling the other side: liar, grifter, Pol Pot, Josef Mengele. Those on the natural spillover side (Kristian Andersen, Michael Worobey, Eddie Holmes, Angela Rasmussen, and others) have shown a little more restraint, but not much.
Now though the natural spillover people have fired a game-changing salvo, filing a complaint with Rutgers accusing Richard Ebright and Bryce Nickels of abuse and threats to their safety. Not content with words, they threaten the livelihood of these two professors. And the science establishment has their backs.
Our search for truth works best when we step back from competition and debate and focus more on cooperation and discussion. I’m somewhat the hypocrite in saying that, honoring the principle often in the breach rather than the observance. But debates like this one between Jordan Peterson and Destiny, and battles like that between the Covid-19 origin theorists, show how little they really help solve problems.
Excellent, well reasoned comment yet again CD. What is the point of the Covid origins debate at this stage in the game? I’ll strongly disagree with you on one point though – we need more debate, not less. Bad ideas are allowed to fester and grow when debate is shut down.
The Covid origins debate is almost silly now. It was much more relevant three years ago, when debate was crushed by govt, big tech, the regime media and global health institutions. We needed a nuanced approach back then.
I wish our political class embraced the teachings of Thomas Sowell. However, we live in an era where we are not allowed to even discuss trade offs. We see that with almost all the big issues of the day – climate policy, Covid policy, open borders, trans rights issues. By the time common sense and debate are actually allowed, we have already inflicted tremendous damage, sometimes irreversible.
As regards climate change, I think one of the key arguments is that even if we do manage to control CO2 emissions (which would be at great cost and also extremely unlikely) this will not confer any control over the earths’ climate, which is very complicated. The simplistic plan seems to indicate control over CO2 will somehow confer a climate thermostat, quod non.
John Galt Was Correct
9 months ago
These white men are so problematic. Oh look, war with China and Russia, where are those white men who have stopped joining up?
Mike Downing
9 months ago
American expats in Portugal;
That’s where Lionel Shriver has just left the UK for where there are lots of friends of hers.
Obviously the rents and general cost of living will be far lower than London.
Lionel’s other home is in Brooklyn, NYC. Very expensive. She usually splits her time between the two.
Ian_S
9 months ago
Anglican Miranda of the anti-whiteness crusade: — very much these people remind me of Wendolene in Wallace and Gromit’s animated short from 1995, “A Close Shave”. An ever so nice woolly thinker easily seduced into any questionable belief system, as long as it’s touted by society’s betters.
Derek Smith
9 months ago
“whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender.”
And Female is to priest, Miranda.
Frank Carney
9 months ago
Double-barrelled surname, Cambridge University. Definitely didn’t benefit from whiteness and the patriarchy…
R Wright
9 months ago
Threlfall-Holmes needs to get a Prevent referral, as according to the ADL anti-whiteness is a extreme right conspiracy theory and does not exist.
Anger is not effective rhetorically. Surely JP knows that. His public life to date has been a studied effort (mostly successful) not to get angry. What happened?
William Brand
8 months ago
They decided that it was evil for their ancestors to colonize Africa. Now they say it is good for Africa to colonize Europe. They forgot that all of the evils of being colonized are now happening to Europe and that they are the target now. They assume that the evil will be directed at lower class whites and will never affect elites like them.
William Brand
8 months ago
Vaccination has become a political issue having nothing to do with Science. People use it to indicate one’s political tribe. If Biden was for it Republicans were against it and died unvaccinated. If Trump had won, it would have been Democrats who died unvaccinated. Before the pandemic it was WOKES who let children go unvaccinated for diseases resulting in the return of several previously eliminated. Vaccine use is a matter of balancing the probability of side effects against the probability of disease. In most cases the odds say vaccinate. Covid odds say vaccinate. With climate change the probability of tropical diseases such as yellow fever, dengue and Malaria need to be considered for vaccination.
Main Edition
US
FR
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWhen is anti-whiteness not anti-white?
“Whiteness”, in the eyes of the progressive Left, is an ideology, a social construct that should not be confused with “being white”, which is simply a statement of an individual’s race (which does not, officially, exist–it’s just a social construct). By “whiteness,” generally they mean “bourgeois”, as least as it’s been conventionally understood. “Being white”, by contrast, just means you don’t tan.
If only these clowns had real problems to solve … hold on, they do … . But it’s so much easier to do the job you want to do rather than the one you’re actually employed to.
We can only hope that her flock keep voting with their feet and that she ends up preaching to a literal echo chamber. That is if she still does any front line work.
’White privilege’ – an accusation almost always made by those who benefited the most from it against those who benefited the least.
I don’t think your second proposition (whiteness = bourgeois in the old money) is quite right. The only people who talk about whiteness *are* bourgeois (or hangers-on such as the underpaid but zealous ngo activists whom the bourgeois need in order to bestow conscience-salving acts of generous patronage). More correctly, Whiteness applies to what was the working class in the old money, whose old-left saintliness has been superseded in blamelessness by the new-left’s “oppressed”, and who are now despised by the new bourgeois for their uselessness and uncouth ways.
The distinction between whiteness and whites is used to mask antiwhite hatred. Just as patriarchy is used to mask anti-male hatred. When confronted with obvious hatred, they’ll use these abstraction to mask their true intent.
IMO, “whiteness” refers to no less than western civilization.
“let’s have anti-whiteness, & let’s smash the patriarchy.” Sounds good. But what’s this? “That’s not anti-white,” she added. “That’s anti-oppression.”
There are no words for this kind of stupidity.
I thought God botherers were supposed to love thy neighbour as thyself and turn the other cheek – all that malarkey. What are we doing now, love thy neighbour as thyself unless they are white? She is not a very good Christian.
Wtf even is a ‘conference on whiteness.’ and what is it’s purpose? I have never heard of anything so ridiculous nor can comprehend what the content would be. I’m pretty sure would rather remove my own eyeballs with a teaspoon than sit through such a thing.
The West is loosing it’s mind.
The more this goes on, the more I feel as if our backs are up against the wall and that we are fighting for our existence. Whether it is the MSM or Hollywood attacking us as we are low hanging fruit and the risk of a backlash is very low; I feel as if we are being herded silently into a cul-de-sac which leads to a cemetery.
I feel as if we are being bullied into submission and every time someone sticks their head above the parapet, it gets shot at. That some people are sticking their heads up, I admire you greatly. I support you however I can. These are the people keeping things civil.
Because once it goes too far, it will not be civil.
Yup. Antiwhite hatred is pervasive. One could say it’s become systemic.
Racism, almost.
Read this essay and it prompted me to listen to the podcast between Peterson and Destiny. Have to say Destiny held his own against a formidable debater. Peterson said as much.
The most contentious issues were climate change and vaccines. I think Peterson made a couple mistakes that trip up many sceptics in these debates.
In regards to vaccines, Peterson overstated the harms. I think a better approach is to acknowledge that vaccines were beneficial for a great number of elderly people and those with compromised health. It’s more important IMO to focus on the mandates and the hyperbolic claims made about the efficacy of vaccines.
In regards to climate change, Peterson spent too much time challenging the extent that CO2 is causing increased temps. Temps have definitely increased and the degree to which CO2 caused this is impossible to quantify, so it’s almost pointless to argue about it. He should have focused on the benefits of warming temps, the extent of failed predictions, the poverty created by energy insecurity and the economic damage of net zero.
Very good points.
Look. I am tired of the crap argument that keeps saying old people should get the jab. The older I get, the less I want to do with anything Big Pharma shoves my way. Thank you very much. Keep the needles to yourself. And most of the pills. Jeez!!!
I never said old people should get the jab. That decision is up to each individual. Many older people are in excellent health and likely didn’t need the jab, but I would need some very convincing evidence that the vaccine didn’t save millions of lives of elderly and infirm people..
Haha. Sorry about the outburst. I have seen that phrase you used, “vaccines were beneficial for a great number of elderly people and those with compromised health”, repeated ad nauseam for years now, and finally, when I saw it for the 1000th time, I lost patience.
My impression is that the vax was peddled without regard for people’s health, viz pushing it on pregnant women. I have seen claims that in fact it killed unusual numbers of old and frail people. I may be old, but I am not stupid. I would never take a jab of unknown substance that Big Pharma is pushing like mad, as they did then.
Steve Kirsch has been looking for some real numbers on this very topic. Take him with a pinch of salt… still, though, the info should be out there…
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/us-geriatric-practice-reports-that
Sadly, Steve Kirsch is nuts. About vaccines, at least. He lives about 15 minutes away from me and I’ve been following his antics for the couple of years since his startup M10 fired him for going off the deep end. He’s even nuttier than Bobby Kennedy about vaccines, and that’s nuts.
I am cautious about the various claims he makes. But his point of view… there are many many other voices, and sane. How is it nuts to be skeptical of what the Big Pharma dishes out, esp. when they went out of their way to make sure they bear no responsibility?
Totally agree. The benefits were overhyped and any discussion of drawbacks were crushed.
As I said at more length in a post here UnHerd did not post, I don’t have a problem with people who have different views. There’s a lot of uncertainty about Covid-19 and the vaccines. It was hard to tell what was happening at the time, and it’s still hard to tell in hindsight. It’s good to discuss these issues.
I do have a problem with people like Steve Kirsch and Bobby Kennedy who pretend to have all the answers and who lie without shame. I can’t look into their hearts, so maybe their motives are good. But I can look at their data, and the tactics they use to promote their views, and that bothers me greatly.
I don’t know Steve Kirsch, but I do know some people who know him, and it does seem like he went off the deep end sometime in 2021. He can sound reasonable, as he did in an interview with Tucker Carlson, but he’s not. I don’t trust anything he says. When you cited that “study” he gave on his Substack, I thought I should raise a red flag.
Fair enough. My 22 year old son lost his job because he refused the jab – for a disease that posed no risk to him or those around him.
He is to be commended. Not for refusing per se, but for not compromising on his principles and giving in to peer pressure, especially at such a young age.
Good points. The clip of the debate here was enough for me — I didn’t watch more. Vaccines and climate change are interesting issues, but debates on the topics don’t help much. They tend to be too binary, and we live in a non-binary world. We need to recognize as Thomas Sowell said, “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs”.
We humans are driven more by emotions than reason. Our knowledge is incomplete, particularly about causation, and we don’t evaluate risk well. Yet we confidently stake out our positions and are loath to leave them. We are herd animals, even here on UnHerd.
I saw this play out last week in the Covid-19 origins debate. The two sides are the natural spillover-ists and the lab leakers. Both sides have some compelling evidence to support them, but neither side has a solid case. There’s just too much that is still unknown, and since the Chinese government has covered up crucial evidence, will likely never be known.
That hasn’t stopped either side. On the lab leak side, two scientists at Rutgers, Richard Ebright and Bryce Nickels, have long been hyperbolic in labeling the other side: liar, grifter, Pol Pot, Josef Mengele. Those on the natural spillover side (Kristian Andersen, Michael Worobey, Eddie Holmes, Angela Rasmussen, and others) have shown a little more restraint, but not much.
Now though the natural spillover people have fired a game-changing salvo, filing a complaint with Rutgers accusing Richard Ebright and Bryce Nickels of abuse and threats to their safety. Not content with words, they threaten the livelihood of these two professors. And the science establishment has their backs.
Our search for truth works best when we step back from competition and debate and focus more on cooperation and discussion. I’m somewhat the hypocrite in saying that, honoring the principle often in the breach rather than the observance. But debates like this one between Jordan Peterson and Destiny, and battles like that between the Covid-19 origin theorists, show how little they really help solve problems.
Excellent, well reasoned comment yet again CD. What is the point of the Covid origins debate at this stage in the game? I’ll strongly disagree with you on one point though – we need more debate, not less. Bad ideas are allowed to fester and grow when debate is shut down.
The Covid origins debate is almost silly now. It was much more relevant three years ago, when debate was crushed by govt, big tech, the regime media and global health institutions. We needed a nuanced approach back then.
I wish our political class embraced the teachings of Thomas Sowell. However, we live in an era where we are not allowed to even discuss trade offs. We see that with almost all the big issues of the day – climate policy, Covid policy, open borders, trans rights issues. By the time common sense and debate are actually allowed, we have already inflicted tremendous damage, sometimes irreversible.
As regards climate change, I think one of the key arguments is that even if we do manage to control CO2 emissions (which would be at great cost and also extremely unlikely) this will not confer any control over the earths’ climate, which is very complicated. The simplistic plan seems to indicate control over CO2 will somehow confer a climate thermostat, quod non.
These white men are so problematic. Oh look, war with China and Russia, where are those white men who have stopped joining up?
American expats in Portugal;
That’s where Lionel Shriver has just left the UK for where there are lots of friends of hers.
Obviously the rents and general cost of living will be far lower than London.
Lionel’s other home is in Brooklyn, NYC. Very expensive. She usually splits her time between the two.
Anglican Miranda of the anti-whiteness crusade: — very much these people remind me of Wendolene in Wallace and Gromit’s animated short from 1995, “A Close Shave”. An ever so nice woolly thinker easily seduced into any questionable belief system, as long as it’s touted by society’s betters.
“whiteness is to race as patriarchy is to gender.”
And Female is to priest, Miranda.
Double-barrelled surname, Cambridge University. Definitely didn’t benefit from whiteness and the patriarchy…
Threlfall-Holmes needs to get a Prevent referral, as according to the ADL anti-whiteness is a extreme right conspiracy theory and does not exist.
Anger is not effective rhetorically. Surely JP knows that. His public life to date has been a studied effort (mostly successful) not to get angry. What happened?
They decided that it was evil for their ancestors to colonize Africa. Now they say it is good for Africa to colonize Europe. They forgot that all of the evils of being colonized are now happening to Europe and that they are the target now. They assume that the evil will be directed at lower class whites and will never affect elites like them.
Vaccination has become a political issue having nothing to do with Science. People use it to indicate one’s political tribe. If Biden was for it Republicans were against it and died unvaccinated. If Trump had won, it would have been Democrats who died unvaccinated. Before the pandemic it was WOKES who let children go unvaccinated for diseases resulting in the return of several previously eliminated. Vaccine use is a matter of balancing the probability of side effects against the probability of disease. In most cases the odds say vaccinate. Covid odds say vaccinate. With climate change the probability of tropical diseases such as yellow fever, dengue and Malaria need to be considered for vaccination.