Reductionist Morons

If you've ever made chicken soup, you've likely noticed that the stock you get from boiling the bird or its bones is cloudy. Classic French cuisine doesn't abide cloudy consommé, so clarification techniques became part of the culinary toolbox. Similarly, wine (and beer) is "fined" so that the bottled product isn't murky. Both processes involve the stimulation of clumping of the clouding particles: consommé with egg whites, wine with gelatin or isinglass or some similar protein. The proteins cause the suspended particles to clump together, making them easier to see and filter out. Clarification separates useful product from detritus.

The Israel-Hamas matter has caused a similar effect in the political sandbox. It has served to sort the blatant antisemites amongst us, and that alone has proven horrifying. It has also revealed appalling amounts of stupidity in people who have supposedly been well educated. I speak of such noise makers as "queers for Palestine" and "black feminists for Palestine."

Regular readers may recall that I've already covered the dissonance of supporting a culture that would subjugate, imprison, or kill you for being what you are (in these cases female or gay), but the phenomenon of equity- and justice-demanding leftists picking Palestinians over Israel is so widespread that it deserves another look.

And look I did.

While we can ponder behaviors and conclude they are utterly irrational, we do ourselves disservice if we stop there. Crawling into the brainpans of others and figuring out how they rationalize what we find absurd is important if we want a full understanding of what's going on.

In this case, the explanation can be found in the fundamental dichotomy of modern progressivism: the oppressor/oppressed duality. Every human interchange can, nay... must, be broken down and sorted out as one between members of an oppressor class vs members of an oppressed class. That's it, bottom line, everything else is secondary, including the various categories that identity politics assigns to individuals. A woman is "oppressed" when interacting with (straight) men, but an "oppressor" when refusing to subordinate herself to a transgender individual.

It's a childish, binary, black-and-white (pun/irony/sarcasm intended) worldview, and the more fully involved one is in that subculture, the more absolutist one ends up being. And the more absurd one’s “insights” are. Check out the first couple minutes of Bill Burr reading a letter he got from a wokester informing him that pursuing fitness is “privilege” and “colonial.”

A key element of all this lies in its collective nature. Individuals do not matter in this world view. Only the identity group does. This is why people who have an affinity for it also tend to be socialistic in the rest of their politics. If you prioritize the group over the person, that's going to inform all your thinking. If you prioritize the person over the group, you're more apt to reject identity politics with the same vigor that you reject collectivism.

This brings us to the Jew vs Palestinian dichotomy. Note that I wrote "Jew" rather than "Israeli," because the clarification that the wake of the 10/7 attack has precipitated (yes, I went there) revealed that the efforts to isolate out Zionism and Israel from Jews in general was a smokescreen (insert air filter analogy here).

Our earnest dumbasses have been informed that the Palestinians are the oppressed class in this conflict, facts notwithstanding, so therefore they must side with them against whoever appears to be the oppressor. And side with them wholeheartedly and without reservation.

This binary thinking doesn't accommodate criticism of the Hamas atrocities, so we get a blend of "both sides are guilty" equivocation and a "what choice did they have" abandonment of any shred of morality.

This binary thinking doesn't leave room for skepticism toward the anointed "oppressed." Just as the Me Too movement defaulted to believing the woman, no matter a lack of evidence or a pile of contrary evidence. Just as women questioning transgenders in women's sports and locker rooms cannot be anything but baseless bigotry. Just as gays and lesbians being skeptical of the trans agenda is an indefensible betrayal of an alliance (no matter how incongruent that alliance is). Just as there can be no such thing as black-on-white racism.

Once you understand that their worldview is as binary as the ones and zeros of computer science, you can start to comprehend why we see "Queers for Palestine" banners at protests.

To round out your understanding, you next need to process why the Palestinians, rather than the Jews, have been ranked the "oppressed" in this conflict. For this we can start with a look at the very long history of Jew-hatred in Western culture, but that doesn't quite get us there. The rise of Islamism, with its anti-woman, anti-gay, abortion-banning, religious fundamentalist, and culturally oppressive ways might, in a saner world, lump the Islamists in with other oppressor classes. After all, the wokerati routinely and vigorously accuse Christian fundamentalism of all those and more. For that, we can consider a long-running marketing campaign that has only recently come to light.

Is Campus Rage Fueled by Middle Eastern Money?

As Bari Weiss reported at The Free Press, billions in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes (with Qatar leading the way at nearly $3B) have flowed into the coffers - and shaped the curricula - of American universities. In addition, the Saudis have spent tens of billions, possibly over a hundred billion, to propagate a fundamentalist Sunni version of Islam around the world, including eight hundred mosques in America alone. They've also build a substantial lobbying and PR machine here.

Those theocracies have laughably little in common with our domestic wokerati - certainly FAR less than either Israelis or American Jews - but their side of the divide has been anointed with "oppressed" status by our Best-and-Brightest. One would not go awry in concluding that this head-scratching choice has some connection to all those Islamopetrodollars.

A final piece of the puzzle - the one thing that Islamism and the Left do have in common: an autocratic mindset. Islam literally means “submission,” and our present-day Leftists, with their embrace of socialism, fascism, censorship, and cancel culture, are totalitarians at their core. Like finds like, and Israel’s self-determinative nature and Westernized politics don’t jibe well with “submission.”

To sum it up, the reason that leftists of identities that would be oppressed by Hamas and the rest of the Gazans are siding with them is a binary reductionism, an abandonment of all elements other than "we picked one side as the oppressed, therefore anyone who stands against them is an oppressor." It's really that simple, and it's really that stupid.

It is clear, now, that we are beset upon by morons. These are morons by choice - they've chosen not to think critically, and instead accept being told who's the victim and left to conclude who's the oppressor. If you are among those who support womens’ and LGBTQ rights, hold pro-choice beliefs, and reject religious fundamentalism, and you are siding with the Palestinians over the Israelis, you probably bristle at my epithet. I’d love to hear you justify your position.