I looked back at my final post of 2022, Sins of Omission, corrected the typos out of compulsion, and pondered where we gone over the past year. It was a good post, and even today, it felt true. But much as the toxic American political climate hasn’t really changed much over the past year, and offers little promise of change in 2024, the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th and its ensuing war in Gaza has bubbled up the fundamental differences between a liberal democratic nation and the swell of simplistic authoritarianism of the young.
Others in my position have adopted the woke view of the world, some because they needed the validation that comes from espousing the popular views of progressives, and others because they were never quite as serious as I thought. Or hoped. But how many more marches by the young and unduly passionate who justify terrorism and suddenly find rape and murder acceptable when done by those their tribe tells them to favor?
Will 2024 be an inflection point, where people finally come to grips with the fact that they’ve become the enemy they righteously believed they were fighting? At first, it seems there might be an epiphany, a realization that dividing the world into the oppressed and oppressors was an infantile way to deal with the many problems facing society. But since then, it’s become apparent that the young and unduly passionate have fallen back into their tribal ways, enjoying the fresh air of sowing misery on blocked highways for an irrational and destructive cause.
I never would have believed in my old man head that we would be back to open Jew hatred again. Yet here we are, and tens of thousands of people who would claim the mantle of progress fully embrace the end of Jews. Never in its wildest dreams would Hamas have believed that raping and beheading Jews would turn them into progressive darlings, but here we are.
Will this cause young progressives to recognize the error of their ideology? Will they realize that their sudden existential concern for Palestinians when they cared nothing about them until it meant they could openly hate Jews, proves that they are just another flavor of haters, of authoritarians, of racists?
2024 offers the opportunity for the young to break away from their failed beliefs, the lies they tell themselves to pretend they are the good guys on the right side of history when they are no better than their adversaries no matter how pretty the ribbon with which they tie up their beliefs. But will they? Or will the inflection point be that their failure, their hatred, their simplistic irrationality, is staring them in the face and they just don’t give a damn. They know who they hate and they will hate every bit as much as they want to.
I had high hopes for 2024, that it would be the inflection point we needed to stop the downward spiral of hatred. Now, I’m not so sure.
Happy New Year.
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Is there any more reason this year for the aspirational hope you longed for on NYE 2022 and looked for without success on NYE 2023 will indeed emerge? Without leadership at the top of public and private institutions, that seems unlikely in the coming year. But with signs of an awakening from a DEI/woke slumber in both campus and corporate board rooms, perhaps the process of turning has begun. Lo that it did not first involve youthful (and not so youthful) dolts celebrating murderers, rapists and bneheaders as heroic liberators along the way. Too many see a line and get on it, without knowledge of its endpoint.
A guess: The pushback against the celebration of murder and rape will fail. Institutions critical for maintaining liberal pluralism have accepted tribalism and scapegoating (in the guise of anti racism and post modern deconstructionism) and the moral infallibility of those ideas. Quasi religious fervor, intolerance for dissent, tribalism, and the quest for power to impose are growing. My guess is we will see a true conquering power arise, History does not end. Human nature remains.
2024 as an election year will be a “hold my beer” moment for the forces of toxic partisan and identitarian derangement, driven top-down by power structures to maximize horizontal conflict. The silver lining may be that they will become so increasingly rabid and incoherent that it could be a tipping point for people seeing through it, and lead to a behind-the-scenes Renaissance of liberal humanism.
If ever there was a moment in time when the young and overly educated should have been able to see the error of their religion, it was October 7th. For a brief moment, there was hope. Like you, I fear that hope has now died. I don’t know where we go from here.
You’re attacking a strawman; conflating a tiny number of fringe nutjobs with progressives at large. The vast majority of “progressives” do not hate Jews. They hate Israel, not because it’s Jewish, but because of its behavior. Along with progressives, many former supporters of Israel now find its behavior unacceptable, including a substantial number of Jews, who are now being called anti-Semitic. I never expected to be defending progressives; there are many legitimate reasons to attack them, but this is not one of them.
The strawman is that it’s not antisemitism, but antizionism. The rhetoric has made that overwhelmingly clear to anyone who isn’t desperately trying to pretend they don’t hate Jews.
You are absolutely right: If you hate the country of Israel, but not Jews, than there is no need to lose a single word over the murder, rape, mutilation of Jews – they were Israeli (mostly).
And there is good reason to exclusively hate Israel. It’s the one and only rogue state in the world. No progressive would ever hate, say, North Korea, since north korean people are just people and its not their fault (and they are not jewish).
No progressive would ever hate Myanmar. Myanmar massacres Rohingya and other minorities, but for a progressive that’s no reason to burn burmese flags because military dictatorship and Myanmarians are no Jews.
No, a real progressive hates supressors, capitalists, right wing dictators and Donald Trump – and, of course, the country of Israel.
As the commenter above pointed out you’re conflating the country of Israel with Jews. Opposition to Israeli policies shouldn’t be considered Jew hatred. Also, reports of atrocities emanating from war zones are often inaccurate and one would do well not to embrace or repeat them especially when they validate your own views.
I believe Scott will have some egg on his face here after the dust settles and the actual facts surrounding 10-7 emerge.
Happy New Year
Rape deniers here at SJ. How lovely.
Are Tummy Rubs allowed on New Years Eve? I thought that your previous post summing up 2023 was excellent.
I am not among the the anointed here (nor do I desire to be), but I have an excellent 70-71 NYE on tap for tonight.
I wish Hendrix ‘worked’ for me, but he just doesn’t. If he had lived to 45 becoming an older bluesman, maybe he would have grabbed me. I hear hints of an older bluesman in this clip.
(Maybe a one-time music post will be allowed here, maybe it won’t.)
I’ve got two compilation albums (well, CDs) of Hendrix doing the blues work you sound like you’re looking for. They just weren’t radio hits, sadly.
It is an amazing body of work, by a skilled and surprisingly versatile musician.
I would like to see this but most of those who view the world through the distortion of conflict theory while drunk on wokeism will look in the mirror and see that they are now an oppressed group for supporting Hamas and thus,heroes in their own movie, until their movement turns on them and they are canceled.
What Hamas did was evil. Hamas is evil. To support Hamas is evil. If you support Hamas, you are evil. So, those who support Hamas are never going to change their minds. Fortunately, most people are not evil. Most people are basically good people. Good people understand what happened on October 7, 2023., and don’t support these protestors.
Hamas will be defeated. Good ultimately triumphs over evil—always.
Here’s to a better 2024!
After reading ( some of) the comments I will pray for our country.
Happy new year.