41 Comments

This is well done. Would love to see you add a row for Israel and Jews.

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Do you mean add a row that highlights how anti-Semitism (which like racism has slowly faded ) has also been weaponized to garner special/preferential treatment and special victim status?

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Anti-semitism "slowly faded" Hm... of course your comment is well over a year old.

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Anti-semitism hysteria is exactly like "white supremacy" hysteria. Zionism is a woke anti-colonialist (Those damn Romans!) identity politics and criticizing it is no more racism than criticizing critical race theory. What else could rationalize Zionism in 1920 saying "I know you live here, have the same ancestors here that I do and I am not from here, but because of stuff that sort of happened 2000 years ago and my victimhood in Europe you gotta go!" Seems many of the anti-woke are fine with sacred victim identity politics for one group only. Anti-semitism is not going up any more than racism is unless you indulge concept creep. See Musa Al-Gharbi, who can hardly be accused of being a woke leftist given his new book. https://www.slowboring.com/p/misunderstanding-antisemitism-in

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...and let me add that this view in no way implies I support Hamas as if a person must think any reaction is acceptable even if the complaint is legitimate. Nor is this "anti-Israel" since I am variously pro or anti Israel depending on the policy we are taking about. I root for Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, but not in their constant war against the helot population that Zionism had to create to realize its aims.

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Racism against Jews is never going to go away any more than discrimination by one group against any other will go away. Israel/Jews love to go on about how the Muslim world hates Jews but Jews are just as hateful of Muslims so neither side is exactly an innocent angel in this fight. The IDF is open about using sexual assault on POW's and its gotten so bad a debate within Israel over this has started b/c not all Jews believe that it's OK to do whatever the UDF feels like just b/c the POW's are Palestinians.

Anyone calling it anti-Semitism instead of racism is just showing their own personals biases b/c for all other ethnic groups on teh planet, discrimination and hatred against the group is called racism. It is only the Jews who believe they need their own special term for this, something that places them apart form and maybe even above all others.

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Correct. Were I writing today I would not argue it had faded away if anything it's been reinvigorated just as has been racism and tension between teh sexes all to keep us peasants busy fighting each other so the elites can do what they do with little scrutiny.

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This is excellent. I’d recommend some additions to the crime section: Michel Foucault as an elect (Discipline and Punish is all about the oppressive nature of modern prisons), data on # of unarmed black people killed per year as taboo, and saying defunding the police makes black peoples less safe as taboo. Woke crime views exploit the emotion of every tragic interaction with cops to the point where any contextual statistics are triggering.

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Thanks a lot for pulling this excellent resource together.

One point I’d like to make: As a phobia is an irrational fear, having concerns about gay/lesbian activists’ positions does not equate to homophobia (i.e. an irrational fear of homosexuals and homosexuality). Same goes for concerns about, for example, transgender and Islamist activists’ positions and, respectively, transphobia and Islamophobia. I appreciate your efforts to clarify what the woke (i.e. illiberal left) mean when they use certain words and terms. I think we should also be careful not to accept debate on the basis of those words and terms, as woke definitions tend to prevail in the current culture and thereby allow people to infer meaning to the motivations behind our positions that are in fact not at all there.

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Nov 11, 2021Liked by Peter Boghossian

Just sent this to my kids in college! Thanks!

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Nov 11, 2021Liked by Peter Boghossian

This is very enlightening. Thank you!

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While demonization of any group is abhorrent, as the ex-wife of a man who identified as female starting in his mid-thirties, after fathering our two sons, I find that even telling what happened factually (he secretly engaged in behavior directly putting me at risk, aided by 2 mental health practitioners, for a couple of years) is often characterized by those in the woke columns as "hate." In fact, my own normal reaction to my then husband's sudden, outrageous demands of how I identify myself included his demonization of me.

I'd like to see these questions debated:

1. Does the ex-wife of a transgender identifying individual have the right to tell her story of being lied to and put at risk for sexually transmitted diseases when he cross-dressed secretly?

2. Considering there is no psychological measure tested and proven to predict which cross-sex identifying individuals will change their minds after "transition," do the diagnosing mental health practitioners have the obligation to tell their patient that there is no way to know if "transition" including surgeries might be regretted after 7 years?

3. Are educated, cultured and civil people obligated to equate the words sex and gender?

Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)

uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com

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Jun 27, 2022Liked by Peter Boghossian

Excellent work, can we add abortion as well?

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This taxonomy is a work of genius, Peter and Michael! If I had time, I would be tempted to map it to the Covidian cult catechisms (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-a-covidian-a-time-travel) …

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Wonderful. Suggestion that it be reformatted, perhaps in two pages, and made available as a PDF. I tried to print it and the bottom and top were cut off and the remaining print was miniscule. I am going to become a paid subscriber today by the way. Important voice!

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"I want to be crystal clear about something: bigotry and racial discrimination are real and they have no place in society. Yes, there is ongoing racism. Yes, there is ongoing homophobia. Yes, there is ongoing hatred of trans people. These are morally abhorrent and we all need to work together to bring about their end."

I would not be so sure of any of those affirmations.

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Sufficient to say that “I am morally opposed to homophobia and trans hatred. We need to work together to have fair treatment of all people”

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I agree with Frederick. It is possible to have sincerely held religious beliefs that are incompatible with supporting gay/lesbian religious marriages and gender as a social construct while not being bigoted or phobic. We need to be careful to build bridges with traditional faith communities, not alienate them. Again, that doesn't mean we necessarily agree with them. Whatever happened to mutual respect instead of smears or labels, as the woke are want to do?

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I would have thought that the reason fewer people die in natural disasters would be due to the improvement in rescue and medical technologies and so would not have thought this to be a relevant marker regarding climate change. Likewise, that category would also include earthquakes and tsunamis, neither of which to my knowledge have been associated with AGW.

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I am not sure why climate is in this list. I think believing that the laws of physics care about us and owe us something is far more of a “religious” attitude. Otherwise, some interesting parallels but a bit simplistic.

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Also I think Gaia is missing as a sacred victim for climate change.

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Good point 😂

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I think there is a confusion between elect and saviour class. Other than that this looks like an excellent summary.

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Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023

I think of one more categorie:

Religion.

Guilty Devils: Roman Catholic Church, Zionism, The Balfour Declaration, The State of Israel, The Crusades, United States-Israel alliance, Judeo christian civilization, Western Imperialism in the Middle East and the Americas.

Sacred Victims: Islamic revolution, Iranian revolution, Palestian revolution, Palestinian people, Intifadas, the kufiyya, indigenous movements, native peoples, Wiphala flag, Pachamama

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