A conversation in the replies about the Gen Z folks who relentlessly try to cram a complex world into the oppressor/victim framing, regardless of facts, reasoning, history, context, or nuance made me time travel 20 years back.
There’s also a sense [which we perceive in the Gen Z anti-Israel leftists] that knowledge of the conflict, its history and nuance, doesn’t matter.
I’ve had many conversations where people know nothing of the history of Jews and Arabs in the Levant, or how many of those countries were formed, or what Hamas really is, or what Israel is really like, or the role of other countries in the region.
They are surprised by everything I say.
At some point I ask them - why do you feel comfortable having such strong opinions about a highly complex situation when you know so little about it? Would you make such confident statements about conflicts in other countries you are unfamiliar with?
Agreed! I think their anti-Israel drive has virtually nothing to do with facts, principals, or reasoning. It's serving their emotional needs.
Then @doomhamster put their finger on it:
I agree. I think it's about the...almost fetishization of "emotional truth" and experience.
Saying you understand what someone else is going through when you don't have their exact mix of identities gets you ripped apart [by other leftists, but] saying you understand a chain of events when you don't know shit about it is just fine though, in most people's eyes, because that's "just" facts. They can be bent and twisted freely to serve what they FEEL is true.
I'm showing my age here, but isn't that Truthiness?
If you weren't alive or watching late night comedy in 2005, let me catch you up:
Truthiness was first introduced by Stephen Colbert on the premiere episode of The Colbert Report on October 17, 2005. Colbert did every episode of this show in character as as a right wing talking head pundit like like Fox News' Bill O'Reilly (who was later replaced by Tucker Carlson). His characer was a satire of right wing punditry. Here's the segment:
Truthiness is the belief in something that feels true in one's gut, regardless of evidence, logic, or facts.
Facts take a back seat to feelings, vibes, and baseless moral certainty. It's truth because it feels true...regardless of its falsity.
if you look around the media and politics environment today...it seems clear that Truthiness now rules most of the political spectrum.
The right is still awful about this, but now the far left is, too.
The Gen Z leftists (particularly the tankies, but it's all of them) have taken their foreign policy and geopolitical ideologies based on feelings, vibes, and and whatever makes them feel righteous.
Feeling righteous is important because it permits them to vent that righteousness with impunity, with no criticism from their contemporaaries no matter how false, bigotted, or violent it is. Because when you're up against the ultimate evil (the Jews/Israel), all things are permitted. And it feels so good to have a license to hate!
It's not about the real people who are dying, it's about maintaining that sense of righteousness.
They don't need to read a book about the history of the middle east because they saw an infographic on Instagram which appealed to their emotional needs...and all the fandoms they're in agree, so they must be good people!
They don't have to deal with the pressure of needing to know anything because moral clarity is delivered to them, algorithmically optimized for outrage and completely free of any confusing complexity. Real people are dying, but all they care about is feeling righteous.
Truthiness doesn't demand research or reasoning, just retweets/reblogs/reshares.
For fuck's sake, children.
"Love with your heart, use your head for everything else."
