I think the characterization of “the great replacement” theory as a conspiracy theory ignores how many people openly cheer bringing in more people who they are certain will vote left on issues. People say things like “demographics is destiny” and point to the decline of white people as an inevitable decline in conservatism and the Republican Party. I don’t think either of those are actually true, and Hispanic Americans are actually quite conservative so the whole premise is fairly flawed, but you can listen to people espousing “replacement theory” on CNN or MSNBC, but they aren’t calling it that and they very much think the leftward shift in the electorate is a thing worth celebrating. Having other leftwing people tell everyone that it is an antisemitic conspiracy theory feels like gaslighting.
It is also true that a high percentage of the people funding leftwing activism in this country are Jewish, and calling people antisemitic for noticing that is a stretch. Antisemitic people do notice (and rail against) that, but so do people who aren’t willing to ignore reality to avoid being given nasty labels. That is a trait far more common on the right than the left currently so you could be excused for not noticing the difference.
There are rightwing people who hate Jews, but the things you are pointing out are not traits unique to them. Some people notice reality and are tired of being given labels for failing to pretend that they didn’t. I don’t think Elon thinks all Jews should be treated as a group and judged by the actions of individuals, but I am not a mind reader. You have not presented any real of evidence of antisemitism here. Islamists are often proud of their genocidal antisemitism and will gladly explain it to anyone who will listen, so it does not seem that these are all that similar things you are comparing.
So both Musk is an antisemite and many in the academic Left, including graduate students and seniors at Harvard. Why is it one or the other? You talk about the little genocide excusing ghouls of Harvard like they have no agency. They’re not 10 years old, Maya. They’re about to start influence trial careers, and free speech isn’t free of consequence. It’s not like they’re being thrown in jail. Hate speech has a price.
Actually, I think the shorter way to sum up my feelings: if this article was an argument with a spouse, it would be the kind where you walk away with an elevated heartbeat thinking “I totally win that argument, he/she was totally off base, and I really got him/her with all my best zingers.” Maybe feels great in the moment--but if you do that once a week, your eventual reward is a divorce.
Normal slow boring articles are like conversations conceived in the fever dream of a marriage counselor. Only using “i” language. Active listening. Assuming unreasonable levels of good faith of the other side because your most important assertions will stand regardless. It takes an extreme level of restraint and self control. But it builds something much less fleeting.
This seems very minor if even anti-Semitic at all. My sense is that the mental disconnect from the left showing it's true ugly colors is difficult to digest that this is trying to do a ,"them to", but doesn't fit.
I signed up for this Substack because I like the dispassionate and logical analysis Matt is good at. When I read a Matt article (and many of the other intern/staff writer articles), I feel like I understand the issue from their perspective, but also the perspective of who they are arguing against. Matt seems to put a lot of effort into taking down the *best* arguments of the other side, not just dunking on the weak ones.
This article does not do that. It’s a good article. It’s just not consistent with the brand Matt has developed into this business. This is a rough starting salvo for a Slow Boring article [my commentary in brackets].
“The complaint [implies a single grievance applies to a large group], officially [vaguely insinuates disingenuousness without a clear explanation of the ulterior reasoning] , is that their pro-Palestinian activism [presupposes “pro-Palestinian” and “activism” are the best descriptors of all of this activity--likely the way the activists would want to be described] crosses the line [to cross a line to a bad place, you have to presuppose you start at a good place] into antisemitism, a debatable [impugning the assertion before giving evidence] (though perhaps accurate in some cases [this formulation forecloses the possibility of it being accurate in more cases than “some”. Even then, the most we’re granting as a possibility is that, again, while still being debatable, it is possible but uncertain that in some but not all cases what definitely started as wholesome pro-Palestinian activism, despite starting on the good side of the line, eventually crossed it]) claim that would be more credible [said differently, is even less credible than the very limited scope of credibility described heretofore] if the same elements [what about “some” of the same elements? Extremely liberal application of qualifying adjectives to describe “pro Palestinian” sentiments, yet here, the wording implies a one-to-one relationship between the group complaining about the first thing, that is silent on this second thing. Too broad.] in the business community weren’t oddly silent about Elon Musk’s repeated promotion of conspiracy theories about Jews in the diaspora. [elon musk on social media sucks, I agree with the sentiment. But again, I think your writing is good, but not what people come here for. This formulation... “repeated promotion of conspiracy theories about Jews” is not in accurate, but seems formulated more like a political--an appeal to emotion. It’s lowest common denominator language that could apply to Alex Jones or Elon Musk. If you’re trying to appeal to emotion to get people to think “Elon Musk is just as bad as Alex Jones,” using language that blurs the distinction makes sense. But while I’d even grant you that Elon could be WORSE because of his reach, broader credibility, and business activities, he is not the same as Alex Jones. Using language that can’t help but elide that distinction isn’t helpful).
That’s extremely hard to recover from^
As a piece for a major news outlet: 9/10. As a primal scream of emotion and your true feelings: 12/10. As a persuasive piece of content for the hyper-rational audience Matt has cultivated: 4/10.
I don’t usually comment on a lot of articles — these past few on Israel are an exception. My experience is that generally people here are well-behaved. Today, multiple threads are dumpster fires. Is this unusual?
I think one important contributing factor to the double standard (which I agree exists) is that many critics of campus anti-semitism have argued that it is a symptom of left-wing illiberalism, and many of those critics are also concerned by that pre-existing trend. I think that mindset probably makes it easier to suspect left-wing college students of anti-semitism--it's the kind of thing your theory would predict. I think that kind of thing is particularly important in forming judgments in a case like this one where to a certain extent you have to go with your gut. I agree with a lot of Maya's points and thought the piece was good but I'm probably predisposed to doing so; as a recent college graduate I find it very easy to imagine lots of my classmates holding strongly pro-Palestine views and very difficult to imagine them being anti-semites.
Today's commentary on this piece might be burned out, but I wanted to put Maya's piece in conversation with interesting Substack essays that John Ganz has been writing on related question. Not why some people have selective interest in what counts as anti-semitism, but exploring the question of why right-wing reactionary politics, including Musk's encouragement of same, is developing the way it is right now. Two pieces I recommend are The Browning of the Right, and Musk and West, Inc. In part, I'm put in mind of these writings because some commentary here seems narrowly focused on Musk's latest particular tweet, or post-Oct 7th politics, and there's a much richer context for this discussion than that. FWIW, that's my contribution to this commentary.
Didn't all this start when they wouldn't' let silly old [fill in the blank] speak? When someone came up with the idea that universities should be "safe spaces?" (They should not be safe from hearing "hate speech." How else is one supposed to be able to deal with it?)
But a herd of cats are out of many bags. Where do universities go now?
Does anyone outside of the knee-jerk “Musk bad” camp really believe he’s an antisemite? To me, it looks like he was just trying to dunk on progressive Jews over their allyship toward actual antisemites. This is a popular meme.
I agree with the other commenters whom have expressed disappointment that this editorial doesn’t fit with SB’s usual ethos. Also, I’d like to mention in passing that I really don’t like Kara Swisher.
I just looked up “Elon Musk Israel” and found a clip from the Lex Friedman podcast. I thought Elon’s take seemed completely reasonable. So I stand by my comment.
I’m not sure what you mean? I don’t know what clip you’re referring to. You can of course be antisemitic, regardless of your stance on Israel. And simply saying something good in one context doesn’t mean you haven’t expressed repugnant views in other contexts.
I was going to share the article until I read the irrelevant and misleading claim that these business leaders — who I fully agree are hypocrites — are targeting primarily women of color. You’re highlighting bad faith claims of anti-Semitism, and then making a similar bad faith claim, just from the left. These students are being “canceled” for their views, because as you state, angering a student is a lot safer than angering the wealthiest man in the world. Not because they are women, or ethnic minorities. This would have been a much stronger piece if it had ended there.
It also occurred to me that while it is absolutely true that antisemitism is much stronger and uglier on the right that it is on left, I actually can’t think of a case where a large group of conservatives — not insane alt-righties, but, say, CPAC attendees, got to together *and celebrated the massacre of Jews*. Celebrated teenage girls literally getting raped to death. Celebrated gouging a man’s eyes out in front of his children. Celebrated babies being burned alive.
This is KKK type stuff. Literally, these Jews were tortured the way blacks in the Jim Crow were. So seeing it from people I’d consider normal lefties, who are maybe a little too into DEI stuff, genuinely is shocking.
I feel the article is burying the lead. A retweet by Musk (a famously all-over-the-place tweeter) has near-zero effect on the world. (The Great Replacement tweeter mentioned in the article had 500 followers a few months ago and has 6000 followers now, presumably as a consequence of Musk volume-boosting him. Doesn't seem like a big deal.) Musk setting moderation policies for X has a much larger effect, and he is flagrantly violating his past free-speech rhetoric. I think that (and him getting away with that) is the more important hypocrisy, in a pragmatic sense. Whether Musk is trying to turn X into a free-speech haven or a rightward-biased place are two very different things and if he is going to do the latter under the guise of the former, it matters a lot and deserves more scrutiny. Individual Musk tweets are good for outrage baiting but not very relevant beyond that.
(On an aside, I think there is a fair chance Musk will operationalize X for the elections, and this is something people don't contemplate enough.)
I'm late to this thread, but thought I would offer up my thoughts on this piece which are primarily criticisms.
Overall, I think the tone and content was just very at odds with what I think of as the Slow Boring brand. It's something I would expect to see at Salon and not here. So from my perspective, it is very off-brand.
There are several specific problems with the piece and its arguments, but here are the biggest ones IMO:
- As others have mentioned, the dubious claim of "elite silence" about musk. This factual incorrect characterization is either an oversight from not understanding the full context, or was an intentional decision to overstate the claim, perhaps for rhetorical effect. In either case, it's counterproductive to the point the article is trying to make.
- A lack of focus on a core argument. I think Maya tried to cram too much into this instead of focusing on the core debate about Musk and the reaction to his comments and tweets. Instead, the article swings back and forth as it attempts contrast right-wing antisemitism by downplaying antisemitism in campus protests and implying that criticisms of these protests are racist because so many of the protesters are reportedly POC. These two things are not actually related and I think the article would have been much better by not attempting to make this subjective distinction an integral part of the piece and instead just focusing on Musk.
- The overuse of "elite" and progressive language, terms, and arguments based on identity politics. This is the main reason why I think this would have worked better at a place like Salon. Not only is it always weird to me for an elite to decry other elites for being elites, but the whole identity politics arguments about white men vs POC just don't work very well outside of a narrow left-wing progressive audience. Those types of arguments don't resonate at all with many in the SB community and I think that's what really put a lot of people off.
I think the characterization of “the great replacement” theory as a conspiracy theory ignores how many people openly cheer bringing in more people who they are certain will vote left on issues. People say things like “demographics is destiny” and point to the decline of white people as an inevitable decline in conservatism and the Republican Party. I don’t think either of those are actually true, and Hispanic Americans are actually quite conservative so the whole premise is fairly flawed, but you can listen to people espousing “replacement theory” on CNN or MSNBC, but they aren’t calling it that and they very much think the leftward shift in the electorate is a thing worth celebrating. Having other leftwing people tell everyone that it is an antisemitic conspiracy theory feels like gaslighting.
It is also true that a high percentage of the people funding leftwing activism in this country are Jewish, and calling people antisemitic for noticing that is a stretch. Antisemitic people do notice (and rail against) that, but so do people who aren’t willing to ignore reality to avoid being given nasty labels. That is a trait far more common on the right than the left currently so you could be excused for not noticing the difference.
There are rightwing people who hate Jews, but the things you are pointing out are not traits unique to them. Some people notice reality and are tired of being given labels for failing to pretend that they didn’t. I don’t think Elon thinks all Jews should be treated as a group and judged by the actions of individuals, but I am not a mind reader. You have not presented any real of evidence of antisemitism here. Islamists are often proud of their genocidal antisemitism and will gladly explain it to anyone who will listen, so it does not seem that these are all that similar things you are comparing.
This is an exceptionally thoughtful and persuasive article. I learned a lot – you brought the receipts. Thank you very much.
So both Musk is an antisemite and many in the academic Left, including graduate students and seniors at Harvard. Why is it one or the other? You talk about the little genocide excusing ghouls of Harvard like they have no agency. They’re not 10 years old, Maya. They’re about to start influence trial careers, and free speech isn’t free of consequence. It’s not like they’re being thrown in jail. Hate speech has a price.
Actually, I think the shorter way to sum up my feelings: if this article was an argument with a spouse, it would be the kind where you walk away with an elevated heartbeat thinking “I totally win that argument, he/she was totally off base, and I really got him/her with all my best zingers.” Maybe feels great in the moment--but if you do that once a week, your eventual reward is a divorce.
Normal slow boring articles are like conversations conceived in the fever dream of a marriage counselor. Only using “i” language. Active listening. Assuming unreasonable levels of good faith of the other side because your most important assertions will stand regardless. It takes an extreme level of restraint and self control. But it builds something much less fleeting.
This seems very minor if even anti-Semitic at all. My sense is that the mental disconnect from the left showing it's true ugly colors is difficult to digest that this is trying to do a ,"them to", but doesn't fit.
I signed up for this Substack because I like the dispassionate and logical analysis Matt is good at. When I read a Matt article (and many of the other intern/staff writer articles), I feel like I understand the issue from their perspective, but also the perspective of who they are arguing against. Matt seems to put a lot of effort into taking down the *best* arguments of the other side, not just dunking on the weak ones.
This article does not do that. It’s a good article. It’s just not consistent with the brand Matt has developed into this business. This is a rough starting salvo for a Slow Boring article [my commentary in brackets].
“The complaint [implies a single grievance applies to a large group], officially [vaguely insinuates disingenuousness without a clear explanation of the ulterior reasoning] , is that their pro-Palestinian activism [presupposes “pro-Palestinian” and “activism” are the best descriptors of all of this activity--likely the way the activists would want to be described] crosses the line [to cross a line to a bad place, you have to presuppose you start at a good place] into antisemitism, a debatable [impugning the assertion before giving evidence] (though perhaps accurate in some cases [this formulation forecloses the possibility of it being accurate in more cases than “some”. Even then, the most we’re granting as a possibility is that, again, while still being debatable, it is possible but uncertain that in some but not all cases what definitely started as wholesome pro-Palestinian activism, despite starting on the good side of the line, eventually crossed it]) claim that would be more credible [said differently, is even less credible than the very limited scope of credibility described heretofore] if the same elements [what about “some” of the same elements? Extremely liberal application of qualifying adjectives to describe “pro Palestinian” sentiments, yet here, the wording implies a one-to-one relationship between the group complaining about the first thing, that is silent on this second thing. Too broad.] in the business community weren’t oddly silent about Elon Musk’s repeated promotion of conspiracy theories about Jews in the diaspora. [elon musk on social media sucks, I agree with the sentiment. But again, I think your writing is good, but not what people come here for. This formulation... “repeated promotion of conspiracy theories about Jews” is not in accurate, but seems formulated more like a political--an appeal to emotion. It’s lowest common denominator language that could apply to Alex Jones or Elon Musk. If you’re trying to appeal to emotion to get people to think “Elon Musk is just as bad as Alex Jones,” using language that blurs the distinction makes sense. But while I’d even grant you that Elon could be WORSE because of his reach, broader credibility, and business activities, he is not the same as Alex Jones. Using language that can’t help but elide that distinction isn’t helpful).
That’s extremely hard to recover from^
As a piece for a major news outlet: 9/10. As a primal scream of emotion and your true feelings: 12/10. As a persuasive piece of content for the hyper-rational audience Matt has cultivated: 4/10.
I don’t usually comment on a lot of articles — these past few on Israel are an exception. My experience is that generally people here are well-behaved. Today, multiple threads are dumpster fires. Is this unusual?
I think one important contributing factor to the double standard (which I agree exists) is that many critics of campus anti-semitism have argued that it is a symptom of left-wing illiberalism, and many of those critics are also concerned by that pre-existing trend. I think that mindset probably makes it easier to suspect left-wing college students of anti-semitism--it's the kind of thing your theory would predict. I think that kind of thing is particularly important in forming judgments in a case like this one where to a certain extent you have to go with your gut. I agree with a lot of Maya's points and thought the piece was good but I'm probably predisposed to doing so; as a recent college graduate I find it very easy to imagine lots of my classmates holding strongly pro-Palestine views and very difficult to imagine them being anti-semites.
Today's commentary on this piece might be burned out, but I wanted to put Maya's piece in conversation with interesting Substack essays that John Ganz has been writing on related question. Not why some people have selective interest in what counts as anti-semitism, but exploring the question of why right-wing reactionary politics, including Musk's encouragement of same, is developing the way it is right now. Two pieces I recommend are The Browning of the Right, and Musk and West, Inc. In part, I'm put in mind of these writings because some commentary here seems narrowly focused on Musk's latest particular tweet, or post-Oct 7th politics, and there's a much richer context for this discussion than that. FWIW, that's my contribution to this commentary.
Links?
Sure thing. Here you go:
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-browning-of-the-right
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/musk-and-west-inc
Didn't all this start when they wouldn't' let silly old [fill in the blank] speak? When someone came up with the idea that universities should be "safe spaces?" (They should not be safe from hearing "hate speech." How else is one supposed to be able to deal with it?)
But a herd of cats are out of many bags. Where do universities go now?
Does anyone outside of the knee-jerk “Musk bad” camp really believe he’s an antisemite? To me, it looks like he was just trying to dunk on progressive Jews over their allyship toward actual antisemites. This is a popular meme.
I agree with the other commenters whom have expressed disappointment that this editorial doesn’t fit with SB’s usual ethos. Also, I’d like to mention in passing that I really don’t like Kara Swisher.
He’s a groyper. That’s all there is to it. He’s a fourteen-year-old boy who just discovered 4chan, except he’s also the wealthiest man in the world.
I don’t like Kara Swisher either.
I just looked up “Elon Musk Israel” and found a clip from the Lex Friedman podcast. I thought Elon’s take seemed completely reasonable. So I stand by my comment.
I’m not sure what you mean? I don’t know what clip you’re referring to. You can of course be antisemitic, regardless of your stance on Israel. And simply saying something good in one context doesn’t mean you haven’t expressed repugnant views in other contexts.
It’s a YouTube video. Also, when it comes to assessing Elon’s character, I think what he says explicitly is more important than what he retweets.
You already know the evidence from the former is weak when this article’s exhibit B is “he posted a meme with a Nazi soldier in it.” Reach much?
App-
Well done, Maya.
I was going to share the article until I read the irrelevant and misleading claim that these business leaders — who I fully agree are hypocrites — are targeting primarily women of color. You’re highlighting bad faith claims of anti-Semitism, and then making a similar bad faith claim, just from the left. These students are being “canceled” for their views, because as you state, angering a student is a lot safer than angering the wealthiest man in the world. Not because they are women, or ethnic minorities. This would have been a much stronger piece if it had ended there.
It also occurred to me that while it is absolutely true that antisemitism is much stronger and uglier on the right that it is on left, I actually can’t think of a case where a large group of conservatives — not insane alt-righties, but, say, CPAC attendees, got to together *and celebrated the massacre of Jews*. Celebrated teenage girls literally getting raped to death. Celebrated gouging a man’s eyes out in front of his children. Celebrated babies being burned alive.
This is KKK type stuff. Literally, these Jews were tortured the way blacks in the Jim Crow were. So seeing it from people I’d consider normal lefties, who are maybe a little too into DEI stuff, genuinely is shocking.
I feel the article is burying the lead. A retweet by Musk (a famously all-over-the-place tweeter) has near-zero effect on the world. (The Great Replacement tweeter mentioned in the article had 500 followers a few months ago and has 6000 followers now, presumably as a consequence of Musk volume-boosting him. Doesn't seem like a big deal.) Musk setting moderation policies for X has a much larger effect, and he is flagrantly violating his past free-speech rhetoric. I think that (and him getting away with that) is the more important hypocrisy, in a pragmatic sense. Whether Musk is trying to turn X into a free-speech haven or a rightward-biased place are two very different things and if he is going to do the latter under the guise of the former, it matters a lot and deserves more scrutiny. Individual Musk tweets are good for outrage baiting but not very relevant beyond that.
(On an aside, I think there is a fair chance Musk will operationalize X for the elections, and this is something people don't contemplate enough.)
I'm late to this thread, but thought I would offer up my thoughts on this piece which are primarily criticisms.
Overall, I think the tone and content was just very at odds with what I think of as the Slow Boring brand. It's something I would expect to see at Salon and not here. So from my perspective, it is very off-brand.
There are several specific problems with the piece and its arguments, but here are the biggest ones IMO:
- As others have mentioned, the dubious claim of "elite silence" about musk. This factual incorrect characterization is either an oversight from not understanding the full context, or was an intentional decision to overstate the claim, perhaps for rhetorical effect. In either case, it's counterproductive to the point the article is trying to make.
- A lack of focus on a core argument. I think Maya tried to cram too much into this instead of focusing on the core debate about Musk and the reaction to his comments and tweets. Instead, the article swings back and forth as it attempts contrast right-wing antisemitism by downplaying antisemitism in campus protests and implying that criticisms of these protests are racist because so many of the protesters are reportedly POC. These two things are not actually related and I think the article would have been much better by not attempting to make this subjective distinction an integral part of the piece and instead just focusing on Musk.
- The overuse of "elite" and progressive language, terms, and arguments based on identity politics. This is the main reason why I think this would have worked better at a place like Salon. Not only is it always weird to me for an elite to decry other elites for being elites, but the whole identity politics arguments about white men vs POC just don't work very well outside of a narrow left-wing progressive audience. Those types of arguments don't resonate at all with many in the SB community and I think that's what really put a lot of people off.
100%!