It's an interesting point, but I don't think Coates is sincere. Let's be blunt: he sympathizes with the Palestinians because they are "brown" and he dislikes the Israelis because he sees them as white.
Coates will strain to "understand" hamas but he would never extend that charity to white slaveowners or any other white wrongdoer. Notice that his other example of this thinking is to say that all white people would have been slaveowners if they had lived at that time.
Winegrad raises an interesting point about how the line between good and evil cuts down the middle of the human heart, but there are differences of degree. Some people really are just evil - and Coates is one of them. Let's not let our moral self-reflection blind us to the existence of psychopaths.
There is the version that is the most charitable salvaging possible of a few lines in isolation when assuming innocent good faith and completely divorced from the context of who is making them and why. But we don't have to be naive or play dumb when we know a lot more about that context and the long track record of that person's behaviors and statements about his views. Sometimes someone really is "just asking questions," but it's usually obvious when they are using that as a cover story and a rationalization for less defensible attempts to undermine valid conclusions by playing the rhetorical game of retreating to higher levels of generality and evading engagement with the ugly particulars of the case. "Yeah, but what about the rapes, torture, murder, kidnapping, refusal to return hostages .." - "I don't have to address those inconvenient facts and get to pretend they have no bearing on my argument because plenty of other people have talked about them already, which is Aristotle-approved logic, so I'll pretend these variables don't exist while simultaneously claiming the results of my moral calculus which leaves them out are legitimate and persuasive."
There's a difference between steel-manning an argument (which is good) and steel-manning thnominee by pretending a cover story isn't a cover story, which is just as erroneous as ad hominem.
>It's an interesting point, but I don't think Coates is sincere. Let's be blunt: he sympathizes with the Palestinians because they are "brown" and he dislikes the Israelis because he sees them as white.
I'm not a fan of Coates, but people really need to listen to read what he writes and listen to what he says instead of just lazily lumping him in with all the other thinkers they hate. In his interview with Ezra Klein he points out how striking it is that he saw "black" (Ethiopian) Israeli soldiers mistreating blonde and blue-eyed Palestinians. I think it's fair to argue that he has a simplistic oppressor/oppressed view of things, but not that he's viewing this issue from a racial angle.
For Coates white and brown is not about skin tone but about things like average IQ, though of course he wouldn’t phrase it that way.
He’s not a black nationalist but rather an oppressor oppressed person. To his credit he doesn’t think Mike Brown was innocent, and he didn’t talk about defunding the police. So he is definitely not a black nationalist but someone who is obsessed with group “oppression” and views it as the source of disparities. Of course in reality it’s HBD. Different ideologies.
Uh, yeah I guess. But this cunt already has quite a bit of space to spew his uncomfortable and largely incorrect ideas around already, so I’m not sure he needs someone to advocate on his behalf. Anyone can talk about anything at any time- particularly if you’re rich, liberal and black. The only people stopping uncomfortable conversations from occurring these days are democrats and social media at the behest of democrats. “Regular” intellects have uncomfortable conversations all the time.
People are tripping over their dicks to publish his eloquent drivel because it fits the narrative and the profile of rich, misled urbanites that want to read shit like this because they’re so far removed from the realities that the unwashed masses have to deal with every day.
Israel's dilemma with the Palestinians is not the proper occasion to explore the heart of darkness. The Palestinians have engaged in the worst and most sordid kind of anti-jewish hatred and denial of Jewish claims to Israel as a Jewish state for over a century. To do so they have mobilized the heart of darkness in furtherance of their cause and when they reap the whirlwind people are surprised and then try to deduce lessons about the evil that lurks in all of us, thereby distributing equal at best and unequal more usually blame on Israel and the Jews for what properly belongs in the Palestinian and its Muslim Arab predecessor camp. This article was disappointing given the usual clarity of the author's writing.
You are so right. Why should the middle eastern Jews (who are a plurality in Israel) live in prosperity and freedom when they should be still in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc. where they can be rightfully slaughtered and raped like the Christians and Yezidis.
I am sure people like you find it sad the Montgomery defeated Rommel at El Alamein. If Rommel had won and gone into Palestine he could have brought the Mufti of Jerusalem the leader of the Palestine Arabs, back from the exile. The mufti instead of just organizing Muslim SS units for his good friend Himmler and being limited to only murdering Jews and Serbs in Yugoslavia could have organized death camps in Palestine. This would have led tothe final solution to the Zionist problem. Who knows if he had done that, Palestine could be the paradise like Syria, Iraq or any other middle eastern Eden.
"I am sure people like you find it sad the Montgomery defeated Rommel at El Alamein."
You know nothing about me. But your reply is an attempt to shame or discredit me. But here is something you should know about me...I don't give a fuck what you or any who 'think' like you feel about me.
Israel was born from terrorism and has been using it to gain more land for the last seventy-six years. Zionism is guilty of some of the same atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. I admire many Jews, but not those who support what Zionism is doing.
There are many Jews in the United States who recognize Zionism for the pariah that it is.
"his call for a more candid conversation about the contingency of human morality is salutary."
It is a great point that we here at the apex of Western Civ—mostly safe, mostly prosperous, certainly well-off in comparison to our ancestors—have a blind spot when it comes to the darker side of humans and human history—civilization in many ways is simply a synonym for domestication, and we very domesticated animals are as distant and foreign to our often-brutal forebears as my chihuahua is to a wolf.
But let's put Coates in full and proper context.
He would never ever apply this lens to immigration and say, well, Arab countries still support things like honor killings and terrorism in the name of Islam, so maybe we wouldn't be a good fit and shouldn't have too many of those people imported into our countries. In that context this piece of wisdom is verboten.
What his current project is entirely about is excusing and contextualizing a brutal massacre of 1000 people in the name of genocidal hatred, and in Coates' clumsy, ignorant and narcissistic fashion he has to pour himself into the hearts and souls of the murderers in order to attempt to move them back inside the moral boundaries of civilization.
He really seems to believe that his vibes and feelings and his status as Oppressed POC allows him to pronounce judgement on peoples he barely knows and to ignore all sorts of obvious historical facts like the many peace plans Israel has offered that the Arabs rejected or the genocidal fantasies of Hamas.
Coates was in Israel and “Palestine” for all of 10 days. He didn't do any historical research, speaks neither Arabic or Hebrew, refuses to engage anyone who disagrees with him, and admits he mostly just sat around basking in his feelings—and he is one of modern America's most lauded thinkers! And he traveled all that distance just to find Jim Crow!
Someone should have shared the wisdom of Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani with him: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
I don't like Coates -- never have. But you're right that he didn't seem to have said anything untoward here.
He was merely hoist on the only petard that might pierce a young black radical these days: Israel.
That progressive stack is a real bitch. The trick is that it's ultimately the paymasters who top that stack, not the most victimized. Others have learned this the hard way. Nick Cannon, Kanye, etc. etc.
Is it your position that person should not be allowed to do so? The question here is whether what he said was so far outside the realm of civilized discourse as to elicit deservedly the responses he got.
And yes, speaking against Israel tends to earn a stabbing, in a manner that speaking against no other group does.
As for your last line, I call bullshit and will interact with you no further. The reality in this country is the complete opposite, where all manner of attacks against Israel, including blatant calls for genocide of Jews, are acceptable in a manner that would be completely unacceptable against any other group.
Have you paid no attention to what has gone on on university campuses since October 7th?
Did you not see the successful campaign to smear Josh Shapiro as “Genocide Josh” - an Orwellian claim if there ever was one, since it is Hamas who seek genocide against Jews, while Israel has done no such thing (you can dislike Israeli actions all you like, but in zero sense of the meaning of that word has anything they’ve ever done been genocide).
As I said, based on your last comment, I will interact with you no further.
You are still a liberal individualist dude. What matters MUCH more than the argument is the broader dynamics of the humans in the world. The simplest analogy is not publicly correcting your wife, but rather doing it later in private at home. Time and place matter. You see this from many of self-aware right-wing philo-semites: "With so many bad faith attacks against Israel now is not the time or place to give ANY credence to arguments against Israel"
Smarter people realize that you have to hold somewhat stupid opinions as a bluff to help you make a deal / compromise. Thus many Israelis will not admit certain things they believe until they get a deal from the Palestinians. A problem is that dumb and narcissistic evil people will believe the bluff that all the blame is on the other party. Instead of realizing you just bluff to help you make a better deal in the end. This is some kind of prisoners dilemma or something
That's the situation. It's not our problem. Our problem is we don't even have a seat at the table for reciprocity thus it is just give and give and give to "our greatest ally" but when it is time for stuff for "us" the "our" of White people both vanishes in ability to receive good things and exists to demonize and take stuff from
All Coates is doing is creating a fantasy in which the Palestinians in Gaza were subjugated by Israel in the same way that slaves were by slaveholders, in order to justify the barbarity of October 7th as being the result of "moral frailty" of some of the Palestinians - because "who knows whether I would be able to withstand the urge of revenge, even against innocent civilians". The issue is not the admission of moral frailty. The issue is the need to build this fantasy that Israel was inhumanely subjugating the Gazans in order to start justifying October 7.
However, the reality is that Gaza had a Mercedes dealership and a water park (until it was closed by Hamas). It had a higher living standard than Egypt (through which international aid was shipped to Gaza). It had neighbourhoods that were as nice as standard Israeli middle-class neighbourhoods. Some 10% of Gazans were traveling abroad out of the "open air prison" each year - to shop in Turkey, or to train with Hezbollah in Lebanon ...
Whatever hardship the Gazans suffered, whether limited work permits in Israel (which were gradually increasing before October 7) or partial blockade, could be 100% attributed to the policy of their elected Hamas leadership. Whatever hatred the Gazans harbored towards Jews and Israel, could be 90% attributed to the Western- supported antisemitic education they receive in UNWRA schools, and 10% to Israel's treatment of them. To wit, even some parents of cancer patients that were treated in Israeli hospitals - there were thousands - said they wished these same children to become shaheed, to die fighting the Jews.
The problem of people like Coates is the need to justify their prejudices by diabolizing Israel. This attitude has a very long history, and it is indefensible.
You lost me here. Coates is a race-baiter who has proven his anti-Israel feelings. There is zero justification for October 7th. In your efforts to be contrarian, I have lost respect for you completely. Perhaps things have changed now that your founder has moved on?
Sure, morality as something more than rules human attempt to place on each other is a delusion. Interesting metaphysical discussion, maybe. But at the end of the day we still need to deal with the physics of what rules we should attempt to place on each other regardless of them being God given or man created.
It's all about anti-white hatred. Jews are considered white, even middle eastern Jews who have no European ancestry and been in the mideast for 3000 years. For a race baiter like TNC whites oppressing non-whites is the only evil. Non-whites killing non-whites is ethically neutral (thus the indifference of people like him to the slaughter by butcher Assad of Palestinians or other Muslims in Syria, the slaughter of Christians by Hezbollah in Lebanon or ISIS in Iraq, or the Darfuris by Sudanese Islamists).
This is the BLM line, if the cost of saving one violent black thug from dying while resisting arrest is hundred of black toddlers being shot in gang war crossfire, that is a price worth paying.
The thing that frustrates me is that he made such petty and hateful attacks against White Americans and was rewarded for it with little critical commentary. But question Israel??? OMG. That then makes OK to say he is stupid-looking and stupid-sounding.
Evil is evil. In a society ruled by fanatical gangsters where it is prevalent it is difficult to behave morally. That is all. This however does not make morality relative. The Gazans have been corrupted to a large degree.
Does Coates wonder how if he, as an oppressed black man living in the land with a legacy of Jim Crow, would be able to resist the temptation to smash a store window and steal a color TV or a cheesecake during the George Floyd riots?
It's an interesting point, but I don't think Coates is sincere. Let's be blunt: he sympathizes with the Palestinians because they are "brown" and he dislikes the Israelis because he sees them as white.
Coates will strain to "understand" hamas but he would never extend that charity to white slaveowners or any other white wrongdoer. Notice that his other example of this thinking is to say that all white people would have been slaveowners if they had lived at that time.
Winegrad raises an interesting point about how the line between good and evil cuts down the middle of the human heart, but there are differences of degree. Some people really are just evil - and Coates is one of them. Let's not let our moral self-reflection blind us to the existence of psychopaths.
There is the version that is the most charitable salvaging possible of a few lines in isolation when assuming innocent good faith and completely divorced from the context of who is making them and why. But we don't have to be naive or play dumb when we know a lot more about that context and the long track record of that person's behaviors and statements about his views. Sometimes someone really is "just asking questions," but it's usually obvious when they are using that as a cover story and a rationalization for less defensible attempts to undermine valid conclusions by playing the rhetorical game of retreating to higher levels of generality and evading engagement with the ugly particulars of the case. "Yeah, but what about the rapes, torture, murder, kidnapping, refusal to return hostages .." - "I don't have to address those inconvenient facts and get to pretend they have no bearing on my argument because plenty of other people have talked about them already, which is Aristotle-approved logic, so I'll pretend these variables don't exist while simultaneously claiming the results of my moral calculus which leaves them out are legitimate and persuasive."
There's a difference between steel-manning an argument (which is good) and steel-manning thnominee by pretending a cover story isn't a cover story, which is just as erroneous as ad hominem.
>It's an interesting point, but I don't think Coates is sincere. Let's be blunt: he sympathizes with the Palestinians because they are "brown" and he dislikes the Israelis because he sees them as white.
I'm not a fan of Coates, but people really need to listen to read what he writes and listen to what he says instead of just lazily lumping him in with all the other thinkers they hate. In his interview with Ezra Klein he points out how striking it is that he saw "black" (Ethiopian) Israeli soldiers mistreating blonde and blue-eyed Palestinians. I think it's fair to argue that he has a simplistic oppressor/oppressed view of things, but not that he's viewing this issue from a racial angle.
For Coates white and brown is not about skin tone but about things like average IQ, though of course he wouldn’t phrase it that way.
He’s not a black nationalist but rather an oppressor oppressed person. To his credit he doesn’t think Mike Brown was innocent, and he didn’t talk about defunding the police. So he is definitely not a black nationalist but someone who is obsessed with group “oppression” and views it as the source of disparities. Of course in reality it’s HBD. Different ideologies.
Uh, yeah I guess. But this cunt already has quite a bit of space to spew his uncomfortable and largely incorrect ideas around already, so I’m not sure he needs someone to advocate on his behalf. Anyone can talk about anything at any time- particularly if you’re rich, liberal and black. The only people stopping uncomfortable conversations from occurring these days are democrats and social media at the behest of democrats. “Regular” intellects have uncomfortable conversations all the time.
People are tripping over their dicks to publish his eloquent drivel because it fits the narrative and the profile of rich, misled urbanites that want to read shit like this because they’re so far removed from the realities that the unwashed masses have to deal with every day.
Fuck this guy.
Israel's dilemma with the Palestinians is not the proper occasion to explore the heart of darkness. The Palestinians have engaged in the worst and most sordid kind of anti-jewish hatred and denial of Jewish claims to Israel as a Jewish state for over a century. To do so they have mobilized the heart of darkness in furtherance of their cause and when they reap the whirlwind people are surprised and then try to deduce lessons about the evil that lurks in all of us, thereby distributing equal at best and unequal more usually blame on Israel and the Jews for what properly belongs in the Palestinian and its Muslim Arab predecessor camp. This article was disappointing given the usual clarity of the author's writing.
Zionism is the problem.
You are so right. Why should the middle eastern Jews (who are a plurality in Israel) live in prosperity and freedom when they should be still in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc. where they can be rightfully slaughtered and raped like the Christians and Yezidis.
I am sure people like you find it sad the Montgomery defeated Rommel at El Alamein. If Rommel had won and gone into Palestine he could have brought the Mufti of Jerusalem the leader of the Palestine Arabs, back from the exile. The mufti instead of just organizing Muslim SS units for his good friend Himmler and being limited to only murdering Jews and Serbs in Yugoslavia could have organized death camps in Palestine. This would have led tothe final solution to the Zionist problem. Who knows if he had done that, Palestine could be the paradise like Syria, Iraq or any other middle eastern Eden.
I do know something about you realist. You know absolutely nothing about history.
"I am sure people like you find it sad the Montgomery defeated Rommel at El Alamein."
You know nothing about me. But your reply is an attempt to shame or discredit me. But here is something you should know about me...I don't give a fuck what you or any who 'think' like you feel about me.
Israel was born from terrorism and has been using it to gain more land for the last seventy-six years. Zionism is guilty of some of the same atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. I admire many Jews, but not those who support what Zionism is doing.
There are many Jews in the United States who recognize Zionism for the pariah that it is.
Typical Zionist bullshit...rewriting history.
"his call for a more candid conversation about the contingency of human morality is salutary."
It is a great point that we here at the apex of Western Civ—mostly safe, mostly prosperous, certainly well-off in comparison to our ancestors—have a blind spot when it comes to the darker side of humans and human history—civilization in many ways is simply a synonym for domestication, and we very domesticated animals are as distant and foreign to our often-brutal forebears as my chihuahua is to a wolf.
But let's put Coates in full and proper context.
He would never ever apply this lens to immigration and say, well, Arab countries still support things like honor killings and terrorism in the name of Islam, so maybe we wouldn't be a good fit and shouldn't have too many of those people imported into our countries. In that context this piece of wisdom is verboten.
What his current project is entirely about is excusing and contextualizing a brutal massacre of 1000 people in the name of genocidal hatred, and in Coates' clumsy, ignorant and narcissistic fashion he has to pour himself into the hearts and souls of the murderers in order to attempt to move them back inside the moral boundaries of civilization.
He really seems to believe that his vibes and feelings and his status as Oppressed POC allows him to pronounce judgement on peoples he barely knows and to ignore all sorts of obvious historical facts like the many peace plans Israel has offered that the Arabs rejected or the genocidal fantasies of Hamas.
Coates was in Israel and “Palestine” for all of 10 days. He didn't do any historical research, speaks neither Arabic or Hebrew, refuses to engage anyone who disagrees with him, and admits he mostly just sat around basking in his feelings—and he is one of modern America's most lauded thinkers! And he traveled all that distance just to find Jim Crow!
Someone should have shared the wisdom of Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani with him: “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
I don't like Coates -- never have. But you're right that he didn't seem to have said anything untoward here.
He was merely hoist on the only petard that might pierce a young black radical these days: Israel.
That progressive stack is a real bitch. The trick is that it's ultimately the paymasters who top that stack, not the most victimized. Others have learned this the hard way. Nick Cannon, Kanye, etc. etc.
I think the question really is that simple.
Hoisted on the only petard?!?
HE was the one who chose to spend at least half of his book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was he not?
Is it your position that person should not be allowed to do so? The question here is whether what he said was so far outside the realm of civilized discourse as to elicit deservedly the responses he got.
And yes, speaking against Israel tends to earn a stabbing, in a manner that speaking against no other group does.
Of course he has the right to do it.
And we have the right to criticize him for doing so.
You suggesting that it’s defensible to write and publish a book on this subject after Oct 7th and *never* mention Oct 7th and *never* mention Hamas?!?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-150141969
As for your last line, I call bullshit and will interact with you no further. The reality in this country is the complete opposite, where all manner of attacks against Israel, including blatant calls for genocide of Jews, are acceptable in a manner that would be completely unacceptable against any other group.
Have you paid no attention to what has gone on on university campuses since October 7th?
Did you not see the successful campaign to smear Josh Shapiro as “Genocide Josh” - an Orwellian claim if there ever was one, since it is Hamas who seek genocide against Jews, while Israel has done no such thing (you can dislike Israeli actions all you like, but in zero sense of the meaning of that word has anything they’ve ever done been genocide).
As I said, based on your last comment, I will interact with you no further.
Thank you for illustrating my point.
Beautiful, as always, Bo 🩵.
You are still a liberal individualist dude. What matters MUCH more than the argument is the broader dynamics of the humans in the world. The simplest analogy is not publicly correcting your wife, but rather doing it later in private at home. Time and place matter. You see this from many of self-aware right-wing philo-semites: "With so many bad faith attacks against Israel now is not the time or place to give ANY credence to arguments against Israel"
Smarter people realize that you have to hold somewhat stupid opinions as a bluff to help you make a deal / compromise. Thus many Israelis will not admit certain things they believe until they get a deal from the Palestinians. A problem is that dumb and narcissistic evil people will believe the bluff that all the blame is on the other party. Instead of realizing you just bluff to help you make a better deal in the end. This is some kind of prisoners dilemma or something
That's the situation. It's not our problem. Our problem is we don't even have a seat at the table for reciprocity thus it is just give and give and give to "our greatest ally" but when it is time for stuff for "us" the "our" of White people both vanishes in ability to receive good things and exists to demonize and take stuff from
All Coates is doing is creating a fantasy in which the Palestinians in Gaza were subjugated by Israel in the same way that slaves were by slaveholders, in order to justify the barbarity of October 7th as being the result of "moral frailty" of some of the Palestinians - because "who knows whether I would be able to withstand the urge of revenge, even against innocent civilians". The issue is not the admission of moral frailty. The issue is the need to build this fantasy that Israel was inhumanely subjugating the Gazans in order to start justifying October 7.
However, the reality is that Gaza had a Mercedes dealership and a water park (until it was closed by Hamas). It had a higher living standard than Egypt (through which international aid was shipped to Gaza). It had neighbourhoods that were as nice as standard Israeli middle-class neighbourhoods. Some 10% of Gazans were traveling abroad out of the "open air prison" each year - to shop in Turkey, or to train with Hezbollah in Lebanon ...
Whatever hardship the Gazans suffered, whether limited work permits in Israel (which were gradually increasing before October 7) or partial blockade, could be 100% attributed to the policy of their elected Hamas leadership. Whatever hatred the Gazans harbored towards Jews and Israel, could be 90% attributed to the Western- supported antisemitic education they receive in UNWRA schools, and 10% to Israel's treatment of them. To wit, even some parents of cancer patients that were treated in Israeli hospitals - there were thousands - said they wished these same children to become shaheed, to die fighting the Jews.
The problem of people like Coates is the need to justify their prejudices by diabolizing Israel. This attitude has a very long history, and it is indefensible.
You lost me here. Coates is a race-baiter who has proven his anti-Israel feelings. There is zero justification for October 7th. In your efforts to be contrarian, I have lost respect for you completely. Perhaps things have changed now that your founder has moved on?
Morality is an illusion: https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-case-against-moral-realism.html
Sure, morality as something more than rules human attempt to place on each other is a delusion. Interesting metaphysical discussion, maybe. But at the end of the day we still need to deal with the physics of what rules we should attempt to place on each other regardless of them being God given or man created.
That's right, a functional and prospering human society must solve (game theory) problems of cooperation. https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2014/07/game-theory-and-society.html
Thoughtful. Honest. Humble.
Meaning you, Bo.
Thank you. I appreciate your introspective and insightful self-reflection framed in the context of our evolved human nature.
It's all about anti-white hatred. Jews are considered white, even middle eastern Jews who have no European ancestry and been in the mideast for 3000 years. For a race baiter like TNC whites oppressing non-whites is the only evil. Non-whites killing non-whites is ethically neutral (thus the indifference of people like him to the slaughter by butcher Assad of Palestinians or other Muslims in Syria, the slaughter of Christians by Hezbollah in Lebanon or ISIS in Iraq, or the Darfuris by Sudanese Islamists).
This is the BLM line, if the cost of saving one violent black thug from dying while resisting arrest is hundred of black toddlers being shot in gang war crossfire, that is a price worth paying.
The thing that frustrates me is that he made such petty and hateful attacks against White Americans and was rewarded for it with little critical commentary. But question Israel??? OMG. That then makes OK to say he is stupid-looking and stupid-sounding.
Oh Dear,
Evil is evil. In a society ruled by fanatical gangsters where it is prevalent it is difficult to behave morally. That is all. This however does not make morality relative. The Gazans have been corrupted to a large degree.
Excellent, concise, well-made point!
Does Coates wonder how if he, as an oppressed black man living in the land with a legacy of Jim Crow, would be able to resist the temptation to smash a store window and steal a color TV or a cheesecake during the George Floyd riots?
Coates somehow makes a good living titillating the historically ignorant in the West with stories that stir empathy for their would be murderers.