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You probably don't want to bring up Jews while making this argument, given that their outstandingly high status and wealth in society kind of demonstrates that
by jlawson 8y ago
You probably don't want to bring up Jews while making this argument, given that their outstandingly high status and wealth in society kind of demonstrates that group social outcomes are more driven by internal characteristics than external circumstances.
They are the people who suffered the worst oppression, literally losing half their people to murder very recently, and who are still the most targeted victims of hate crime. Yet somehow they also ended up comprising >17% of global billionares despite being 0.2% of global population, are massively overrepresented at top schools, in leadership positions at all levels of society, government, and law.
It's hard to argue that outcomes are driven by external circumstances (as opposed to internal characteristics of people) given facts like that.
If trauma had strict generational effects, Jews would be in ghettoes now and Israel would look like Burundi.
Articles like the OP need to make some explanation for the counterexamples like the Jews. Otherwise they're just hammering on their own confirmation bias - seeking examples to confirm the theory, instead of grappling with examples that seem to refute it.
- deogeo 8y ago> Yet somehow they also ended up comprising >17% of global billionares despite being 0.2% of global population, are massively overrepresented at top schools, in leadership positions at all levels of society, government, and law. Do you have any sources on this? Because it sounds like typical "Jews control the world" antisemitism.
- vibrato 8y agoLet me google that for you. https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2018/03/07/jews-make-19-forbes-200-worlds-richest-list/ https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2018/03/07/jews-make-19-forbe...
- jshevek 8y agoThese are simply claims of fact about the world. One can easily investigate their veracity and see if an error has been made. There is nothing anti-semitic about acknowledging Jewish success.
- GavinMcG 8y agoYou seem to be interpreting "yet somehow" as disingenuous conspiracy-theory provocation. But the author was responding to another comment, and from that context (and the lead-up in the comment itself) it's clear that "yet somehow" means "in spite of the ethnicity-level setbacks and targeting that Jews experience", as a counterpoint to the parent comment.
- deogeo 8y agoIt wasn't the specific wording, it's that claims of Jews having disproportionate wealth or influence is a common argument employed by antisemites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard#Accusations_of_controlling_the_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard#Accusations... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard#Accusations_of_controlling_the_world_financial_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard#Accusations...
- GavinMcG 8y agoYeah, it turns out that conversation is somewhat complex, and we have to listen to the people we're conversing with. There are plenty of canards and dogwhistles about all sorts of issues, but evaluating whether a claim is antisemitic has to go deeper than just noting that it discusses Jews and wealth. That comment, for example, was arguing that the disproportion could be taken as evidence of Jewish superiority, and yet here you are calling it antisemitic.
- deogeo 8y agoWould you use the same superiority argument on white people?
- jshevek 8y ago"Would you use the same superiority argument on white people?" Are you meaning to imply that the previous poster argued for Jewish superiority? I don't see that. They mentioned a hypothetical argument as a counterexample to disprove any notion that these observations are intrinsically anti-semitic.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- watwut 8y agoPoor Jews were murdered or died of hunger. Jews in Eastern Europe were mostly poor and in Germany lower middle class on average. Almost all were killed or robbed of property. Few surviving rich Jews don't change the stats of average Jew being killed before his time.
- iguy 8y agoThere was indeed such a slant, in who got out. But whether this explains jewish success in the post-war world... you are in essence proposing a one-generation artificial selection event as the explanation. I haven't worked the numbers but I am pretty sure the effect won't be nearly large enough.
- watwut 8y agoI am saying that Jews in Eastern Europe were mostly poor. There is no richness "despite oppression". There was suffering and lack of means. Also that they were almost all killed, except those with means to survive and great deal of luck. Also that the storiés of rich Jews are mostly nazi and other anti-semitic imagination.
- taneq 8y agoYou're conflating "financially successful" with "untraumatized". I'm not convinced that the first necessarily implies the second.
- jshevek 8y agoI took his point to be that trauma doesn't determine outcome. Jews have been traumatized, but are successful. Thus the economic outcomes of other traumatized groups may be strongly influenced by factors other than trauma.