Episode 96: Discrimination, Enshrined in Law

[fabsh]

@capn.egghead

First, this does not follow logically from scientific standpoint as you seem to say: You might claim that “Jews are a race” is not a valid statement (“race” being a fake-science nonsense). But “A is not B” does not prove “A is C”. Especially when “C” is “religion”, which is not a very scientific domain, and not as easy to define in a clear-cut way as people might think.

Second, your definition does not match the definition of many others, including a lot of the people that you would define as jews. For example, religious orthodox jews would not agree with it, and in ways that I believe you do not expect (I say this based on things you had said, and because that particular religious group defines things in significantly different ways than, for example, christianity, which you might be more familiar with. I intend to expand on that in a separate mail, assuming you are interested).
So, when my goal is to be understood correctly (rather then re-educate the listener), I generally try to use definitions that I expect to be the closest match to my audience’s one.

Yeah, I’m not doing that. I’m using the scientifically arrived at definition in the applicable field (ie. historical science). Naturally religious orthodox jews would see things differently. But it’s in the name: religious. These are not the right people to have a scientific discourse with, generally.

@capn.egghead

But I am not sure what you are trying to say…
If something is hard to define, that does not necessarily mean that it does not exist, or that we should not talk about it (similarly, if something did not exist before a certain date - that does not necessarily mean that it does not exist now).

It means that it is hard to talk about in scientific terms. And one has to be careful not to drift off into unfounded personal opinion that doesn’t help anybody.

@capn.egghead

Are you claiming that there is no such thing as a German ethnicity? No such thing as “nations” at all? What about “culture”? In what way (if at all) is “German” different than “French”?
And more specifically, I think that you mentioned that “national states” are a good thing (e.g. in EU context).
How do you define what that term means? How would you best design the borders of such states?

There certainly is no such thing as German ethnicity at all. Germany wasn’t even a country 150 years ago. How would you define such a thing? What makes someone of Saxon heritage German? What about Bavarian? And what happens if you’re from Frisia? Why is one person from Frisia considered Dutch and the other German? They both historically spoke Low Saxon. What decides if you are German in case you were born in Schleswig? Your ancestors might have spoken Danish for centuries and you just ended up on the German side of the border because of the plebiscite. What about the Saar? Are Austrians ethnic Germans? Austria used to be a kingdom in the HRE same as Saxony or Kleve.

Whereas German culture is markedly different from French and can be traced as such back to the early Middle Ages. It’s not my speciality when it comes to history, but the delineation started with the Franconians and Carolingians, I think.

See, the point is that borders of a state have nothing to do with ethnicity. Israel is a very special case, born out of a very special situation created during the early 20th century. Whereas European states have histories going back literally thousands of years. I mean, to this day, I can show you which German cities were on the Roman side of the Rhine and which weren’t just by walking along the streets.

@capn.egghead

and some that think that the very idea of jews trying to be comparable with other groups in any way is reprehensible (those would be religious parties… this is probably a common feature of many religions).

As a historian, I would actually tend to agree with that. Probably just not in a way they’d agree with me on.

I think we do agree on a lot of points, actually. Maybe if we just don’t use the term “race” (it’s stupid anyway) and are careful to state when we say jewish if we are talking about the religion or the culture, we’d get along very well.

[fabsh]

@capn.egghead

But - in the context of people who might hear your podcast episodes (which I hope is a larger audience, and will still grow), I am not at all sure.
If you say such things without explicitly listing some relevant historical facts, people who do not know them (think “not educated in my or your country” - not “stupid”) might naturally think that you imply some particular incorrect “facts”. This would in fact make the net situation worse.

You have a point there. Maybe I should start these history episode I’ve been threatening. Problem is, that will be a lot of work. Probably something to plan and aim for in 2022.

[RedeemerF]

@capn.egghead

and might not be as interesting to people in your audience that do not live in the specific corner of the globe which I happened to be born into

Actually, for me at least, it is interesting.

Maybe because I was also born nearby .

(You can actually reply with a linked topic, so you can fork out your topic into it’s own thread.)

Anyway, I read the conversation, and to be honest, I still can’t tell what you are trying to say, or what are the points of disagreement.

I will try to re-read again.

[fabsh]

@RedeemerF

(You can actually reply with a linked topic, so you can fork out your topic into it’s own thread.)

Oh wow! I didn’t know that. That’s a really cool feature!