A Critique of Milo Yiannopoulos' Theory about Anti-Semitism on Social Media

[Karl Radl]

A Critique of Milo Yiannopoulos' Theory about Anti-Semitism on Social Media

Milo Yiannopoulos just uploaded a video clip of him talking with David Rubin on the 'Rubin Report' about his theory concerning the origin of anti-Semitic comments and memes on social media. Predictably Rubin kvetches a lot about it and doesn't seem particularly convinced, but could you have really expected anything else?

Putting Rubin aside: Milo's take on all this is one of the maturer and saner ones out there. It certainly beats the inane hysterical bleating we hear from jewish quangos and not-for-profits on the subject.

The relative sanity of Milo's views stem from the fact that he actually thought about the subject and tried to formulate a conclusion based on the observable facts as far as he knows them. To be fair to him: his points are well taken and valid. However his position is based on demonstrably false assumptions that appear to stem from his 'cultural libertarian' ideology as well as his pro-Israel/pro-jewish intellectual positions.

Milo's position – which I've included in the video clip at the top – can be boiled down to the idea that pretty much everyone on social media likes to shock people and get a reaction. In other words it is all about the trolling. Therefore when someone sends you an anti-Semitic meme: it is just people trying to get a rise out of you not because they are actually anti-Semitic per se.

He bolsters this by correctly asserting that anti-Semitism is the ultimate social taboo and draws the conclusion that this make it the most effective method for trolling. Therefore – so Milo thinks – social media anti-Semitism isn't real anti-Semitism, but rather about getting a reaction from other people.

Now I don't disagree with this to a point: it is about the reaction to some extent. However what Milo doesn't factor in is that there can be, and often is, an ideology behind this behaviour and that trolling itself is a very effective marketing tactic for an ideology.

Remember Protein World's advert that outraged feminists in London last year. In addition to the subsequent Twitter mockery of fat people by the Twitter feed of the same company, which in turn generated a rather significant increase in sales for the company.

Lets take another of Milo's examples: feminism.

Now if Milo's theory is true then the people who troll feminists – a past-time in which I occasionally indulge – would in fact not hate feminists or feminism per se, but rather just be seeking to get a reaction out of them by violating their social taboos (or 'safe spaces' as they prefer to refer to them).

However that isn't true, because Milo himself loathes feminism (or at least appears to) as an ideology and seeks to combat it. Trolling is a way to do that since if you provoke your opposition by doing it: they tend to spew plenty of nonsensical rage-driven quotable hatred at you providing a source for memes and screen print evidence.

This then engages humour and anger among non-believers and believers in the position you are pushing: be it anti-feminism and/or anti-Semitism.

In turn this increases, sustains or decreases belief in the ideas that you are pushing.

This then helps to increase the normalization of the thing that you are propagating among a wider audience, which therefore increases the power and scope of belief in your position in a form of virtuous circle.

Therefore we can see that Milo's theory is not correct, because it works on an assumption which is an inverted 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.

To explain: if someone says or publishes something that is anti-feminist or anti-Semitic on social media then Milo's theory assumes – without evidence – that they do not really believe what they say. It doesn't entertain the possibility within the theory that they could mean what they say, because no true social media user (or Millennial as Milo calls us however incorrectly) really believes that.

The assumption is: they can't believe that, because they don't know what they are talking about.

This assumption is absurd, but we can clearly see that is Milo's thought process from his reference to the idea that Millennials 'don't even know what the Holocaust was'. Not only is this extremely disingenuous – for heaven's sake Milo you can't even go a day without hearing about the so-called Shoah let alone through school or university – but it also tells us that he assumes that: if they really understood then they wouldn't say it.

What Milo doesn't seem to realize is that the Holocaust is shoved down everyone's throats twenty-four seven and as such people know exactly what it is. However they are rebelling against it, because it is used to defend every possible thing associated with jews, Israel and political positions (both left and right) from criticism even things that are obviously untrue.

However it isn't just rebellion but intellectual questioning. You can see it on the left as well as on the right. People are tired of having the same excuse peddled at them and it isn't that they are simply trolling, but rather questioning and rejecting the ideas.

That's the bit that Milo's theory assumes cannot happen (and is the probable origin of his inverted 'No True Scotsman' fallacy) is that people can be subjected to or propagate anti-Semitic memes and/or ideas as well as believe in and/or be convinced by them. That is probably his 'cultural libertarianism' talking, but it is also likely his pro-Israel views.

In other words, because Milo believes that only the pro-Israeli/pro-jewish argument is the truth. He therefore assumes as a result that no anti-Israeli/anti-jewish argument is valid beyond stating basic indisputable facts about jews dominating Wall Street, Hollywood and the mainstream media.

The problem with Milo's theory is that it ipso facto assumes the veracity of pro-Israel/pro-jewish arguments and claims without admitting others may disagree with that appraisal. Therefore it relegates anti-Semitism on social media to being a non-threat, because of Milo's apparent belief that people can't really have a different opinion to him on the subject of Israel and the jews.

Besides does Milo really believe that jewish organizations are going to stop pursuing people for 'hate crime' and continuing ever further down the Orwellian spiral of criminalizing dissent?

I don't think so.

Every time they scream about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the need for hate crime laws it plants the seed of anti-Semitism in the heart of people who read about it.

Yet they won't stop screaming because it is their job to do so and it has become a self-perpetuating industry along the lines so masterfully identified by Norman Finkelstein in his 'The Holocaust Industry'.

It is simply just a matter of time til the scales tip against the jews just as predicted by Benjamin Ginsburg's theory concerning the origin of anti-Semitism enunciated in his 'The Fatal Embrace'.

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This was originally published at the following address: http://www.http://semiticcontroversi...os-theory.html

[Sean Gruber]

Originally Posted by Karl Radl

A Critique of Milo Yiannopoulos' Theory

Milo is a jew. That is all one needs to know in order to evaluate the veracity of any theory of his.