UPDATED (7/5/021): Citing Sources: Jewish Morality (‘Mussar & Middot’) Demands Acknowledging Those Who Went Before, Intellectually

Argument,Communism,Conservatism,Critical Race Theory,Ethics,Ilana Mercer,Judaism & Jews,Morality,Paleoconservatism,Socialism

            
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Genesis: It all began with a tweet from a Mercer reader, who was politely ticked off that this writer was not credited for thinking she has developed, and has been hammering home in widely published essays, on large conservative hangouts: WND.COM, American Greatness, The Unz Review, Townhall.com, Quarterly Review out of Britain, and often American Renaissance. The reader’s tweets are pictured above.

In a nutshell: When every other American commentator was kibitzing about Critical Race Theory as Marxism—including the voluble writers on Darren Beattie’s site, Revolver News—this writer, as is her wont, had dug in her heels since 2019, insisting that this was ALL anti-whiteness, not Marxism, and nothing more.

“Not Identity Politics, Anti-white Politics” (02/28/2019)
“Why Conservatives Ignore White-Hating Politics” (September 19, 2019)
“Ethnocidal ‘Critical Race Theory’ Is Upon Us Like White On Rice” (September 10, 2020)
“Earth To Conservatives: The Problem Is ‘Systemic Anti-Whiteness,’ Not Marxism, Not ID Politics” (May 10, 2021)
And MORE, in writing and video.

The reader was honest. So he wrote:

… I saw this evolving the other day when Beattie gave credit to CJ Pearson for calling #CRT anti-white. That’s how it works on Twitter, the big accounts pick up so much from others but never give credit. I knew revolverdotnews was going to run with it but wouldn’t give you credit. It was obvious to me he was aware you were one of the few people on Twitter speaking about this. …
…I know you give credit to others, it’s because you’re an ethical person, something in short supply these days. …

It’s worse than that. Again: throughout, Revolver News has penned elaborate tracts about Critical Race Theory as Marxism, a position this writer has always rejected as bogus; was first to reject, and against which she has developed and targeted analytical thinking.

That tack is summed up by this tract of May 5, 2021:

“Earth To Conservatives: The Problem Is Systemic Anti-Whiteness, Not Marxism, Not ID Politics.” One publisher, American Greatness, excerpted the gist of my lengthy argument:

If quibbling about Communism and identity politics becomes an obstacle to facing the reality of systemic anti-whiteness—then these theoretical crutches are an affront to reality

AND:

Theoretical Escapism Retards Action: … anti-white ideology is not to be conflated, as conservatives habitually do, with Marxist ideology. Very plainly, communism did not revolve around the exclusive blackening of whites. Stripped of bafflegab, this is critical race theory’s central project.

I followed up with a Twitter reference to Jewish sages, sent to me by my “little” brother, Rabbi Y. Isaacson. I copied my reader and Mr.  Darren J. Beattie, editor at Revolver News—where a piece, I am told, was published aping my own thinking, developed and written over months.

Jewish sages were strict about the ethics of crediting those who went before. “Whoever repeats a statement in the name of the one who said it brings redemption to the world. (Avot 6:6)

In response came this contempt-oozing snark of a tweet from Mr. Beattie:

I am all for giving credit for groundbreaking concepts and even coinages where appropriate. But this lady making a proprietary claim over the term “anti-white” or the idea that CRT is anti-white but not marxist is absurd. Marvel comic tier “paleo-lolbertarian” autism on display

Oodles of contempt, I have noticed over the decades, are not unusual among paleoconservative men—not the Republican young men and women, mind you, whom I find delightfully polite and respectful. This venom-spitting cobra is confined to a very specific segment of the Old Right, young and old.

My original reader responded:

…I just read the nasty Beattie tweet, … he’s reduced to calling names. What a jerk. The hilarious thing is Revolver just wrote an entire article about anti-white CRT. [The reader means following the publication of my many tracts.)

Were my original thinking emanating from a LARGE TWITTER account, or any well-known media whore (fat chance)—our own large media whores would have credited me.  This is why they’re so ugly: These Little Men “borrow” sans credit only from smaller, truly marginalized, independent thinkers.

Which is why I mentioned the non-man essence of this conduct. “Valiant strong men are not afraid to give credit.”

Witness the fact that, as my reader pointed out, Beattie had rushed to give credit to one CJ Pearson for calling CRT anti-white in a typical cyber-ejaculate tweet format. I know not who CJ Pearson is. All I know is that, when our media whores give credit—the account must be large. And indeed it is. Puke. My essays, as mentioned, have been detailed and analytical as is my wont—and published on leading conservative outlets (G-d bless them).  

“Do yr. research!,” I shot back. “You have not given credit where it’s due. “This lady,” old enough to be your mom, is indeed first to methodically develop the Marxism vs. Antiwhiteness distinction when u were penning treatises on CRT as Marxism, mere weeks back. Ugly. Dishonest @DarrenJBeattie.”

Some young people have related to me that, “We grew up politically reading Mercer on WND.” What a gift—and a responsibility. It was thus important to serve up an example of what intellectual honestly and integrity look like in crediting others. To that end, I posted my report about Beattie’s analysis–and application—of US-instigated color revolutions: “Here is an example of my reporting of Darren J Beattie’s very recent work (mine goes back 21 years). I will never-ever stiff people out of credit for their work. It’s loathsome. Tis about character (also, why borrow what I can best? I’ve never been at a loss for original thinking in 21 years of work):

Truth is non-partisan. However, in line with partisan social media’s celebrity tagging ditto-head proclivities—the warm smell of the herd that inoculates against impartial thinking—reality, in the form of mounds of essays, mine, was not considered the ultimate adjudicator of truth.

A select group of serious readers, my own, however, responded, thus:

David Sullivan: “You were first, for sure, way back with THE book, ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot.'”

“Ilana Mercer has been explaining for years why the problem is anti-white politics, not identity politics. Given that conservatives have failed repeatedly and the problem has gotten worse, perhaps it’s time they start listening. This column is from 2019,” tweeted Matt Ray, a paleolibertarian presence on the Internet and social media:

Matt took the time to excerpt from “It’s Not ‘Identity Politics,’ It’s Anti-White Politics” (February 28, 2019): Whatever is convulsing the country, it’s not identity politics. For, blacks are not being pitted against Hispanics. Hispanics are not being sicced on Asians, and Ameri-Indians aren’t being urged to attack the groups just mentioned. Rather, they’re all piling on honky.”

And I thank Matt Ray. Over the course of 21 years, I have replied to almost every reader who has taken the time to share with me his or her thoughts about my work. It’s called decency, humility. And if I get an idea from a twitter account, no matter how small, I hyperlink it, in credit (an example is the hyperlink on the quip, “That was a scary scene in ‘Deliverance,’” someone quipped  on Twitter, in “The Barbarians Are In Charge: Scenes From The Sacking of America“).

Anti-White HateWatch made excuses for the more powerful not crediting those whose work went before—and not because their work doesn’t speak for itself, but becasue their Twitter accounts aren’t as large as The Idiocracy’s.

In a war, we aren’t required to shout out “Thank you, Lockheed Martin” before we fire our missiles!

Me: If honestly crediting originators of serious argument and strategy in the battle over years is not important–why does @DarrenJBeatie try to “cancel” me and my work in developing this thinking first? You, too, are bereft of ethics, sir. Credit is a moral imperative, as per Jewish sages

And so it went.

Even when I excerpted my surmise, in “A White-Out Of Whites: Ignoring The Albino, Dhimmi Elephant In The Room,” drawn from a Critical Race Theorist who openly departs from Marxism—my own words were attributed to another. One not only loses IQ points on the illiterate social media, but one is faced with studied intellectual depravity.

A tweet, always limited by the number of allowable characters, was then compiled of my many pioneering essays explaining why, contra conservatism’s consensus before me, Critical Race Theory needed to be addressed purely and exclusively as anti-white agitprop and bafflegab combined. I wrote:

Fair minds know you can’t change the reality of creation.

Colin Flaherty, one the few fair, valiant men, retweeted with a comment:

“Everyone wants to deflect from that essential truth.”

Finally, heed we must what the sages of Judaism say about a morally simple matter: Crediting those who went before.

Text
“Whoever repeats a statement in the name of the one who said it brings redemption to the world.” (Avot 6:6)

Commentary
The sages deemed it so imperative that credit should be given for another’s ideas that they identified the act as a cause for redemption, both communal and personal.

I thank my brother, Rabbi Y. Isaacson, for sending me the words of our Avot (fathers).

And I ask that you teach your children to ethically and honestly credit their sources in conversation. This is what scholarly minds do.

As Jack Kerwick has explained :

it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to explore, revise, and expand the ideas of others, to explore their nuances, their contours, and utilize them for the purposes of illuminating new circumstances.

To Do
Make a concerted effort to share what you learn from someone else with the others around your Shabbat table, but be sure to quote your source and do so in the name of the person from whom you learned it.

UPDATE (7/5/021): I had mentioned in the blog post you are reading the imperative, as taught by our Jewish sages, to cite those who went before in one’s work, if one uses ideas developed by others. I’m pleased to report that “Mussar Center” liked the lesson on Twitter. @MussarCenter

 

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