Nick Fuentes, Holocaust Denial, PF Jung, and Me

If I met this prick in real life I would knock his fucking teeth out lol

I finally watched the actual debate you and Paul had and there's something viscerally terrifying about the way he abstracts everything into meaningless noise, how he admits more and more the horrible truth of his beliefs and how he fights tooth and nail for every vile thing Nick Fuentes says and believes. There's something about the descent he takes, the fact it follows a slide into his final stance where most everything he usually tries to claim falls away and all that's left is bigotry that feels honest in a way that I struggle to cope with, and how he obscures it in a frictionless simulacrum of reality where definitions and technicalities are imposed as a paradigm that poisons everything else and destroys any relationship to anything real, deconstructing Nick's life's work into a sort of formless force which is neutral and which in it's neutrality Paul finds it to be inherently honest and true because he has always believed these things but could not ever say so out loud. And so he retreats into pedantry and meaningless distinction as a smoke screen of so called "rationalism" or "centrism," but I cannot help but see that he doesn't really care at all about those things because he is, in the end, a bigot and a willing instrument of cruelty and power.

people don't seem to realize nazis have political changes they want to make. If nick Fuentes just wants to have a white wife or live around white people I could care less, the problem is he wants to make this enforceable by violence.

The incredulity with which joel goes "Pearl clutch??!?!" in the video is so real, I don't know how you withstood more than 15 seconds of talking with this Paul shmuck. He clearly isn't listening and just revels in hearing his own grating voice while he practically gobbles down on his microphone

My thoughts exactly, I also think there is a wider issue with many peoples only reading about the holocaust coming from 'the holocaust industry'. Not an evil book, but one that I think fails at making its case to the unconvinced, and is beloved by anti-semites. Even if I believe this is not Norms intention.

The way he turns from this intellectual enlightened big brain video essayist when he’s scripted to an absolute playground bully in conversation is so telling

Commenting late but another shocking thing in that debate was Paul scoffing at the notion that the Bell Curve is bunk science and Charles Murray a racist based off of the really well made Shaun video. Like, Paul obviously gets a huge amount of his information from Youtube, this is a guy who was blown tf out by CJ the X for loving Jordan Peterson and not finishing Maps of Meaning. This is not a guy seriously interested in truth or academic rigor, he wants to take Youtube information at face value as long as it agrees with him, and if it doesn't you're apparently the idiot for citing it. Really shocking to see how open he was about it in the debate, a real mask off moment for Paul.

I just joined, just wanted to say this video was extremely thought provoking for me. I want to state clearly that I'm subbed here for a reason and my political leanings are quite radically and firmly on the left. Still, especially given the context of you saying you sometimes underestimate "real-life" racism, I do think that there might be a missing piece. It's tough to state in brief, but I'm mostly talking about the potential distinction between "individual" and "system" racism and how the left ought to react to either one. Regardless, thanks for sharing this episode through your uniquely ernest voice.

Holy timing

Watching this video after the homicide of Kirk just exposes something abhorrent about the current state of online political discourse. Far right extremists and conservatives just get more empathy nowadays. It's absurd how much the "feminazi" and "sjw" ideas of the last decade have been weaponized against us. Now, the left is seen as the intolerants, because we don't tolerate nazis. Now, we're seen as those lacking empathy, because we're tired of being called slurs. Now, we're seen as the killers because one piece of trash gets killed by a rogue. We must ignore all the hate and death the right has created over the years, because that's not relevant now.

hey thank you for making this video. i was kind of disappointed by fd signifier's and cj's engagement with pf jung and felt like they didn't take his bigotry seriously in favour of having a "respectful talk" with him. in addition to his antisemitism and racism, in his interaction with cj paul was downright transphobic and that wasn't properly addressed either. i'm glad that you're actually willing to talk about this even if it's kind of a messy thing to get into. i don't think creators "owe it" to their audience to engage with or criticise anyone, but pf jung has a wider reach because of the debates he did with bigger youtubers and i'm glad you're willing to say something about him.

JJ silently withering inside throughout the debate as Paul's mask disintegrates is a genuinely sad sight to see.

Pretty harrowing to return to this situation after charlie got merked - obviously someone who Paul emulates. Edit: I really respect you coming out and saying that Paul is an anti-Semite and a racist, it’s something I think his apology convinced me was not the case - but he’s definitely a bad guy.

I don't know about this one... It's hard to disagree with the conclusion, but for that reason it's not a very interesting conclusion. I wonder if there isn't something more subtle to say about the mechanics of racism, the way it functions in these radical centrist discourses, the way our caricatured conceptualizations of racism obscure its real functioning... It seems obvious enough that Paul is functionally advancing a racist agenda. What might be interesting is to explore the possibility that he is, nevertheless, not simply lying when he says that he abhors racism.

Don't lose any sleep over how you came off to Paul. He can beat around the bush all he wants, but he's chosen his side.

Watching this video was the closest I came to literally punching my monitor. I could write a whole essay about how badly this guy pisses me off, but if I could say one thing now... it genuinely broke my heart to hear your discomfort with your own Jewish appearance on the stream. There's just so much hatred and evil in the world than there was even a year or two ago and the fact that we've lost so much ground hurts my soul.

Excellent video, Joel! Your argument in this one is really well articulated and structured.

He reminds me of an embarrassing period of my life where I tried to meet my alt-light friends half way until I became alt-light myself. As a smart person who thought of myself as open minded, I just became an apologist confusing it for empathy.

I feel like this video is kind of punching down - I think this guy is just a bit dumb. You had a debate, he apologized, and then he tried to make up for it but he’s not really that good at debate or videos. The video you critique the most is only listed in his Substack as well. He’s also a small YouTuber. Maybe if you made the video about an epidemic of small YouTubers trying to appeal to Nazi sympathizers that would be pretty fascinating. Or if you were taking down Nick Fuentes then it would be much more palatable.

I do think it's easy to be taken in by a "sounds reasonable, seems normal" guy like this. You did a really good job here and in your debate articulating why you the lines in the sand he was drawing around racism & antisemitism are arbitrary and not as centrist as he claimed. The sentence starting "every racist thinks..." is something I'll have to remember

If anyone is interested in the history of holocaust denial there’s an excellent book called “denying the holocaust” by Dr Lipstadt. Obviously not a surprise but it is tied directly to antisemitism. It also has some interesting thoughts on debate in general. I would not recommend reading it in public as the name and cover of the book are odd choices tbh.

If anyone is interested, Richard Evans (probably actually the world's most respected historian of the Nazi period or certainly amongst them) has a book about the Irving trial in which he was an expert witness. It's pretty hard to get hold of but you might be able to find a PDF.

Wow what a cool take this guy had about how racism doesn’t matter much to him, a white guy.

Motherfucker is exposed and exposing strange laundry

This is why microphones should cost $700,000

The original video made me so insanely angry man

That “DUH” that Paul does in his debate with you made me physically recoil so shout out to you for not immediately ending the call after that

He reminds me of some people I met growing up in the South, they’re against racism, homophobia, sexism, because they picture racists, homophobes, and sexists as these caricatures who want to kill all [insert] due to their evil and hateful nature. Not like them, they just think black people should stay on their side of town and not receive so many handouts. And gay people should just be less loud about it, and not in front of children. And women are just better at housework than men, separate but EQUAL you see.

i think something that always gets me about this type of guy is the treatment of “empathy” as this revelatory thing that Minorities don’t know about and have never thought to practise. This idea that minorities failing to extend their empathy to like a foaming at the mouth racist makes the racist their fault — “you’re just pushing them further away” etc. There seems to be this idea that empathy is largely the domain of the hyper intelligent and civilised Debater Man who just discovered the concept in his late twenties and assumes that angry bitter minorities need to be instructed on who best to extend their empathy to and how to do it. At no point is it considered that Constant Empathy is a default mode for minority groups for survival. The Black man who must put himself in the shoes of the reactive policeman who pulled him over is practising empathy! I have spent countless hours of my life empathising with men who are actively frightening me to deescalate dangerous situations “how will he feel if i tell him no? how can i be respectful to his feelings in this moment? How can i protect those feelings?” this is just something you DO. Paul could’ve considered extending some of his beloved empathy to the jewish guy he was yelling at about how holocaust denial — but he chose to extend it to Nick fucking Fuentes and did not for a MINUTE think about WHY he considers Fuentes more deserving of empathy than the Jewish people/Black people Fuentes constantly shits on (because he’s a raging fucking nazi). Absolutely infuriating stuff.

Carrying water for racists... Defending nazis... What type of person does this? I don't think anyone needs me to pick apart the embarrassing arguments this dude is using. Using hate against jews, specifically Holocaust denial, in the supposed hope to stop a genocide... Wow.

Hey this was a very insightful video, I was highly invested! As somewhat of a nonsequitur, in the past you said you had no intentions to engage in debates (iirc you said you didn't think it was an effective way to change someone's mind). Why did you decide to participate in this debate? There's no gotcha, I'm just nosey haha