Cabal is originally a Hebrew word. Its use as a conspiracy thing is rooted in antisemitism and still used to ostracize Jews
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tux@lemmy.world 4 months agoCurious about how the cabal can be a dog whistle. Can you enlighten me? The wiki article didn’t help. Though learning the etymology was cool.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 4 months ago
Practically every word can be a potential dogwhistle, since provided the right context it’ll convey something that targets or marginalises a group of people. In this case because nutjobs who believe in a Jewish control conspiracy often refer to that as a “cabal”.
But that requires a context, that is simply absent from the [now deleted] comment using the word. And given a suitable context, every single word can be used to spread a hate discourse. Even a grammatical particle like “it”. (It shows how useless the concept of dogwhistles is, in comparison to looking at what the person says in a discursive level.)
Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
I imagine its something to do with the Jews.
Cinner@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Cabal… Kabbalah… It’s the root word. “Jews secretly run the world” etc. That’s usually how it’s used today.
erev@lemmy.world 4 months ago
There’s a very common anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that a Jewish cabal runs the world from the shadows and manipulates/is the world elite.
There are a lot of ways to disprove this but I think the easiest is to just look at the world currently: there is a “cabal” that “runs the world”, but no they are not all Jews nor are they secretly plotting all the bad things to happen. Really it’s a disparate set of individuals and organizations that have their own goals and agendas but who all have a shared, vested interest in maintaining the status quo and it’s trajectory. And some are in contact or proximity with others, but it isn’t usually some massive overarching “world order”. Yes you do see the individuals or organizations conspiring together, but it isn’t some massive syndicate. It’s people with shared interests trying to utilize every advantage they can. Or they just shoot the shit, who knows. My point is that while there are “shadowy” figures at the top who hold important positions of power, wealth, influence, and status, they’re just people and groups trying to maximize on their opportunities, as is the unfettered nature of capitalism. And no they aren’t all Jews.
erev@lemmy.world 4 months ago
inb4 shitty person makes a shitty comment: you can be against anti-Semitism while also being against Zionism. Not supporting bigotry does not mean i support ethnostates.