[FredPret]

Criticizing individuals because they're part of a bloodline / ethnicity is:

- the exact opposite of criticizing individuals; you're really just going after the group

- the definition of prejudice

- the foundation of most (all?) giant human catastrophes like the Holocaust, the various communist land reforms, the crusades, and all sorts of horrible events

I'm a conservative, but I have to say this idea of not being prejudiced is really something great that liberalism brought to the table over the past 100-200 years. I'm gobsmacked to see people rejecting this idea.

[tinfoilhatter]

So when authors of history-related works criticize or make remarks about bloodlines such as the Hapsburgs or the Medicis or the Colonnas are you equally as outraged as when it involves a bloodline of Jewish people?

If I navigate to - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_the_Rothschild_fa... - every section of the page mentions the family being involved in banking. Am I stereotyping members of the Rothschild bloodline by saying they're involved in international banking? I don't think so.

I'm equally gobsmacked by people who claim we shouldn't utilize pattern recognition or who want to pretend stereotypes materialize out of thin air.

[ryandrake]

I think the word "bloodline" has gotten people wrapped around the axle. You could have just said "the Rothschild family" and been in the clear. "Bloodline" veers a little close to smearing an entire ethnicity over the actions of one relatively small family. I'm sure it's not what you meant, but as soon as you start talking about the contents of people's blood, people's ears start perking up and looking for bigotry.

[tinfoilhatter]

Well I don't really understand the difference between the words family and bloodline, because what is a family besides a lineage of people connected by blood? Just for clarity - I am referring to Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his descendants who have been and continue to be involved in central banking. I am most definitely not referring to all Jewish / Ashkenazi Jewish people, any ethnicity or anyone with the last name Rothschild who isn't or hasn't been involved in central banking and orchestrating wars.

Thank you for pointing this out. I'll try to be more careful in my choice of words moving forward.

[ryandrake]

"Blood" euphemisms are commonly used by antisemites and racists of all types. Hitler made many reference to "German blood, "Jewish blood," "our blood," and so on, essentially as shorthand meaning ethnicities. The KKK repeatedly emphasizes the importance of "blood purity" to promote its ideology. Which is why Trump's recent claim that immigrants are “poisoning the -blood- of our country” got so many people riled up--it's an obvious dogwhistle, using the preferred terminology of some very, very bad people.

[tinfoilhatter]

Thank you for shining light on these examples for me. I've been studying quite a bit of history, esoteric spirituality and the occult sciences over the past few years and have fallen into the habit of using this term when talking about lineages of influential people and their families.

I definitely did not mean to sound like I was into eugenics or racial purity - I think these concepts are grotesque and as you said, people that focus on them or use them to excuse atrocities are indeed, very bad people. Thank you for giving me the benefit of doubt and highlighting why my choice of language is problematic.

[Tyrannosaur]

For what it's worth, my reaction to the word "bloodline" used in this way is exactly what it would have been to the word "dynasty".

"Bloodline", as in, the line of inheritance for an extremely wealthy and powerful family, like Medieval monarchs.

Perhaps we should be a tad more careful about our language use, but I see far too much outright bigotry to be worried about something obviously not used as a dogwhistle.