Skibboleth
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User ID: 1226
Why does opposing these models make you look so....nerdy, if not outright vile?
Firstly, because arguing for nuance is almost always going to come across as nerdy. Secondly, because opposition frequently takes the form of apologia for vile actions and it's difficult to avoid the attendant guilt by association even if you're making good arguments. For every person arguing that the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy is reductive and harmful, there will be someone saying that actually the Kulaks/Croats/Queers/[Insert Object of Hate Here] deserved it (or at the very least that it wasn't a big deal and they should get over it).
It serves the tribal in-group vs. out-group thinking. In short, it feels good and it's actually of little cost, because you're not actually expected to apply it to yourself or the people around you. It's OK to just apply it to the other.
This is true, but it's a general feature of dichotomous political thinking, whether it's oppressor/oppressed, fat cat/little guy, lowlife/upstanding citizen, or foreigner/native. It's all just a gloss on Us (people who deserve dignity and moral consideration) vs Them (people who don't). An explanation of why this in particular has cachet needs more explanation.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
That I agree with and think is a more substantial point - pure anecdata, but a huge share of people in my social circle have leaned hard into physical hobbies (woodworking, blacksmithing, gardening, etc...). Notably, things which are kind of difficult and require (or at least benefit a lot from) specialized knowledge and equipment, and which produce some physical proof of effort.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
Trump was genuinely pro-oil and gas, thus US oil production reached record highs under Biden due to delayed-action investment.
That's not at all evident in the data. It looks like we need to thank Obama for the upward trend in US oil production. That or people are overcrediting their favorite president for trends that are mostly driven by things other than US executive policy.
Cottagecore and associated cultural trends are 95% LARP. Obviously, there are a few people who really are into it, but my observation so far has been that this is far more likely to mean "I moved to an exurb and picked up a horticulture hobby" than anything remotely resembling actual rural or off-the-grid living. Actually, 95% LARP might be being overly generous; I'm going to guess the conversion rate on people taking the Stardew Valleypill is extremely low. Most people entertaining sanitized fantasies of tradrural lifestyle aren't even going to get as far as the exurban house and gardening hobby.
All of which is to say: I don't think this is a real trend. To the extent that it is a real trend, it is mostly the product of backflow from young professionals crowding into major cities, enabled by the rise of remote work. Social media may be having a corrosive effect on social cohesion, but it's not making people yearn for the pines.
We are locked in with people we do not like 24/7, reading their crappy opinions, we can't just splinter off and make a new community
We can. It's not particularly hard to set up your own forum, and if you're willing to put in a little effort and tolerate some jankiness you don't even need to reply on a 3rd party service to do it. This reminds of third place discourse, where people talk about third places disappearing as if someone came and tore them down, as opposed to that people stopped going to them. You can very easily leave the major social media platforms. We just don't. The problem is
a) these algorithmically driven services may be inferior to organic, homegrown human interaction, but, crucially, they are free and offer a path-of-least-resistance option. You could start your own forum or even go outside and meet people, but Facebook is a click away. Whatever your community of interest is, it probably already exists on reddit.
b) network effects mean there's a lot of value lost in leaving the big platforms for a smaller one. Being the first person to break away from twitter gets you little but a massive improvement in mental health isolation. And, especially for people who view themselves as incumbents, the suggestion that they should leave because of what someone else is doing is deeply irritating - "why should I change, he's the one who sucks". So everyone stays on the big platforms and complains about the moderation policy but never leaves.
the extremist american patriot dream is to aquire assets that allow them to live independently from the country they "love" away from all society and culture on a metaphorical if not literal island
That's more a reflection of how a subset of hardcore American conservative low-key hate America and have despaired of reasserting control by force.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
Can you provide a source for this claim? I don't find it hard to believe, but it warrants a lot more context than a single-sentence drive-by.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4072893& https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/being-transgender-at-work
If you want to, you can dig around and find more. Many are the product of explicit trans advocacy, so your mileage may vary, but I haven't been able to find any sources that make the counter-case.
it doesn't sound all that demanding compared to what it already takes to break into a high-status job without knowing the right people.
I'm sure someone, somewhere has done this. I also find it believable that per OracleOutlook's example, coming out as trans (spuriously or not) could get you a stay of execution as HR makes sure it has all its ducks in a row before pulling the trigger to avoid a lawsuit. Nevertheless, I raise two points:
a) I've seen this theory suggested before (for other categories as well), and I think the people advancing it are underestimating the difficulty of faking your identity for the purposes of exploiting affirmative action-type programs. Especially given that a lot of high status jobs aren't real big on work-life balance, you never get to take off the mask, ever. It's not just putting on a pantsuit for work. Also, frankly, if you're not queer you're probably going to have a hard time faking to other queer people in particular. You're not going to speak their language or understand their in-group norms, and the consequences of being outed as a faker are generally disastrous.
b) I think in general conservatives vastly overestimate the benefits to be gained by posing as trans (or most marginalized groups) and underestimate the costs. Even in nominally trans-tolerance spaces, you're often trading minor procedural benefits for a slew of implicit social disadvantages (in some cases, more than an actual trans person, since they're more likely to be making a serious effort as passing whereas you're going to be a dude named Elizabeth). And the tolerance can be extremely nominal (e.g. I work with feds and contractors in a milieu when managers putting pronouns in their email signatures coexists alongside regular anti-trans jokes).
Skibboleth
1mo ago
Declare yourself trans/queer and you'll have affinity groups supporting you at high-status jobs.
Trans individuals earn significantly less than their non-trans peers and are more likely to work low-status jobs in food service or retail.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
How are Putin and Xi not conservatives and patriots?
I think it's probably more that slotting your favored presidential candidate in alongside a pair of dictators is a weird look, especially when you're also calling your opponents of being hysterical for accusing you of backing a wannabe dictator.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
Any discussion of the progressive agenda is going to be confounded by the fact that a) there is no pope of progressivism, empowered to speak on behalf of progressives or set doctrine progressives must adhere to in order to be proper progressives b) not everyone is even referring to the same groups of people when they talk about progressives (elected officials like the CPC make an obvious standard, since they actually represent millions of people and have a hand in making laws, but they're usually not going to be avant-garde as academics/activists/pseudonymous bloggers).
Skibboleth
1mo ago
I'm still mentally stuck in thinking what such a progressive male model is supposed to look like, even if we are talking about purely fictional characters.
A conservative male role model with progressive political and social views :V
I'm only being slightly facetious. I think you can point out some culturally-specific differences on the margin (e.g. conservatives are more likely to idealize aggression and embrace sharp gender divisions in interests, progressives are more likely to praise emotional openness and lean away from idea of a man as protector/provider), but I would posit that (at least in the American context) the behavioral ideal of manhood isn't that far apart. And even some apparent political splits are more subcultural than partisan (e.g. compare and contrast Mormon and Southern masculinity)
quoth @dr_analog on conservative* role models
- happy embracing fatherhood
- devoted/providing husband
- works hard
- successful at work
- proud of work
We could strike the word "providing" and have a list that is agreeable in practice to most progressives. Their bigger issue is a more generalized discomfort with openly articulating an ideal of manhood for fear of harming both women and not-traditionally-masculine men, so instead most of these go unstated and you have to infer them.
*normiecon rather than redpill con
Skibboleth
1mo ago
The most obvious point against this is that the Christian nationalists (or whatever you want to call them if that term displeases) don't want to be cultural secessionists (for the most part). They generally see themselves as the rightful heirs to the American legacy and to give that up in favor of being the Amish mk II is to abandon their birthright. People like Rod Dreher have advocated for separation from secular society, but somewhat tellingly, Dreher lives in Hungary now, not the United States.
Logistically, it is problematic as well. The Amish aren't very numerous and are able to isolate themselves from external influence via technological proscriptions as well as the hard division their beliefs create from everyone else. You can't really be Am-ish. By contrast, Christian nationalism encompasses potentially tens of millions of people in the US. At that scale, you can't really wander off into the wilderness to start your own society, even if you could persuade people to do so.
Alabama already exists.
Although frankly, that jibe could be applied to a lot of red states. Conservative Christianity is an extremely powerful political force in Republican-dominated states. What it isn't, that it sort of used to be, is a cultural juggernaut. The opprobrium of the religious right carries very little weight outside of the religious right. They have virtually no influence over trends in media/entertainment (outside of internally produced media that is largely considered a joke by outsiders). Increasingly, young people aren't interested in the story they tell about the world and are shedding their religious affiliations. Etcetera. A lot of recent conservative political priorities are fundamentally about trying to remediate cultural defeats with state power.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
It's a technical term.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
If it makes you feel any better, your opponents feel approximately the same way about you.
Does anyone actually get any pleasure out of this? Does anyone think it's doing any good?
Consider reading the sacred texts:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
This idea sounds plausible on its own
Does it? That seems like it doesn't pass the smell test to me. The correlation between things like personal liberty + economic prosperity and how aristocratic a given society was/is seems quite negative. If nothing else, contrast the US or Britain (no/vestigial aristocracy) with the Russian Empire (deeply aristocratic and reactionary, also bringing up the rear in terms of economic development and personal liberty). Nor would we expect aristocratic societies to do well on this front - landowning elites are primarily concern with the extraction of land rents and the preservation of their privileges. A merchant class threatens their power base and letting a peasant sue his lord undermines their elite status.
it co-exists in the DR with a ravenous hatred of "elites" and "globalists". How does that make any sense?
They see themselves as temporarily embarrassed dukes.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
North-easterners didn't like seeing them drive up in nice cars throwing money around. They saw them as uppity. So various federal policies were put in place to economically devastate the region.
That is a very bold claim.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
One might consider them elite heretics or counter-elites
They're probably grifters aiming to extract money from regional gentry in exchange for validating their feeling that Harvard journalism graduates are ruining America and the country could be saved if only they were allowed to dump toxic runoff in the creek.
Anyway, they define elite as postgrad urbanite with 150K per year income. They further split elites into those who went to 12 top colleges and the ‘politically obsessed’ (definition unclear but I imagine it means they spend a certain number of hours reading/watching/discussing political media). For instance, I imagine we would be considered ‘politically obsessed’.
This seems like a gerrymandered category. They've pretty much defined elite in a way that precludes anyone conservative from being included while sweeping up a lot of people who are mildly successful professionals. If your definition of "elite" captures an MIT graduate with a twitter problem but not Richard Uihlein, it's probably deficient.
Skibboleth
1mo ago
You can call me pedantic, but, ultimately, I think your idea that Trump "expanded US involvement" in the Middle East can only be true in a pedantic sense.
It is true in the literal, material sense that in a number of places, Trump continued or substantially expanded US military involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, e.g. US involvement in Syria under Trump was by no means limited to an isolated bombing. The US was heavily involved in the Battle of Raqqa. The Battle of Khasham saw US forces killing Russian troops. In Somalia, US involvement went from nominal to almost weekly strikes. Similarly, strikes in Yemen were massively expanded (Trump also vetoed disengagement).
Certainly, nobody in the MAGA coalition feels all that betrayed by Trump's promises in the Middle East that he bombed an inconsequential airport tarmac in Syria
Perhaps they're not as anti-interventionist as they claim? Or maybe they just don't pay much attention to foreign policy?
Skibboleth
2mo ago
It seems like an incredibly pedantic distinction to say that Donald Trump expanding US involvement in Middle Eastern and African conflicts doesn't count because the US was technically already involved. It doesn't support the notion of Trump the peacemonger.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
is this just more journalists trying to spin straw into gold?
Correct. For the first time in a while, we have a dead primary season with, effectively, two incumbents. Election coverage has gotten used to circus primary campaigns that last forever and have tons of candidates. This is also why you get people making hay out of Haley's primary performances pretending that pulling in 20% represents a serious threat to Trump instead of admitting that 95% of them will vote for Trump in the general. They need something to talk about.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
okay, majority rules, you get basic decent treatment but you don't get to have screaming fits in public about being a real woman/real man
That's not on offer and never has been. If it was, it would probably undermine the more radical trans activists in much the same way that the normiefication of homosexuality undermined the weirdest and most radical elements of the gay rights movement. However, until trans Bismarck comes along and sabotages the trans left by offering a compromise that aspiring transnormies can tolerate, trans activism is likely to continue to be defined by the angriest and most radical voices.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
Quite frankly, I hold the left to higher standards than the right, and I think that the left should be above such behavior.
Why? If you think the right shouldn't be expected to behave when they lose, why do you think they should be trusted with power?
There's a pretty clear reason for this though, right?
There is, but it's not that American conservatives love freedom more than American liberals. Trump was president at the start of Covid, which made his response a natural angle of attack for Democrats. Rather than defend his performance, Trump argued that Covid was actually not that big a deal. That more or less set the partisan alignment on the matter.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
But the blue tribe's motivation is harder for me to explain to myself.
You've already got it:
They could just stop, but that would amount to a capitulation. Rightly or wrongly, the
redblue tribe won't accept that, so they continue they culture war.
Suffice to say that liberals do not share conservatives' assessment about the balance of power.
Is it naive to think that the red tribe hates the blue tribe defensively?
Yes. The red tribe's hate for the blue tribe (and vice versa) is fundamentally normative. The red and blue tribes hate each other because they have values that are not in alignment and which they are not willing to compromise on.
Skibboleth
2mo ago
if you fail to convey the things that actually made the gospel powerful
I am positing that this had little to do with the details of Christian theology, most of which weren't even settled until after a particular sect of Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire and resolved its disagreements in the traditional way. Conveying the good vibes is more important to attracting converts (or just avoiding deconversion) than being theologically sound. Is the ad in question theologically dubious? Yeah, probably. Is it any more theologically dubious than other modern (or ancient, for that matter) variants of Christianity? Probably not.
(Also, you're producing for an American audience. The Good News is not news for most of them them, so that's not a very strong angle of attack).
Because the two parties have diametrically opposed reasons for lack of confidence in the system. In general, Republicans are worried about vote fraud, want to make it harder to vote, and prefer state controlled elections. In general, Democrats are worried about voter disenfranchisement, want to make it easier to vote and want more Federal standards and oversight.
That would defeat the cynical purpose of voter ID laws and be deeply unpalatable to much of their base. Universal Federal ID proposals are DOA on the Right.
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