This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Forrest Gump is the most extensive and obvious on the topic, giving us Forrest as Thesis, Jenny as Antithesis, and Forrest Jr. as literal Synthesis. Forrest is basically ok throughout American history (it’s telling that the avatar of the Boomer generation is a savant-retard too stupid to know what’s going on but too talented to be prevented from succeeding). Jenny is the failure of Thesis-society, molested as a child and seeking freedom through various ultimately unsatisfactory rebellions (the abusive SDS boyf at the Black Panther Party). Ultimately, they finally come together, Jenny dies representing the passing of the 1960s Antithesis, while Forrest takes Forrest Jr. to raise him to preserve the spirit of the 1960s in a way that will lead to a better world.
That synthesis is what we aim for if we wish to preserve mid-century American culture. A world where the young move against a repressive world order. But the synthesis is always itself unsatisfactory, and we cannot raise kids with the value of rebellion as a basic aspect of coming of age, raise them on the Stones and Minor Threat, and expect them not to push further than we want them to. Permanent revolution means every generation is of necessity wrong, and at some point the system must fall under the endless pressure.
The solution I see is that parents and teachers need to assume a morality they do not necessarily agree with. Kids should all be raised religious, even if the parents themselves have doubts, if the kids wish to be atheists they should come by it honestly not default to it for lack of any religious background. Kids should experiment with sexuality away from the prescriptions of “sex positive” parents and teachers, they should come by their horniness naturally not be informed that they should be horny by annoying parents. That is how we produce a generation that looks like the great eras of American history, by producing the full conditions, the complete circle of circles, that produced those men.
2/2
Your post makes me think of recapitulation theory, which observes that a human embryo passes through stages of development resembling the ancient ancestors of humans. The fertilized egg is a unicellular eukaryote suspended in primordial soup. The blastula and gastrula have anatomy resembling a cnidarian. The embryo neurulates and becomes like a worm or fish. And when the baby is born, it behaves like a little monkey. Your program of education seeks to extend this process of recapitulation into the more recent stages of our species' evolution. Babies would be reared on a Stone Age diet, inculcated into a Bronze Age mindset, schooled with a Classical education, socialized in a Feudal hierarchy, enter the workforce under a neo-Luddite economic model, and then finally be set free to enjoy the full fruits of Enlightenment, Postmodernity, Post-scarcity and Transhumanism.
(Continuing further on this tangent, if humanity must be replaced by robots, then I hope we are replaced by robots that reproduce organically and pass through an embryonic human stage before maturing into full sentience.)
More options
Context Copy link
After a few paragraphs I sort of zoned out and let it wash over me. I think that makes it a good post.
I really need to put together that post about sincerity, irony, and postmodernism in media, because I think it’s the piece you’re missing. Teenage rebellion has been integrated. We made it a stock character, and with our technology-assisted recall, have thoroughly spoiled it for the next generation.
Do you think 90s punks were self-aware? Did they know their parents acted out the same story in different costumes? What about 70s stoners or 50s greasers? I’d guess they knew it, but didn’t feel it as strongly as their equivalents do today. The Zoomers have a curated index of the best and most savvy art of decades. That means their own little rebellions have to go further, one way or another.
This is a microcosm of the general cultural lust for novelty. You can’t just do a thesis anymore; that wouldn’t be any fun. Antithesis has been done, too. Even synthesis gets mined out as the previous generation comes to the same realization about the first two categories. Good art makes people feel something, but great art has to make them feel something different. You can’t get that by recreating Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That spot is taken.
So what’s left? Fortunately, synthesis is unending. Just as Gump took (antithetical) irony and played it painfully straight, you can take the synthesis and turn it around again. Look at the fools who thought you were going to give them genuine emotion! Or don’t. Make something completely sincere, a timeless story, and laugh all the way to the bank when people find your art “refreshing.” Bonus points if you’re enough of an auteur to get funding for outrageous new tech, Mr. Cameron. It’s signaling all the way down. Timing the market is all but impossible, but keeping the audience guessing gives you your best shot.
Thus our teenage rebellions are left with post-irony. Or post-post-irony. Or deep-fried memes, shouted into the uncaring void. Their parents, fresh from their own synthetic rebellions, only mellowed out to one or another of those higher layers.
Perhaps you’re right, and parents can espouse first-level theses. That’d give their kids a salient ideology on which to sharpen their claws. Assuming they focus on that, rather than the words of the prophets, written on the subway walls:
Don't have much to add, except this is accurate and sad. Most of my younger friends are in the ironic post nihilism trap, and it hurts to see people go down that hole. Their lives hollow out, they seem to lose the ability to take anything seriously.
Truly a tragedy for young minds to disengage from the world in this way.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Wonderful post. A truly enlightened parent should account for a child's natural rebelliousness in both the ways you mentioned.
Recognize that rebelliousness is a natural part of a child's development and thus give them space to rebel. There is little more suffocating (and frankly gross) than a parent or teacher who cheerleads their child's rebellion or sexual exploration.
Employ a good negotiating strategy. If you want to buy a car for $20,000 you might make a first offer at $18,000. Likewise, if you want your child to be a good little liberal, start with a more conservative mindset. I don't think there is too much room to the left of the modern progressive mindset for a child to rebel without harming their mental health, see: trans issues. And while its theoretically possible for a child to rebel by becoming a conservative (Alex P. Keaton style) as far as I know this rare creature has never been sighted in the wild.
A close friend of mine was telling me just the other day how she was raising her (very young) kids to understand that bad words weren't the classic religious/scatological/sexual terms, those were fine, it was slurs against someone's identity that were offensive. Fuck is fine, faggot is bad. A cunt is just a part of a woman's body, but chink is bad even if you are talking about armor. I told her she was doing this exactly wrong, because true inborn profanity processes through a different part of your brain than the rest of your language, if you teach him that all words are fine except slurs, then the only thing he can yell when someone cuts him off in traffic and get that kind of satisfaction is a slur.
Like, remember when you were, idk, 11 or 12 or 13, and you started cursing for the first time? It felt so good, it scratched such an itch. The only way her kid can scratch that itch is going to be by yelling ethnic and homophobic slurs, because those are the only "bad" words he knows. Indeed, if he fully imbibes what his mother wants to teach him, they are the only bad words that exist. He's going to have that itch, everyone does, you have to give him something to scratch it with.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Oh fuck yeah! I am so glad that we have a poster here who is experienced with the Hermetic tradition; I’ve become extremely curious about it as of late and am interested in diving into learning as much about it as I can; I hope we see more of your posts like this, as I personally would be likely to find them very useful. I might even ask you for some recommendations! Thank you for this.
More options
Context Copy link
I like your argument, but to put a different spin on it I'd say we've lost the Sythesis piece. Or in other words, 'adults' nowadays are engaging in Extended Adolescence, basically refusing to grow up and continuing to act like children well into their later years.
This type of behavior is exemplified by shows in the 2000s like Gilmore Girls, where you have a single mother who is consistently acting like a teenage girl, while literally getting emotional support and advice from her teenage daughter. You can have your cake and eat it too folks - have a kid while also having a fun teenage buddy to chat about boys with!
I'm curious what exactly caused the shift from rebellion to 'growing-up' - was it a certain amount of outside pressure to conform or become a productive member of society that we lack? Was it religion pushing people to get right with God? Or was it something to do with women's liberation and the female love of youth?
Realistically, a mix of all three. I'm curious to see how we can salvage a social technology that will force people to actually grow up in a reasonable time frame.
Another way to put this is that it's narcissism all the way down.
Oh man I have thoughts on Gilmore Girls. ((Weirdly this is "Chick flick analysis on themotte" day for me)) My wife watches it all the time, it's her anxiety blanket of a show. Which is weird because she kind of hates it too.
The whole series is fascinating when you consider it in light of the reboot. To summarize for the vast majority of straight men who have no idea what I'm talking about: Gilmore Girls tells the story of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, a mother and daughter living in Connecticut, and then to a lesser extent Rory's wealthy grandmother Emily. Lorelai got pregnant as a teenager and ran away from home, despite coming from a wealthy family she worked her way up through service industry jobs at hotels because she cut contact with her rich parents after getting pregnant, raising Rory as a single mother with virtually no contact with the father and no long term partners (iirc); Rory is a brilliant child and always presented as destined for great things, going to a fancy private high school before going to Yale. As Dag said, the core of the show is the mother-daughter relationship, and to bring it back to my original diagram it fits right in! Emily is the thesis, staid, stubborn and traditional, a controlling DAR matron; who uses her money to control the lives of her subordinates and family. Lorelai is the antithesis, she chooses to cut all contact with her wealthy parents and work low-class jobs rather than put up with her mother's controls. Rory is the synthesis, the star-baby, contrasted with every other character that must choose a side she is all things to all people, she is able to bring peace between the prior generations, she is comfortable with the commoners and with the aristos, she can walk with Kings [but not] lose the common touch. Her graduation from Yale with plans for a sparkling journalism career is the culmination of the first run of the show, all is solved and all is golden, Rory will avoid Emily and Lorelai's mistakes while hanging on to their positive qualities.
Then Netflix came along with a truckload of money to run a brief reboot Gilmore Girls: A Year in The Life which ran four episodes, and revisited everyone's favorite characters. (Except Melissa McCarthy, who they could only afford for a cameo after she was a side character for the original) A bunch of irrelevant shit happens, but the main points are (spoilers ahead) Rory is unemployed and broke and moves back in with her mother, having failed to have a sterling journalistic career or to succeed in any other field, has no long term romantic partner while having a series of flings, and in the climactic final scene reveals to her mother that she is pregnant. Which sets the entire prior point of the show on its head: Rory isn't the starchild after all, she is instead trapped in a cycle of failure and single motherhood. Rendered incapable of forming real romantic commitments by the lack of a father figure or a strong male presence in her early life, she allows herself to be used as a side piece, convincing herself that her refusal to commit is her freedom, when in reality it traps her and those around her in an endless cycle of slavery. The first seasons of the show are tragic in light of this conclusion, knowing that Rory won't make good makes her journey through Chilton and Yale Sisyphean rather than Herculean, the ultimate destination is right back where her mother started: single, jobless, and pregnant in small town Connecticut.
At a meta level, this is the difference between late Washington Consensus/End-Of-History plots (Gilmore Girls debuted in 2000), and post-Obama plots. The first seven seasons hope to reconcile the family, to bring everything together in a hopeful conclusion. The Netflix reboot tells us all of that was nonsense, we're all trapped in a cycle of failure, nothing matters or will ever get better. The characters that come out of the reboot looking smarter are those who didn't try: Lane and Zack "tend their garden;" they have kids together, they still play music, and they're happier than the Faustian characters like Rory and Paris who were supposed to be their natural betters. The best Rory can hope for is that her mother's journey will bring understanding to her journey with her own child...but how much fucking understanding do we need before one of these girls can father a baby in wedlock for a change?
I'm coming from a place of complete ignorance here; before reading this summary, my best guess at Gilmore Girls would have been that it was some dramedy about a friend group of female senior citizens. Do you know how longtime fans of the original series tended to react to the Netflix sequel? The way you describe it would make me guess that it got a mostly negative reception, similar to many sequels/reboots/reimaginings/etc. that have come out in the past decade, and I'm curious what the actual reception was.
I can only really tell you that my wife hated it. It was probably something that everyone watched but no one was really satisfied by.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I agree with your summary, although I'd argue Rory and Lorelei's fall from grace started in the last two seasons (I had to check the Wikipedia summary to remind myself of when stuff happened exactly) where it seemed like the writers had them just starting to act much dumber than usual in attempt to create dramatic tension. It felt like the writers were actively avoiding letting them be happy. And the reboot just turned that up to 11.
To be fair, although the show focuses on their point of view so it's not obvious at a glance, Rory and Lorelei are pretty terrible self-centered people, so it's hard to feel too bad for them.
Man, I could put up a whole new effortpost about how bad Rom-Com TV shows are at writing happy marriages. Having written themselves towards a marriage that should be happy, the writers typically either need to throw up strange obstacles to create tension, toss one of the characters the idiot ball so they fuck it up, or they just draw out the process of getting together/marriage for so long that the audience gets restless.
GG suffers from the latter in the late seasons, Rory has met Logan and Lorelei is with Luke openly, but they can't just have happy marriages so they keep drawing it out with increasingly strange obstacles and weird reticence to commit. HIMYM did the idiot ball thing, from what I recall of friends complaining about it, with the couples creating drama by going off the deep end completely at random. SATC would have no idea how to write Charlotte's first marriage, so they just gave him terminal ED. The Office, I never watched in detail but people generally say it peaked at the Wedding and declined thereafter.
Even the Big Bang Theory, I will go to the mat arguing that the first season was brilliant (to me as a nerdy 16 year old with a group of friends fairly well described as a mix of Indians, Jews, and autists). But they had no idea how to write it once they coupled the characters up. The first season is a classic Rom-Com, and ends with the leads kissing, as a self contained story it works. After that the show went into terminal decline, they had no idea how to deal with the unrealistic aftermath.
Hooray for the /comments page. It's a shame there's no "/comments, but just the ones replying to two-week-old threads, since everything else is easier to read threaded" page.
I'd love to see this in Friday Fun some time.
... especially if you've got any thoughts about "Mad About You". I barely remember it now (though now I find out there was recently an 8th season, produced decades after season 7!?!), and what I remember does include a few "idiot ball" episodes, but I remember thinking decades ago that it really stood out from the crowd of implausibly-drawn-out "Sam and Diane" "will they wont they" romantic melodrama subplots. The main characters were a happily married couple from episode 1, the show A plots were about their interpersonal issues with each other and family and friends, and yet IIRC they managed to get several seasons out of that without most of the spousal issues being ridiculously foolish or melodramatic. IMDB says there wasn't much quality decline until halfway through season 6.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I haven't watched the show, but doesn't this go back to the basic rule of Story that the OG happy ending is a wedding, always was and always will be and the audience know this, and don't want to change it.
If you run Rory's story forward, either she needs to get married (which from the perspective of the people making the show defeats the point), or she needs to end up in a relationship such that the future wedding can be implied, or you need to deal with the fact that she is going to end up with a life the vast majority of the audience don't want.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I agree. Have you read Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age? I would not call this the thesis of that book, exactly, but it is certainly hinted at very strongly. A couple of quotes:
And:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link