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 -
I am a hlynkian right-wing progressive, and I don't recognize any of you as such.
Politically, my preferred outcome would be to exalt White bisexual antitheistic males above all others and make this identity the pass to being treated as aristocracy. I don't want meritocracy, equality of opportunity, judging the content of someone's character. I certainly don't want any retvrn. All I want is progressive stack with me at the top, laughing as I kick those below.
Aesthetically, I subscribe to everything my enemies love. Promiscuous girls with tattoos and one side of their head shaved make me go crazy. Some of my favorite sci-fi series are Ninefox Gambit and Gideon the Ninth (the same number in the title is not a coincidence, because nothing is ever a coincidence — the author of that reference is hardly a tradcath himself). I adore skyscrapers and strive to spend as little time in nature as humanly possible.
Does this describe anybody else here? And if it doesn't, you are not progressives with a palette swap, as alleged. And does this describe anyone anywhere at all?
Hlynka’s framework doesn’t really mean anything, it’s nonsensical, internally contradictory and deliberately designed primarily to include literally all his political enemies.
The core grain of truth is captured much more effectively by Scott’s own ‘blue tribe’ designation, which includes for example neoreactionaries, much of the dissident right and many urbane conservatives of the more centrist persuasion.
On the dissident right, “racist libs” is a longstanding accusation toward eg. racists who supposedly aren’t sufficiently hostile towards feminism or gay rights. But there too it’s largely a form of in-group policing, much like SecureSignals’ exhortation that any reactionary who isn’t sufficiently hostile to Jews isn’t actually a “dissident rightist”.
Because aristocracy is a hereditary status, I don’t think it’s possible to have one without women. And - at least depending on the test you propose to verify bisexuality (top or bottom?) - there are probably far too many eligible men to qualify.
I don’t think your ideology is wholly unusual. A milder version (sci-fi techno-futurist social liberalist anti-democracy) has its supporters in Silicon Valley. I suppose Peter Thiel is gay rather than bi, but he comes close.
All I want to do is to live in a civilized and functioning society. I have nothing against nativist sentiment (except in as much as it affects me) but do not demand that this place be peopled primarily by my co-ethnics (drawn broadly or narrowly), however I want it to be a safe, peaceful, well-managed place. Somewhere the weak are cared for but the strong are celebrated. Somewhere where the best have (many) more children than the worst. Somewhere people marry young and happily, and stay married. Somewhere where the streets are always clean, where the people are fit and healthy, where the buildings are beautiful, where crafts are celebrated. A beautiful society, full of beautiful people, who live well, who drink but not to excess, who spend lively evenings singing on the piazza, who prioritize friends and family above work, but who work hard. Who live in cities that are neither full of ugly glass towers or sprawling McMansion suburbs, but instead draw from Haussmann’s Paris and Regency stucco London; cities of boulevards and parks and six-story buildings built in traditional styles, symmetrical, with high ceilings and large windows. I abhor the mob above all else; among all modernity’s ugliness democracy is perhaps the most grating institution.
I have few views about other tribes, sexualities or identities except in so much as they may or may not make such a vision more difficult to achieve. I happily work and am friends with people of many identities from around the world.
Does this make me a conservative?
Your almost lyrical phrasing in this paragraph reminds me of Le Guin's description of Omelas. I can practically smell the drooz.
It's a lovely vision, but to answer, I'd need to know: What would you be willing to do to make it real? How many mistakes and how much damage are you willing to tolerate along the way? And perhaps, what other qualities of this society would you be willing to sacrifice, to gain the ones you describe? (Universal suffrage, for example?)
It seems that you're in favor of progress in a particular direction, but that you happen to differ with the locally dominant group of progressives about what that direction should be. That rules out being a radical or reactionary. I tend to associate progressives as moving more quickly toward a destination, and conservatives as pulling back and slowing the rate of change to prevent mistakes. But I suppose there's no reason why a conservative couldn't have a positive vision of the future that they're working toward, just in a slow and cautious way.
Couldn't agree more.
There is a basic, universe level quirk of math that, I think, does a great job of capturing the conservative mindset:
The relative loss-gain imbalance; If I have a 10% reduction in any starting quantity, what do I need to reclaim to get back to even? It isn't 10%, it's about 11% (roughly).
Recovering from a mistake or loss takes more effort than the magnitude of the loss itself. Therefore, massive changes happening quickly in any direction are a bad thing. I am some (rare) times empathetic to progressive policy intended outcomes but their proposed policy functions are simply too large, too fast and, therefore, the risk of a fuck-up is so large that I think, in many cases, it represents a society level threat.
Yeah. From some non-political fields, I can tell that my heart is progressive, but through bitter experience my head is conservative, if I stop to use it. It's very who-whom.
When I'm the one pushing for the changes, I've thought enough about them (of course I have!) that I feel confident that they'll be a net benefit. But I can't see what everyone else's life is like, and for any long term project, I need widespread buy-in from all sectors. If I overturn their world, I won't get that. And then, of course, if it's someone else trying to push their (poorly thought out, most likely) changes on me that I haven't had time to fully examine the consequences of, well, that of course is a problem. :-)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
"About as much as our current society is tolerating" seems like a reasonable answer. Your questions seems to assume the current system is making some sort of effort to avoid mistakes, but a cursory glance at the current state of affairs will tell you l that you could regularly ruin the lives of tens of thousands of people, and still come out on top relative to today.
While 2rafa fancies herself an aristocrat, I'm a pleb and proud of it, and I'd take that deal Ina heartbeat.
The whole democratic system is deliberately designed to minimize any chance the common people will have any kind of impact on policy, while insisting it is absolutely essential that they participate. At least spare me the humiliation of having to pretend I'm a part if the decision making process.
No, I'm being completely straightforward here, simply asking what 2rafa would prefer. (It's a shame that that's hard to get across, in text.)
Personally, I think the dominant progressive element in America is running amuck, and making changes that sound to them like good ideas, without any clue about whether those changes will be implemented effectively or have the desired results. By my own criteria, I'm much more conservative than they are, and that's not even considering that my ideal world is probably closer to 2rafa's than the woke ideal.
So would I. I was going to originally put in something about Heinlein-style restriction of voting to veterans. I'd also be in favor of instituting Singaporean caning instead of imprisonment or fines, at least for minor crimes.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes it does! Specifically, the vision you describe appears to be one of boring stagnation and endless, cozy mediocrity (it's also so stereotypically European). I would much prefer the world to be like the SF Bay Area that despite (there are enough arguments that this is actually "because of") its many flaws, produces amazing things like Google, Nvidia, SpaceX, OpenAI, and the general research output of Stanford and UC Berkeley. The average person would definitely be much worse off, but the greatness it produces would be worth it, both for making the future nicer and for making society feel like it has an actual soul.
This part in particular:
would grind technological and scientific progress to a halt since it dramatically underestimates how much hard work and obsession is needed to make breakthroughs. The architectural preferences also suggest an aversion to experimentation which, while it can produce a lot of short term ugliness, is necessary in the long run to avoid boring homogeneity and settling for not-so-great local optima.
I don't know how properly to argue that my preference is better than yours---your vision is extremely cozy and comfortable. I would start with a worry that your world would collapse through not being able to progress enough to keep up with population growth, resource depletion, or unexpected disasters. You're settling for the good that we have right now instead of taking the risks necessary to either improve it or protect it in the future.
I realize that a lot of this is down to personal views on what constitutes short-term and local optima, but I don't buy that there is significant experimentation or perceivable progress going on. AFAICT, humanity has been stuck in glass, steel and concrete + mildly-to-weirdly-deformed geometric shape architecture for prestige buildings since roundabout the end of WWII. How many more of these are needed before we can move on? For more practical housing we went from stuff like this to this in the suburbs or from this to this in the urban core.
Here in Berlin, old buildings command significant rent premiums and the districts which feature coherent blocks of old architecture untouched by the bombs or post-war city planners are by far the most popular. I realize it would be bad and boring if we tiled the universe with brownstones or Parisian boulevards, but it doesn't seem to me like modernity has really been much more dynamic and creatively vibrant than the past in terms of architecture, instead we just have a different kind of monotony, albeit one that many people, me included, perceive as aesthetically inferior.
That Antwerp Port House looks like it wants to be a spaceship or something. I think the Japanese are onto something with all their fictional city-ships (e.g. Macross, Xylem), and that this is a sign of how weird modern architecture can be redeemed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Porque no los dos? It seems like most of the pre-war innovators lived in a world closer to the Family Values and Functional Civilization world than the San Francisco Bay world, sometimes in their own libertine bubbles, sometimes in structures within the more conservative ambience.
It'd be great if we could have both of these things, with the ability for them to coexist without one trying to punish the other for their different values.
Nevertheless, I wonder if, even granting the world where Familyland and Siliconland weren't at each other's throats, I'd have to wonder if braindrain wouldn't lead to the same imbalance we see today. Species can niche partition, but can civilization?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
What is internally contradictory about Hlynka's thought, at least in the sense that it is significantly more internally contradictory than all other political ideologies? (All political ideologies except pure selfishness are internally contradictory to some extent). I'm not very familiar with his ideas, but from what I've seen out of his opinions the one that is most controversial here is that the alt-right is a form of progressivism, and while to me that seems like it's going too far, the milder version - that the alt-right and the woke are very similar - seems obviously true to me.
Both alt-rightists and wokists are people who see themselves as victimized minorities that are oppressed by an evil hegemony and are fighting a righteous political conflict against it. Both are obsessed with race, gender, and sexuality. Both primarily care about culture war issues and do not have much to say about more engineering-esque aspects of policy like, say, energy infrastructure. Both despise the liberal/moderate-conservative mainstream. Both are suspicious of voting and attracted to more direct kinds of political action. Both are attracted to various kinds of socialism, communitarianism, and redistributionism - wokes generally favor economic socialism for non-whites and non-males, whereas alt-rightists prefer economic socialism for "real Americans" (generally meaning "hard-working" middle-class white people). Alt-rightists often favor some sort of sexual socialism on top of that, they dislike the sexual free market as much as wokes dislike the economic one.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, and also a brazen elitist, but I imagine you knew that.
More options
Context Copy link
Yes.
More options
Context Copy link
There’s very little here I disagree with. Are you eligible to vote on July 4th? Would be curious which of the parties you think is most aligned to this value system.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link