site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   35166 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So much of the rhetoric right now is that Trump's rally in MSG was or was like a Nazi rally. Only looking superficially at social media, I am not seeing a thesis or high level argument except plain assertion and vague comparison that the Nazi's also held rallies. I don't think it's controversial to say that part of the recent messaging is a renewed "Trump is a Nazi" message, partly sparked by a controversal claim that Trump supposedly said he wanted generals like Hitler had or that he admired them or something.

Campaign rhetoric? sure. But clearly some people really believe Trump is a Nazi? Can somebody help me understand the claim? Not necessarily the veracity, but what the substantative argument is. I am not a Trump fan, nor do I buy into the hype around him, so I'm not here to defend him. Neither am I particularly a student of history. My understanding of WWII is general. I am on the fence about voting Trump. Yet, as a non-TDS sufferer, I really do not understand what the Trump is a Nazi claim is trying to convince me of. Can anyone lay out the argument and why Trump is Hitler sufficiently captures a real claim about the dangers of his presidency. (Again not looking for veracity, I'm trying to understand what the claim means.)

I will start by shooting some low hanging fruit of my low-information confusion.

  • Trump is clearly not a 'literal' member of the Nazi party.
  • It does not seem like Trump wants to invade or conquer European neighbors.
  • Trump does not seem to hate Jews.
  • If the claim boils down to white supremacy, why is the better comparison not with America's own racist history (in other words, I would grok what a 'Trump is KKK' argument was getting at better here.)
  • Was Hitler particularly and uniquely motivated by closing a broken border?
  • Is the argument that any mass deportation rounds up to Holocost level evil?
  • Am I supposed to understand it as 'Hitler' is just secular for 'the devil' and it simply means 'Trump is Evil' without any more substantative depth intended than if someone called Obama 'the devil'?

This article is from a historian who thinks Trump is fascist. He points to these specific things:

  • Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual

Donald Trump claims immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation,” a turn of phrase used by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf. He also vilifies racial or quasi-racial groups: Nazis spread libels about Jews, Trump falsely spreads baseless rumors about Haitian immigrants, “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” warns his followers that “Your children are in danger. You can’t go to school with these people [immigrants], these people are from a different planet.” In his first campaign, he promised what he described as a “Muslim ban.”

There are plans to operationalize these views, including the creation of mass detention (concentration?) camps to facilitate mass deportations, which Trump has made clear will include at least some immigrants currently in the country legally.

  • Associated with a Centralized Autocratic Government Headed by a Dictatorial Leader

This one is almost too easy: Trump says, “‘You’re not going to be a dictator are you?’ I said ‘No, no, no, other than day one.” And later, “I only want to be a dictator for one day.” Please scroll up to see how other grants of ‘temporary’ dictatorial powers to fascists turned out. It is a claim he has reiterated, rather than softened.

  • Severe Economic and Social Regimentation

Trump also proposes to radically restructure the US economy through an across-the-board 20% tariff on all goods entering the United States, discouraging trade. That’s actually a very traditional fascist economic policy: fascist governments tend to favor ‘autarky‘ – closed, self-sufficient economic systems (Adam Tooze in his book Wages of Destruction goes in to extensive detail on Nazi dreams of autarky) though they don’t generally achieve autarky because it turns out that it is a terrible economic system that doesn’t work very well. Still, massive across the board tariffs certainly seem to count as severe economic regimentation.

  • Forcible Suppression of Opposition

Trump has said that there is an “enemy within” which he would handle with military force. Asked to clarify who he meant as the “enemy within” he has clarified that he means political opponents like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Asked to back off this rhetoric, he has instead doubled down on it, expanding his ‘enemies’ to include the press. He’s also threatened members of the January 6 Select Committee, declaring “they should be sent to jail,” and is now on social media threatening to prosecute anyone he claims ‘cheated’ against him, keeping in mind that Trump falsely claims he was cheated in the last election, a point on which no court in the land agrees.

Note as well how the Italian fascists suppressed political opposition not through state action but through state inaction – by refusing to stop their squads of violent thugs who were intimidating and murdering opponents. Likewise, Trump has promised repeatedly to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, “on day one”, effectively a promise of impunity for his most violent supporters.

I think this is all kind of ridiculous, and if these four items are the mark of Fascism, then I could easily make a comparison to the Democratic party.

  • Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual

DEI, Affirmative Action, celebrating immutable traits over individual accomplishment, etc.

  • Associated with a Centralized Autocratic Government Headed by a Dictatorial Leader

Which party would like to give power back to the states on issues like school choice, abortion, etc? And which party in contrast has been encouraging centralized power? Which party wants to remove the electoral college and pack the Supreme Court the minute they lost control of it?

  • Severe Economic and Social Regimentation

Which side wanted vaccine passports and to shut down "non-essential businesses?" Which side is currently arguing for price ceilings?

  • Forcible Suppression of Opposition

Which side is currently prosecuting a politician under "novel legal theories?" Which side has been calling for censoring political opponents on social media?

It seems to me that Fascism (and in the downstream, Nazi-ism) has features that has always been acceptable in the United States in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Being able to compare your political enemies to Nazis is just a matter of who has control of the talking heads at this time.

Devereaux's citations for defining fascism are an online dictionary and Eco's points of ur-fascism. Neither are a serious analysis of what fascism is. Devereaux writes as an academic, but he didn't think to look at a single academic definition of fascism? He's a historian, and he didn't make any historical survey?

The post is lazy. It should not be taken seriously.

What really irked me was that he ended his two month hiatus early just to post that.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats