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 wrote last week about how my circle was reacting poorly to the Trump win, but also how their reaction wasn't as bad as 2016. My latest update is, it's still pretty bad, probably worse than it was last week, but still not quite as bad as 2016. But I'm starting to get that feeling again like I'm the crazy one, simply on the basis that everyone I know in meatspace seems to think a complete disaster has befallen us. Furthermore, I think I need to retract my previous statement that my exposure to this strong sentiment is because I went to a very leftist college. I'm now seeing a lot more of this from people who I know outside of that school.
I have a number of people posting multiple times per day about some kind of issue du jour, ranging from high school boys chanting the Nick Fuentes thing, to screeds about how people will (literally) die due to Trump being in charge, for whatever reasons. And I spent the weekend with family and friends who wouldn't stop talking about it, also. It was a lot of signaling and complaining and without any real acknowledgement that over half of the country voted for Trump, including huge gains in lots of minority groups, and that maybe that means something.
So far, from a personal standpoint, this is not off to a good start, and I worry this next four years will be as personally trying as the previous four, with regards to my ability to keep my cool and not feel like a crazy person when surrounded by those in my life and their insistent attitude about Trump. Personally this is starting to make me want future Democrat wins, but not because I believe in the Democrats. If the dems win, my life mostly stays the same. If the Republicans win, my life gets worse just because people around me can't deal with it. But I also can't bring myself to really take these people's fears seriously, since I do feel like this chicken little routine happens every time a Republican gets elected (from my limited experience), without the Republicans even doing anything that bad.
Are other people also seeing an escalating level of this sentiment? It seems maybe like the anti Trump machine had some rusty gears and a slow start, but it's starting to get going again.
No, the mood around me has been jubilant. Much hay about the large gains with Hispanics. Granted, I went from a rad trad election watching party to deer camp.
But, of course, that’s precisely the point. Opposite filter bubbles exist. The anti-trump machine is, I would suggest, now confined entirely to one of them. It needs to expand or die. And it is upon this machine that lies the fate of the democrats, barring fraud. Democrats have two possible economic platforms- quasi socialist economic illiteracy and unpopular Goldman Sachs technocracy. Fully embracing one of them on a national level means losing key voters they need to win. Their social policy is far left extremism that, at best, is slightly less unpopular than republicans’ far right extremism(and that’s only for abortion, on other social issues the GOP wins). And of course there’s the trust issue with big swaths of the electorate.
The dems’ best hope in ‘28 is for a rape victim to die from an ectopic pregnancy right before the election during an oil price spike. Structurally it’s difficult for democrats to make credible signals of moderating.
I can't find it again in a cursory search of my browser history, but I know I saw a piece in a "legacy media" outlet asking how they deal with our situation wherein so much of the American public have turned against facts and truth and willfully chosen to be ignorant. To support this description of our current landscape, the author cited the well-surveyed decline of trust in the establishment media and increasing turn to alternate outlets; then immediately wondered how you fix people who have stopped trusting in Truth and have willfully turned to listening to liars instead.
It was pure Principal Skinner "Am I so out of touch? No. It's the children who are wrong" attitude. There's quite a lot of that these days. There's nothing wrong with the legacy media and its trustworthiness, it's the people who've stopped listening that need to change. There's nothing wrong with Democrat policies (except maybe compromising too much with the right), it's just that so many voters are driven by racial grievances and hate, and are beyond reasoning with. The Party and the Media did not fail the people, the people have failed the Party and Media. "[T]here aren’t people worth “winning over,” there’s just a country overwhelmingly clogged with trash to eliminate."
One pundit I saw was asking why the left did not have its own counterpart to Joe Rogan. I wanted to shout at the screen, "You did, and his name was Joe Rogan! You ostracized him because he was friendly with some people on the right."
I've been thinking about this as well, Joe Rogan has had a number of left-wing guests over the years and he's sympathetic to many left-wing ideas but he's "part of the right-wing misinformation machine" because he'll listen to right-wingers too. So a "liberal Joe Rogan" would have to: (1) never speak with a known right-winger, (2) immediately push back on any guest that happened to express a right-wing idea, (3) never utter or express sympathy for any right-wing idea himself, and (4) pay close attention to the ever-evolving liberal orthodoxy so he never accidentally violates rules 1-3.
There are guys with podcasts right now who follow all of these rules, but I seriously doubt anyone of that ilk could build a mass following among apolitical men the way Rogan has.
This is a good example of how the cultural left is led by its fringe. It's the extemists who set the course and steer the ship, and everyone else is eventually brought along for the ride, even perhaps unwittingly. At first it's a small cadre of extremely online culture warriors who start excommunicating Rogan for heresy, but it sort of trickles down until everyone understands, almost by cultural osmosis, that he has become untouchable and nobody should go on his show. Eventually, mainstream political pundits just take it for granted, because it's just common knowledge, that Rogan is some kind of far-right grifter and wonder why he doesn't have a left-wing counterpart.
While this dynamic can occur on the right, it's far less pronounced or successful, in my experience. It also seems most restricted to cultural issues on the left, because they've had far less success steering the economic ship.
We know that "just be nice" with the treasury doesn't work in the long run. Our economists are less susceptible to flim flam than our social scientists and culture warriors.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link