site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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.

24
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I’m back to the usual refrain of every year since about 2015:

“How is this becoming partisan?”

Someone breaks in and makes a probably-political, certifiably-insane attack on a public figure. This is obviously bad. Stochastic terrorism is bad. Defending the actions is (or should be?) basically off the table.

That leaves deflection. First responses in last week’s thread: “gosh those wacky Green Party members” followed by a squabble over whether or not DePape’s emphatic support for QAnon and Trump meant he counted as Republican. Now: one of the most powerful men in America memeing about how the attacker might have been a gay escort, and thus...it’s a Democrat own-goal? What?

I’m reminded of any number of events in summer 2020 in which people tried to rationalize rioting. “Yeah, I get that XYZ was unjust, but I’d like to step back to the part where y’all decided to start burning stuff.” When the bad thing is indefensible, we are more likely to see deflection.

Presumably the motivation is getting out ahead of the Other Team abusing their actual, legitimate criticism. Even if Democrats somehow resisted the lure of equating DePape with mainstream Republicans—which he clearly was not—, there’s still hay to be made of the extremists. It’s the traditional setup for a little “something has to be done.” But is throwing out bullshit theories really the best way to counter it?

I suspect that the answer is no, and that the mainstream GOP response is a more measured rejection. I don’t have evidence for this at the moment; if anyone has examples of GOP officials making public statements on the matter, I’d like to see them. But my theory is that when the official policy is silence, in the era of social media, that’s effectively handing a megaphone to the fringe.

But my theory is that when the official policy is silence, in the era of social media, that’s effectively handing a megaphone to the fringe.

Yes, "silence is violence" has been the Progressive party line for a long time.

The trick is that, frequently, the yeschad.jpg response is the correct one; violence upon people who falsely accuse others of crimes for political gain rather than following the established law and procedure for that (on both sides) is generally called "justice".

Stochastic terrorism is bad.

I believe I can safely say this about the past: I, and a few other dorks I know, would have cheered the death of any mayor that closed their town down and was seen eating lobster in a near by town.

So, maybe?

Defending the actions is (or should be?) basically off the table.

You may not like being compared to Stalin. You may not think you and Stalin have much in common politically. You might abhor Stalin and his politics. And yet, so long as comparing you to Stalin is an effective tactic, you have no choice but to defend yourself against it. So long as this action can be credibly linked to conservatives, they have no choice but to claim that beating up politician husbands is the gasp of the oppressed and the voice of the downtrodden.

Aye, that's what I was trying to include as getting out ahead. I'd rather Democrats not try to conflate this dude with the mainstream right, such that Republicans didn't reach for dumb justifications...but I'm not holding my breath for everyone to be reasonable. Given that Democrats are going to push hard on this, sitting around and doing nothing is no good. Saying "whoops, my bad" is worse, especially if you didn't do it.

But are outlandish accusations any more effective? Maybe I'm typical-minding, but my reflex to gay-escort or pizza-parlor conspiracies is "are you serious?" It loses credibility compared to quiet disapproval and disavowal.

I present, as evidence, the measured response from party officials. (This could also be down to branding, as no one would be impressed by Mitch McConnell trying to play firebrand.) I think that career politicians are content to quietly let the accusations smolder out, but outsiders and/or randos on Twitter have to use a different calculus. What's best for engagement isn't necessarily best in a general sense.

A shady member of a mildly-corrupt political dynasty based in San Francisco cavorting with an obviously off his rocker gay prostitute isn't totally implausible, especially given the dude was arrested in his underwear. And especially given that the political dynasty in question is extremely unpopular.

The hell?

No, bringing mentally ill hookers to your house is not normal. Neither for random citizens nor for politicians, unpopular or otherwise. Not even in California, har har.

It is not maximally implausible, just incredibly so. Literally incredibly: I wouldn't expect it, and believing it without a stitch of evidence is...unwise. I shouldn't have to point out that we have DePape, in his own words, talking about "punishment" for Nancy Pelosi, and how he was "fighting against tyranny." It's batshit crazy--but it is strictly less batshit crazy than saying all this, but lied to the police to cover for the man he just hospitalized with a hammer.

“How is this becoming partisan?”

Because we live in the era of hate hoaxes, lies, etc.

Jussie Smollett happened, basically every instance of feces-swasticas or n-words on college campuses, if solved, ends up being done by a black or jew. Kavanaugh.

Everyone notices these patterns. Being a victim is one of the greatest currencies in the modern media. If sympathy and prestige is granted for being hit with a hammer, the incentive to get hit is obvious. If we just called everyone who got assaulted by homeless schitzos losers, which is more accurate historically than what we do now, the incentive for hoaxes would go away, and people would stop suspecting hoaxes.

if anyone has examples of GOP officials making public statements on the matter, I’d like to see them.

Senate Republicans have made the usual statements, e.g.

https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1586081299076419586

https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2022/10/sasse-statement-on-pelosi-attack

https://twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell/status/1586017719912210440

On the other hand, as far as I can tell there have been no comments from Trump or prominent House Republicans like McCarthy or Jordan. And conservative media has been markedly less measured, where aside from the rumormongering there's the position that this is really the fault of Democrats for failing to control crime (see also: MTG in the House).

Trump seems to have condemned the attack, but he couldn't avoid putting some spin on it.

Per The Hill:

Former President Trump in an interview Sunday called the attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband in their San Francisco home a “terrible thing” as he railed against crime in Democrat-led cities. “With Paul Pelosi, that’s a terrible thing, with all of them it’s a terrible thing,” Trump said in an interview with Americano Media, a conservative Spanish language outlet. “Look at what’s happened to San Francisco generally. Look at what’s happening in Chicago. It was far worse than Afghanistan.”

It was far worse than Afghanistan

Per usual, Trump is god-damn right (insert Breaking Bad gif) ... death and decline in America is much worse than any other part of the world, but most especially the past of the world that for 2,000 years is unchanged - with all the negatives that entails. Sure, the almost 2,000 US deaths there is a shame, but the 175,000(ish) death of the Afghani are, I don't know, worth less than the weekend murders in Chicago. It's obviously a shame, it makes me hate America so much, I wish those Afghan's could be fat pieces of shit like me drinking IPA's on Halloween night while watching MNF and possibly ordering Mexican food (imagine an Afghani burrito? Bet that shit would be tight), but they're not. They're some kind of other that isn't me and it's a travesty. But fuck if we can't even make our own better, TF are we gonna do with the average Afghani? Let them live their lives? Ok - but that life is objectively terrible.

I'm pretty sure that your post is sarcastic, but I must note how easy it is to imagine an afghani burrito. I've more or less assembled such before, and it was great since chickpeas are way better than beans in my book.

I'm honestly not sure it's all that sarcastic. One thing I read into that was "Afghanistan and other parts of the world were never all that great, but we've had further to fall and we're getting there fast."

Thanks. This sort of quiet condemnation is pretty close to what I was expecting: polite solidarity. It’s decidedly not a mea culpa, which would be foolish, and it’s also not full-throated spin.

I’m not sure if the media response supports my theory. On one hand, it’s good sensationalism, especially reporting on meta-drama like Musk tweets. On the other, I expected more lockstep with the party.

When the bad thing is indefensible, we are more likely to see deflection.

But rioting isn't indefensible. Even the looting part. All one has to do is claim that the person whose store is getting looted owes his property to some widely denounced social force. Since one shouldn't be allowed gain from "crime" his title anulled to it, and anyone is free to take it. If the looters have excuse that they are victims of the very same force, well that just makes their looting a form of restitution.

One can quibble about the details, but looting as reparations is on solid logical grounds, assuming common legal principles and the progressive ideas regarding "white supremacy".

But defense of looting was multi-faceted: aforementioned "it happened, it was us, it was justified", the "it didn't happen" the "it happened, but it wasn't us".

There was some dissent, which admitted fault, but it was more about violent protests being ineffective/harmful for achieving their goals, than harms of violence itself. (This qualified denunciation of violence got the person who suggested twitter bachlash, but I forgot who it was.)

looting as reparations is on solid logical grounds

Yes, but there's established procedure to do that.

The fact that a partisan can't convince most of the country's power brokers to impose them is not an excuse to go levy that tax anyway; the concept that at the end of the day, that partisan is not allowed to deny you the ability to defend yourself against them if they try to do it anyway... is what the term "bearing arms" means.

No, it’s still not logical, and I don’t think that argument made much headway in the mainstream. I’m sure some people said it on Twitter; some of them were probably even serious. But the two options you linked were much more common.

For most people in the US, widespread violence is something that happens to other people. Defending on the facts is something reserved for people with skin in the game. Deflecting or denying is more likely for a bystander.

There was some dissent, which admitted fault, but it was more about violent protests being ineffective/harmful for achieving their goals, than harms of violence itself. (This qualified denounciation of violence got the person who suggested twitter bachlash, but I forgot who it was.)

You're thinking of David Shor.