site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32896 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Richard Hanania's recent article about how, according to him, this year has shown that liberalism is stronger than many had previously thought inspired me to wonder about what comes first, the liberalism or the success. I would guess that this question is probably meaningless since the answer is that they arise at the same time. At the very least, it is probably not as simple as the liberalism coming first and the success resulting from it.

I was wondering what people here would think about the matter so I will re-post my comment here:

I suspect that a common mistake is to think that liberalism is the state of being of a civilization in which most people support liberalism, whereas the reality is more that liberalism is the state of being of a civilization in which no authoritarian group has managed to completely dominate the others. I suspect that most people who consciously believe in liberalism would become dictators if they could. They do not think that they would, but if the avenues to total rule opened for them they would easily find rationalizations to make total rule by themselves seem altruistic - for example, "we need temporary authoritarianism with us in charge in order to guarantee the long-term survival of liberalism". So liberalism is not the state of being of a civilization which is populated mostly by actual liberals. It is the state of being of a civilization in which multiple competing wannabe authoritarian groups are managing to keep each other in check with none succeeding at gaining total power and completely dominating all the others.

And if this is true, then maybe it is worth it to revise the theory that liberalism leads to successful societies and to say that yes, that is probably true but it may be even more true that successful societies lead to liberalism. It takes a vigorous society to have multiple competing power centers none of which ever manage to come to completely dominate the others. On the other hand, for a society to have only one truly successful power center is a sign of weakness. Such a society lacks the vigor to produce more strong power centers, hence its politics becomes unipolar as one pole crushes the rest.

If this is true - not that I am convinced it is, but if it is - then it is easy to see why liberalism is associated with successful societies. Authoritarian societies are ones that are too weak to prevent themselves from being dominated by one single power center. Liberal societies by definition are those which have been strong enough to have multiple successful power centers that have endured.

whereas the reality is more that liberalism is the state of being of a civilization in which no authoritarian group has managed to completely dominate the others.

So medieval Europe was liberal?

I also think you underestimate the impact of ideas. There have been many times when society could - and did- crush minorities. There's nothing that says you can't actually crush - for example - a sexual minority (especially since, in the early days of the movement, they have weaker group consciousness and none of the strong regional centers an ethnic group like the Kurds might have).

But many of those minorities arguably have outsized power now. How did that change occur? Appeal to certain liberal principles.

This is not to say that people are consistently maximally liberal (since no one agrees on what that means) but they're also not purely frustrated totalitarians.

(The rest is just the Competition Theory of Western Dominance, which I think goes back to...Montesquieu? As good a theory as any)

So medieval Europe was liberal?

Medieval Europe wasn't a country, it was a ton of tiny authoritarian countries -- a continent tiled by tiny tyrannies. The US isn't like that, no state is close to tyrannical by medieval European standards, even the Daly family or whatever didn't have close to the local power of a medieval king or lord, and even the worst covid-style authoritarian excesses in the US still preserved the right of exit for all involved.

It's like saying that ISPs aren't monopolies because there are a lot of them. There are a lot of them, but the average household has only one provider available. They are monopolies, they are just local monopolies. I think OP's point holds.

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