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 -
How about surrendering your beliefs to reality?
We ran the 90s liberalism experiment. It ended here. You blaming subversive elements is exactly the same as those old Marxists doing so in their time. It's as unconvincing and silly. If your order can't survive wreckers it loses the mandate of heaven.
You can stay a 90s liberal if you want, I even have some sympathy for that from my cold liberal point of view, but that's embracing the same sentiment as being a communist post 1991. Your ideology is a dead doctrine. Young people are not registering to go debate the virtues of free speech and constitutions, they have more pressing and severe concerns. Such as the constant violations of their natural rights.
I submit to you that what you really ought to care about is liberty, not liberalism. And that rolling with the punches of history is a lot more productive than stubbornly demanding that things never change. In fact a return to Hobbes and Bentham would suit your political family better than rehashing Mill.
Defend your postmodern beliefs directly, instead of appealing to their popularity.
How do you retvrn to hobbes and bentham if foucault’s right, exactly ?
Through the realities of violence my friend.
The world is a scary and angry place, a war of all against all, a disorder of wills, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And yet in this chaos, we can have stability, as long as our small tight knit group is ready to sign an alliance. A simple pragmatic alliance that would have us regard each other as friends, and anyone else as enemies. And afford each other ancient rights.
This is no holy or moral arrangement, it is no sacred covenant or enlightened scientific government. It is simply an accord of convenience, which we may rescind if the night watchman becomes drunk on power. We can choose to have liberty because we like it, and for no other reason. And return to the ancient unthought prejudices and traditions of Englishmen, not because they are the universal destination of history or a logical necessity but because we simply desire them.
But what of this being undone of that same whim? That was always the case. Therefore, sharpen your sword, load your cannon and encrypt your hard drive.
That does not explain our different positions, iggy, old branch. When I denounce someone like putin, which you sort of support, as a corrupt murderer, my criticism does not rely on him breaking a ‘sacred covenant’. And when I call trump a liar, the truth he tramples on is not an illusion.
I wouldn't say I support Putin, my feelings towards him are of respect. I appreciate good statesmanship and I would like my people's corrupt murderer leaders (there exists no other kind of leader) to be half as good at corrupt murdering, because then my people would flourish instead of wallow in misery.
Alas, the Truth you worship is indeed the same kind of religious object that must die a God's death. Or at least a protestant reformation.
The careful study of prestigious institutions cannot reliably produce the truth insofar as it's output is connected to government. And claims that it can are just wishes to preserve an illusion that exists for power's sake. The New Atlantis is built on a lie.
The Cathedral holds no epistemological high ground on Donald J. Trump. They are both liars. Trump is just a more honest kind of liar. A sleazy car salesman instead of a diplomat.
I'd say I like the sleaze better but this is not true. In truth I have to be sympathetic to Trump, because unlike his opposition, he doesn't wish death and misery upon me in very direct ways. No Trumpist ever tried to close my bank account, to get me fired, imprisoned or to kill me. He chose to lend his hand in friendship when the respectable institutions have scorned me and my own to the death for decades. That owes some loyalty however you look at it.
You think the russian people are flourishing ? As bad as our elites possibly are, they have not sent us to die in some ditch for some retarded historical larp.
Our elites may not differ in kind, especially if you compare them to some ideal of incorruptible honesty and virtue, but they differ in degree. They may lie here and there, but trump lies more because he does not care at all about the truth. And Putin does not care at all if his people die.
I understand your frustrations with being insulted and stuff (although really, the worse offenders are your postmodern cousins. It’s not me and my people’s doing ; if anything, we were sorry to lose you), but one can always do way worse than government by liberal elites. Just look anywhere else.
I've seen Russia in the 90s. Pulling back from that abyss is worth a crown. You'd have to stack the bodies pretty high to compensate that upside, especially in a place like Russia.
I'm not condoning the senseless waste of human life, never have, since the first day, but as you know I blame Boris Johnson and what drove him for quite a bit of it.
Putin's far from having clean hands, but the blood splashes a ways further than you may like to admit
Power never cares about the truth. Denying that is one of the core conceits of liberalism: scientific government.
Keep denying this truth at your own risk.
I took great pains to exile myself to "anywhere else". The best countries in the world in my view are not Liberal except Switzerland.
My friend's boss has been jailed for standing up for free speech in that liberal world of yours and won't put a foot there anymore. And that's after escaping Russia.
I can do better than Liberal elites. I am enjoying better right now. Even on ideologically Liberal terms. Try to have a honest discussion of the heresies of biology in the West, see what happens to you. So much for the marketplace of ideas.
And that's to say nothing of the utter self betrayal that liberal economics has become. Bastiat has been rolling in his grave, and not because of some populist's tariffs.
The only reason we let russians blame the west/liberalism for their 90s economic woes is pity for being so shameless and pathetic. The awareness and agency of an 8-year old kid. They really thought that if they mouthed magical words like capitalism and liberalism, their crumbling garbage economy would be instantly fixed, and if not, they would be freed from all responsibility. They’re still there now, taking no responsibility, obsequiously following and approving whatever their rulers tell them, as if it were a religious ritual.
The anti-west allies of russia (cuba, north korea) got it worse, an entire generation of malnourished dwarves.
You’re not citing these better-run countries you are admiring and enjoying, I can’t argue against a figment of your imagination.
We have them here, and nothing happens. I’m very much anti-censorship, but even with it, I think you can stack liberal democracies against its credible rivals and they come out ahead on individual liberty.
I think your entire ideology is based on a strawman of liberalism. For example, you guys rail against the ‘liberal rules-based international order’, and when russia invades some country you say: “you see, there is no such thing”, as if the LIO was a supernatural being or a ‘sacred covenant’ whose existence was disproven by the lack of a miraculous intervention. And so, seemingly, everything is still alright and we should do nothing.
But of course the LIO was never real in that sense. Real are the consequences that follow the realization that russia is not an economic partner, but a threat and an enemy. If there was no LIO, or if we were in the past, we would already be at war with russia for attacking our vassal.
I live in the real world, not in the construct of philosophers, and down here, liberal democracies are the most economically successful.
I certainly don't. Maybe you can point the finger at some economists, but broadly it was the combination of Soviet idiocy and oligarch looting. Putin still gets credit for cleaning up the mess, as Napoleon once did for cleaning that of France.
The Republic of Singapore is one.
Nothing? We got kicked out of the last website, the philosopher this board traces his lineage to got doxxed by the paper of record, and it's a pseudonymous forum.
Nothing happens? Plenty already did.
I guess being a Liberal for a decade and reading a ton of theory must mean I know nothing of the contents of the ideology.
Enjoy your lines going up because of debasement, that's your prerogative, so long as you do it away from me.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link