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 -
This is why I often find the barrage of accusations you throw at me disingenuous. I do not claim history started yesterday or claim things "shouldn't matter." You are as usual throwing a tossed salad of vaguely related insinuations - Trace therefore lack of comment on political assassinations therefore something about a years-ago prank against LoTT (which I joined in condemning at the time, btw)...
I disagree with @FCfromSCC that we are at a point where there is no longer a norm against political violence, that this norm was destroyed by Blues, or that Blues in general are pro-assassination. I believe him that he encounters Blues on the regular who say things like this. If you say you do, I will take your word for it. While I probably am in a much more Blue bubble than him, I don't encounter them that often but it does happen. I think political violence is bad all around and I think most sane (not-on-the-Internet) people agree.
Now it's possible I'm wrong. Some Happening may prove me wrong in a tragic and terrible way. But for now I stand by my position, and I am tired of you vaguely (or specifically) implying I'm a lying hypocrite every time I say "No, actually, we Blues do not think that way."
Non-sarcastically: I read this three times and I am still not quite sure what you are trying to say here. (Other than that I am a hypocrite, for Reasons. I was able to parse that much.)
I have pretty good reading comprehension and I don't know why it is that I always find your logic hard to follow. If you'd like to rephrase this to be more clear (even if you feel a need to insult my intelligence and integrity again), I'll try to respond.
Doubt, but thanks.
Speaking of hard to parse, I don't know what "recent old" argument means; you could be talking about something I posted last week or something I posted back on reddit. But sigh fine, go ahead, what are you talking about?
This is another thing you do: I am sure you know I did not literally mean that zero Blues in the entire world have ever expressed sympathy with the would-be Trump assassin except on TikTok. So when I mention yes, I have encountered a few elsewhere, you act like this is a gotcha. Come on.
At one time I was worried about FC's growing accelerationism, but I have never considered him to be the same as Kulak. I don't really think you want to go Kulak either, you just seem pretty sympathetic to the argument that Blues have it coming.
While I agree with you that both advocating violence and refusing to condemn violence are bad, I think equivocating between Kulak and Trace is ridiculous. If Trace has failed to condemn the Trump assassination with sufficient vigor or you think he and Matt Yglesias and the SPLC only condemn rightist violence, fair enough, you can hold that against them, but I don't think it's remotely the same as actively advocating for violence. I don't think it's an indictment of society that a fairly milquetoast centrist like Trace has attracted a modest following and your feeling so seems to be purely based on your long-standing grudge. Kulak, a guy who, even if he's being 100% performative grifter, actively cheers school shootings and race war, is such an entirely different kettle of fish I cannot believe you're serious.
You asked me, to quote you, "What, specifically, would you like me to have done about the attempted Trump assassination?"
I gave you a list, of :
No, you just complain every single time I highlight past events or failures of past predictions. That's why I didn't say you'd claimed history started yesterday or things "shouldn't matter" ; it's why I asked whether we're "supposed to pretend history started yesterday" or "why it shouldn't matter". What reason does it not count that the subreddit that promoted itself on the importance of appealing to anti-violence blue tribers both couldn't find more than a dozen such posters and can't spare comment on one of several political assassination attempts? Are you ever going to explain why "harping on a dead subreddit" is wrong, or even engage with the matter, or is this yet another dodge?
And you're still not engaging with FcFromSSC's literal words, instead of throwing the goalposts out a third story window. "[A] precedent is being set here for the level of background violence "we" are supposed to tolerate, but that standard is being set largely by social institutions that are predominantly Blue and are sympathetic to Blue violence. At some point in the not-to-distant future, I think it is likely that it will be Reds committing the sporadic violence. When that happens, the Blues are not going to want to tolerate it, and the Reds are not going to accept an abrupt demand for a return to order and decorum."
I am specifically trying to avoid linking to one of the many, many previous arguments that we've had, since you've complained about three-year-old and three-month-old ones. If you really want me to select the most prominent and relevant one, I can, but my point here is that this is a broader problem than just you dodging any deeper criticism than "it's fucked", sometimes.
Which is why I didn't accuse you of literally meaning zero Blues in the entire world ever did that (contrast "like this was only a problem in one website that doesn't really count"). It's a gotcha that you constantly use this sort of phrasing to minimize bad behaviors by Blues, even if it would have been more serious engagement with the actual post to admit it happens but you challenge it.
No. My claim -- and I think FCfromSSC's -- is that enough Blues have completely abandoned any serious attempt at establishing neutral, consistent rules of behavior that are enforced consistently against even their own that any appeal to such rules is completely laughable to Reds, but being a hypocrite isn't a capital crime. The problem is that deserve has nothing to do with it; Reds are, with reason, going to laugh at any Blue overtures toward past norms, and they're going to have absolutely no trust that any newly-created rules will hold more than immediate scenario in question.
It doesn't matter if the Blue in question genuinely was really principled in the past, or even if they personally have records of it -- although I'll point out again we don't here for anyone but ChrisPratt. It may well be very unfair, in those circumstances. It's still going to happen.
Did I say "remotely the same"? No, I said they're both bad. For clarity, in words you might prefer, that "both advocating violence and refusing to condemn violence are bad".
This is why I keep nailing down your 'hyperbole' or rephrasings or turns of phrase; because we quite rapidly get into these debates where you try to swap my positions into something randomly and unbelievably -- literally that you "cannot believe you're serious" -- instead of what my literal words were, right above you, in your own blockquotes.
You're the one that highlighted his "modest following" on Twitter, but besides that, try reading that whole sentence, not just the part you like. "I think it's actually a pretty serious indictment of society in general that they are getting anywhere near the coverage that they are, while anyone that really cares at best gets shoved into some third-rate Red Tribe rag." I would really like deradicalizing and deescalating efforts to exist! I would like them to be recognized, and popular, and available and appealing to both sides of the political aisle. In a world where they did... well, I'd still be disappointed, but I can live with disappointment.
But the Litany of Tarsi wins.
We don't have those things. I'll point out that you could counter this whole argument by highlighting a mere handful of such groups -- that "Do you have some better example?" wasn't sarcastic -- and you haven't, and I don't think you can. We just have people deluding others and maybe themselves.
Okay, I didn't do that. Guilty as charged. I guess every time a leftist does something violent, I need to write an effortpost criticizing it or you won't believe I actually feel strongly that leftist violence is bad? I cannot promise I will live up to this expectation, but the next time there is such an incident, feel free to ask me what I think about it.
So if I say "I do not remember this happening" that's "covering my ass" because I admit someone might have posted something I don't remember or might have missed?
I think you are being a little unreasonable here.
This is not moving the goalposts. This is my reason why I think the premise is wrong. You may disagree with it and you may think I have not argued the case sufficiently.
I mean, it's not "wrong" it's just petty and mostly irrelevant. Why should I consider your critiques of the Schism to meaningfully generalize to all Blue tribers?
You're very frustrating. I'm sure this conversation is very satisfying to you because you will get lots of upvotes and I will get lots of downvotes, but you're just being amazingly disingenuous here.
I already stated that that quote from FC, I disagree with. It's that simple. I think he's wrong. His thesis is that Blue tribers have tolerated and permitted political violence and thus normalized it (and destroyed the norm against it) and that when Red tribe turns the table and starts killing Blue tribe public figures and Blue tribe thinks this is bad, Red tribe will say "Little late, bub." (@FCfromSSC, am I mischaracterizing this?) I clearly stated I think this is wrong, and I also admitted, right in the post you are responding to, that I might be proven wrong and FC proven right. We'll probably find out sooner than I'd like, alas.
I answered the question and yet you keep writing elliptical verbose accusations of moving goalposts and not answering questions.
Very frustrating. When Trace blew up at you and told you off, we had to mod him, but man did I understand why he did it.
Probably half my (non-mod) posts here are criticizing the bad behavior of Blues. Whenever I want to get upvotes to balance the downvotes I get arguing with fan favorites like you, I can reliably agree with everyone else about the latest woke craziness.
(I am being ironic. I do not post things with consideration to whether I will get upvoted or downvoted.)
No. And I already explained that: "I'm not demanding that we find one individual that has such an opinion on all broad topics, or even that we find anyone willing to answer every single offense ever, but I'm feeling a lot closer to Diogenes than Lot, right now."
I'd be surprised if you've literally never written up some paean about something, but do you genuinely not understand why zero out of three of the highest-profile examples coming up dry might point a direction? It's not like I'm pointing to nobodies like Baca or Dolloff or Gardner here, although if you'd commented on them I'd take that, too. Or you could point me to someone who has!
No, I say it's covering your ass because when someone tried to point out people who did, here, this didn't change the slightest bit of your position or have you bring forward some different more important fact; it had you complain that I wrote about it.
Yes! Precisely! I think you've presented a threadbare argument for your case, and when evidence came up against that threadbare argument, rather than provide new evidence for your case, you jumped new steps of what anyone disagreeing with you must be dependent on.
Because they're a subreddit that was formed around and because of supposed adherence to this principle, and its importance to appeal to Blues. Because they are not selected from Blues in some way that should make them atypically willing to overlook violent rhetoric. Because I keep asking you for examples of better Blue groups and organizations, and you haven't presented any. Because I've been looking for a near-decade for better Blues groups and organizations, and haven't found any.
((and, indeed, instead find Blues that spontaneously turn out to not; both "my father-in-law jokes or 'jokes' about throwing molotov cocktails at houses with Trump signs" and "the minecraft mod guy I worked with is really proud of punching Brendan Eich and wishes he did it more" are not hypotheticals.))
Yes, and I'm trying to get an answer out of why you think it's wrong, and if those reasons are supported.
?
Did I miss something? Netstack said this was the first time Trace got modded, it was his last set of posts here, and I defended Trace in most of his last thread, where the facts demanded it. Was there something earlier? Or is this something from back on reddit?
I don't think playing to the crowd helps (and to some extent it breaks your brain), and I'd be very skeptical that people dive that far into debates between you and I to bother reading or upvoting them, or even noticing they exist.
I want to believe you, when you argue against a trend of further escalation. But what, exactly, do you think you're bringing to support this theory? If I drop a [bunch of polls](https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/new-survey-reveals-disturbing-trend-in-support-of-political-violence-president-trump-left-of-center-elon-musk-liberal (admittedly, not very robust), does that change your mind? I can show pictures of my tumblr feed, or my discord, or of forums I've once called home, and the only reason I can't show real-life is .
Dude, my effortposts are mostly about Hugo drama. FYI Impassionata's latest alt came by the other day to scream at me (personally!) about letting fascists run amok, and obviously I'm a fascist simp as evidenced by my failure to blah blah blah. (You didn't get a chance to see it, which I guess you can therefore also dismiss as unevidenced and therefore non-credible.) Amazing how the one thing I've never been wrong about, all these years, is how both sides reliably accuse me of the same thing.
Fine, I should not have said "no one." But no, I don't think AaahtheFrench and Impassionata "count" in any serious way. But I will stipulate there is a lizardman's constant for any proposition here on the Motte.
I think you are overstating the significance of TheSchism, but as for "better Blue groups and organizations," what are your criteria? Public disavowals of political violence? The Democratic Party (including Biden himself) quickly condemned the Butler shooting. So did most major newspapers and churches (including the woke ones). The GOP quickly accused Biden of inciting it. You mentioned the attempted Kavanaugh assassination (didn't make much of a splash because the guy got arrested before anything happened) and Tesla vandalism, and I'll say fine, how many Red organizations jump up to condemn attempted assassinations, vandalism, and arson directed against Blues? Some, but often with the same defectors or mealy-mouthing we see when reversed. Is your thesis, or is it not, that Blues basically have defected from a norm against political violence and Reds have not?
Okay, they're assholes. I've got some anecdotes about Red family members and coworkers too.
I think it's wrong because I do not think the majority of Americans, of whatever political stripe, support or endorse political violence. I do not think you or FC have made a convincing case that Blues have shown stronger defection tendencies than Reds on this. The most proximal comparison seems to be responses to Jan. 6 vs responses to BLM, which are usually argued on the basis of which one was worse rather than who was more consistent about condemning it. Blues, unsurprisingly, think Jan. 6 was much worse, Reds think BLM was much worse - personally I agree that the BLM riots and other follow-on effects were objectively much, much worse, but crucially, neither side thinks they are actually defending political violence because Reds mostly claim Jan. 6 was a nothingburger and Blues mostly claim the riots were "mostly peaceful protests". I think both sides are wrong, and in this case Blues are more wrong, but it still doesn't make the case you are arguing.
No, this is totally my bad. I misremembered him telling you off when it was WhiningCoil. My apologies for that one. (I think I remember you getting into it with him on Twitter recently, which probably helped derail my memory.)
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