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 don't think there's anything here. Or rather it means nothing on its own.
You might remember how people mocked Peterson for referring to the Kritik people as "postmodern neomarxists". Preposterous they said, the very phrasing is a contradiction. Of course this ignored the next words out of his mouth which were really just a description of the motte and bailey postmodernist philosophy had been engaged in since it's inception and arguably by design, one that analytical philosophers have been pointing out forever: the very same people who criticize metanarratives can't seem to help themselves to insert communism (or other such prejudices) in place of whatever they destroy with their powerful destructive tools of analysis.
As the saying goes, critical theory is self refuting. But who's going to do the refutation? And who's going to hear it?
The Kritik people are really aware of something their critics are not, and it's that in the domain of ideology, the rewards of power and influence don't come merely from showing your opponents to hold contradictory and vacuous beliefs. The activists and institutions have to be there to orchestrate the frame of reality to record the goals you're making. The debate is but a tool to establish your already foregone victory, it is no battlefield, or rather you would not allow it if it was.
In this light all the censorship and weird choice of targets makes a lot more sense. But there is no hope that somehow someone will point out the mistake and the magic gods of reason will restore sanity to the world.
There is no mistake, you are just getting crushed. By people with better tactics.
My instinct though is that if critical theory would evolve to refute itself, it would be a positive evolution, and would be a kind of completion of the original theory, as in more critical theory, not less.
I haven't thought through too much the actual way it plays out in the real world. It's possible the modern critical theorists have immunized themselves. But on the other hand, you had a similar situation with the Marxists in France in the time of Foucault, and that evolution is kind of what I am proposing could happen again today. Similarly, it might be a philosopher who is "inside" the system that hits at the right time during some slump in their power, that speaks their language while subverting them.
I don't know man, post-post-post-structuralism which rejects some minute detail but ends up being the same program of bioleninism and destruction of whatever level of sanity and coherence remains because it's oppressive doesn't really strike me as any change in the program.
If the left wants to get out of this rut the paradigm does have to change, and for that they have to find a new coalition that makes their existing lumpenprole+PMC alliance irrelevant. I don't see a candidate for that but maybe it's there, I'm no political genius.
But for sure the ideas will help organize an existing possible coalition, not create it out of thin air.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link