There are two comments here on the Motte that have, for the past month or so, been sitting amidst the 71 tabs I've got opened in my browser.
The two comments are fairly different;
The first is a more personal meditation on the human desire to 'be a good person', and how that may or may not align with the equally-human desires to 'fit in', and 'pursue Truth'.
The second is a political argument over whether Democrats/progressives/libs are the real hypocrites, and whether or not they were the ones to 'defect first' in the game of American partisan politics; pretty standard stuff around here, really.
The thing they have in common is that I've been intending to respond to them.
And yet, I haven't.
Part of this is due to a dynamic that ought to be familiar to anyone with a maladaptive relationship with deadlines- if you're late turning something in, the longer you wait afterwards to get around to it, the harder it becomes to ever actually do it; it's easy to put it off for a day or two or three, and before you know it, a week's gone by, and length of the delay in your response might raise some eyebrows when you eventually do respond. Repeat this cycle a few times, and eventually a month or two has passed you by- at which point, you might as well just not bother to respond at all- assuming you're even still in the same headspace necessary to give a coherent response, and that events in the meantime haven't made your response irrelevant, the other person's really going to wondering about your penchant for necro-ing old threads.
A larger part, however, comes down to a much simpler -and much less easily overcome- barrier:
Why bother?
In my very first comment on this site, I noted that the 'two screens' effect is very real, and that the picture that the screen the self-identified 'Red Tribers' on this site are watching is showing a very different picture than the one the few self-identified 'Blue Tribers' still active on this site are watching.
This isn't particularly surprising. For decades, Americans have been slowly but steadily self-segregating along 'tribal' lines; fewer and fewer of us spend much time interacting with other Americans radically different from ourselves. We might live in the same neighborhoods, frequent the same shops and restaurants, and be theoretically 'close' to each other (or not; the same self-segregating dynamic increasingly applies to physical locations as well), but it's increasingly rare for us to ever actually interact with our Others to any real extent.
Combined with the general shifts in how people interact with and perceive what are 'their' communities (triply so in the online age!), the balkanization of 'common' hobbies & interests, the fracturing of the media landscape, and the overall decline in common cultural touchstones and trusted authorities, the end is result is that nowadays its easier than ever for all of us to live in our own Bespoke Realities™. It isn't just that political polarization & disagreements are tenser & higher-profile then they've been in decades (though they are!); now, we no longer even need to have similar conceptions of what it is we're even arguing over in the first place!
I can rage over how Republicans are trying to destroy the government and intentionally harm millions of the worst-off Americans with their new tariff, tax, & budget idiocies- and you can scoff and dispute my entire framing, say how I'm being absurdly hyperbolic and hysterical.
You can denounce the large-scale concerted push by progressives to trans the nations youth; to turn them into Marxist-indoctrinated eunuchs conscripted as soldiers in the frontlines of the culture wars. I can roll my eyes and say there is no such phenomenon, and it's all a conservative bogeyman.
Etc, etc.
So in light of this situation, where we not only argue endlessly about the most basic facts of any given political disagreement, without either side ever having to concede to either the opposition's arguments, or even their basic worldview and underlying framing of the situation...
Why bother?
Why bother continuing to argue (and especially why bother continuing to argue online- an exercise in futility if I ever heard one!) when doing so is unlikely to change the other person's mind?
Why bother continuing to argue when the people I'm disagreeing with seem to have beliefs & experiences so wildly opposite of my own that I have to wonder if we're even living in the same country?
Why bother continuing to argue when people I disagree with just seem like they fundamentally can't be reasoned with at all?
And especially why bother continuing to argue when doing so is only likely to be """rewarded""" with mass-downvotes and distributed dogpiles by commentators on a forum you don't even really like, and only stick around on out of some sort of... IDK, perverse masochism, I guess?
Seems kinda pointless to me, tbh.
Despite my faint hopes, the dysfunction in this country appears to be acclerating.
We seem to be waiting on the precipice, holding our breath to see if the next few days heralds the opening salvos of the beginning of true, active civil conflict.
So I ask again- why bother? Is the time for talking over?
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Notes -
Its a good question, although it appears I've come about to it from the opposite direction you have.
The factor that has gotten me to just about throw in the towel on the entire concept of political discourse is watching for four years while one side kept pointing out that Joe Biden was very probably demented in the most medically literal sense of the term, and the other side, the full weight of every mainstream/respectable media and academic outlet claimed this was a nutty conspiracy.
Then the presidential debate happened.
And now, having the exact same parties who maintained that he was just fine and dandy are doing the rounds on book tours and media interviews claiming "SOME (completely unidentifiable) PARTICULAR PERSONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE MISLED EVERYBODY ABOUT BIDEN'S MENTAL ACUITY." No way, really? Somehow they seemed quite eager to be misled in this way.
And now that we've admitted to being misled, are we casting blame anywhere? Why... no. Its all just a completely amorphous conspiracy comprised of nobody in particular. Oh well. What a weird chapter in history that we can now close while suffering no consequences whatsoever.
Just a perfect encapsulation of the problem: an enforced narrative that nobody is permitted to question, a breaking point where the narrative CANNOT be maintained in the face of unavoidable reality. A brief period of panicked denial... then distraction... and finally a very carefully constructed withdrawal that absolves anyone of blame and pretends the whole issue was just an honest mistake with little or no malicious motivation whatsoever.
How does one fight such a keenly evolved, utterly remorseless memetic entity, where its self-preservation is dependent solely on how many skulls it can lodge itself in as deeply as possible.
I admire its purity. Such a perfectly enclosed epistemic environment, policed by the most advanced egregore wranglers that history has ever produced.
Regardless of how logically sound and carefully researched my arguments are (and I really DO spend a lot of time researching my arguments) it cannot compete with an endless stream of repeated thought terminating cliches and carefully curated facts and stats that grant the pretense of knowledge but deny someone any real understanding of cause and effect.
And now we can add sycophantic LLMs to the mix, which can be curated to at least try to maintain a given narrative and write pleasingly-worded missives that either dodge the real question of what is 'true' or can lead you just far enough along the path towards truth to make you feel informed... then pull you off in a different direction, forgetting to take the last few steps and actually change your mind.
As the kids say, "We're fuckin' cooked."
Of course, I'm so rabidly averse to violent conflict as a first, or second, or even third resort that I am (perhaps irrationally so) very willing to seek peaceful, cooperative resolution options right up until the very moment somebody flicks a fist in my direction.
And my current solution has been to insulate myself from the attack vectors of that memetic entity. Adblock on. No cable tv. No influencers. Don't read the articles, don't listen to the podcast, don't watch the movie written by the hollywood leftist. Maybe read the books but definitely don't try to discuss the book on reddit. Do not give the hostile egregore full write access to your brain.
I live in one of the reddest areas of a red (formerly purple) state, and have manipulated enough about my immediate environment that the chances of the culture war frontlines ever reaching me are virtually nil. This comes at some level of personal cost, but I've placed such a high value on maintaining my sanity that I GLADLY pay it.
And so I sit here wondering WHY I still pop onto themotte to do a little bit of sparring, keeping my debate skills honed, when even around here the odds of any given argument or set of arguments moving the needle on someone's personal beliefs seem slim.
One of the arguments in favor of democratic modes of government is that it allows peaceful transition of power because elections are viable proxies for battles/military force.
Quoth Federalist No. 10:
That is, the side that manages to pull 51% or more of the population that is engaged enough to vote can reasonably claim "if there was to be a physical war our side, being more numerous, is more likely to win it. In lieu of fighting that would be ruinous to both sides, you will accept our rule for a few years, we will rule with a certain amount of respect/deference, and then we can run another simulation to see if anythings changed."
Of course, it seems like the Dems/lefties haven't managed to process how they got trounced in the last election, even with some thumbs on the scale, and what this implies about their popularity in the country. So they "convulse the society" and "clog the administration" (how many national injunctions are we at?), but are 'unable to execute and mask its violence under... the Constitution.'
And yet we know that democratic elections don't completely avert violence, or else Mexico's most recent election wouldn't have been so damn bloody. Turns out that violence is also a way to influence outcomes in a democracy, when you don't expect the votes to go your way 'organically.' So there's a bit of a feedback loop.
So in a sense, the current upwelling of conflict doesn't read to me as a real instigation to war, but more just a disadvantaged minority faction pressing the 'foment chaos' button as a means of gumming up the works for the majority and maybe influencing outcomes, at least locally, towards their favor.
No, I'm not drawing a moral equivalence between drug cartels and ICE protestors, or even rioters. Just pointing out how these actions are closer to the "open violent conflict" end of the spectrum than the "free discourse and exchange of ideas as means of persuasion" that was idealized by, e.g., the Federalist Papers and that we try to maintain on this forum.
So what are we doing here? What's the point? Why bother?
I'd posit that everyone is in the continual stage of trying to size up the field and gauge the relative power of each tribe so as to determine if it is possible to make any decisive attacks or maneuvers that will lead to one group's victory and ascension to unquestioned rule over the cultural landscape. And the literal landscape, too.
Which faction has the best tacticians? The most guns? The most tightly organized units? The most efficient logistics? The most loyal/zealous footsoldiers? Which is favored by God? (love that scene, perfect illustration of this point about sizing up the force your opponent can bring to bear), which side has their Oppenheimer, their Feynman, their Von Neumann who can build superweapons, memetic or otherwise?
And as long as we're mostly convinced that the aggregate combat strength of each side is approximately at enough parity that the conflict would lead to uncapped casualties, including complete obliteration (which, in the age of nuclear MAD is a real possibility!), then even a conflict that you win is just not worth entering in the first place.
I'd argue that the more kinetic version of this is what led to the openly aggressive conflict with Israel and Palestine... and Israel and Iran, more recently. Israel knows it can pound Palestine into a fine powder if left to do it... but they can't ignore the various potential interlopers who might enter the fray. And so occasionally swatting Iran across the nose is a nice reminder to the rest to keep the claws sheathed.
Its why the Pakistan India thing didn't truly spiral out of control, neither side had a path to victory that wouldn't OBVIOUSLY leave both sides in ruins.
This little site is just one facet of a glittering jewel that is human social network, whose topology is beyond the comprehension of any individual human, but maybe if enough of us enlightened apes discuss our various perspectives and unique insights (we have those, right?) then the collective hivemind can manage to ascertain enough of the rough shape to determine if any particular faction has an egregious edge in power.
Because let me admit, about two years or so ago I would have told you that the Blue Tribe was close to locking insurmountable advantages which it could leverage to maintain complete control, and I was mentally gearing up to have to shoot at [redacted] agents in a last ditch effort to not be assimilated.
And now, though, now it looks like the ballgame is way closer than I anticipated, and I am now more uncertain than before about the current trajectory of U.S. political power. I guess Red Tribe is currently at bat, and they're trying to load up the bases, but really, really counting on some kind of grand slam to put them far ahead before, presumably, blue tribe grabs the levers of power again.
So I keep coming back here, hoping someone will hit on the observation or connect some dots that will help me foresee the unforeseeable and align myself with the right people (or, failing that, align myself AGAINST the right people) to ensure my longer term success and survival.
Some might actually be intending to get froggy if the tide is shown to turn in their favor, and are quietly trying to sense who might fight back, who might ally with them, who might look the other way. Maybe they want moral justification for doing some really nasty thing to the hated opposition. I don't know. But I think we're all at least idly, casually interested in figuring out the shape of the conflict and the ebb and flow of the battle and then making whatever use of that information we can.
And where else can we go for an actual clearheaded view of things?
First time seeing this term. Fascinating rabbit hole dive followed. Cheers.
It's the perfect shorthand for describing what at first seems like a whole variety of disparate effects and behaviors but that really has a lot of nonvisible connections and correlations.
Yes. What do you think of the rest of the concept? Is it worth reading a book on it?
I see that associated concepts and treatments veer into very strange and wacky stuff.
I might try Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch Over Human Destiny.
If you are going to read some of the more wacky stuff about egregores, I'd suggest trying to view it as an early attempt at understanding memetics. Unless you like 19th century takes on the occult.
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