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 -
Great writing as per usual, although I'm not too sure what's the culture war angle here.
Your tidbit about inflation has left me wondering. How exaggerated is the purported social and economic decay in the UK? The impression I'm getting from abroad is some of the lowest wages in Western Europe coupled with extremely high cost of living. The salaries for some professionals are comparable to Eastern Europe even before purchasing power parity. Underfunded everything from education to the NHS. Yet somehow the price of goods and rent keeps climbing, especially in London.
Thank you, though once again I'm confused if someone doesn't see the CW here! You can see my reply downthread about that.
I haven't been in the UK very long, so take my takes with a NICE-approved amount of salt. The UK was doing well, or at least okay, until the middle 2000s. It was growing at a rate somewhat comparable to the US, or at least other Commonwealth Anglosphere nations. A British person could, with a straight face, claim to have a comparable standard of living.
Since then, it's been a story of stagnation. The economy has hardly grown at all, per capita productivity is down due to a significantly larger unproductive class subsisting on welfare (a lot of them immigrants).
In the places where the COL is lower, so are the incomes. Doctors are a rare exception, we make roughly the same wage everywhere in the country (largely because the allowances for living in a HCOL area are ridiculous). There are very few skilled jobs, manufacturing is as good as dead, and finance is great at inflating GDP, but little else. Energy prices are through the roof, and very little is being built, and hardly maintained.
Social cohesion, while not entirely dissolved, is at a nadir. Nobody is actually starving, but the young despair when it comes to achieving the same standard of living as their parents. People will claim that even in objectively wealthy nations like the States that have their economic engines firing on all cylinders, but it's actually true here.
Britain was exceeding the US standard of living in the middle 2000s. This was largely an artefact of exchange rates and over financialisaton but it was common place for middle class families to not just holiday in the US but specifically go there for shopping trips. Semi-regular trips to Florida, shopping in New York and so on was within reach for swathes of the PMC and even upper-blue collar workers as the exchange rate was 2:1. I distinctly remember video games that would cost £30 costing $30 (and thus being half price). This era, combined with the standard "free healthcare and no shootings" mantra that Europeans love, meant we could genuinely argue for a better standard of living than our cousins over the pond. This all collapsed from 2007-2009 and never recovered. Obviously it was an unsustainable period in retrospect, fuelled by sell offs and credit, but you didn't hear of people leaving to go to Australia and such in that New Labour era. Now that world seems a million miles away.
More options
Context Copy link
Auspicious timing, I just started watching Top Gear from the beginning and early in the second series (which would be 2003?) they have a bit on the Humber Bridge and the decline of British efficacy, engineering, and manufacturing.
It sounded like the kinda thing you'd see in the news in the US or Uk today but over 20 years ago.
I think someone on the left might point to that and indicate that the fears are overblown but I'm more concerned about how far we've fallen and how much further we may yet fall.
I mean, Trump looks likely to send out 'doge rebate checks' or something similar in september of '26. Peronism, here we come.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link