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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Elon Musk has suspended a slew of liberal journalists and pundits from Twitter. It is, as Benjamin Braddoc puts it, a red wedding for the liberal establishment. I initially believed that he was just the "controlled" opposition of the deep state, obviously he's stepped on way too many toes for that. This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue. Social media, our Frankenstein, has made it insanely easier for mob rule to influence culture (not that it wasn't already).

I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.

EDIT: It looks like he's lifting the suspension.

I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.

It's not, though, and the people crowing about it don't understand how the game is played. And I'm not saying that because I'm butthurt that some journo I've never heard of that's supposedly 'on my side' is the unlucky ox du jour.

When the left deplatforms someone, they genuinely believe (rightly or wrongly) that they're righteously fighting racism/inequality/injustice. They're saving lives from COVID. They're supporting the downtrodden in society and giving them a chance to improve their lives. Contrary to the conflict theorists, it's neither arbitrary nor intended to make 'disfavored groups' suffer.

When Elon (or some figure on the right) deplatforms someone, 1) best case, he's having to grapple with the realities that many people said he would (thus the smugness) or 2) worst case, he's being driven by petty personal or 'own the libs' revanchism. The small fraction of principled libertarians are slinking off, having lost again, while the conservatives pretending to be principled libertarians are cheering the fact that the libs are getting owned.

They miss the fact that really winning, and not just eking out a transitory term in the white house, requires articulating a vision for the future that wins the hearts and minds of the people. And it needs to be more inspiring than 'we're going to keep things the way they are/turn back the clock to the 1970s/1950s/1776!' People need to believe that tomorrow can be better than today. It needs to be more than 'I'm really angry after the last 5 years and after forfeiting all my morals I just want to hurt my outgroup,' which, I don't mean to pick on that commenter personally, but that's the vibe I get from most of the conservatives here.

And you know what? There's plenty of room to articulate a vision for the future that is better than what democrats have to offer. I wish someone would try, and we could see two visions of utopia competing for popular support rather than the depressing political morass we've been languishing in for the last decade. Something has to change; I'd welcome any thoughts people might have on what that might be.

You're modeling the entire right here as a completely cynical enterprise with no goals beyond hurting their outgroup. I think perhaps you could make some sort of case for an individual, such as Elon himself, but to model the entire right that way is missing the point. And worse, it is inaccurate.

I think you're underestimating the sincerity of the believe that the right has, that ruin and destruction will come from the left gaining unchecked power. Be it the economic conservatives who think a command economy will result in famines and shortages, or the religious factions that tend to believe in literal divine retribution, the beliefs held are sincere.

Now, are there cynical and petty people on the right? Absolutely. There are. But, taking the most cynical interpretation of the right, and comparing it to the left's most noble intentions is not a fair starting point.

You're modeling the entire right here as a completely cynical enterprise with no goals beyond hurting their outgroup. I think perhaps you could make some sort of case for an individual, such as Elon himself, but to model the entire right that way is missing the point. And worse, it is inaccurate.

That's not it at all, although I can see how I communicated my point poorly. I don't think either side has any reasonable claim to moral superiority.

However, regardless of whether it's a better model of reality, the story the left tells itself for why it does what it does is much more compelling than what the right does. Particularly in these cases of 'tit for tat' where we're measuring winning or losing in who gets banned from a platform. Leftists wanted to deplatform people to avoid COVID misinformation to save lives. Elon wanted to stand for free speech until his ideals made contact with reality, and now he wants to deplatform people who fucked with his family. Maybe things will balance out, and it will turn into 'your rules but applied fairly' and all doxxers will get banned regardless of affiliation. But 'your rules applied fairly' is still not a particularly proactive or compelling vision for the future.

You could argue, with some merit I'm sure, that the greatest harm comes from the best intentions, and self-righteousness or believing too strongly in your cause is a great way for the left to coast down some slippery slopes towards making the world a worse place. But I'm not even convinced that the right cares about solving the same problems anymore. Is there a competing vision for dealing with homelessness, besides putting them on buses to San Francisco and New York? For drug use, besides being angry at PMCs/neoliberals/deep state traitors who sold out the country to China (maybe the law and order messaging? It's conspicuously absent in discussions about the opioid epidemic though). For social alienation, for assimilating immigrants, for spreading democracy in the world, for poverty? Please, if I'm ignorant fill me in, but to varying degrees I get the impression that these issues just aren't very salient to the right anymore. Nor can I discern any kind of cohesive messaging or worldview the way I can with Reagan or Obama.

The answer to drug use appears to be legalization and "freedom."

The war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster, the amount of money spent chasing weed farmers and purveyors of psychedelics as if they were the same as heroin producers is insane. Legalizing and regulating the production and sale of illegal drugs would solve a whole lot of problems. Junkies do suck though, and some drugs are legitimately dangerous, so i can't get on board with universal drug legalization, but we have a long way to go before being too permissive becomes remotely concerning.

The answer for social alienation

this isn't the government's job, and as far as i can tell the right's prescription to the problem is to go to church. this doesn't work well for a country with a very large and growing atheist population.

Assimilation is racism

don't confuse the progressive avant garde for the platform dem position. 20 bucks says if you ask joe biden if assimilation is racism he will say no.

Spreading democracy is colonialism

same here, but i'm actually a bit more sympathetic to this one. Democracy is great, but if some other country wants to be a monarchy or whatever, how would you describe strong arming them to do otherwise?

my mental model of "the left"

"the left" is not a political party, but a diaspora of actual politicians and activists and twitter users etc. By and large the more zealous progressives have very little actual political cache, and garner far more twitter likes than votes.

As for wether the left wants things solved, i'm sure that having every dem-proposed initiative that makes it to congress get tanked on arrival might have something to do with the image of dems not getting shit done.