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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15621 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Standford posts about its Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI), HN Reacts

Links to EHLI source: https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguage.pdf / http://web.archive.org/web/20221219160303/https://itcommunity.stanford.edu/ehli

Link to HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816

Note: my intent in linking to another forum isn't to create a in-group/out-group dynamic. My intent is to comment on how this is a sign about a broader cultural shift. Moderators, if this skirts too close to the offending the spirit of themotte, please let me know (or just delete it).

HackerNews is an online watering hole where a large number of Anglosphere people congregate to talk about startups, programming, and entrepreneurship. There is also no lack of plain old geeking out about cool tech, especially of the DIY variety that relates to drones, 3d-printing, or, more recently, AI.

The group skews somewhat left of center politically speaking. Over the past decade that I've been lurking it, it skewed a little bit more, in the sense that moderators became more accepting of openly political content that was aligned under the "21st century American progressive" label. I witnessed an influx of posts and comments about topics like coops, the evils of capitalism, etc. although, thankfully, that never became the main object of the community.

However, the thread I link to above has accumulated over 1200 comments in under 24h, which is a rare occasion--the death of a great contributor, a major shift in the industry, etc. More importantly, from sampling the first two pages, the overall sentiment appears to be negative toward what Stanford put out.

Before going deeper on the reaction, here's a taste of what Stanford posted:

Grandfather: This term has its roots in the "grandfather clause" adopted by Southern states to deny voting rights to Blacks.

Red team: "Red" is often used disparagingly to refer to Indigenous peoples, so its use in this context could be offensive to some groups.

Blackbox: Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term.

Brave (do not use): This term perpetuates the stereotype of the "noble courageous savage," equating the Indigenous male as being less than a man.

This kind of political weaponization should all be familiar to experienced Culture Warriors on themotte. But seeing the overwhelmingly negative reaction to this sort of thing on HN makes me adjust my likelihoods around what, excuse the cliche, I see as the pendulum swinging back away from leftist authoritarianism.

I have no idea what it's swinging towards, especially since in reality the pendulum is a 4d object zigzagging through multiple political dimensions. Still, it's a welcome sign that at least this flavor demagoguery is losing its bite.

I don't think the Culture War is in any danger of dying down. But I suspect (and hope) that the reaction on HackerNews is an omen of the CW shifting directions, so at the very least we'll have something new and exciting to debate about.

Edit: Some people have remarked in the comments that this isn't that astounding since HN has always been more grey-tribe aligned and more likely to react negatively to woke overreach like this. I find myself needing to readjust map.

With Europe, part of the problem is linguistic. Until relatively recently in the UK, a phrase like "people of color" would be regarded as racist or at least suspicious. It sounds too much like "coloured people", which is obviously a demonic and corrupting word. I remember a poster in my high school geography class that poked fun at the very idea that a black person was "coloured", given that white skin varies more in pigmentation with sickness, embarassment etc.

In Continental Europe, there is even more work to be done. Terms like "race" largely fell out of use and a lot of racial statistics are not even tracked. Since around the 1940s, countries like France and Germany have tended towards the colourblind model of anti-racism: "Whatever the colour of your skin, what matters is that you speak French and have French values of secularism, mutual support, smoking like a chimney, eating chocolate cake for breakfast" etc. To fit with the predominat American woke culture, the European left will have to overcome this colourblindedness and create a situation where e.g. Thierry Henry is a Caribbean-Frenchman, not just a Frenchman, so he can be adequately saved from his oppression.

Thanks, this is a useful set of insights. It's been a few years since I lived in Germany, but I already saw the direction of travel.

I can assure that, being a bit in the insides, the first institution that is building DEI is the EU. National Institutions are still very well behind, but the EU is, starting from the de facto uber-feminist approach that they always had, trying to spin things in that direction.

For example, last year there was a cry from France and other countries that the EU internal comms suggested that we shoudl use Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas to not be offensive. The internal communication was deleted and excuses were done, we were happy that sometimes there was a victory etc

Fast forward this year, and without any sort of communication, 70% of the departments switched to Happy Holidays. No order from above, no comm, no conspiracy, simple because the people doing the comms are female and left-wing.

As you see, no victory.

I also see it mostly like this, but I think

National Institutions are still very well behind

requires some additional qualification.

Speaking for Germany, of course, and not bothering to look up sources - ignore me at your leisure - there are many national institutions that are by all means keeping pace with the EU, if not even pulling ahead on some points. Fashionable cities like Berlin, many elements of the federal government especially since the last election, state governments under leftist control, taxpayer-funded nominal NGOs, all of education from Kindergarten up to Universities, and of course our dear public media complex. It's patchy, many are indeed very well behind as you say, but I wouldn't want to deny the great and often successful efforts of many entities below the level of the EU.

And I think you've hit the nail on the head with your observation that there are no permanent victories as long as the enemy keeps pushing.

Until relatively recently in the UK, a phrase like "people of color" would be regarded as racist or at least suspicious.

It still strikes me that way in the US. It's really funny to me how the left has reinvented "colored people". The paper-thin sophistry they use to justify it doesn't really make it any better, either.

the European left will have to overcome this colourblindedness

There are some older hold-outs, but this has long happened. Our kids are buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music.

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