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 -
In the last Culture War Thread, in a very interesting exchange about why white people in America (and the so-called West more broadly) tolerate being constantly denigrated from every corner of the intellectual elite, the always-insightful @FiveHourMarathon had an interesting comment that resonated with me. He finds the grievance-oriented, victim-mindset side of the white identitarian sphere viscerally off-putting and pathetic. Why, he asks, should I be proud to be white, if in fact being white means being weak and crying out for forbearance and mercy from the ascendant coalition of white-hating POCs whose power and vengeful intent increases daily? Why would one choose to identify as a powerless victim, and what appeal would that self-identification have for those well-adjusted, successful, thriving individuals whose allegiance the white race ought to covet most assiduously, especially if it is indeed true that whites’ prospects are at a historic low point? While the downvote totals indicate that his perspective was poorly-received by many of our pro-white posters (for understandable reasons upon which I will touch shortly), I found his comments extremely instructive and worth reflecting on - a splash of bracingly cold water which ought to invigorate those on my side who wake up every day and wonder how white people let ourselves get to this point.
The conversation dovetailed wonderfully with Jared Taylor’s excellent essay, adapted from a speech he gave at a recent American Renaissance conference, in which he delves deep into the historical antecedents of white people’s current malaise. In this essay, Taylor points out that the ethno-masochism which pervades Western elite consciousness is consistent with a more general philosophical framework that has characterized the European psyche for centuries. He illustrates that the individuals who drove many of the most influential social/political reform movements of the last 300 years - from the Jacobins and the abolitionists to the temperance movement - have all demonstrated a fairly consistent psychological phenotype: a sort of Protagonist Syndrome, obsessed with virtue (and particularly with displaying that virtue to other white people) and with uplifting the underdog, and driven by an atavistic hatred of fellow white people who don’t share that same temperament.
In a sense, the leftist psyche - and, as a former committed leftie, I think I understand this temperament pretty well, and am still an example of it in many ways - is an extension of the “Faustian spirit” that many right-wingers love to attribute to European Man. In this telling of history, the most important defining characteristic of the European soul is its driving need to conquer, to transform, to bend nature to one’s own ends. This boundless desire for conquest drove the great achievements of Western man - from conquering the globe, to unlocking the secrets of wielding nature’s forces to our own benefit, to curing disease, to landing on the moon - but I think it also drives the leftist desire to transform humanity itself. To improve humanity from its basic, crude, unworked Hobbesian “state of nature” and to unlock its true potential. Hermetic alchemy applied to the human spirit - never accepting limits, never taking “that’s just the way things are” as an answer, always believing that we can keep pushing the limits of what is possible. Combine this with an almost pathological altruism, the anguish one feels when contemplating the plight of the downtrodden, and it’s very easy to see why Faustian man is so driven to “correct” the obviously-unjust vicissitudes of random chance that have produced the current distribution of human fortunes.
I know that I personally still feel deeply this instinctive sympathy for the underdog. It’s so ingrained in our national psyche that it’s incredibly difficult to overcome it. It has characterized my experience as a sports fan, and it was a major formative element of my self-conception as a college progressive. Wresting myself out of that mental framework as I’ve drifted rightward has been, and in some ways still continues to be, a psychologically disorienting experience. On the one hand, the recognition that unequal distribution of talent and fortune is an unalterable fact of reality, baked into the human spirit, is a bedrock element of the right-wing worldview. Hierarchy is right and proper, and the strong and capable shall always prosper while the weak and mediocre will always vainly envy them. On the other hand, this offends Faustian man’s innate sense of limitless ability to transform the world. Much as Europeans looked at grim realities such as the ubiquity of deadly disease, or man’s inability to traverse the skies, and said, “I have the power to change that,” we have the unshakeable sense that the injustice of fate which has rendered some less fortunate than others is yet another so-called reality just waiting for us to apply our ingenuity and boundless power to correct. A mere engineering problem which our best minds are rapidly working to solve. And hey, if I’m the process of fixing this problem we also gain the opportunity to ostentatiously display our own virtue and gain relative status accordingly, all the better!
This instinctive desire to uplift the underdog is, ironically, only rational if one believes that one’s own interests are not threatened by that underdog’s success. If I can help the underdog get his piece of the pie while my piece stays the same size, that means that in reality I must have been stronger than both the underdog and the supposed overdog against whom he was striving - I was so far above the conflict that I could observe it as a spectator. The underdog becomes, then, a sort of prop or vessel through which I can achieve emotional satiation of my altruistic instinct, at little to no cost to myself.
Where, then, does this leave racially-conscious whites, who assess the state of the world around us and see genuinely foreboding trends which appear to pose a serious threat to our people? Who observe the rising chorus of hatred and envy echoing from the halls of power, who dismay at the ever-worsening fertility differentials, and who see our own elected representatives seem to revel in our decline? What is the optimal rhetorical strategy to appeal to successful white individuals in order to get them to see the disturbing portents and to realize that things are not looking good for us? That this isn’t, in fact, an idle game, but in fact deadly serious? Well, one very appealing strategy is to appeal to that characteristically-European sympathy for the underdog. It’s to say, “Look, guys, we are the weak and vulnerable party in need of special concern and uplift! I know that you’ve been trained by the media to view white people as the permanent bully in need of humbling and people of color as the noble and scrappy up-and-comer just looking for a fair shot - and yeah, at certain points in history that was even true! - but at this point in time the tables truly have turned. We lay ourselves at the mercy of the victors, and ask only for their mercy and indulgence. Quit picking on us!”
This is also, I think, the motivation behind much of the “JQ” discourse on the right; Jews can be portrayed as an all-powerful enemy, against which we defenseless whites are fighting an impossible uphill battle which we can only win through a herculean effort. “Feel bad for us! We, too, know what it is like to suffer systemic discrimination against our rapacious racial overlords! It’s not faaiiiiir!” However, for a lot of white people, feeling like a victim just doesn’t come naturally to them at all. They look at the history of European man and think, “You know, seems like we’re pretty fucking awesome. Whatever minor setbacks we’re suffering right now, it seems like we’ll get through it just fine. I like our chances.” And, historically speaking, that is a pretty damn astute assessment! The all-time scoreboard sure seems to back that up. There haven’t been a whole lot of limits or setbacks that we’ve faced in the past that we haven’t been able to overcome with some ingenuity and some elbow grease; why should something like collapsing fertility rates be any different? The only way we lose is if we beat ourselves, and we can choose to start winning again at any time once we put our mind to it.
This is, I think, a far healthier mindset than the doom-and-gloom, woe-is-me, why-won’t-the-Jews-stop-picking-on-me mindset that so alienates @FiveHourMarathon. Our problems are real, but they’re ones that we ourselves created, and they’re ones that we ourselves -and only ourselves - can fix. We haven’t even begun to conquer the stars yet - how are we going to let ourselves get bogged down by such comparatively quotidian setbacks? We only lose if we keep tying both hands behind our backs - all we have to do is untie them!
I don’t know, I’ve been sick with the flu all week and I might just be deliriously rambling. I’ve been ingesting a lot of blackpills as of late, so this line of thinking is a useful whitepill to counteract their toxic effects.
Good post, I mostly agree.
The Left does express a Will to Power. They have a vision for the way the world should be, and they are enforcing their will and changing the world. There is no Right wing "Will to Power" beyond complaints of authoritarianism or complaints of being oppressed by those with that will.
But why does the Right seem incapable of asserting a positive vision like the Left? Can it move beyond the conservative-libertarian synthesis? Why is it so challenging for the Right to move beyond this clearly losing proposition, this "meta-rule" of "you lose or you lose more slowly." Can you answer that question without an answer that is going to immediately take us to the boundaries of the JQ? When I ask that question, I know what everyone is thinking. I know you venture to answer that with analyzing a basic psychology of European people (an analysis that I agree with) but it's ultimately ignoring big parts of the picture.
Our prevailing political system permits a left-wing Will to Power while only allowing a moderate right-wing opposition. It simultaneously enforces a taboo, and in some cases in Europe an outright legal ban, on avant garde or post-liberal, right-wing political thinking.
You could accuse me right here of engaging in grievance politics or demoralization, but I don't think so. This is about soberly understanding the power dynamics you have to operate in, and why those dynamics exist. That's not to say the situation is hopeless, it's to understand the goal and the obstacles to achieving those goals.
With that said, there is definitely too much grievance porn on the Right... someone will post a story of a Swedish girl being raped by a migrant or something and I agree that offers nothing constructive except demoralization and useless outrage. There's also too much vindictiveness and too much ressentiment.
But there's a very fine line between grievance politics and the Schmittian friend-enemy distinction. A lot of conservatives want to write off Critical Theory as "grievance identity politics" but the DR is more likely to see it as something much more powerful, substantive, and subversive than that. There is a powerful force to cultural and historical critique that shouldn't be written off as pure grievance politics that doesn't accomplish anything. The Left has demonstrated the power of historical and cultural critique.
All successful "underdog" movements like liberalism, Bolshevism, Fascism, Zionism, Irish nationalism, etc. emerged from what could be simplified as grievance and victim narratives. But in reality those movements were all pushing a positive vision with a grave consciousness of the headwinds of the status quo.
I agree with the emphasis on a positive, affirmational worldview but it cannot win without consideration of the headwinds of the status quo. And it would be nice if "our only obstacle is ourselves" but that is just not true. The biggest obstacle is ourselves, but it isn't the only one. There are people rooting and working against your project for their own reasons, and that can't be ignored. It should be respected from an adversarial perspective.
I (a leftist) think this is a fundamental mistake:
A will to power is not permitted, it justifies itself.
The current ascendancy of liberalism itself wasn't permitted, it forced itself into existence from the ballot box and the bullet box. Likewise the progress into the future, however slow, will continue to create itself.
What does the right have to compare to the creative urge? 7000 years of people clinging to old, decaying systems being paved over by progress. Conservatives can win temporary victories, they can freeze progress or roll it back for a short time or even a long time; but conservatives can never win.
The future will always come.
This is the attitude of your progressive; which has been enfeebled recently by a 200 year long string of victories. But if those victories end, the progressive spirit won't end with them. If 1000 years of serfdom and empire couldn't do it, nothing can.
Yes, it will, but I have my doubts that you will like it.
I think the “right side of history” narrative is the left's greatest asset. Popularly, it casts history into a battle between faces and heels, where the faces are these plucky upstarts on their heroes' journey, who have invented every good thing, who are always good, are always right, and always win – and on the other side, the heels are the evil goons who hate goodness just because, who are always bad, are always wrong, and always, in the end, lose.
The main advantage of this narrative is that it means that, whenever there's some controversy, one doesn't need to think about ideas, or events, but only people. One doesn't need to spare a second's thought to the actual merits of the issue, but instead just look at who's on which side: which side has the faces, and which side the heels, and there you go: all that's left is to accept the inevitable. The bend of the moral arc of history is clear; the inexorable weltgeist has spoken. The future will come, like it or not – and, well, if you want to stay a face, you'd better try to like it.
The problem with this narrative is that it lacks predictive power, outside of the short-term. Though every point in support of it is true, that doesn't mean that they tell the whole story, as Scott's recent series on “bounded distrust” has talked about. To me, what it looks like is so much painting the bullseye over the bullet holes, and we can see this because we can still see the peeling remains of previous bullseyes over older clusters of bullet holes. Eugenics, prohibition, communism, harsher sentences for crack cocaine – the march of history hasn't vindicated these, and not only have these been left out of the current narrative of inexorability, not only have (most of them) been disavowed, but in the popular understanding, they're ascribed to the machinations of the heels.
If one is able to control what that popular understanding of history is, though – what's important, and what doesn't matter – then one can exert a great deal of power without even telling any lies of commission. “Whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past.” Unfortunately, those “whoevers” don't tend to last.
So the issue is this: you know which side looks like the faces today, but will they have been the faces in retrospect? Is the story one can tell oneself about what all the True Faces throughout history have in common something that is actually going to endure, or will it be cast aside when it is no longer convenient like all the previous stories of its kind?
Perhaps Cthulhu always swims left, or perhaps “left” is the direction in which Cthulhu is currently swimming. Or maybe even it's not Cthulhu at all, but instead Azathoth, the blind idiot god, not swimming with purpose but thrashing without, and all the stories we tell ourselves about moral progress are just rationalizations about the random swells of moral fashions rising and falling beneath us. (Though personally I doubt – and hope not – that it's entirely that far!)
Ultimately, I think your dilemma is this: if you hold your convictions firmly and sincerely, eventually, despite the grasp you think you have on the direction of progress today, its shiftings and windings will call upon you to abandon some of those principles and support things you and I now consider abhorrent. Either you hold to your sincere beliefs, and not let temporal popularity break your convictions, and then you'll get thrown into the pit with the rest of the regressive heels, or you can abandon them, in which case you may as well be a moral loose cannon, throwing your weight behind whatever way the ship is already rocking irrespective of whatever must be smashed in your path.
Or, maybe, I am wrong, and at last we know, now and forever, the true way forward. Frankly, that would be a great relief, that we won't ever have to change direction again (as a lot of what bothers me about this progress is its churning: revolutions aren't much fun to live through, especially the “eating their own” part.) But I can't bring myself to believe that now is the time when the churning will stop, so I'll do my own best to find a solid place to stand.
More options
Context Copy link
Got kids, do you?
Your kids will be more liberal than you, and their kids will be more liberal than them, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Sucks to suck, if guess.
I'm marginally less liberal than my father, who was considerably less liberal than his father. Best as I can reckon, my community has experienced no significant liberal drift in living memory, and still directly draws on insights from our forebears hundreds and even thousands of years ago. I am entirely aware that your tribe intends to cuckoo mine of our children. I'm quite confident that it won't actually work. Too many unhappy people turning against your Utopian project as the consequences accrue.
In any case, you claim Liberals have a monopoly on the "creative urge", ignoring the part where they observably suck at the task of creating new and fully-formed human beings. I mean, I'd be happy to fight you on art or music or literature or whatever else, but approximately none of that will actually matter in a century.
So the question remains: got kids?
More options
Context Copy link
You got a three-day ban the last time you did this. When we ban you for being antagonistic, that doesn't mean "Come back and do the same thing again and see if the mods notice."
Banned for a week this time.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
To me this seems backwards. You occupy the space of the future, conservatives occupy the space of the past, you have no more claim to the enlightenment than a conservative that includes the enlightenment in their definition of conservatism, less actually as much of the current progressive agenda is in direct opposition to it. This is the same hiding the defeats of the past so common of whig history. How can you be sure that what you believe in is the glorious future that was the end of slavery and not the doomed project of prohibition? Did the progressive eugenics projects justify anything else that you'd proudly place under the leftist banner as self justifying future efforts?
Please do not let this reading of the past that you enjoy delude you into thinking you cannot err, that your punches cannot harm innocents, that you cannot cause catastrophe. The nightmares of history come from such confidence.
...And yet Enlightenment ideology reliably produces views like the ones you're responding to, and has since the Enlightenment itself. At some point, one really should ask why, if such views are antithetical to the Enlightenment, does Enlightenment ideology so reliably produce them?
I'm not so sure the causality is so simple here. As for why I still support the enlightenment, I guess I can just put it as simply as because I like it and I'm not going to let people with opinions I abhor dictate what I support. If I must be the only principled libertarianish type person in the world then so be it.
Terminal values are, in fact, terminal, and there are certainly hills worth dying on. I think it's worth interrogating why one holds them, though. The Enlightenment did not invent the concepts of charity, tolerance, liberty and so on, and its record at implementing them is questionable at best. Are these what you value, or is it truly the specific mechanisms of their pursuit?
The specific reference to the enlightenment in the first comment you responded to was more to pick landmark movement in the past that would have been considered some value of progressive in its time and show how t=0 progressives might not actually get the credit for what look in hindsight like whig history milestones and instead the enlightenment conservatives get that mantle because it's the argument they're actually making here and now. So it's a bit awkward to pivot to defending the enlightenment quo enlightenment. I was defending it from the left and now to defend it from the right I'd need to see where we're drawing the borders around it. If this is gut desire to be in my proper place ruled by a monarch for my own good, I think I've demonstrated in the various threads involving the royals here that I inherited a lack for that organ that I can trace back through my father's side to the revolution. Mob rule? I'm a little more skeptical. How all this crumbles down to specific value positions would take some time to do in detail.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The future has no political orientation. I would argue this is a very distorted view of history, almost Whig. Even the conception of 'Conservatism' you seem to think of as a failed endeavor is a thoroughly contemporary political notion that will not be recognizable in even 100 years. Roman democracy collapsed and was surpassed by an empire for 400 years. Tell an Islamic scholar in 1258 about the notion of ever-continuing progress and i doubt he will believe you. Even modern perceptions of this are distorted because of our geographical location and cultural biases. Russia enthusiastically attempted to enter some sort of western hegemony in the 90's and it failed spectacularly. In 500 years (if we avoid the possibility of nuclear destruction) It is possible that this liberal hegemony has become the focus and identity of the entire world, but it also just as likely that humans of the future will look back at our ideals much like we look back at astrology or early medicine. Things that had good intentions at the time but ended up being fruitless and ultimately against a proper organization of the world.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link