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 -
Matt Yglesias posted on X an argument in favor of immigration (having trouble finding it now). The argument was basically “you like lasagna right? Well if we didn’t allow Italians to immigrate no lasagna. And now Italians are pretty indistinguishable from other Americans so clearly that will be the case with others such as Somalians. Think of the future lasagna equivalent you’d get with no cost since the immigrants will assimilate.”
Leave aside the HBD argument. It seems to me that one Matt and those who make this argument miss is the massively different technology that exists today that didn’t exist in yesteryear. If you left Italy in the late 1800s, you couldn’t easily get back routinely to see family (whereas now it’s maybe a days travel). You couldn’t FaceTime them at a whim. You couldn’t text message them. The populations were truly cut off.
It is likely harder to assimilate in the modern world where immigrant populations are not cut off as opposed to the old world. So pointing to historic examples of assimilation do not hold for today because the factors have changed. Now maybe you still think there will be assimilation for different reasons. But you need to make that argument. Comparing like and unlike however cannot be your argument.
I don’t think this is some kind of groundbreaking point but why would presumably smart people like Yglesias make such a sloppy argument? Maybe they aren’t smart. Maybe they don’t encounter enough arguments to the contrary. Or maybe they are propagandists. I can’t help but think repeating a catechism has value to building political unity even (perhaps especially if) it’s fake.
Yeah.
Assimilation is harder just by being constantly exposed to the home culture, let alone the fact that currently, there's almost zero formal pressure to adopt Western Cultural norms, since there's a whole industry of thought devoted to arguing that Western Cultural norms aren't better' and are in fact 'enriched' by adopting competing norms.
A) As you say, they're not as smart as they portray themselves (95% confidence) and these arguments genuinely don't occur to them and they're not going to consider them deeply even if they did.
B) They are indeed propagandists (which goes to the above point, you don't need to be smart to be one, if you can repeat the desired arguments 'convincingly.'), but they're independent propagandists and they're mostly in it for money and a crumb of status.
C) Sloppy arguments work when you are never, ever, ever forced to engage with the other side, or a smart interloper, or even acknowledge the holes in your argument unless someone with a higher status in your tribe points it out... at which point they generally snap into line and adjust their talking points as needed.
THAT right there is my primary objection to "public intellectuals" like Yglesias, Hanania, Noah Smith, they literally never seek out the strongest argument on the other side and attempt to debunk it by engaging with the strongest intellectuals who oppose them.
I watched Alex Nowrasteh get absolutely creamed because he wants to uphold the "Right wing violence is rewarded/celebrated by the right and generally denounced by the left" narrative, THE SAME DAY that the left is venerating the death of a violent lefty.
These are not serious people. They have to engulf their ideas in bubble wrap and display them behind six layers of plexiglass in order to keep them from being shattered by the whisper of an opposing argument.
Undoubtedly. That's the part they've monetized. Since a huge number of the audience you're courting is within one standard deviation of the median IQ, you just have to impress those guys to and keep them paying you to have an impact and make a decent living.
So a ~120 can probably impress the 100-110s enough to get them to accept him as 'one of them' and pay a bit of money to hear their preferred opinions blurted back to them with a bit of extra polish and a layer of respectability.
After that point, its just a matter of guarding your market share.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link