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 -
Throwing in a quick post because I'm surprised it hasn't been discussed here (unless I missed it!), Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago sets up "ICE-free zones" in Chicago.
This comes on the heels of Trump sending in the national guard after Chicago PD apparently wouldn't help ICE agents under attack. I haven't read all the stuff about this scenario, but on the surface level it seems pretty bad, I have to say.
There's a video clip where that mayor is saying that Republicans want a "redo of the Civil War," amongst other incredibly inflammatory things. The Governor of Illinois is apparently backing the mayor up.
This refusal to help ICE and even outright claim that you're fighting a war with them I mean... I suppose Democrats have been doing it for a while. This seems... bad. I mean sure you can sugarcoat it and point to legal statues and such, but fundamentally if the local governments of these places are going to agitate so directly against the President, I can't blame Trump for sending in the national guard.
Obviously with the two party system we have a line and such, but man, it's a shame that our politicians have fully embraced the heat-over-light dynamics of the culture war, to the point where they really are teetering on the brink of starting a civil war. Not the social media fear-obsessed "civil war" people have been saying has already started, but real national guard vs. local pd or state military type open warfare. I just don't understand going this far, unless the Mayor of Chicago thinks that he can get away with it and Trump will back down.
Even then, brinksmanship of this type seems totally insane!
I suppose Newsom in CA has been doing it too, now that I mention it. Sigh. I hope that we can right this ship because man, I do not want to have to fight in a civil war I have to say. Having studied history, it's a lot more horrible than you might think.
Do the people opposing ICE really believe that large scale unregulated immigration from Latin America will actually benefit the US? Mexico is in a state of permanent civil war. The countries that the migrants are coming from are low trust, violent societies with major dysfunction. I am not really seeing the endgame here. Importing labour in an unregulated way from third world countries is going to dump wages.
It seems like they are taking a position which they themselves know is losing in the long term for some other benefit that I can't see.
Forget the US. What benefit do blacks like Johnson specifically get?
They compete with blacks for jobs (or spending in the case of cities with right to shelter) and now there's not even a pretense that they'll be a permanent Democratic client base like them to push for policies African-Americans would want. Clearly the emerging Democratic majority with a bunch of minorities all loyal to one another is not going to happen.
Hell, insofar as they do join up they dilute AA's hold on the party. And, because they're not fully captured there's more of an incentive to pander to them. As Biden said: unlike the black community Latinos are diverse.
the illegals flood cities and protect the Democrat power centers by keeping those who would threaten their power out
they don't need to be loyal to each other, they need to be united in opposition to another group which has worked pretty well for quite a long time
the loyalty to each other is solved through an ethnic spoils system which we already see in cities across the US (and have for quite some time, e.g., Los Angeles)
cities across the US are controlled by people who govern badly, let crime and other scams run rampant and, whether this is intentional or not, the result of this is they keep normal, functional Americans out of those cities which protects the machine politics of those cities
Right, and this is why the cities with the largest foreign-born fraction (Miami, San Jose, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco) are the poorest, most crime-ridden cities in the country, while the cities containing the lowest fraction of foreign-born Americans (Detroit, Louisville, Memphis, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City) are beacons of safety and prosperity.
On the one hand, selection effects are absolutely a thing, and will explain at least some of that trend. On the other hand it sure doesn't look to me like foreigners turn cities into ethnic spoils engines, except to the extent that they make cities wealthy and some of that wealth goes to spoils.
Historically, it seems fairly clear that this is what happens: Lebanon, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem, the spoils machines in places like New York in the 1930s (which used to be carefully split so that the major political positions were held by one Irishman, one Italian, one Jew and one protestant IIRC) and the black machines in places like Chicago.
From the outside, it looks like America is already heavily focused around ethnic spoils - some of your biggest political debates are about to what extent ethnicity is relevant in job and university applications, the appropriate ethnic composition of universities and good jobs (between whites, Jews, blacks, etc.). Where and how children of different races should be educated, and how they should be treated by the law when they grow up. In more integrated countries these questions simply don't come up.
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
More options
Context Copy link