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 -
Why Minneapolis? If you had asked me eight years ago where I felt the culture wars were going to be centered I would have said Portland. Being in the PNW it was the epicenter of wokeness and it seemed like you had antifa and Proud Boys gearing up for street battles there. If not Portland I would’ve picked somewhere else stereotypically woke, Seattle, San Francisco, even NYC while not unusually woke is at least especially prominent.
Minneapolis really had no reputation in my mind, I wouldn’t have imagined it was any woker than any other semi-large American city, and probably comparable to Oklahoma City or St. Louis or something. But from George Floyd to Somali Daycares and Renee Good it has clearly become the main battleground. Does anyone have any theories as to why this is?
I think people below are reading too much into this. It's just a coincidence. If the same thing happened in any other city there would be similar explanations.
I tend to agree with you, however I do think that in hindsight, this type of incident was more likely to take place in Minneapolis than in, say, Austin, Texas. The two women, especially Good's partner, seemed to be (1) very aggressive and provocative with law enforcement; and (2) very naive about the nature of violent confrontations; the wisdom of baiting cops; and so on.
One commentator recently observed that it takes a lot of white female privilege to drive a car at a cop and think nothing will happen to you. And I think there's some truth to this. In a place like Minnesota there are a lot of Leftists who are leading extremely sheltered, privileged lives.
Obviously there are a lot more Leftists in places like Brooklyn and San Francisco, but I think such persons would be a bit more likely to appreciate the risks involved in driving a car at a police officer.
So yeah, this could easily have happened anywhere but the fact that it happened in Minneapolis doesn't seem like a huge surprise.
The middle-class white liberal protesters seem to have two contradictory ideas firmly entrenched:
(1) Cops, ICE, all such federal agencies broadly, are fascist racist [fill out the reset of the bingo card yourself] MAGA murder squads and will disappear innocent refugees/asylum seekers to torture in jails abroad and are killing brown and black people in the streets with impunity, because the fascist dictator Cheeto Hitler has no regard for law and is grabbing power for himself and using the Constitution as toilet paper, abetted by his far-right packed Supreme Court who have declared everything he does legal
(2) I am a nice, middle-class, white liberal who is protesting the Fourth Reich in the USA, so the murder squads have to obey the law of the land and give me all my rights and when I get my day in court the judge will inevitably see the rightness of my actions
The idea that if (1) is true, then they themselves are gonna get murdered with impunity in the streets by the jackbooted thugs doesn't seem to compute for them. The only way I can imagine they make sense of this is that they believe "Ah, but I have White Privilege and since society is Systemically Racist and set up to support White Privilege, nothing bad can happen to me, white person, so I can use my superpower for good!"
Noblesse oblige.
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