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 -
GK Chesterton and MAGA
Chesterton personifies the paradoxes he loves to pursue in his writing. A member of the Fabian (socialist) party, he is remembered primarily as a bulwark of conservatism. Deeply immersed in early 20th century high British society and culture, he was Catholic rather than Church of England. Writing prose and poetry on the transcendence of family, he never had children.
A populist, he writes a warning to MAGA.
To be sure, Chesterton does not shy away from condemning progressive society. In one memorable anecdote he tells a relativist that in a functioning democracy, the relativist would be burned on a pyre. In his pithy essay "The Return of the Barbarian" (1934), Chesterton states "I do not mean that any of that sort of liberty or laxity or liberal-mindedness has ever had anything to do with civilization." Yet Chesterton writes the essay not as a warning against Liberalism, but to identify the rising Nationalist Socialism of Germany as the true enemy of civilization. Even though the civilization may be decadent, flabby, and decayed, civilization must still fight for civilization. For barbarism is an uncontrollable beast. It contains no introspection, no self-corrective. Chesterton ends the essay in his typical incisive style:
"There are many marks by which anybody of historical imagination can recognize the recurrence: the monstrous and monotonous omnipresence of one symbol, and that a symbol of which nobody knows the meaning; the relish of the tyrant for exaggerating even his own tyranny, and barking so loud that nobody can even suspect that his bark is worse than his bite; the impatient indifference to all the former friends of Germany, among those who are yet making Germany the only test—all these things have a savor of savage and hasty simplification, which may, in many individuals, correspond to an honest indignation or even idealism, but which, when taken altogether, give an uncomfortable impression of wild men who have merely grown weary of the complexity that we call civilization." [Emphasis added].
As a confirmed MAGAt myself, I feel a distinct discomfort reading this warning. There is a cold nihilism and gleeful cruelty in the MAGA intelligentsia. The rank-and-file MAGA populists cower from modern complexity, preferring the comfort of totalizing and simple narratives. If MAGA feels less barbaric than the Brown Shirts it may only be because our civilization doesn’t have the will or vitality to produce real barbarians.
Yet what is else is the solution when faced with Weimar problems? Chesterton lived in the relatively prudish Britain, and did not need to directly confront the debauchery of Weimar Germany. Easy for him to work within his civilization to promote his conceptualization of the common good. What would he have suggested when faced with the ubiquitous celebration of buggery or an importation of an alternative "civilization"?
But, of course, Chesterton (or rather, custom and common sense as channeled by Chesterton) does have the solution. In his essay "On the Instability of the State" he counters the prevailing notions of the Total State by satirizing the ephemerality of modern nations. In contrast, true societal stability is only found in the Family, the bedrock on which all civilization stands. And while the modern assault on the Family threatens to break civilization as assuredly as any barbarian uprising, it is still an institution that takes only two willing companions and the providence of God to initiate. And it is on this rock that the next great civilization will be built. "In the break-up of the modern world, the Family will stand out stark and strong as it did before the beginning of history."
Of course, one of the big issues with the ‘Trump is a fascist’ narrative is that no, he’s not. Trump is not a palingenetic ultranationalist, he’s not a totalitarian, he doesn’t seem to have much ideology to begin with, really. Words have meanings.
Trump is running on economic populism, strong executive, and (in practice very mild)retrenchment from the eastern hemisphere.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link