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 -
I feel like, if a term were to exist for this, it should allude to Greek tragedies. It's one of those cases where everyone, including the baited, can tell that it's bait and that the winning move is to just simply answer in the most straingforward, simple and honest way possible, but their pride prevents them from doing so because that would be giving their enemies a "win." So they respond with something like "that's bait, fuck you," which is precisely the response that most benefits the baiter.
Unfortunately, what's likely the most famous Greek example of something like this already has very strong connotations of motherfucking, so something else would need to be found for the term.
I don't think that works out either because your answer will be twisted into whatever is most convenient to the person framing it.
"Politician A says he supports position B but he voted for Bill C. We need less dishonest politicians in Washington, we need someone who not only talks the talks, but walks the walks. Vote for Politician D"
As long as there is a Bill C that can be, with the proper framing, made to seem like it's in opposition to position B (and there always is), then answering straightforwardly did nothing to help. Worse, it might make you seem gutless and insufficiently defiant to your base. Trump didn't go from laughing stock political outsider to 2 term POTUS by giving the straightforward, compliant answer to this kind of question, he got there by doubling down on "that's bait, fuck you" every time.
The press and political opponents can always twist whatever they want however they want. But by responding straightforwardly and honestly, one can at least claim to hold principles instead of having to admit that they're calculating tribalists who make decisions based on tribal allegiances rather than principles.
And moving up a level, a tribe that accepts or even encourages its leaders to submit to such tribalism has to admit that it's a tribe that is merely trying to beat the Enemy because they're the Enemy, rather than following principles that they believe the government and society at large should follow. This was one of the many small mistakes of the progressive left, in the "It's okay to be white" or "Islam is RIGHT about women" things. My perception is that the fact that there was even a single random blue-haired leftist who, when confronted with such a slogan, hemmed and hawed about dog whistles instead of straightforwardly and honestly answering, "OF COURSE it's okay to be white! I want white people to feel perfectly okay being white, and the principles and policies that I am (we are) pushing doesn't conflict with that in any way, so much so that if you or anyone else believes - incorrectly - that such a conflict exists, I will actively help you resolve that conflict, by crushing whatever might be making white people suspect that such a phrase is wrong" placed another chink in the armor that tribe was wearing.
Trump has been noted to be not only an unusual, but a downright unique figure in US politics. Given that, I think it's reasonable to believe that copying his techniques and tactics isn't a good way for accomplishing the copying of his political success.
What penalties do you observe for being a calculating tribalist who makes decisions based on tribal allegiance rather than principles? Do you observe these consequences to be uniformly applied? If I argue that being such a calculating tribalist is the correct response to the current situation, what would your counter-argument be?
By no means.
"Principles" are another way of saying "rules". To the extent that we use the term "rules", we use it to refer to legible rules. But it is not possible to construct a perfect, legible ruleset that covers all situations and contingencies, such that human judgement is obviated by a flowchart.
The point of society is to promote good things and suppress bad things. Values-coherence allows people to do this under generalizable rules which rely on those coherent values for grounding. When values are mutually-incoherent, this is no longer possible, and attempts at sticking to generalizable rules is signing up for exploitation without meaningful limits.
How did this chink in the armor manifest, in your view? Obviously not only did a single activist do this, but it was the default response for Blue Tribe as a whole, with any dissent being exceedingly marginal and fringe.
People talk (foolishly, in my opinion) about Woke being dead. It is obvious to me that Woke did not "die" because principled moderates put it back in a box, but because Red Tribe burned many of its own principles to go all-in on tribal warfare, and turned out to have better terrain for it than the Blues. The moderates had more than a decade to fight, and in that time they accomplished nothing significant, fielded no champions, won no battles outside the context of Red Tribe treating the culture war as a war.
Trump will not last forever. A large portion of the Republican elite very clearly want to wash their hands of him and go back to the way things used to be. That is not an acceptable solution to Red Tribe, though, and every success we have had at securing our values has come from refusing to accept this exact sort of "moderation".
"It's okay to be white" was effective because Blues really do believe that it is not okay to be white. They could not allow themselves to let it stand.
"Stand if you disavow fascism" is effective not because Republicans won't stand, but because many of them will, not because they are notably less fascist than those who remain seated in any objective sense, but because they want the people making the demand to be nicer to them. In doing so, they weaken my tribe, and I hold them in contempt for doing so.
The basic fact is that at the object level, it is not the case that Blues have a problem with people being white in the same way that Reds have a problem with Fascism. The actual difference in tribal attitude and inclination cannot be handwaved, and while it is obvious that it cannot be agreed upon either, the current situation does not require agreement for things to proceed along their current trajectory. Speaking in broad generalities, it appears to me that Reds are not fascist to any significant degree, but Blues are actually quite racist against white people. Perhaps this perception is wrong, but if it is not wrong then it makes no sense to demand symmetrical responses.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link