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 -
Maybe you're an outlier but history shows us people will do a lot to avoid being ostracised. Fear and shame are strong motivators and every cohesive society uses them liberally. Because they work on most people.
We learn them as kids very early. You'll get mocked for having the wrong shoes or being a nerd, or nowadays not being a nerd, and most people react by publicly at least going along with it. Not everyone of course, but enough.
People here are likely to be more contrarian than average, but for most people thesectools are extremely effective.
I'm not. The entire Eastern Block functioned the way I described, and you've misunderstood everything I'm saying. Yes people will do the bare minimum to avoid getting ostracised.
It seems the West is now determined to reproduce the East's success. Have fun doing so, but don't act surprised if the progressive dream of equality is achieved through making everything equally crap.
My point is this is already how it is and has been in the West. The change is just in what not how.
I'm in my 50's and this dynamic is entirely normal here.
I would just like to add that Western Conformism being the norm at all is arguably a strong reason why we're even having this discussion right now--the counter-culture rebelled so hard that it re-wrote our culture practically on accident. So, to echo Arjin's perspective, maybe we should strive to emulate neither the Commissars nor the HUAC.
More options
Context Copy link
With respect, you have no idea what you're talking about. In your arguments you only brought up absolute minorities as a counterpoint. Sure, they can be dominated. Them adhering to the rules only when they're afraid of being caught is fine because they're absolute minorities. The game is completely different when a good chunk of society is cynical.
I'm confused. Of course particular instances of social cohesion can fail. Christianity arguably lost its cohesive grip, "Wokeness" could lose its current grip or fail to entirely eclipse older ideologies, but the behaviours and the fact that the people pushing the social buttons are important remains. The bedrock of all social technologies starts with shame and fear and works from there. Christianity, communism, wokeness, whatever, i am not making value judgements about the particular ideology being pushed, just the generalities of HOW which they all share.
The fact remains in my opinion however that most people in most social do get "assimilated" and are not cynics. Thats what ideas such as doublethink and the king has got no clothes and people complaining about how people can flip ideas on mask mandates so easily gesture at. Its not based on facts its based on social pressures.
And most people (probably adaptively) bow to social pressure. Most assimilate it seamlessly into their world view, "light" cynics mouth the words only at first but as the old adage goes say something enough times and you begin to believe it.
That leaves only a small cadre of outliers, your "true" cynics which are likely to be over represented here. But nothing in my over 50 years on this earth across multiple countries makes me think they are the majority. Or even a large minority.
Well, now I'm confused. All this time I've been arguing that they are and you never actually denied it until now. You were saying that cynically showing up at the events, and chanting the slogans is what social cohesion *is*.
I never said they don't, I'm saying that doesn't make them not cynics.
So you think people actually believe the corporate propaganda about "we're a family"?
Do the many countries include any post-communist ones? Actually, the question is a bit unfair, because I'd turn any answer you give against you. If you weren't there you have no chance of knowing what I'm talking about, and if you were and didn't see it, you were just blissfully unaware.
Just to be clear i am talking at a meta level. People can become cynical about a particular ideology. Which is a symptom that, that ideology failed to, or is failing to influence enough people to maintain/create social cohesiveness. But that doesn't mean they are cynics in general. I know quite a lot of post Soviet people who are huge advocates for capitalism for example, so their cynicism was limited to the failures of communism specifically (for pretty good rrasons of course!)
Wokism might well have a lot of cynics against it specifically, but tomorow those HR ladies will be promoting Trad-Catholicism or Retro-Paganism or whatever.
They are always valuable and important even if a particular ideology promoting cohesiveness fails. Because there will be another and another until one sticks for a while.
Keep in mind the whole conversation started with whether or not HR managers provide something valuable. You claimed that they do, and that it's social cohesion. Ideologies are somewhat related to the conversation, since HR managers do push them during the course of their work, but it's a mostly tangential question. No matter which ideology is in charge, whether it's wokeness of today, or "greed is good" of the 80's, I maintain that HR managers do not provide social cohesion, a plurality of the workforce doesn't believe their crap, and just goes through the motions.
I think we could agree (perhaps?) that American companies in the 50s (for example) had pretty good buy in from their employees. This is where the memes about Boomers being loyal to their companies and so on come from. I think we would also agree that this buy in is probably lower today, with more people going through the motions. If I am off base and you disagree here, my apologies.
My explanation for this is that the specific ideologies being pushed today may indeed get less buy in. I would also agree the named roles that provide the bulk of the mid to low level push to cohesion are different (HR Manager today vs the secretarial pool or office managers and so on back in the day). I would say these roles are largely filled by women, both then and now and they are important to cohesion. But that doesn't mean that every version and every corporate culture will be equally effective at building it. Modern HR culture may not be as effective as secretarial gossip culture of the 50s or the big bonus HR culture of the 80s but that isn't an argument against the overall idea, just one execution of it.
Having said that, from the point of view of social cohesion whether you toe the line because you are a true believer, or toe the line because you'll get shamed, disciplined or fired, you are still toeing the line. If you are going to the cocaine and stripper party because you 1) Like cocaine and strippers, 2) Know you will be judged for not going and it may impact your career or 3) Think hanging out with your team after work is fun. You are still going to the cocaine and stripper party. You are still a part of the banter and inside jokes. No-one will know which is the truth but you.
If you use "correct" pronouns because 1) You think it is the right thing to do. 2) You know you will be judged and it may impact your career or 3) Believe in going along to get along so as to not upset your team, who you like. You are still using the "correct" pronouns. You are still seen to be an ally. No-one will know which is the truth but you.
If enough people get tired of cocaine culture or pronoun culture to the extent that they are able to recognize each other by their ACTIONS and start ACTING differently then you are correct, because now you can tell the solidarity is fake. People realize that no-one wants the cocaine and stripper parties (except Bob the cocaine fiend), and that HR can't possibly punish everyone. The illusion is broken. (Though as above, many people certainly believe that being forced to act as if the believe the illusion will eventually make them unable to see through it.) Indeed many of the opponents of communism seemed to recognize that:
"Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way." said Havel and I believe he was correct. For most people can and will happily live under an illusion they have learned not to question. Arguably the whole of society itself is such an illusion. We are built for it. We can hold opposing views and flip flop on them as the winds of social status blow. It might even be how we have managed to prosper despite the many examples of how society demands things that are bad for the individual.
To use a larger example, Christianity was exceptional at building social cohesion. Until more and more people began leaving it and becoming cynical atheists. But the church ladies were (and are!) still integral to its success. If you look at the failure and say "Well I guess church ladies don't help with cohesion after all" then you're missing the point. Sure if you look after the hegemonic fracture church ladies aren't helping social cohesion between atheists and Christians, but they did and are still helping with cohesion between Christians, (including those who only pay lip service due to their upbringing or their location). Their tactics are effective. They just aren't effective enough to overcome prevailing headwinds.
In other words if you look at places which don't have cultural cohesion then clearly the attempts at enforcing cohesion failed. It's like the anthropic principle, those social police must have failed otherwise you wouldn't be able to observe the failure. But that doesn't mean all social police fail, or that the role is useless. Because we can observe times and situations where they did and do work.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think this is wrong: niceness and cooperation, voluntary selflessness, the whole Goddess-Of-Everything-Else stuff, that is how things get built. Shame and coercion only get you so far, but the externalities will eventually come back--and as we see right now, when the dam bursts, those leading the sudden revolution are more than happy to throw out the old baby with the nasty bathwater.
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