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've previously posted on the Motte about the Swedish state-funded Investigative Committee For a Future with Children (Swed. Utredningen för en framtid med barn) with instructions to look into the recent decline in fertility and suggest solutions to the problem. We've already reached the fifth report in the series, this time analyzing how fiscal policy and social welfare affects childrearing, and what reforms have potential to raise the birth rate. As before, here's a link in case you know Swedish or want to use an AI to give you the uptake. https://framtidmedbarn.se/rapport/nr-5-ekonomisk-politik-och-fodelsetal-en-analys-av-effekter-och-evidens/
This is a significantly stronger and more refreshing report than the last two. It gets deeper into the nitty-gritty of the research in this field, while also being less hand-wringingly faux-neutral. One of the key take-aways is that the problem isn't merely one of spending more resources: Finland and Sweden both spend about equal amounts of government dough on child-friendly policies, yet Finland's birth rate is far worse than Sweden’s. The report instead suggests it's a matter of how you spend the money rather than how much money you spend.
In an especially striking and interesting part of the report, it actually hints at some relatively fresh and semi-radical new solutions. Becoming a parent, muses the report, is most difficult for younger people around 25-35 who are less securely established both in career and life-situation, but who have the highest fertility and the best chance of a good outcome if they do have a child. Yet current policy sprinkles benefits over time rather than concentrating it in the hands of the young who need it most: so concentrate the benefits! Give new young parents a bigger concentrated dose of total spending instead of spreading them out over time. The logic’s pretty good! When the kid turns 14, the parents are likely to be in their 40's, well-established and hardly hurting for money — quite different from the situation when the child was a newborn! Nothing is certain, but the report produces some tentative evidence that it might be possible to slightly raise birth rates by ensuring such economic support to younger new parents.
There's actually a natural experiment supporting the theory that large endowments to young people can raise birth rates — namely, longevity! It wasn't long ago that people mostly kicked the bucket when they were 60-70 years old, thus naturally boosting the economy of their offspring who were likely to be 25-35. With the average life span in Sweden now well above 80, fewer young people today can count on that sort of windfall during their child-rearing years. It might be an idea to try and restore that natural transfer from the older improductive generation to the fertile younger one. The children, after all, are the future, and if there’s anything in the world worth preserving they’re the ones who are going to have to do it.
In passing, I have lately become more and more skeptical towards the term longevity itself. We indeed live longer, but we haven’t so much prolonged our lives as we have diluted them. What is life, and what is death? A long-sickly 95-year old woman whose country and family are straining and sundering keeping her and many like her alive through exorbitantly expensive care – does she live? And conversely, someone who died when he was 75 but lived honourably and left behind an untarnished memory and a future full of promise for his nation and family – is he dead?
Dilution of the lifespan in fact seems to be the secret culprit behind a lot of factors in the fertility-decline – older people living in large houses 20 years longer, the wealth transfer to the new generation being significantly delayed, et cetera – and it seems to me that the solution often involves counteracting these negative effects in various ways. Something worth pondering, to be sure.
I don't believe economy is at all important regarding fertility rate compared to culture.
The Scandinavian countries generally do well on the economic side. Having a child is very doable for most couples and is not going to ruin your life. Provided that you are reasonably good with budgeting, even full-time students with no savings can provide a good childhood for their kids due to various government subsidies.
Yet looking at the stats, the Scandinavian fertility rates have declined alongside everyone else, never looking particularly impressive compared to others in the EU.. If it was true that people would be having kids if only they were not such an economic burden, then we might expect falling fertility rates in countries like the US and China. But Scandinavia, with their immense social safety nets, ought to be booming. Yet there is seemingly no effect.
What has spread basically all over the EU is a narrative of self-actualization and viewing children and family formation as something that keeps you from living your life to the fullest. If you want to travel or build a career you must do so before having kids. This is notably not actually true. As I wrote above, the Scandinavian nations are prime examples of career-building while having kids being possible. But it is what most students believe, and so is ultimately what guides their decision making.
Then you have dating norms on top. American norms have been successfully imported here, which means that long term relationships too are increasingly seen as sacrifices by young people that will prevent them from living the ideal lifestyle of partying, travelling, and hooking up. Dating is superficial, exclusivity cannot be assumed without explicit negotiation, people are increasingly scared of committing to a relationship, and gen Z spends less time in third spaces than any before generation prior, making it difficult to build organic connections.
So while it may well be true that money could be allocated more efficiently by giving a larger share to young parents, I doubt that it would help fertility much. What we need is to change the narratives around children, families, and growing up.
The hedonistic single lifestyle needs to be seen as an unfulfilling treadmill. Raising your children needs to be regarded as a path to self fulfillment on its own. Building a life with someone you love needs to be a goal that is prioritized by young people. The more these are seen as sacrifices that will limit your life, the less people are going to choose them. We need family-formation and child rearing to be perceived as viable paths towards happiness and fulfillment. Right now they just aren't, and so there is no way any government is willing (or capable) of paying enough money for young people to do what amounts to giving up on their dreams for the sake of society.
Is "the problem would not exist in a hypothetical situation we have no means of reaching" a useful insight, or does it even achieve anything apart from lazy demoralisation of those who do try to find something they can do to solve it?
It seems backwards to me that you think cultural changes are harder to implement than policy changes. Its a form of Democracy propaganda that I see often enough that its worth addressing.
Changing culture is hard and slow, it involves talking to a lot of people, convincing them, having role models to hold up who are paragons of the change you want. If you are pushing against specific incentives or people then they will try to reverse the cultural changes you are making.
How do you get a democratically elected government to change policy? You have to change base cultural desires of the people so that they change their voting habits often and consistently enough. And you need to tailor the policy to make it survive through whatever political process exists in the country.
Cultural change also has the benefit of snowballing effects. If you have some good ideas and good culture it self advertises as it spreads. Democracy requires a minimum 50%+1 starting point. So good ideas and terrible ideas have somewhat equal chances to getting implemented.
Changing the culture is very fast and very easy to do when the government wants to do it. Look at any communist revolution, or look at the way every modern TV show has an unnecessary gay character.
Most people are Havel's Greengrocer. There is not a political thought in their heads. When the party line changes, they change along with it, and don't even notice the difference. Orwell had them pegged. Animal Farm and 1984 are not novels; they are documentaries.
In the age of mass media and compulsory education, culture is imposed from the top down, not bottom up. Public opinion is a function of whose army is guarding the TV station.
Democracy is a sham. It doesn't matter who gets elected, the bureaucrats remain the same, the teachers remain the same, the university professors accrediting the teachers remain the same, and the people making movies remain the same. So, of course, nothing changes; it's the same government! Voting for the other party is voting for a change of décor.
Changing the culture is a coup-complete problem.
I think that goes too far.
There are some cultural issues where I do believe the government exerts significant cultural force.
It tends to be on issues that question the legitimacy of the state, the tax apparatus, and democracy itself.
But there is plenty of cultural leeway on things they don't care much about. And there are things they sort of care about where they exert some minor pressure.
I think natalist stuff is something they sort of care about. They prefer you having kids that go to government schools and drink the cool aid of system indoctrination. Homeschoolers fought an uphill battle, but have mostly been slowly winning in a bunch of states.
Child tax credits didn't have any major detractors. "Pro choice" doesn't call themselves pro abortion or anti natalist.
I just don't think the model of natalist culture as a government defended cultural view is accurate.
More options
Context Copy link
This seems like you redefining influential members of the culture as the real government in order to argue that the government controls the culture. Of course you aren't going to think the government is weak if you redefine anyone with power as part of the unofficial government. But someone who agrees with you but is using normal definitions is going to say that the the control of the U.S. government over culture is weak, and when they coincide it's generally because an influential cultural faction controls the government rather than the other way around.
Definition issues aside, I think you're also very mistaken about it being top-down. I saw the rise of SJW ideology, and it didn't originate from film-makers or bureaucrats or teachers. It was developed, refined, and spread by posters on websites like Tumblr and Something Awful. The influence over institutions like media outlets came later. Some of the words and ideas originated from academia decades earlier, but plenty was altered or brand new. "Demisexual" originated from a young teen girl on a play-by-post roleplaying forum (used to explain why her slutty RPG character had sex with some characters but not others) and spread when another poster from the same forum made a Tumblr post about it as a joke. Now plenty of big official institutions and university professors and so on take it seriously. (The original girl now identifies as demisexual herself, having "discovered" that she was projecting it onto her character, while the Tumblr poster regrets having accidentally unleashed it on the world.)
The rapid rise of SJW ideology had less to do with the power of the people creating or spreading it and more to do with a sort of selective memetic immunodeficiency among institutions and much of the public, with the internet serving as a breeding ground for ideas that maximally exploited those openings. To the extent that specific people were influential at all it was by being the sorts of weirdos who posted on the internet a lot and/or became skilled at internet posting. Not every change in culture is going to follow that pattern, but in the internet era I think such changes tend to be grassroots.
The government can influence culture a lot more if it's killing anyone who publicly disagrees and engaging in very extensive and relatively successful censorship. That doesn't mean every country (or the world as a whole) works the same way, or that establishing a totalitarian government is easier than influencing culture in other ways. There are multiple communist groups in the west who think engaging in normal politics is a waste of time because communism can only be achieved through violent revolution. Needless to say they're a lot less influential than the Something Awful posters who spent a decade refining their shitposting skills to amuse a few hundred other forum posters, then discovered those skills were transferable to influencing millions of people on social media. Which isn't to say that direct mass-appeal on social media is the only way, Scott Alexander demonstrates another approach.
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