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 -
Let's talk about the Örebro Party: (Swedish) lefty socialists except they support remigration.
Key quotes from Wikipedia (emphasis mine)
They've made headlines recently (and got on my radar) because Mullvad's CEO donated €452,000 to them.
My perspective on remigration:
People should live in their own communities. I remember reading an article about a tradcath community, and presumably the article wanted to criticise and mock them, but I thought they had decent values and the world is better with them. Or the furry community, even though they can be weird, sometimes produce amazing works like this. Or the unique cultures from other countries and ethnicities...hence the appeal of reversing immigration.
Immigration has ruined communities. A massive problem with today's culture is that it has become one monoculture: everything is becoming gentrified, secured, and impersonal. Translation tools, ethnic stores, etc. are accelarating this (despite otherwise being positive by granting me interesting new cultures and vice versa), by making every culture adapt every other culture's most viral aspects (which aren't necessarily good, like arguably convenience food and tipping). LLMs are accelarating this. But immigration is perhaps most accelarating this: some immigrants are even beneficial, but immigrants who don't know or respect the culture's customs, don't socialize with the rest of the community, take more than they contribute (without an apparent excuse), commit much more crime than the existing community, and don't even speak the language...break community members' unspoken understanding, friendship, altruism, trust, and communication with their neighbor.
But remigration isn't a solution. First, because I can't imagine how to do it remotely ethically. Comparing anything right-wing to Nazism is an overused cliche, but it fits here: AFAIK Nazis initially planned to just deport the Jews somewhere (Madagascar), but ended up brutally overworking and exterminating them, because their end goal was to get rid of them and that was easiest. How would you get rid of immigrants if Somalia etc. won't accept them? What if it's too expensive? What if it's dangerous for them? What about women and children?
These are difficult questions not only morally, but the infrastructure (military tactics) to effectively implement remigration is dangerous for your own sake. It risks broadening persecution, creating a fascist state, an ugly monoculture...the exact failure it seeks to prevent.
So what to do? I don't oppose moderate immigration reform, like:
Honestly, I don't think these are enough to reverse the decay of culture and public resources, and they may seem like a waste of resources for unwanted immigrants, but I think too much immigration/remigration would be worse (for culture and public resources). A real solution must be broader than immigration. Fixing the other issues: making LLMs more diverse, further improving translation tools and incentivizing ethnic stores to include more cultural nuance, and increasing nationalism as a side-effect of addressing the elephant in the room: convincing most of the population to like their government (maybe by having it do something notable for the public and advertising it, and electing new parties with less out-of-touch politicians, even Örebro if they tone down remigration).
Arguably the above essay is another milquetoast thought experiment with the same conclusions everyone already knows: obviously government should not be so corrupt, etc. So another point of discussion is why Örebro decided to focus on this as their stand-out policy. Is it just marketing and they plan to implement something much more moderate (I realize I'm bad at marketing, but I'm skeptical this would work for a generally leftist party). Is it a radical idea to appeal to the working class? Is it only the media that's focusing on this policy, and Örebro themselves consider it a less important part of the agenda compared to the socialist policies? (Probably all of the above, especially the third.)
I do think we need some radical solution to fix societal decay, although it may emerge outside policy, like a technological breakthrough, or just younger generations replacing older ones and having a drastically different culture. I don't think it's in immigration. Maybe the Örebro party will get elected by arguing for remigration, but if they actually want to improve Sweden, I believe the bulk of their implementation must be in their other policies.
I increasing believe personality traits differ amongst the races and it’s not just athleticism or IQ. You actually do kill a community by having diversity because every race finds the other ones annoying. White people are too loud for Asians. Blacks are too loud for whites. Everyone enjoys their neighborhood more when they just have their own people. The Tower of Babel was an underrated work of theology.
I’ve never had an actual bro that was East Asian. We have fundamentally different taste that makes that very hard. So even though many of them are the best immigrants they also tend to ruin the vibes. Nobody is going to a SEC school if they were 90% Asian. For all the hate Indians get a % of them can fully assimilate culturally. I’ve got plenty of Indian bro-friends.
Getting the political will for remigration is of course hard. Argentina found solutions to this a long time time ago and they a much less violent society than America. Sometimes you just need to do hard things.
Anti-migration is not a policy that is right or left wing. Bernie Sanders use to be anti-migration. It only became a partisan issue because everything has become a partisan issue in the US.
I’ve met plenty of Asians that were just kinda… normal. Granted they were all Vietnamese. But still. Likewise plenty of super white acting blacks, and liberals are basically white people acting like orientals.
What are you talking about? I can’t think of any interpretation of this word that remotely describes “liberals.” Is it just for negative associations?
There's no all-encompassing definition of Confucianist Asians of which ardent nationalists will accept, so Oriental is a crude but acceptable exonym. At least, that's my guess. You try grouping Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese cultures with a single name.
East Asian.
Tends to refer more to Indians/Bangladeshi than actual Asians (which are called exactly that), though that might not be as true in the US.
India and Bangladesh are unambiguously South Asia.
Yeah, but you can't call them Indians (which they are) because we already have a group called that, because once upon a time some European tourists misidentified our Indians for their Indians.
Such is life.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link