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 -
We Won
On Sunday Morning, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on ABC's This Week and proclaimed, "Woke 1 was crazy". The immediate context was AOC defending Wisconsin DSA governor candidate Francesca Hong, and so a lot of people are clowning on her for handwaving away everything that happened in 2015-2022. To the extent that this is about who you should vote for in the Wisconsin governor's race, I agree with the criticism, but I want to take a step back and appreciate how far we've come.
Think back to remember how it felt in the dark days of 2020 and 2021. It was far from clear that the reign of terror would ever end. Every week another subreddit or Twitter poster was banned. Facebook was removing posts supporting Kyle Rittenhouse as a policy. "Abolish the Police" was treated as a serious (if aspirational) policy proposal. Above everything else, the worst part was the psychological damage, the feeling that the entire world was going insane; that it was just you and a few guys from a Harry Potter fanfiction forum spinoff who were capable of the miniscule amount of critical thinking required to know that removing Aunt Jemima's face from bottles of pancake syrup did absoutely nothing to help black people.
The fact that even the left-wing of the Democratic Party is campaigning on health care, tax policy, and Palestine instead of racial humiliation is a big deal. There is a temptation to equate "woke" (more specifically "woke 1") with generic liberal Democrat stuff, but that's not really true. Conversely, it becomes easy to overlook some of Trump's greatest accomplishments. Turning DEI and Critical Race Theory into curse words and ending affirmative action were huge. People said it couldn't be done, and then they were done so fast that everyone forgot by the midterms.
The talk about "peak woke" as if it was in the past or "woke 1" as if there was some sort of stopping of "woke" where it would make sense to say that some new "woke" thing is "woke 2" instead of "woke continued" reminds me of the 2024 POTUS election when people were breathlessly trying to establish consensus that there had been a "vibe shift" among Democrats who were finally getting excited again and lining up behind the young(er), energetic Harris compared to the decrepit Biden or calling Walz's insult of Vance as "weird" as some brilliant bit of marketing. I can understand both why people who dislike Woke would have wishful thinking that it has receded and why people who like Woke would want to act as if they're powerless, but I think the fact of the latter should make people in the former highly suspicious that they're falling into wishful thinking. From where I sit, there's more overt pushback to Woke than ever before, but that's akin to there being more pushback to Nazis in 1942 compared to in 1932. it's not an indication of the Nazis' lack of power, influence, harm; rather, it's the exact opposite.
Exactly, woke 1, woke 2, woke 100, doesn't matter. I don't want ANY shit sprinkle in my ribeye, zero. And I consider woke as objectively shit.
Yes, some pushback against woke has become socially permissible now than before, but zero material gains are made until you significantly dismantle female and minority associated privileges in political, social and cultural contexts. An all white, all straight gender conforming cast in Odyssey for example. Zero girlbosses in male oriented media. Media napologetically catering to the straight male gaze. Regardless of who it offends. No more diversity hiring and affirmative action (at least, not based on anything beyond income levels). No more woke pandering in academia. These are real gains, "well, more people hate it now" is just a consolation prize.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link