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 -
That's the point, right? LatAm politics is characterised by a heavy understanding that We Are (Not) All In It Together.
That’s a different thing than assimilation, though. A failure of assimilation is failing to join the society. In LatAm, all of those groups are part of society; their society just has a lot of people in different roles.
It’s the same with AADoS in the US; they have always been a part of US society. The question has always been their place in it, not if they were an alien presence in it.
The problem with words is they can have different relatively similar meanings.
Most of Latam accepts a shared culture. The elites, middle class, and lower class all have an acceptance of what is Mexican Food or Music and they have the same understanding that a taco is Mexican and Sushi is not Mexican. But there is a bigger assimilation of seeing yourself as truly one people. They likely mostly lack that. The English of the European countries bonded a few people together but today I think they mostly view themselves as “one people”. You can still at times notice physical traits and faces from the prior population groups. That I consider a stronger form of assimilation.
Most of the new world has the looser form of assimilation. Pre-mass migration the US for most of its population developed the stronger form of assimilation. I would say in 1980 Italians probably being the last large migration had nearly fully accomplished the strong form of assimilation.
That makes sense. The ideal of a nation as being “A commonwealth for the benefit of its people. Its people being equal citizens operating as individuals, rather than corporate entities like guilds or villages. And the citizens being culturally uniform.” Is the culmination of the 19th century liberal project, and really only stuck in northwest Europe and Anglo America. Latin America, despite the dreams of some of its people, never really got there. It was never “individual <-> state/nation”. You always had some form of clientelism or corporate identity in between.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think that's what I would call assimilation; I would call it more Balkanisation-In-One-Country.
Assimilation is (in my opinion) about feeling genuine companionship with strangers, trusting strangers, feeling cultural unity with strangers. Being willing to plant trees for some random guy's kids to sit under. It's the opposite of ethnic politics, gibs, "communities". If you can talk about "the X community" then the Xs haven't assimilated.
There is a historical portrait on the wall nearby me. No idea who it's of. But one of the reasons that the ethnic composition of immigration into the UK concerns me is that any non-white immigrant can look at it and know that they have no relationship to this person.
The National Citizenship model where you had the nation essentially be an extended family of homogenized citizens with the state/commonwealth representing them and citizens being equal under the law and socially, while never fully realized, was/is a real thing. Britain and France are the classic examples. This was the end goal of the 18th/19th century liberal/progressive project, and they got most of what they wanted in northwest Europe. This is being undone, partly but not entirely by immigration, and you are right to notice that.
My point is more that LatAm never had that. Individual liberals wanted it as an ideal, and some nations like Argentina arguably got closer than others, but you never had anywhere near the social cohesion and unification Europe had. LatAm always had clientelism, corporate privileges for Indios, or integration into the state via corporatism or parties in the 20th century.
Talking about the breaking of the liberal nationalist societies you see in Europe and/or assimilation in a LatAm context is a category error.
And Argentina was more like the US in that the Native American population was small and they only did a small amount slavery. And then did some things like putting their ADOS in the front lines during war and Indian war to limit their population.
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