site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You are missing one really critical thing - why is the situation so? Why the jewish elite in US are so left wing? What follows? How can we flip them on the right? Why is it impossible to flip them ... etc etc.

Throwing selected facts while being vague is a left tactic of character assassination. Because if there is nothing concrete it is impossible to refute or disprove.

I am not saying that generally speaking part of a state elite to not have their interests aligned with state's is outlandish theory. Just be more specific.

You can even I guess make a theory that civil rights era legislation was a mistake. There are enough examples in history that show that when wasp-s lose or loosen the reigns of power, the states develop suboptimally. And the US cost disease and some other social ailments do pick up in the 70s.

I think there’s history as well, going back to the Bible, basically everyone at some point tried to kill them. So it kinda makes sense that Jews would try to do-opt or join leftist movements under th3 promises of protection. Because of this history, bioleninism would work on them. Being loyal to a regime that promises them safety would be attractive.

I don't know if "bioleninism" is applicable here, though, given things like the reputed high IQ of Ashkenazim and such. I mean, yeah, those ones gotta be careful about who they marry, but still.

Jewish elites are very left wing because they're pretty much all highly educated, urbanized, and religiously unobservant, and disproportionately from culturally liberal locales.

I suspect WASPs from New York City who are highly educated and go to church no more than twice a year have very similar ideological views.

Throwing selected facts while being vague is a left tactic of character assassination. Because if there is nothing concrete it is impossible to refute or disprove.

Well, I think I was pretty specific. Specific enough for Gdanning to take a sledgehammer to my work. I don't really understand the rationalist tendency to demand an explanation for a phenomenon before it's existence is acknowledged. It reminds me of the old joke that has a Frenchman saying: "It works in practice, but does it work in theory?" Identifying a group as being the key actor at the most critical points which brought about the destruction of your system seems valuable in and of itself. Ideally, only then should speculation as to motives emerge, otherwise a good story might paper over faulty facts.

Anyway my own position is that recruitment of a considerable percentage of Jews to the right is basically impossible, and risks repeating the NeoCon cycle by which they become gatekeepers within the right, and purge it of it's genuine members. Unlike some other commenters, I'm skeptical of the appropriateness of Anti-semitic discourse given that Jews who hate Western civilization are pretty open about it anyway and can be targeted for their actions instead of their identity and why would we alienate the 10 - 20% who are on our side?

At the same time I think not restricting Jewish permanent immigration earlier was a terrible mistake. For the record, so was turning back fleeing Jews. I don't understand why the only options ever presented are heartlesness or cultural suicide.