site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

That’s fair.

Conversely, my anecdotal experience is that something like a quarter to a third of the actual far-leftists I know will be like “Lenin/Stalin/Mao had the right idea, just went too far/did some things wrong”, “Great Leap Forward is capitalist propaganda”, “Communists would have succeeded and created utopia on Earth if it was not for evil capitalists sabotaging them”, etc. Usually not “everything they did was right”, but absolutely bending over backwards to excuse any “mistake” they made. I’ve heard someone claim that the Great Leap Forward was actually the US’s fault!

I have never seen anyone in real life defend Hitler, like, ever. Not even outside of the West where it’s less of a taboo.

Conversely, my anecdotal experience is that something like a quarter to a third of the actual far-leftists I know will be like “Lenin/Stalin/Mao had the right idea, just went too far/did some things wrong”, “Great Leap Forward is capitalist propaganda”, “Communists would have succeeded and created utopia on Earth if it was not for evil capitalists sabotaging them”, etc.

You have a very different sample than I do, then, because I know some super-leftist, super-woke people, and while they tend to be very enthusiastic about socialism, they think it's all "Scandinavia style socialism"; I know literally none who think the Great Leap Forward is just capitalist propaganda or that Lenin/Stalin/Mao had the right idea but just went too far.

Granted, I don't know any actual tankies in real life.

Also granted, I don't know any actual neo-Nazis in real life.

My suspicion is that I’m undercounting actual neo-Nazis, but I think my intuition that there are a lot more actual tankies than literal neo-Nazis is more accurate than not, especially in the urban West.

(This is different outside of the West, of course. Though Hitler endorsement is also probably less useful as a signifier of far-rightness outside of the West.)

I have never seen anyone in real life defend Hitler, like, ever. Not even outside of the West where it’s less of a taboo.

Of course - if you cheer for Hitler you are spitting on everything Western culture sees as sacred, you are the true counterculture and true rebel, and such rebellion has consequences few people are willing to pay.

Waving red flags with hammer and sickle can make you feel like rebel, but everyone knows it is harmless pastime.

Firstly, the claim was this:

I see a lot more rightists defending Hitler than I do leftists defending Stalin and Mao.

Secondly, that doesn’t hold nearly as well when I hear people say that Mao was “misunderstood”, mm? I think that goes beyond “harmless pastime”.

Secondly, that doesn’t hold nearly as well when I hear people say that Mao was “misunderstood”, mm? I think that goes beyond “harmless pastime”.

Well, TPTB are not worried of world workers revolution, are not worried at all that people with hammer and sickle in their twitter handle are going to seize the means of production and expropriate the expropriators.

Communism in the West was not always perceived as harmless, but it is now.

I mean, I agree with you in that sense; but I still think that both the absolute and the relative number of people who are legitimately, unironically tankies in the left is still greater than bona fide Hitler-did-nothing-wrong neonazi types in the right. That the establishment doesn’t feel threatened by them doesn’t affect the sincerity of the belief.

That the establishment doesn’t feel threatened by them doesn’t affect the sincerity of the belief.

How can you measure sincerity of belief? Only imperfect measure we have is willingness to sacrifice for the belief.

So, what are these "unironic" tankies doing? Do they spend their lives agitating and organizing workers IRL, while facing danger of harrassment, persecution, prison, torture and death, or are they shitposting on the internet?

Honestly, that raises a good question - they were in the normal riots in the last few years (some even went overseas to try to export BLM!), and do some sort of community organisation/support. A few are union organisers; the rest live a pretty bohemian lifestyle. I don‘t think they actually risk anything, given how limp-wristed state response to riots have been, and honestly it‘s difficult to consider the recent riots as being in service of classical Marxism.

But that applies even more to the Hitler-did-nothing-wrong Nazis — really, how many of the far-right are endangering themselves to spread the gospel of (neo-)Nazism, versus the ones who are in it because they think it‘s edgy, or because they have some vague grievance towards progressive politics and it was the easiest thing to latch on to? The lack of mind-reading goes both ways.

And that raises another point — isn‘t it pretty telling that people can get to say shit like “Mao is just misunderstood” and “the Great Leap Forward was the US’s fault for starving China” without getting overwhelming pushback (like someone would if they tried to justify the Holocaust, say) and making them reconsider?

But that applies even more to the Hitler-did-nothing-wrong Nazis — really, how many of the far-right are endangering themselves to spread the gospel of (neo-)Nazism, versus the ones who are in it because they think it‘s edgy, or because they have some vague grievance towards progressive politics and it was the easiest thing to latch on to? The lack of mind-reading goes both ways.

Even anonymous edgy neonazi posting can be dangerous thing. If you are doxxed as someone whose hobby is to shitpost as "Werwolf1488", your life is fucked (while not much will happen to "RedGuard1917", except friends laughing at him behind his back).

And that raises another point — isn‘t it pretty telling that people can get to say shit like “Mao is just misunderstood” and “the Great Leap Forward was the US’s fault for starving China” without getting overwhelming pushback (like someone would if they tried to justify the Holocaust, say) and making them reconsider?

Yes, it is pretty that communism is so completely dead that it can be treated as old unfunny joke and nothing else.