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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29999 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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It just struck me. We haven’t had a pure meta thread. What is at the core of the breakdown in America between two sides. Is it just social media boosting of traditional sports team enthusiasm in sports? And at its core team left and team right get along in person but in online like fighting each other for entertainment? Team left likes standing up a fentanyl addicted criminal as a martyr or a male swimmer in female sports to accuse those who will take the other side as racists Hitler types? And team right likes to own them. Or is there some marxists conspiracy or Christian white behind all this?

I’ll take the view that traditional status symbols still dominate day to day life. I’ll take the view that liberal rich trust fund kid is still going to date the hot brunette from Vassar. And the liberal girl will still marry the frat boy whose parents are real estate developers.

Sure I’m setting up a lot of motte and Bailey’s. Is this just a game among elites and then followed on by keyboard warriors on social media.

You want the core fundamental concept? It's religious morality vs oversocialized morality.

The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people. [2]

Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

I'm not sure why it's "versus" religious morality. Isn't Christian morality pretty open about nobody measuring up?

Yes, that's the difference. In Christian theology, if you screw up, it's (mostly) not a big deal because Jesus. Besides, God's justice will be realized in the end, so you can sleep easy knowing that the burden of fixing all the world's problems isn't on you.

hell is not justice. infinite punishment for finite wrongdoing can not be just. no one should be sleeping easy because they think people they don't like are going to hell.

Not all Christian denominations believe in an eternal hell, though admittedly most of the denominations that don't are heterodox compared to mainstream Christianity i.e. the Mormons.

everyone should go to heaven. we should have been born in heaven.

in reality, i don't have a good reason to believe that i am going anywhere except the grave when i die. i think this afterlife stuff is wishful thinking at best, but cynically its deceitful manipulation.

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