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 -
2023 World Science Fiction Convention is scheduled to happen in Chengdu, China - as I understand the first in-person Worldcon since the pandemic. The reason why it's in CW topic is because one of the guests of honor is Sergey Lukianenko, who, besides being a mid-grade SciFi writer (his early works are decent, his late stuff is IMO garbage), is an active supporter and propagandist for the Russian war in Ukraine, hating Ukraine so much that he prohibited translating his books into Ukrainian (I am sure Ukrainian-speaking culture is doomed now). If one needs somebody to embody a militant Ukraine hater, who denies the nation's right to exist, claims the whole national claim is fake, the language is broken Russian, Ukrainian government are Nazis, puppeteered by the West, the whole nine yards - he's the man.
Predictably, this did not sit well with everybody. Somebody, representing "Polish fandom", even started a petition to rescind the invitation. However, given as it is unlikely the Chinese organizers didn't know who Lukianenko is and what his views - which he is actively and loudly voicing - are, and general stance of China towards Russia, I do not think anything would happen.
I wonder how would this play out. I used to hold Hugo's in high regard a while ago, but given the wokeisation and politization of everything lately, I don't really care anymore. But I heard WSFS are pretty woke, and so I wonder how it would sit with some of them to appear on the same scene with an actual fascist for once. I am not sure what is the function of the "guest of honor", but obviously the distinguished position alone, in any other setting, for an US person of similar views, would trigger them immediately. And, for various reasons, being Ukraine-friendly is in fashion with the wokes for now. But, the wokes appear to be very deferential to China in general, and maybe they could just pretend nothing is happening. After all, Disney literally filmed a movie with the concentration camps as the background, and everybody pretty much just shrugged. The various Puppies have also a chance to point at this as an exposure of the hypocrisy of the wokes (as if we were short of examples otherwise?) - would they use it?
The other guests of honor are Cixin Liu (who earned the honor, I think, and being Chinese, probably is appropriate figure to appear in this position) and Robert J. Sawyer, a Canadian writer of whom I know virtually nothing, except watching Flashforward (did not read, but liked the idea), and praise by Orson Scott Card, which I value very highly (so maybe I should check more into him?). I wonder if he has had any thoughts on the matter either?
Eh, I think woke support for China tends to be overestimated, especially in right-leaning circles. There are some groups in the woke coalition that take its side for tactical reasons - big business that economically depends on them, and various groups that might at times find that they have a positive edge connecting them in the affect-loading graph (Asian-Americans, staunch technocrats) - and a brief strong enemy-of-my-enemy reflex when the Trump presidency brought some fanatical China haters to the forefront of their outgroup, but otherwise I think they have little love left for them. If China/Taiwan comes to head, I would suspect US alignment chips to fall similarly to Ukraine, with strong bi-partisan support for Taiwan and any insufficiently enthusiastic (or downright pro-China) being overwhelmingly branded right-wing.
I think the left-wing sci-fi fandom has a larger explicitly pro-communist streak than in general progressivism, perhaps due to the influence of, and reaction against, anti-communist MilSF. I remember there was a minor dust-up when Brad Torgersen referred to villains in a story as "ChiComs." Some lefties insisted it was a racial slur, somehow.
More options
Context Copy link
Tactically, yes, that's probably what would happen. But culturally, I don't see any mainstream opposition to China or pushback against its obviously fascist nature anywhere in woke cultural spaces. Say "Israel", and you'd get a multi-hour tantrum about apartheid and so on. Say "Russia", and you know. Say "China" and... pretty much nothing? There were some "Free Tibet" groups on the fringe, but I don't think they are taken more seriously than PETA trying to convince us drinking milk is racist. That's one of the reasons why Trump could use China as a wedge issue - because the Left's stance towards China is submissive, and his criticism highlighting it works.
There was never anything pro-(post-communist-)Russia in the woke coalition, and my impression is that the "Israel apartheid" stuff is about as marginal as the "China concentration camps", and before Trump the latter was arguably going stronger.
I don't see any evidence of the American Left being directly submissive towards China. Rather, it's submissive towards globalised American industries, which in turn are submissive towards China, because China is both a massive supplier and market for them. If the American Right keeps mismodelling this transitive submissiveness as "pining for the strong hand of their communist daddy like the communists they are", their maps will remain useless for doing anything about it beyond working themselves into a rage (what you call "using it as a wedge issue").
I must admit it's an easy mistake to make when you read lefty authors literally pining for the strong hand of their communist daddy over and over again. Whatever is the favorite cause - from climate change to women's rights to economic prosperity to healing the social ills - there are dozens of articles by prominent lefty intellectuals praising various communist daddies for handling it much better than our stupid democracy ever could. Never mind that these articles are always atrociously factually inaccurate and historically ignorant - its par for the course for those quarters - but the genuine love for the communist daddy is shining through strongly and prominently.
What's an example of such an article? I'd suspect that to the extent they exist, they are about genetic technocratic authoritarianism rather than anything particularly communist. To think that technocratic authoritarians must like the most prominent technocratic authoritarian system around is a mirror image of the "religious trads must like Somalia/Saudi Arabia" trolling.
Well, yes, it's the mostly daddy part as much as anything else. But with that, I don't see them praising economic successes of Franco or Pinochet (some on the right do, of course). So they are selective in their choices of which authoritarian daddy to praise. So, daddy + leftism necessarily turns into "communist daddy".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'd say it's a multitude of factors playing together.
The debates surrounding Israel and American policy in the Middle East in general has been red hot since 9/11 and the Iraq War. The nuclear holocaust scare that came with the Cold War mentality against Russia never really went away and if anything, has just taken an adrenaline shot in the last year. China is a relatively new "threat" in comparison. Whereas a full generation of American thinkers cut their teeth on Russia/MENA.
The US has been the uncontested superpower between 1990-2010, as a result a lot of American foreign policy thinkers believe there will always be enough resources to do anything, anytime, anywhere.
Lots more big and rich allies are in Europe, so European concerns will trump Asian ones. How many "true" Asian allies in the most traditional sense, let alone allies (as in, not including "major partners" like India) to whom China is the number 1 security threat, besides Japan and SK? The "pivot" to Asia is just not happening soon enough.
And yes, China has historically bided its time, got in bed with American elites and kept their purses protruding. It's deeply integrated with Wall Street and Hollywood and makes American supply chains dependent on it. How many films have you seen of suave American action stars taking on the robotic, reticent KGB agent as opposed to a Chinese one? Hell do most Americans even know what the Chinese intelligence agency is called?
You also require a lot more creativity and deep policy reforms to meaningfully counter China, Russia is much smaller and therefore easier to pick on in comparison. Just keep doing what you do now and Russia will eventually bleed.
America is divided. The Great American Culture War is it's biggest novel cultural export. It's very difficult to spend time on social media without seeing something about an American culture war issue one way or the other. Various political tribes hate one another far more than they hate any external foe. Recall how to a lot of American progressives, the notion that Trump, their number 1 enemy, could be a "Russian plant" is a strong unifier against Russia. That's right, a fellow American, a former POTUS no less, can radicalise an entire party and its voters against Russia. And even now, some Republicans do believe that Russia "rightfully" belongs in the western bloc. The China scare just couldn't unite the culture war factions.
More options
Context Copy link
Trump wasn't running against some generic "Left", Trump was running against Biden, and Biden's practical policies towards China have been identical to Trump, if possible even slightly more hostile.
This is a very narrow outlook. While technically true, the issues in play are much wider than Biden personally, who I suspect if he is informed what "his" China policies are at all, doesn't care too much about them. Seeing elections as exclusively personal contest means misunderstanding the whole US politics and missing most of it. America does not just choose between a boisterous populist with weird hair and a senile grandpa with penchant for wild stories, it chooses between political directions those people represent, in Biden's case even more so than in Trump's. So yes, the stance of the generic "Left" and "Right" (it's more complex than binary, if there's ever a place for appropriate use of "non-binary" it's in the US politics) matter, and they matter much more than Biden's persona. But, if we replace Biden with the generic policy package that chooses him embodies, then yes, that was the choice.
And to be honest, beyond some random wild gestures towards Taiwan, I do not really see how Biden admin is that tough on China. They may be continuing Trump's policy, but I think it's rather due to not having their own than following any particular strategy. At least, I haven't seen this strategy coherently expressed anywhere, have you?
Then again, there's a difference between things like trade agreements and monetary policy and whose ships are allowed to parade around which deserted island in the Pacific, and the cultural stance towards what is happening in China. These are related, but different questions. I am talking about the cultural stance and how there's virtually no discussion of China despite their positions being something that would otherwise be very offensive to the woke sensitivities.
It's probably a reference to messing with China's cutting edge industrial/science infrastructure. The whole US persons working for China restrictions that TPOT/ratsphere/postratsphere types went wild about but barely registered in general CW/politics spheres.
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
More options
Context Copy link