site banner
PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   28370 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

British RAF describes applicants as "useless white male pilots" in leaked emails.

In a bid to increase its diversity, an organized and systematic discrimination of white men was implemented. Leaked emails from RAF staff include vehemently racist and sexist remarks, reports have revealed.

Under a subject line entitled: "BOARDING PROFILE", a squadron leader wrote:

"I noted that the boards have recently been predominantly white male heavy, if we don't have enough BAME and female to board then we need to make the decision to pause boarding and seek more BAME and female from the RF. I don't really need to see loads of useless white male pilots, lets get a focussed as possible, I am more than happy to reduce boarding if needed to have a balanced BAME/female/Male board."

The emails date back to 2020. But even before then there had been a focused anti-white anti-male effort to discriminate against white men in a bid to get women and browns into service. The full article linked above gives further account to the full extent of the conspiracy that kept multiple white men applicants out of service and further discriminated against those that managed to enter. In contrast with women and browns who were fast tracked through the process.

As is noted in the article, the conspiracy was temporarily halted as Group Captain Elizabeth Nicholl resigned from her post in protest to what she thought were unlawful hiring practices back in 2022. Voicing disagreement with Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford, the RAF's head of recruitment. The row led the RAF to claim that no discrimination was taking place, as a Ministry of Defense inquiry was launched into the nature of Nicholl's resignation.

"The Royal Air Force will not shy away from the challenges we face building a Service that attracts and recruits talent from every part of the UK workforce. We will continue doing everything we can to increase our recruiting intake from under-represented groups within the provisions of the law."

And at the time the evidence for 'strict' discrimination was lacking. As then leaked emails only noted anti-white sentiment in propaganda creation:

'Gents, do any of you have a "pilot who is preferably not a white male" who would like to be the "RAF" face at a press event for the release of Top Gun 2? Shy guys get no cakes so shout quick as offer has also gone out to other units.'

Nicholl's replacement, Group Captain Dole, saw no issue with furthering the conspiracy of active anti-white discrimination and went on to be awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Years Honours List. As the RAF proudly met its target of 20% women, 10% browns. Thankfully a part of the racist and discriminatory process by which the goal was reached is now out in the open.

Contrasting this anti-white conspiracy with last years report that China was "luring" UK pilots to train its pilots, what exactly does a white person owe a state that actively discriminates against them?

I think one of the toughest lessons for ethnats to realize is that elite ethnic solidarity, at least for most west-of-Hajnal whites, is and has always been a total fantasy. The English ruling class will never prioritize the English working class or even regular middle class (which pilots, being officers, generally are) over anyone else, especially people of their own class from other lands. They may have affection for their country, for its institutions, and for People Like Them, but they have never much cared for most of its people. There isn’t any solidarity; perhaps there never has been.

They might be delusional to think that they can replace a native working class with an imported one at no loss of performance or deference, but they shall find out either way.

Historically, the rulers of Europe had to appease the rulers of the Church, and the Church cared tremendously for the people of the nation. Also, it wasn’t the peasants and traders fighting in wars, but the kings and the knights.

It is certainly the case that our current batch of leaders in the West do not provide enough for their own people at the expense of foreigners, but this is actually an historical anomaly. If a King in the past did a bad job, he risked being usurped, overthrown losing the support of the Church and landowners, which could mean (ironically) a foreign king being invited to rule as a replacement.

Here's an interesting article that discusses, among other things, mechanisms in monarchies/tribal societies for holding kings and chiefs to account:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11127-018-0499-3

For hajnalis in general, yes, elite ethnic solidarity is mostly a fantasy(on the other hand, Afrikaners and Southern Whites had some notable elite ethnic solidarity fairly recently), but Israel, China, Japan, and Russia are examples of much more complete elite ethnic solidarity that isn't hajnali.

A lot of Southern whites are descended from the Scots Irish, who are themselves descended from trans-Hajnal subcultures within the United Kingdom.

Yeah, and Afrikaners are arguably partially dehajnalized.

Is teen marriage unusually common among Afrikaners? According to Hajnal’s original work, the defining feature of cishajnal societies is that the working and middle classes didn’t marry until they had achieved a degree of financial independence from their parents. In the US, Southerners have consistently married younger than Yankees, even before the sexual revolution.

It was when Afrikaans society was forming, I believe. British observers noted the african Dutch to differ from euro Dutch by being poor religious fundamentalists who married their teenaged cousins- which sounds like a pretty good description of partially dehajnalizing to me.

It was when Afrikaans society was forming, I believe. British observers noted the african Dutch to differ from euro Dutch by being poor religious fundamentalists who married their teenaged cousins- which sounds like a pretty good description of partially dehajnalizing to me.

Agreed

What ethnic solidarity is there in Putin’s Russia? Much of the inner circle aren’t Russian, the business elite are pretty diverse, millions of Central Asian immigrants pour into Moscow and St Petersburg over time etc. Putin offered a vaguely nationalist justification for the invasion of Ukraine, but he and the rest of the FSB elite aren’t, by and large, sympathetic to identitarians and regularly throw them in jail, shut down rallies, bookstores and groups and even assassinate them.

China was ruled by Manchus for centuries, and even now the situation for Han in terms of affirmative action and legal rights relative to minority groups is arguably substantially worse than it is for whites in America - China literally exempted minorities from its one-child policy for decades, allowing many to expand much faster than the Han population. Before they’re regularly suppressed, online Chinese dissident rightists regularly complain that Han are discriminated against, some even advance various conspiracies that the Manchurians are still in charge.

Hardcore ethnonationalists (largely under the banner of “religious zionists”) are actually a minority in Israel, but their centrality to Bibi’s longstanding coalition with the ultra-orthodox (who don’t care about an ethnostate) and the center-right who are afraid of terrorism gives them enough power to have a decisive say in policy. Perhaps this counts as ethnic solidarity given Judaism is both ethnicity and faith, but I’m not sure it’s clear that the ‘secular elite’ in Tel Aviv have much more ethnic solidarity than whites, really. They’re just participants in a country with different demographics and therefore politics to the modal European country.

That leaves Japan. I think in many ways the Japanese are just luckier than Western Europeans. Their economic boom happening 10 years later than it did in Western Europe (more immediately postwar) and the fact that Japanese fertility rates in the 1930-1950 period had been very high by Western European standards (~4-4.5 vs 1.8-2 in the UK) meant that there was less need to import Gastarbeiter, and Korea’s immense poverty meant that when they did need them, they could look next door rather than further afield (not that there was much Korean immigration postwar). In Europe, the Germans and even Brits did first look south to Italy, Greece and so on, but the whole region was booming (and most of the poorest European countries were behind the Iron Curtain) so they looked to Turkey, Pakistan, the Caribbean etc instead.

I think most ethno-nationalists have a better understanding of the idea, that the past and current ruling powers are not their friends, than most others. Which is why so many of them see appeal in National Socialism. To that end you don't need ideological conformity and purity from the elites. Just a strongman to tardwrangle them into doing what's good for the people.

But I agree that ethno-nationalists generally go through a sort of metamorphosis where they realize that the object of their affection hates them vehemently and wants to kill itself in the name of diversity and the GDP. If a loved one explains, with a smile on their face, that they want to kill themselves, and that nothing would make them happier, do you constrain them with force and suffer their hate or hand them a rope?

I think most ethno-nationalists have a better understanding of the idea, that the past and current ruling powers are not their friends, than most others. Which is why so many of them see appeal in National Socialism. To that end you don't need ideological conformity and purity from the elites.

Except National Socialism was, in its time, widely popular among German elites, and the movement really needed their help.

Not going to happen now. No mainstream politicians and civil servants are going to cooperate with modern NS, no billionaries and corporations are going to finance the movement, no police and three letter agencies are going to avert their eyes before NS activism, no judges will let NS go with slap on the wrist.

Modern NS dream about new 1933, but establishment of "ethnostate" in today's conditions would mean total overthrow of elite 1917 style. Be careful what you wish for.

Except National Socialism was, in its time, widely popular among German elites, and the movement really needed their help.

I don't believe that's true if by 'elite' we mean politicians, business owners etc.

I mean, no. It wasn't. It was popular with lower and middle classes, the political elites hated it and the businessmen were afraid before they were mostly bribed & coerced to go along.

It absolutely was, if only because the elite at the time was deathly afraid of the communists. Likewise, you overstate lower class support for the Nazis: those people did in fact vote communist far more often.

I thought the general understanding is that the Nazis did well with the provincial lower-middle class, ie. artisans and shopkeepers, and attracted some poor rurals and some elites (in smaller proportions). Urban proletarians largely voted for communists or social democrats.

Yes. And since most societies, definitionally, have fewer elites than they do people in the underclass, you can look at the numbers and conclude the elites supported the NSDAP more than Germany's urban working class did.

'Better than the alternative' is not the same thing as 'popular'.

Nazi leadership were low-class outsiders who weren't at all sympathetic to traditional german elites.

The point being made does not pertain to a rise to power but an aspirational ideology. I sincerely doubt many National Socialists today are drawn to the idea because of its chances of political success and popular appeal.

It's instead about recognizing how the world moves and figuring out a way to wrestle it down to a point where it serves you rather than enslaves you. As an example, you can recognize that the profit motives for capitalist elites exist. To that end you don't need elite conformity to a cause, you just need a few motivated men with a monopoly on violence to stop by their house and kindly ask them to work towards a national greater good rather than their profit motives.

If a loved one explains, with a smile on their face, that they want to kill themselves, and that nothing would make them happier, do you constrain them with force and suffer their hate or hand them a rope?

What makes you think elite whites are killing themselves in the name of diversity and the GDP? I agree they are killing the lower classes of whites but elite white culture and elite white tastes will still be going strong decades into the future. Honestly I would say that at the moment elite white culture and elite white tastes are killing elite non-white culture and elite non-white tastes (and this is probably a good thing).

The elites are not the object of the ethno-nationalists affection, the 'people' are.

Sure, but then the object of the ethno-nat's affection has no control over what is happening and what will happen to them (the 'people' whites justly have next to no power, regardless of what society's democratic delusions may tell them), it's very much not "If a loved one explains, with a smile on their face, that they want to kill themselves, and that nothing would make them happier", they are more like lambs being led to the slaughter by a shepherd who's going to replace them with a more docile, less complaining breed.

Same thing happens in all empires, even faded ones like Britain. The core ethnicity that drove the success of a nation is eventually cut off from power and replaced with outsiders, loyal only to the power at the center. The golden age of Ottoman expansion was also the era that native Turks began to be resolutely marginalized within the halls of power and replaced with mostly european renegades, captives, slaves and wives. Over time even the sultan became more and more genetically european, as that's who filled the harems. They maintained a native elite, related to the cavalry forces, and with paths into the imperial bureaucracy, but the mass of Turkish people were entirely estranged from their massive empire.

We can see the same story told throughout history, in Rome, Persia, even Russia. Multi-ethnic societies/empires recruit from the margins and marginalize the majority, because powerful members of the majority are a threat to central power. A powerful member of 1% of the population ain't raising shit. Part of this process is teaching the native elites to hate and fear their own people.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats