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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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I agree the Chinese government is abhorrent but what makes them so much worse compared to the UK government? That is, sure China is worse but the UK government also sucks.

Surely whatever you think about the UK, any plausible faults are on a completely different plane to those of the Chinese state, especially if the complaints you're levying are the aforementioned ones about affirmative action or whatever. Most importantly of all of course is the total absence of any genuine democracy or appreciable freedom of the press in China. Certainly to the extent that assisting China militarily because you were hacked off at a diversity initiative is indefensible.

First, I don’t really value democracy qua democracy. Second, the point isn’t just affirmative action (which is wrong) but actual dislike and disgust toward whites and specifically white males. That hatred will eventually lead to big problems for white males.

So while China sucks, strategical strengthening an enemy may in fact be beneficial. Granted, I wouldn’t strengthen since it believes in Han superiority. But the basic concept of strengthening the enemy of a regime that despises you isn’t a crazy idea.

So while China sucks, strategical strengthening an enemy may in fact be beneficial. Granted, I wouldn’t strengthen since it believes in Han superiority. But the basic concept of strengthening the enemy of a regime that despises you isn’t a crazy idea.

Strengthening foreign enemies of the regime is almost by definition strengthening people who believe in their own superiority over you. If not China, then whom? Russia? ISIS? No outsider is going to help native Britons out of the goodness of their own hearts, and I daresay most of the world still despises them more than their own government does.

but actual dislike and disgust toward whites and specifically white males

This is so terminally online. Are you British? I have literally no idea where you have picked this idea up.

  • -22

Reading the relevant emails posted in the first link.

Literally one email does not substantiate a grand declarative statement about the condition of the nation. Did you miss the part where they were paying thousands in compensation to those adversely affected by the scheme?

  • -10

Actually, it sorta does. It shows people were in positions of power and felt comfortable using this kind of language.

Could also point to other comments (eg SNP leadership)

people

Well, a person. I'm not being pedantic, one piece of evidence is always insufficient to demonstrate a broad trend, because that you can prove anything.

Could also point to other comments (eg SNP leadership)

Such as?

A single individual writing an email about how they "don't need anymore useless black men" would trigger a virulent autoimmune response from everybody within reach of it. So much so that even if the writer truly felt those words, they would self-censor them knowing full well that their livelihood would be terminated as a consequence. The individual who writes such a statement in professional context with their full name attached to it doesn't exist, given the aforementioned. And even if they did, excusing a lack of reproach from their surrounding peers because "it's just one person" would not be sufficient in the eyes of most people. Correctly or incorrectly, we expected full-throated condemnation and ostracization to signal to everybody else they're on the good pages and do not tolerate bigotry.

If we have reached the point where describing whites in this fashion is just some modern-day faux pas that oblivious people can just innocently and accidentally stumble into - without any forerunning mental checks that would usually trigger the "Wait, does this sound racist?" moments of introspection people have had cultivated over the last half century, then that is quite telling. The negative space around people who write emails like those in the OP is instructional precisely because it doesn't trigger all the same fiery noise and ra-ra that would never fucking end if skin tones were inverted.

This is so terminally online. Are you British? I have literally no idea where you have picked this idea up.

Did you read the OP in this thread? Declaring shocked ignorance isn't the great argument you think it is.

Yes. His evidence for a sweeping assertion about British society was one bad email. I think we would need a little more evidence than that to make an assertion as broad as he did.

  • -14

Here's a counterargument. China does despise white people, they are just better at hiding it due to East Asian cultural norms.

Meanwhile in the West, while its true that white males face serious dejure discrimination, we are still on the top of the social hierarchy in some ways. For example, white men have an easier time finding dates with women. This "revealed preference" of women shows their true beliefs. Even if they might claim to view all races equally, they prefer white men.

So I think you are overestimating hate for white men in the West and underestimating it in China.

Men do not face de jure discrimination, they face de facto discrimination. It is still technically illegal to discriminate against white men.

You are right. To be more technical...

  • The law: Everyone is equal!

  • The law as it is enforced: White men are heavily discriminated against in hiring, promotion, contracts, grants, etc... and this is perceived as a good thing.

  • Actual revealed preferences of most real people: White men are great.

It's telling that many women of color who are racist culture warriors will still have white husbands.

Oh I noted that China believes in Han superiority. I don’t doubt the PRC loathe whites. And I wouldn’t buddy up with the PRC. My point is that buddying up with the enemy of the UK may not be a bad idea.

China seems to have a hierarchy of Han->honkees->everyone else. Which puts the white people above the bottom, anyway, unlike in more enlightened countries.

The majority of the world, except for the west, seems to have a hierarchy of local dominant group->whites->everyone else->local minorities.

There is no freedom of the press or genuine democracy in the UK.

The PM is a party man the public did not vote for and people are routinely arrested for disagreeing with government ideology.

The PM is a party man the public did not vote for

Welcome to the Westminster system. The public did not vote for him, but they voted in the MPs that chose him as leader. A slight degree of removal but every action he wants to take (at least in the realm of primary legislation) must be voted upon by the people's elected representatives and those representatives could remove him and his government at any time should they wish to.

people are routinely arrested for disagreeing with government ideology.

Like with @Lizzardspawn before I respond to this I'll ask you a question; is it your genuine belief that the Chinese state does not restrict freedom of speech to any considerably greater degree than the British state?

I'll just try to answer here instead of having two threads for the same points.

I believe that using constitutional means of removing elected representatives in favor of bureaucrats approved by the real power structure is accurately characterized as a coup.

I believe that the current regime in place in the United Kingdom is no less totalitarian than the one in China. I believe it has similarly declared totalitarian designs, when challenged it has made similar exceptions to individual freedoms, and it has no ideological mechanism to stop it from growing more oppressive to those it sees as it's ennemies.

I can name ennemies that have suffered similar repression and harassment. I can name truths that are not allowed to be said. I can name people killed without trial. I can name ethnicities whose property has been seized. I can name statutes that allow the government to break the law. And now I can even name ethnic cleansing initiatives.

I don't like that things are the way they are. But I don't think it's in any way rational to consider the UK a free state. And I would like the case to say it is one still is to be explicitly stated and solid enough it doesn't sound word for word like Chinese propaganda.

I'm glad to be wrong. But why is the UK in any sense of the word freeer than China?

I can name ennemies that have suffered similar repression and harassment. I can name truths that are not allowed to be said. I can name people killed without trial. I can name ethnicities whose property has been seized. I can name statutes that allow the government to break the law.

Please do.

And now I can even name ethnic cleansing initiatives.

The initiative under discussion here clearly discriminates based on ethnicity and may reasonably be called racist and even, given that it is coming from a state institution, institutionally racist. Yet it is still very far from ethnic cleansing, which is the targeted killing or expulsion of ethnic groups from large geographic areas. Unless you had a different example in mind, no, there is no ethnic cleansing in the UK.

But why is the UK in any sense of the word freeer than China?

White Britons are yet to be placed in concentration camps.

I believe that using constitutional means of removing elected representatives in favor of bureaucrats approved by the real power structure is accurately characterized as a coup.

This is a complete misstatement of what happened. Going through each mistake here. Boris was not removed as an elected representative, he is still in the position to which he was elected; he was never 'elected' as a PM by the people, other elected representatives gave him that position and so they can take it away. He was not replaced by 'bureaucrats' in any sense, Sunak is an MP in exactly the same manner as Johnson, and is PM by the same implicit process. Who or what is the real power structure? He was removed by elected representatives who feared keeping him in would sink them at the next election, as the polling evidence indicated that it would. In fact, this shows the remarkable responsiveness of the Westminster system to public opinion. By electing MPs we invest them with the power to choose the Prime Minister, that is a fundamentally sound democratic process and has been the case for centuries. Your case implies that no Westminster system anywhere can ever have been legitimate by design, which is absurd.

I can name ennemies that have suffered similar repression and harassment. I can name truths that are not allowed to be said. I can name people killed without trial. I can name ethnicities whose property has been seized. I can name statutes that allow the government to break the law. And now I can even name ethnic cleansing initiatives.

Care to do so? Or shall we simply remain the land of vague generalisations.

But why is the UK in any sense of the word better than China?

Just sticking to the freedom of the press for now (there are many other issues of course but best to go one at a time). To put this in the simplest terms, what substantial opinions do you think one cannot express in Britain?

He was not replaced by 'bureaucrats' in any sense, Sunak is an MP in exactly the same manner as Johnson, and is PM by the same implicit process. Who or what is the real power structure?

Yeah and Charles III is a king in the same sense Charles I is.

Truss' removal had nothing to do with the BoE and power rests with the British people.

You're free to believe such delusions but don't expect me not to notice that they're as fictitious as China's.

Care to do so?

Let's just do one of each.

Tommy Robinson. Biological sex is immutable. The Springhill massacre. Russians.

Yup. In UK they arrest you for misgendering and in China about mentioning Tianamen

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6687123/Mother-arrested-children-calling-transgender-woman-man.html

Before I respond with anything else is your genuine belief that the Chinese state does not restrict freedom of speech to any considerably greater degree than the British state?

In which country are you more likely to actually be arrested (or at least have the police show up) for posting in contradiction of state mandated beliefs? I actually don't know the answer. I do hear about it more often from the UK but that doesn't prove much for multiple reasons.

In which country are you more likely to actually be arrested (or at least have the police show up) for posting in contradiction of state mandated beliefs

——— This is definitely, definitely China. It is difficult for me to express the absolute incredulity I have for people seriously comparing Western states to the PRC.

Well look at it this way, could you find a single case in Britain comparable to that of Qin Yongmin?

That seems like a matter of China having had repressive policies for longer (Seems Qin's saga started in the 80's), not that they're necessarily more repressive now.

Sure but he was rearrested and jailed again only a few years ago.

In the same order of magnitude. Just different things you cant say. British libel laws are notorious. And the police is quite active in anti bigorty and hate speech online.

China cares about things people say that towards the state, UK - what people say to each other. Since I am quite fond of China retaking Taiwan, suppressing Tibet and don't give a fuck about Tiananmen - I don't think I can get in trouble with my speech in China ...