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 -
Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan:
The amusing thing here to me is that we got two major SCOTUS rulings in two days that are, on the face of it, not directly related to each other in any obvious way (besides the fact that they both deal with the university system). One could conceivably support one ruling and oppose the other. The types of legal arguments used in both cases are certainly different. And yet we all know that the degree of correlation among the two issues is very high. If you support one of the rulings, you're very likely to support the other, and vice versa.
The question for the floor is: why the high degree of correlation? Is there an underlying principle at work here that explains both positions (opposition to AA plus opposition to debt relief) that doesn't just reduce to bare economic or racial interest? The group identity angle is obvious. AA tends to benefit blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites and Asians. Student debt relief benefits the poorer half of the social ladder at the expense of the richer half of the social ladder. Whites and Asians tend to be richer than blacks and Hispanics. So, given a choice of "do you want a better chance of your kids getting into college, and do you also not want your tax dollars going to people who couldn't pay off their student loans", people would understandably answer "yes" to both - assuming you’re in the appropriate group and that is indeed the bargain that’s being offered to you. But perhaps that's uncharitable. Which is why I'm asking for alternative models.
Not necessarily. It benefits the poorer half of the upper part of the social ladder (those who pursue expensive post-secondary education)
Regardless, why do you insist that there be some sort of "theory of everything" that explains both decisions? The affirmative action case is a 14th Amendment issue. The student loan case is about separation of powers and the limits on administrative agencies' power to interpret acts of Congress. There is not a lot of overlap between those areas of jurisprudence. Why would you expect one principle to explain voting on both cases?
Wouldn’t it be the kinds of students who took on debt for a mostly useless degree. People who study something useful like tech, science, finance, or business tend to do okay. They (provided they actually do the work and put in effort on getting themselves ready for employment) tend to get good jobs after college and thus, with a bit of frugality in the early years, pay off their loans fairly quickly. The ones who study useless (from an employment standpoint) majors in art, literature, history, or social science tend to get lower paid work and thus struggle to pay down the loans.
Which is what’s always been galling about student loan forgiveness. It essentially removes the market forces that push people away from poor decisions. College for the right students is a net benefit to that student and society at large, especially if you can push them to useful arts and sciences. By removing the market from the equation, you end up removing incentives for unprepared students to choose skilled trades over university, and pushing good students to choose fun-sounding avocations over useful arts an science. Essentially these students are spending 100K of other people’s money over a lifetime to take a four year vacation before going on to do low level work.
I'm opposed to student loan forgiveness, but I'm one of the people who would have benefited from it. So maybe I can provide some light on who would benefit.
I have a bit over $10,000 in student debt that I acquired getting an MBA (I went through undergrad debt free, got the MBA because my work wanted me to and was willing to pay for a third of the cost). My wife has over $20,000 in student loan debt, and started out with almost $80,000 in debt. She got that pursuing a career as a licensed professional (I won't say what profession because I don't really need to, but you need a masters degree, you need to get licensed, and the average one of these makes around $65,000 a year and the really successful ones make about twice that).
Between the two of us we bring in around ~$125,000 per year. So we're not poor by any means. We have a house, two cars, can afford to go on vacation, etc. We will definitely be able to pay off the debt over time without falling into penury. If forgiveness had gone through, the main result would be getting it all paid off faster so we could free up that money for other expenses: savings, home improvements, luxuries, that sort of thing.
I think our case isn't that unusual. There are a lot of people who, like my wife, paid way too much for a degree that gets them an income well above the median.
More options
Context Copy link
Why do people take on such debt if it’s mostly useless?
The job market often demands a college degree. Depending on who you ask, this is the changing economy, an intentional grift, or maybe just too good to check. Regardless, 40 to 60 percent of jobs are asking for a degree, and they can’t all be quants and engineers.
There is friction between what employers are asking and what they’re willing to pay. The market is clearly messed up. I kind of want to blame lenders for this! They have every incentive to inflate the supply of college degrees by giving out bad loans. But I can’t elide the responsibility of the borrower.
How much of this is obvious to the average high-school grad? His teachers will tell him higher education is worth it, because their whole circle has it. His parents and especially grandparents will say the same, since back in their day, it was more of a class marker, more of a road to success. Getting one of those top 20% jobs was an excellent prospect. And, for obvious prestige reasons, employers are all acting like they’re still the top 20%. We are giving teenagers every reason to think a degree buys them more than it does.
The job market, the availability of loans, and social sensibilities formed in the 1960s are all distorting the cost-benefit analysis.
Now, I don’t think loan forgiveness actually addresses this. Maybe indirectly, if lenders start to be much more careful about who they’ll take on, contracting the supply. I find this very unlikely, since there are government pressures to do the exact opposite.
The situation only improves when the cost-benefit becomes more obvious. We may be starting to see this with fewer jobs demanding a degree. Or that effect might exist only in thinkpieces. It could also happen if manufacturing magically comes back to the States. Maybe as the population ages, parents will get a more clear view of the job market. But it’s a race to the bottom. No one wants to be the last one without a degree.
I mean I’m not going to expect an 18 year old to make perfect decisions, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s asking too much for the rest of the family to come alongside this college student and insist that they come up with something approaching a real, thought out business plan for post college life and how college generally and the specific degree they want to get has a reasonable ROÍ and is something that given their actual talents and skills is a realistic plan.
I will however blame the government, because they created the mess with making college loans nondischargable at bankruptcy. I kinda get the argument that since you can’t exactly repossess an education and students generally don’t have many assets upon graduation that a lot of people might take the degree, declare bankruptcy and run. However, by doing that, it heavily incentivized loan grantors and schools to give loans and admissions spots to people who any fool could tell them wouldn’t be paying off the loan. Some because they’re simply not capable of learning high level skills offered by a rigorous job-training degree. Some because they’re completely unserious about the entire process and will spend more time chasing members of the opposite sex than studying. Still others because they’re studying things that are quite frankly useless fluff that no employer needs skilled labor to do. If loans were discharged at bankruptcy, it wouldn’t be a problem at all. Schools wouldn’t be wasting space on kids who are so far behind that they’re taking basic algebra and basic writing courses. Those seats won’t pay off, better to give it to a worthy kid who will be able to pay after he gets hired. Loan officers won’t give approvals to people who want to study useless stuff because French literature majors work at Starbucks and everybody knows it.
That’s a healthier equilibrium, sure. It’s just got a lot of points of divergence.
Ultimately, it’s teenagers or maybe their parents taking on unwise debt. But there are numerous forces telling them it’s totally worth it. Even their own families, generalizing from “back in my day” when you could work summers and get out debt free.
I don’t think useless degrees disappear if the parents wise up. I think companies are still going to push them as a discriminator and to keep up on the signaling treadmill. And I know lenders will still push them, because they don’t care if the kids succeed as long as they pay off their debt first.
The most effective way to do this is probably to pull back on the lenders. They are clearing a market which shouldn’t be clearing. This will cut supply, forcing more families to recognize that the debt wouldn’t be worth it.
I think parents have mostly wised up and push their kids to do two years at the local community college, transfer to a nearby four year, keep the debt minimal, and major in a practical degree.
This is all good advice unless you can get into Harvard or have a full ride somewhere. But, 18 year olds are legal adults who have teenager priorities.
More options
Context Copy link
I actually think they would dry up as it becomes obvious that they simply don’t pay. As it becomes obvious just how much debt you’ll take on — basically people are buying a houseful of debt for a degree — eventually those markets will change when it becomes more clear that some programs have very low post-grad employment rates and still owe a lifetime of debt.
And I’m not sure that employers are still taking “any old degree from any university.” They’ve likely been burned often enough on vanity degree holders with huge egos and little knowledge or work ethic to speak of. These types of things employers are sensitive to simply because bad hires make them less competitive in business. If you’ve got ten bad people on a team of fifty, they’re not only not performing themselves, but often slow down everything around them as other, productive people, need to fix their mistakes or deal with their drama.
I do see a potential market for College Level learning apps, or paid zoom courses, or even just guided readings where people with interest in a subject can pay $50 to study it with a phd guiding things. Especially in literature or history or the like where there’s no field trips or labs, you can probably get much the same level of interaction as you’d get in a classroom but at pretty low fractions of the cost. Books and video and the internet are cheap. Zoom allows for the creation of virtual classrooms. Apps allow for basic self testing and feedback.
If YouTube has taught me anything, this does already exist, you can subscribe to watch digital classes from experts. I think it's CuriosityStream and Skillshare that offer this.
Online courses for people "with interest in the subject' can only satisfy interest in the subject; they're no good as signals to employers.
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
That's basically the raison d'être of leftism.
Can you imagine replacing the sentence above this with something else uncharitable and bad?
Can you imagine a leftist replying with "That's basically the raison d'être of conservativism"?
Can you imagine yourself getting indignant at that and clicking the report button?
I knew you could.
Don't do this.
It's a somewhat well known view popularized by Arnold Kling that liberals are against markets, and conservatives are against liberals.
Liberals aren't leftists. Generally liberals and conservatives are both very in favor of markets.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You know, I'm sorry to have to do this since you just complained about people writing "pages and pages arguing about the rules", but, there's a substantive philosophical issue here that is worth discussing.
Can you explain why you think my comment is uncharitable? Because I certainly don't think it's uncharitable.
Let me be perfectly clear: I myself think we should remove market forces that push people away from poor decisions. That is something that I assent to. It seems strange to say that it's uncharitable for me to ascribe position X to someone else, when I myself hold position X as well. Obviously I don't think that X is anything derogatory in that case.
Of course, I don't hold the position with absolutely no qualifications. Mainly the qualifications come in terms of feasibility. We can't simply will the market away. We're stuck with it, and we're stuck with the fact that it picks winners and losers. That brings me into disagreement with certain leftists. But the underlying principle, the idea that human life should not be subject to the cold impersonal forces of the neoliberal market, is something that I agree with them on.
To elaborate further, "we should remove the market forces that push people away from poor decisions" does not entail "we should remove all standards for judging decisions and we should remove all punishments whatsoever". Some decisions are indeed poor and some decisions deserve consequences. I just generally don't want "market forces" to be playing the judge and doling out the punishments. If I had to sum up the alternative in a few words, I would prefer to replace "market forces" with something like "general comportment with what is virtuous".
It seems to me that the only way that someone could judge my comment to be uncharitable is if they either 1) misread it (e.g. they thought that it was implying that there should never be any consequences for anything whatsoever; which I just said is incorrect), or 2) they're so enmeshed in market ideology that they think the idea that it could even be desirable for people to live lives that are free of market competition is a priori absurd; they think it's an obviously mad position, and ascribing it to anyone is tantamount to calling them mad. But I don't think it's a mad position, and I don't think I'm mad either.
Frankly, I think this is a good illustration that the determination of what is "charitable" or "uncharitable" is inextricably tied up with one's own ideological position.
How many leftists do you think would agree with you that their reason d'etre is to "remove the market forces that push people away from poor decisions"?
It's very tedious to go through another round of "You modded this comment because you disagree with it." I no longer bother trying to disabuse people of whatever assumptions they make about my ideological positions.
Re the first question, judge by actions not words. Democrats support raising the minimum wage. Democrats support wealth transfers. Democrats support subsidies to numerous industries (eg education, green). Democrats support very intrusive anti discrimination laws predicated on disparate impact. Democrats support extensive mandatory maternity leave laws. Democrats support nationalized health care. Democrats support banning goods they determine are bads (eg gas stoves). Democrats believe in highly progressive taxes. Democrats believe in a robust industrial policy (see Biden’s activities).
More options
Context Copy link
If we're talking about economic leftists in the sense of classical Marxists/anarchists? All of them. It's an anti-market ideology. Read Marx, read Adorno, read Marcuse, read any classical Marxist thinker. They are anti-market and therefore they are anti markets doing anything, let alone "punishing people for bad decisions". This is all pretty explicit, it's not a secret.
Now granted there's been a lot of slippage of the word "leftist" over the years (including in my own history of the usage of the word) and it's come to describe a lot of people who are economically liberal rather than Marxist - people who actually support markets and think they should continue. These people might not agree with my original comment. Fair enough; I could have been more precise and narrowed down my claim to only describe Marxism rather than what is today known as "leftism" as a whole. But honestly even then I think the distinction is somewhat moot in this case. Even a technically-economically-liberal LGBT activist, say, who doesn't really care about classical Marxism, is still not going to be in favor of using markets as a tool to punish people. They're going to agree with the basic principle.
That's simply not what I said. What I did say is that determinations of uncharitability are made (in part) on the basis of what readings and positions are counted as inherently "insulting", or "beyond the pale". You can personally disagree with something, but you won't perceive it as uncharitable unless you also perceive it as either a naked attack, or outside the Overton window.
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
I think that is the central point @Primaprimaprima is making - there isn't an obvious reason that these should be tightly correlated, but if we poll people, we're going to find a strong correlation of opinions that isn't obviously driven by correlation in the merits of the cases.
I don’t think that’s true. I think most people regardless of political affiliation would intuitively think the Court was correct in the first one and wouldn’t know in the second.
I do think if people thought the first case was wrong they’d be a democrat.
More options
Context Copy link
Conservatives happen to be skeptical of 1) affirmative action; and 2) the administrative state. There is no underlying principle; it is just happenstance, and in fact it is driven by the merits of the cases. Each is consistent with a conservative principle, just not the same one.
If the question is why conservatives have the specific constellation of principles that they do, that is a good question. But I don't think OP's framing is helpful in finding an answer thereto.
Can you suggest a more helpful framing?
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