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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38220 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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Hey, people used to go to watch people being tortured to death for fun. The fact that cruel political actions now involve free plane tickets instead of dousing someone in tar or sending bombs in the mail is progress of a sort.

There are two ‘nice’ outcomes, 100% or 0%. 100% means clear path to citizenship for basically everybody. 0% means people don’t trek across brutal deserts, national sovereignty is restored, and the working class has more labor power. It’s in the middle that we get this brutality, where neither side can get what they want so the only victory is your rival’s tears.

Hey, people used to go to watch people being tortured to death for fun. The fact that cruel political actions now involve free plane tickets instead of dousing someone in tar or sending bombs in the mail is progress of a sort.

It is, and if someone proposed resurrecting gladiatorial combat you'd really see the pearls come out.

I want to chime in with full support for the 100% or 0% point, and I'd go further and assert that it's the conflict between two or more sides that creates trouble in most situations more than a clean victory by either one would. It's not the victory that's messy, it's the war. Half-measures drag things out and make them worse.

This isn't limited only to immigration, either. It goes for every entrenched conflict. Even today's culture wars wouldn't be a problem if, say, the progressives achieved total dominance and did in fact wipe all the witches from the face of society. It'd suck for me, personally, but it sure would end the culture war and bring about unity.

I have a nit to pick:

Blue tribe needs outgroups. If they wiped out red tribe they would turn inward to continue the conflict.

One of liberalism's great strengths is its relative comfort with endless conflict. The meme of tolerance and metaphorical warfare through the voting system allows that conflict to continue endlessly while allowing the conflicting factions to form a united front against outside threats.

Other systems built around ideological purity require an honest attempt to actually destroy the enemy, and when this is successful a new enemy needs to be found or created.

I think unending conflict may simply be human nature, and stability is learning to manage that conflict in a productive manner.

One could argue, however, that historically, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US needed a new "Evil Empire" to fight.

I think we found a few 😅

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