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 -
I read something today which I have long thought deep down, but hadn’t really seen spelled out elsewhere.
Namely, the censoring done by the liberal left, while there, is rather mild in the scheme of things and is probably much less than the same left would be censored by the people it currently censors if that group was in power.
The quote that brought it to my mind was from here, on Richard Hannania’s substack. After a post discussing being banned by Twitter, he drops this at the end of the article.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/saying-goodbye-to-twitter
The attitude of censoring opponents seemed to have crystallized for the left around 2016, where I distinctly remember the conversation centering around the limits of tolerating intolerant ideologies. (Which seems to have become fully settled by now, interesting to observe an ideological movement update in real time in that way).
Does Hannania have a point here? Is the issue that the right takes offense with censorship itself, or would the right if it actually gained back power censor in a much more strict and comprehensive way?
It seems trivially true that whoever is in power will be biased in favor of censorship, and this is the left’s turn. Fair enough.
But the right, I’m told, already had a go at social regulation, and it seems to pale in comparison to what’s happening now. From where I’m standing it’s the right’s failure to “censor in a much more strict and comprehensive way” that has landed us where we are today.
You can’t have it both ways. The resentment I feel radiating off of the online Gen X and older Millennials gives me the impression that the Christian family-values right was so stifling, so overbearing to the extent of being undeserving of political legitimacy. And I can agree that they now appear to not have any political legitimacy. But what socially-left ideas did they manage to stop? For all the hegemony, where is the territory?
So to hold these ideas that the right was at one time censorious, which proves that they’ll try it again in the extreme if allowed, it’s in tension with the fact that they did quickly lose control and whatever the left is doing now seems to be much more effective.
If anyone here is willing to claim that he professed Christian tenets, aloud, to keep his job, or pretended to support the invasion of Iraq to keep his job, this would make me back off these claims.
Cancel culture over the Iraq invasion definitely happened.
No, the Dixie Chicks were not cancelled, they were simply boycotted by some erstwhile fans.
It wasn't just Dixie Chicks. Among other things, Clear Channels immediate post-9/11 no-radio-play list included the entire catalogue by Rage Against the Machine.
Sure, numerous post-9/11 cancellation wave figures bounced back, but so have many cancelled right-wing figures.
I'm not sure any response to 9/11 is comparable to cancel culture. As dreadfully offensive as they are, I don't believe any sane person will argue screaming nigger or insisting on Twitter that transwomen aren't real women is remotely equal in offense to a literal terrorist mass murder on American soil.
While I concede these are technically similar, in that they both show censorious overreach, I think that the go-to for the censorious right is the worst event in our nation's collective history and the go-to for the censorious left is being racist or anti-trans itself tells a story.
That story being "yeah, if literally the worst thing happens, the right can and will censor people, but man..."
Nah... anyone can tell a story about why their pet cause is what justifies censoring the outgroup. I hold that the reasons for post-9/11 censorship are just as frivolous, but it's reach was nowhere near what is happening now.
There is also the hypocrisy angle, which fuels a hot burning rage deep inside of me, but I learned no one cares about hypocrisy anymore, so I keep a lid on it. The implication of these "conservatives were just as censorious when they had power arguments", is that the specific people here, protesting censorship would use it themselves given the chance. That would have been very compelling, if it wasn't for the fact, that I was vehemently against post-9/11 censorship, and am now being called a rightwinger for not changing my mind, now when the shoe is on the other foot!
I'm not saying 9/11 justified the censorship. I'm saying there is a qualitative difference between a unified nation suppressing dissent after a massive loss of life and one party in a fractured system being able to casually exert that same suppression for nigh whatever reason they want.
Feels like kicking the can down the road: anyone can come up with a reason why there is a qualitative difference between when we do it, and when they do it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Uh, what? The equivalent of those things in this comparison is, of course, not terrorist mass murder in itself, but unsuitable political discussion of the response to the said terrorist mass murder, or discussion of terrorist mass murder in ways differing from the general narrative, or simply doing anything that might be considered as potentially offending people in the wake of the said terrorist mass murder.
I'm pretty sure the worst event in your nation's collective history is, for differing definitions of event, either the American Civil War or the collective institution of slavery, both of which of course loom large in any discussions of left-wing cancel culture.
I'm not sure what you don't understand. Your reply is missing my point. The right censored for awful disasters, when they had a nearly-unified country behind them; the left censors for every offense. One is distinctly worse than the other, even if both are bad.
As for what scars the nation's psyche -- War isn't unusual, neither is exploitation, especially since both are a 'victory story' for the cultural ruling class. But dirt farmers being able to strike at us in the heart of our empire, that's novel. More importantly, it's in living memory and makes us the victim. 9/11 has a far more profound impact on people than a war over a hundred years old.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link