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I see that neither side of the culture war right now focuses on the positive, on something beautiful. Both sides see themselves as righteous oppressed victims fighting against the evil empire of the other side, but for both it is less a Star Wars vision than a Terminator vision. War machines running over skulls at night-time, death and lasers. The culture war is bleak and stark, it has no poetry, no romance. It is a grim attrition war, trenches and minor offensives but few large breakthroughs if by breakthroughs one means reaching one's opponent and convincing him of something. Where are the creative songbirds of thought and word who would transcend this opposition and maybe get both sides to become aware that both are equally stuck in the human condition? Has rhetoric truly reached the limits of its potential power? I have so rarely seen anyone change his mind about anything more than minor details.
It is all so tiresome. Maybe it is possible to move in some orthogonal direction and flank this whole conflict from a side that has the breath of fresh air behind it?
You describe how people are convinced about anything like ever. It always works frustratingly slowly and then suddenly and quickly. You do not convince people in one discussion, my working model is that you maybe shift their position 1 percentage point at a time. And as their previously 100% opinion reaches that 50% threshold after many discussions and personal experiences, then they suddenly flip their publicly stated and communicated position. It may seem very surprising, but in fact nothing dramatic happened - it was the same slow process as before inside their heads. The upside is that the new beliefs have deeper roots and they will not shift on a whim.
The second rule is that even if talking with true believers, the aim is not to convince them - although it is a plus if that ever happens even in the sense of mildly shifting their posterior. It is lurkers and bystanders watching from the outside, those who are interested in the discussion which are the true "targets". So you are not shifting one person slightly, you are shifting many more people slightly and depending on quality of your arguments you may flip public position of a few people on the margin. I know it happened to me and at least my friends I talk to, when over time we are more likely to get closer in our previously different opinions if the quality of arguments is good.
As for "creative songbirds" who transcend the polarization, they are out there. Prime example that comes to my mind is Breaking Points with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, a youtube talkshow where the former represents the progressive and the later conservative viewpoint on a given controversy of the day. The issue is that the polarization is in the eye of the beholder. Depending on who you ask, the Breaking Points is a cesspit of fascist propaganda or a commie plot sneaking into your bedroom. Again, not a new phenomenon - I remember similar research that asked to rate newspapers and their stance on Israel/Palestianian conflict. The evaluation of any given paper from people asked ranged wildly, depending on what piece from that paper different persons remembered. People often get stuck on things they dislike, it is hard for them to forget. You may know that saying where a man builds 1,000 bridges but sucks just one dick, and he is now forever known not as a bridgebuilder, he is now a cocsksucker.
There is a presumption here that the war doesn’t matter and isn’t about real meaningful things. I’m not a believer that “everything is fake” so I don’t see how people come together because some guy gave a nice speech.
Personally I think behaviors often changes before opinion changes. IMO eliminating legally things like DEI through the Supreme Court will end up changing a lot of opinions in time. Just like many executives today are woke simply out of lawsuit risks. The right needed to be legally allowed to exists before they could change any minds.
I don’t get the sense the left thinks they are victims. George Floyd isn’t a leftists. The “lefts” elite who hold him up and other “minorities” are not the “minorities”.
I’m currently going through a political shift in my life at the moment, as a result of an opportunity I’m pursuing that isn’t turning out the way I’m expecting. Progressives are currently winning me over on the ‘ethics’ of the Justice System. It’s doubtful they would’ve convinced me of their position absent my own experience. I couldn’t change their opinions. They couldn’t change my opinions. But experience is certainly changing my opinion.
Some of them clearly believe their own garbage. You saw that with the Bud Light commercials. I don’t think their executives wanted to take a shot at burning a lot of money just to get a rise out of people or ingratiate themself with the woke mob to avoid the tiki torches.
Behind closed doors, the right-wing is figuring out how to build alternative media and it’s own platforms, as a way to hedge against the inevitable shutdown they face, by operating their infrastructure out of a politically engaged and opposed technological backbone. You saw this with Vox Day’s attempts at creating Castalia House. You see this with Imperium Press offering perks to subscribers to keep cash coming in. And I think you’ll continue to see it grow.
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