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 -
Richard Hanania is a man whom I do not always agree with but do appreciate for successfully pissing off people both on the left and the right. The ability to piss off people from both of those groups is, in my opinion, generally correlated with being right about things.
Well, Hanania has allegedly been linked to a pseudonym. The allegation is that about 10 years ago, he was routinely saying taboo things about race and gender issues under the name "Richard Hoste".
Some quotes:
It's nothing very shocking for those of us who read dissident right stuff, and it's not even really that far away from Hanania's typical under-his-birth-name writing. But it may be a bridge too far for much of the more mainstream audience.
What I wonder is, which way shall Hanania go?
Own it, say "yes I am Richard Hoste and I did write those things"? He would gain praise from some people for honesty, but he would also stand probably a pretty good chance of losing book deals, interviews with some mainstream figures, and so on.
Deny deny deny?
Ignore it?
I think that it is an interesting case study, the attempted take down of one of the more famous examples of what is now a pretty common sort of political writer: the Substacker whose views are just controversial and taboo enough to have a lot of appeal for non-mainstream audiences but are not so far into tabooness, in content and/or tone, to get the author branded a full-on thought-criminal.
I'm not familiar with this guy but I think the obvious solution is to never, under any circumstances, apologize for sins against the Left. I'm reminded of the scene from Darkest Hour where Churchill, referring to peace talks with Hitler, yells "you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is stuck in its mouth!" The Left -- that is, the mass of men and women who are in control of nearly every relevant channel of Western power and influence -- aren't interested in conversation. They're interested in grinding their enemies under heel. They are the tiger, and even the most well-meaning attempts of conservatives to roll over and play the deferential gentleman get them eaten. But oh, how very gracefully those posh conservatives bowed their heads and accepted martyrdom! It won't achieve anything. The Christians with whom I stand should model themselves after the crusaders. More Richard the Lionheart and less Thomas a Kempis.
Rightists do change their beliefs like any honest person. They should be candid about that. But these changes should be framed as intellectual corrections or, at worst, correcting youthful intemperance. Never, ever, should they use Leftist semiotics (saying, "I commit to doing better," or "I apologize for my past hurtful words" is self-immolation). In other words, if you're being accused of right-wing dogwhistling then you're doing it right. Either way the Left hates the Right. They should make themselves worth the hatred.
If all that seems too rigid, then know I think these rules necessary guardrails against the conservative inclination to seek compromise. That leads to the "speed-limit conservatism" of the National Review crowd. Those people exemplify the chief problem with conservatism. The problem isn't a lack of clear policy goals or manifestos or books about the glories of Western civilization. Books are dead when their words don't fill the chests of men. The problem is that conservatives are old and bloodless. Bronze Age Pervert's book isn't a sane or articulate political project. It voices a spirit which moves and animates everything else. The actual content of the book is all performative insanity -- nobody would seriously consider comparing Mitt Romney to Alcibiades unless they're joshing around. BAP is a full-on thought-criminal who attracts just the people he needs to attract: serious young men with spines who are looking to armor themselves for the eventual crackdown their overlords will visit upon them. These men don't need another thought-piece about changing the Leftist orthodoxy from within. They need to find communities of other, understanding men with whom to build themselves against the world.
If it seems like I'm not addressing your main question, then know that's partly because I'm not familiar with Hanania (though it looks like I should be!). The best option you present appears to be #3: ignore what's going on. Not because he's ashamed or looking for approval, but because it isn't worth his time to explain himself. His silence is the answer. Eventually he might be forced to address the issue. Then he should just be honest about why he's changed his views, using parameters similar to what I outlined above. Avoiding an apologetic tone is crucial. The very young men the dissident right appeals to will sniff that stuff out as weakness, and deservedly so.
I honestly think this is cope for the fact that BAP and people who like him genuinely believes a lot of straightforwardly false ideas. "The mean of the white IQ distribution is significantly higher than that of the black IQ distribution and that means more white people should have positions of influence than black people" - okay. "Race mixing pollutes the nobility of the Nordic Races and races have different spirits. white people are superior to asian bugmen" - not true at all. (ten more examples elided). And, yeah, it's pointless arguing whether or not BAP 'really believes this', maybe it's all a big joke. But a large portion of the internet far right he associates with, e.g. people he retweets on twitter, clearly do believe it - both from their public posts and (if you imagine they're joking too) private conversations. These are precisely the serious young men you mention. What prevents this resurgence of far-right ideas from descending into romantic fantasies and failing to accomplish anything? Those "serious young men with spines" satisfy their animals spirits translating old texts or dreaming of conquering a small african country, while ... lifting weights and posting on twitter, or plotting to reduce illegal immigration by 30% or introduce tariffs in the next Trump admin.
You can imagine your Based Marketing Firm or Based Dating App is a mannerbund all you want. It's still responding to the demands of the market, selling slop to consumers. The 'world' isn't going anywhere - technology's taking it over, the 'liberal' global economy is more capable than ever and 'satisfying consumers' as well as it ever has.
Seriously, it's worth meditating on the lack of practical meaning within this statement:
How are they 'armoring themselves'? 'Communities of men building themselves against the world'? I keep hearing stuff like 'build brotherhoods of men / institutions that will survive the collapse, and pick up the pieces in the harsh world to come'. But ... that isn't happening. AGI catastrophe is more plausible than that. It's hard to think of a material way that 2020 is worse off than 1980, and 1970-1980s america didn't collapse.
That’s a non-falsifiable belief that by definition can’t be proven wrong.
Eh while there are a bunch of non-falsifiable woo-spiritual idealist components to it, it is in large part falsifiable IMO. And it's not just, like, a single dumb belief that doesn't affect the behavior of the internet racists very much, it's something many of them are very deeply rhetorically and personally invested in.
Why it's falsifiable, in theory: The most obvious interpretations of it all make direct claims about what people do in hypothetical but theoretically realizable situations! Some anti-racemixing people just think other races are inferior, others think different races have different noble 'qualities' and mixing is degenerate relative to both races. Both are falsifiable - you (god-king or alien or whatever) could just take a bunch of 'pure' nordics and a bunch of mixed people and put them in various 'ancient bands of men swordfighting' situations, and see which group acts 'nobler' according to your criteria. You could, similarly, put white and asian people in situations that test whatever standard of strong independent man-ness you think asians lack, maybe they have to speak out against their boss or lead a revolt against a corrupt lib regime or whatever. And then see which race statistically does the thing more. This all sounds absurd, of course, but it's what a literal reading of the statements these people make would suggest.
I think that, though no perfect natural experiments like that exist, one can falsify the claim by just observing the behavior of half-white / half-indian/asian/arab people compared to pure white people & observing the behavior of whites/asians.
We already had that experiment historically. The Aryans got bodied by the North-East Asians.
If you're referring to the mongol invasions, they never managed to conquer areas that are properly Aryan- just some eastern Euro slavic speaking lands.
The Turks and Mongols took over the entire Central Asian steppe that was previously dominated by Aryan tribes. They also conquered India and Iran. You know what Aryan actually means right? The Afanasievo were pasturing in Mongolia long before the Mongols ever took up the horse and bow.
And BAP’s followers do not use aryan to refer to Hindus.
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
More options
Context Copy link