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 -
The Obama Factor
Ran across this lengthy piece in Tablet this week. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but the main one is that it is the first piece I've encountered that feels sufficiently removed from the Obama years to count as sufficiently distant to be a really good historical retrospective. Of course, that's not all it is! But it consists substantially of a conversation between two men who have impeccable liberal bona fides. David Garrow is a biographer of some repute, and his wide-ranging commentary here is priceless.
For my part, back in the day, I was bullish on Obama during the Democratic primaries, in part due to a rumor that he intended to tap Lawrence Lessig to do some intellectual property reform. Beneath the soaring oratory and the socialist populism, Obama seemed to me to get technology in a way that I thought it might be good for America's economic future. When he did things like appoint RIAA lawyers to top positions a lot of the old nerd guard felt betrayed, but looking back I think most were also profoundly incurious about that betrayal. Maybe because we're all just accustomed to politicians failing to live up to their promises? Only, I don't know that Obama made any clear promises along these lines, it was more that he spoke in promising ways, if that makes sense. It was a failure, not of promises, but of promise. Obama's failure to appoint the right tech people didn't make a lot of sense to me then, but modeling him as doing things he imagines winners do, rather than modeling him as someone with real ideological commitments, gets me there.
Likewise, the economic plight of black Americans actually worsened under Obama (e.g.), but I don't recall much discussion then about how Obama is not Black, i.e. is not a descendant of American slavery and did not even especially grow up with descendants of American slavery. This piece touches on that a fair bit.
There is also some fascinating stuff here re: MLK, and Clarence Thomas. It opens with a great exploration of Obama's fabulism, and touches on his dalliances with Marxism. It makes explicit the connection between Obama's courting of Iran, and his turning a blind eye to Syria. There are digs on Bibi and Putin, there's a brief discussion of Hitler. It all hangs together as a talk about the relationship between individual personalities and the sweep of political history.
I'd include some choice quotes but I don't want to focus the conversation any more than I already have. Every single word of this piece is worth reading, on my view, and I'd love to hear what others take from it.
I suppose, because I'm older, I wasn't swept away by the whole idea of First Black President (no thrills up the leg for me!). It was certainly an historic achievement but setting that aside, I saw Obama as a typical politician (okay, maybe not so typical because he went into it late and had his law career in academia beforehand). Same way I felt about Trump later: neither of them would be the Greatest Thing Ever as their partisans wished, nor the Worst Thing Ever as their enemies prognosticated.
I thought Obama was ambitous for political success and had carefully crafted an image to appeal to the white liberals in the Democratic Party. The entire "hope and change" thing was masterfully done, because it was a mirror: you looked into it and saw what you wanted/hoped for/dreamed for looking back out at you, while someone standing beside you did the same and saw something completely different, but also appealing to them.
You wanted the End of Racism? LGBT rights? General niceness for nice people? It was all there if you wanted to see it, and the oratory and rhetoric promised much without promising anything directly.
Remember, the oceans were going to stop rising and the planet start healing. And if you believed that as anything other than soaring rhetoric to make everybody feel good - well, you got the guy and the reality and his phone and pen.
I don't think he was intentionally deceptive, he's just a politican and this is the kind of stuff you churn out to get the punters to vote for you. Nobody believes it and you don't expect anybody to believe it. I think he may believe in his own legend a little, but if you're not in part a narcissist, then why are you going into politics? 😀
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link