site banner
Crowstep  8mo ago (theintrinsicperspective.com)   2638 thread views

What the heck happened in 2012?

theintrinsicperspective.com

Submission statement:

Erik Hoel argues that 2012 was a cultural inflection point. Just as 1968 signalled the peak of the 1960s cultural revolution that would set the stage for the next few decades of social change, 2012 represents the beginning of the (spoiler) smartphone era and a new round of social change.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

2012 is around the time that pop culture should have started experiencing a backlash to all of the progressive cultural victories that accumulated from the 20 or so years preceding it. Instead, that natural rightward energy was suppressed by what we now call DEI officers. And so we ended up with a literal astroturfed culture where no one is interested in what the cultural elites are selling, on a message level, but they keep doubling down on their own path.

Yeah I too saw this take on Twitter ;)

But I want to push back a little bit. For sure, "wokeness" does have a lot of official support and literal commissars in American HR departments. But it also has lots of genuine grass-roots support. As in, people who congregate on Reddit and Twitter and devote their lives to this "extremism" in varying degrees.

I'm sorry but someone who transitions and spends their time and money on an ideological crusades with very good results is a strong opponent. It's an insane level of fanaticism and commitment. I would wager this is an important factor that explains why wokeness is winning. And crucially for my argument, it's grass-roots support from actual true-believers, not a gerontocratic elite pushing unpopular views in a top-down manner.

If you like video games and talking about them online, your world has basically been taken over by these people. You want to talk about game X? How about instead of that we talk about the private life of a VA in that game that once said something transphobic. How about instead of that we talk about LGBTQA+ representation in the game. How about ------.

This happens IRL too. In a group of N friends, most people don't care about the woke stuff. But that one friend who does can decide to push that perspective. What are the others gonna do? They don't really care, and this one friend seems to really care. Through his tone and the very fact of what he's saying he has made it clear that he's willing to enter conflicts about this. So, he's unlikely to get any pushback. People aren't "beaten into submission by commissars" always, sometimes they're just too passive and don't want to upset the social dynamic, so the fanatics get the final say.

Why dont the MAGAts win then?

MAGAts

Don't do that. You've been warned before, so 3-day ban.

Because what most of them really wants is to just grill in peace. CW is not what they really want to do, it's something they feel compelled to do by the external pressure and events.

It takes awhile to build the common knowledge necessary for proper prosecution of a culture war.

That too. What we see now on the Left is the fruits of work which has started almost a century ago and intensified about 50 years ago. Maybe in another 50 years the right will develop their own CW capabilities comparable with those of the left.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats