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 -
Tonight, mainstream audiences around the nation will be introduced to Vivek Ramaswamy - multi-disciplinary genius, serial entrepreneur, modern renaissance man, and nigh-messianic wünderkind who in this commenter’s humble opinion offers our beleaguered country’s best hope of national redemption
The story of Vivek is the story of the American Dream par excellence. A first generation American, Vivek was born to industrious immigrants who came to this land with nothing and went on to become a geriatric psychiatrist and engineer / patent attorney, respectively. Vivek’s giftedness shone through from the start, overcoming severe bullying - to the point of being hospitalized + needing surgery after being thrown down a flight of stairs - to become an accomplished pianist, nationally ranked tennis player, and class Valedictorian by time he left high school to attend Harvard via scholarship
Thriving among the nation’s intellectual elite, Vivek became President of Harvard’s Political Union (as a conservative!), won the Ivy’s prestigious Bowdoin prize for his senior thesis, and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biology whilst working for top hedge funds in the biotech investment sector, all while moonlighting as as a rapper (Da Vek) and making club appearances as an amateur stand-up comedian while publishing scientific articles in the nation’s top papers and founding a 7-figure networking business. Upon graduating, Vivek made partner at a major hedge fund while simultaneously attending Yale Law School on a lark, having earned $15M by the time he graduated with his J.D. with a scholar’s grounding in the principles of Constitutional governance
Shortly after, Vivek founded a revolutionary biotech company that created a paradigm shift in pharmaceutical development. Developing an ingenious business model that leveraged market forces to determine the promise of various drug candidates (by spinning off a new company for each treatment and holding IPOs) he cut through the pharmaceutical bureaucracy to develop 5 FDA approved drugs (including life-saving treatments) in under a decade. His company, Roivant, is now worth over $9 Billion(!), with Vivek maintaining an approximately $650M stake
Vivek left his company following internal and external pressure to make a corporate statement in favor of the controversial - and in his view - socially corrosive #BLM movement, during a period in which nationwide race riots killed dozens, caused $2 billion in damages, and coincided with an enduring crime surge with an immediate ~30% homicide increase that represented the largest year-to-year murder spike in our nation’s history. Choosing to stand on principle rather than genuflect to the reigning hysteria, Vivek went on to write 3 best selling books in 18 months exposing the pernicious spread of radical left wing ideology throughout the corporate world. One such book shone a light on the ESG movement by which asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street leverage the assets of everyday Americans to force partisan political agendas across the nation’s corporate boardrooms. Not satisfied to merely expose this undercovered movement, Vivek started his own asset management firm, Strive, that serves as a counterbalance to the major institutional players and their attempts to politicize the very free market itself. (Strive currently approaches $1billion under management.) Simultaneously, he founded another company, Chapter, to help citizens navigate the federal bureaucracy with regard to Medicare, all while raising two young children with his loving and accomplished (surgeon!) wife
A fearless iconoclast, intellectual titan, and charismatic orator, Vivek has now taken on the audacious goal of becoming our country’s next President. Swearing off Super PACs and institutional backers, Vivek has self-funded an ambitious campaign, seizing upon earned media to make a name for himself despite virtually no ad expenditures by appearing on a litany of podcasts and programs across the political spectrum. This young and daring patriot - the first millennial to run for President - boldly aired his policy briefings as almost daily podcasts to give every day Americans insight into how the political process truly works. With a uniquely invigorating platform, full of heretofore unthinkable ideas, Vivek has thrown conventional political wisdom to the wind in the name of running a campaign centered on truth and national revival
Encouragingly, this dazzlingly bright young maverick has found his message resonating with the electorate, surging to third place in the all important race for the 2024 Republican nomination. Polling ahead of sitting senators, former governors, and even a former vice president, Vivek as a Hindu, dark-skinned political neophyte has already achieved the impossible and situated himself as the arguable heir apparent to the American nationalist movement
Tonight he makes his true debut on the national stage and makes his case to take on the political establishment, impose constitutional limits to a federal bureaucracy run amok, and restore a unifying sense of national purpose. Excited to watch - stream on Rumble at 9pm Eastern
https://rumble.com/v3ak5c2-fox-news-republican-presidential-primary-debate.html
Hi Vivek, nice to meet you!
(Leaving aside the arguments made within, this came across as rather fawning to me.)
At any rate, he'd have my vote if I was in a position to do so, he seems saner than the overwhelming majority of Republican candidates, and I think his claim to believe in God is one of those useful lies to the voter base rather than anything he sincerely believes in. If we were to ding politicians for being slightly two-faced, we'd have to elect only those who had half their face mauled by a pitbull to compensate.
What makes you say this? Plenty of Hindus actually believe in God, as do plenty of American conservatives.
Among 2nd generation Indian-Americans, I literally don't know a single one who believes that Vishnu, Shiva, Kali, etc. all exist as separate entities. They're more or less panentheists that sometimes pray to a one of the Devas (usually Shiva or an incarnation of Vishnu) as the personality of The Absolute. Sometimes they don't even do this and their beliefs are indistinguishable from New Age spirituality (which ofc is heavily influenced by Hinduism).
More options
Context Copy link
As far as I'm aware, all candidates for President at least present as religious, even if in practise they're agnostic or atheist. I don't know if it's viable to run as an openly atheist candidate, but I suspect not.
Most UMC/PMC Indians abroad are "culturally religious", without any true belief. This is also true back home, but to a different degree. You can just be a de-facto atheist and pass as Hindu, there's no need to show up to temples on Sunday.
Given everything I know about him, I strongly suspect he's just going through the motions, not that anyone can say for sure.
Still remember the day I "came out" as atheist in my Hindu family and they just shrugged it off as if it was no big deal. I even had an angry 'neo-atheist' phase for a couple of years before realizing that Hinduism just sort of accepted Atheism at face value.
My mom was like, "I need you to visit for festivals, be a good person and just join your hands with the family every once in a while. You can talk to whoever you like in your own head, just don't get angry when I ask my Ganpati to bring you good luck." Hell, I thought my dad was irreligious my whole life, until my mom told me he was deeply religious, but he did not feel worthy of praying to ask a God for good luck ! Turns out he'd pray by himself daily, just in non-visible spaces.
Hinduism is funny that way. It's lack of scripture allows it to be something and nothing at the same time. Yet, when it is around, you can tell. If a group of heterogenous people strongly self-identify under a common umbrella of Hinduism, then who am I to disagree ?
This is an unfair accusation, because it quietly defines religion from an Abrahmic lens. Being culturally religious is what Hinduism is all about. Both Dharma and Karma are defined within a localized context of your profession, family & conditions. So, it is hard to have any uniform optics for Hinduism. If a person lives a Dharmic life with an awareness of Karma, then they're Hindu. Even if it has no ties to a specific God.
Yes, I understand that this means a person who performs Hindu actions with Hindu intentions, will be Hindu irrespective of which religion they follow. Hinduism doesn't require mutual exclusivity in tribal associations. As the head of the RSS (India's largest political Hindu organization) says, "If you are born in India, you're Hindu. You can be a Muslim-Hindu, Christian-Hindu or an Atheist-Hindu. Just gotta align your intentions and actions. A lot of spiritual atheist rationalists appear pretty Hindu to me.
I've been an atheist since the age of 5, I've only prayed earnestly once in my life, and that's to Krishna when my mom was pregnant because I was looking forward to a baby brother.
With how he turned out, I immediately turned atheist /s. (Still love him tho, even if his ADHD is even worse than mine)
My parents are mildly religious, they observe most festivals, visit temples on vacation, and idly contemplate going on pilgrimage to those random ass holy shrines up in the Himalayas (it would probably kill their backs).
Even then, when religion simply didn't take in me, because even at that age I could see that no religion was a remotely good fit for both the world around me and the behavior of its denizens, they never forced me to pray, at most I was dragged along to a bunch of temples and forced to sit glumly during some festivals until I got a little older and refused to attend whatsoever.
Nobody forced me to practise, nor did they care particularly much.
Most Hindus I've met have been entirely chill about it too, nobody has tried to proselytize to me, or made my life difficult in any way.
I'm not aware of any major religion that's more cool with atheism, barring perhaps Buddhism, but that's just a distant cousin.
Does Taoism or Confucianism work, if either count as religions?
I suppose they do, but even if I write a Cultivation novel, I'm no expert on either!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Did Bernie bother at all? Wasn't my impression.
I don't remember him speaking about it, but that's not the same as being an overt atheist.
In this case, he needs to convince the majority Christian Republican voter base that despite being born a Hindu, he has a relatively palatable theology.
I think he would be in a lot more trouble on this issue if Trump wasn’t such a front runner. Right now there is a significant part of the GOP that would really prefer not Trump but will vote for him. I think this especially includes the big-money backers (Musks/Griffin) and probably mosts of the conservative PMC (I guess like me). Since Desantis has flatlined there is a significant look at whenever gets momentum.
If Trump got a heart attack tomorrow I think this would be a much bigger issue.
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