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 -
You didn't respond to anything I asked you. This is just a rambling about things that apparently annoy you.
Were George Wallace and Strom Thurmond members of the woke left? Are you denying that conservative whites, especially in the South, were deeply racist until very recently? David Duke almost won in Louisiana in the 1980s.
Who were these people in the Jim Crow South voting for it? Did the woke left travel back in time and vote in those elections or did every Southern state except Texas in 1968 vote for Republicans or a segregationist after the CRA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_United_States_presidential_election
Were the people on the opposite side of this debate? The woke left? Were the woke left the ones beating black protesters here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches#%22Bloody_Sunday%22_events
I did actually.
You claimed that founding fathers restricted immigration and I pointed out that this was false.
You claimed that founding fathers allowed slavery and I replied the issue was a bit more complicated than that.
You ask me who were the people on the opposite side of the CRA debate, and my reply is the same people who are supporting segregation today, namely college-educated white democrats. The specific terminology they use to justify their beliefs might change, but the substance of those beliefs (racial segregation, mob justice, and various flavors of Marxist nonsense) hasn't.
The founding fathers never intended for this country to be populated with majority non-whites. This isn't debatable.
How was it more complicated? They allowed it. Everything is complicated so that is a ridiculous "argument".
Wait so the woke left and Marxists were running the Jim Crow South? You are delusional. Today I learned that George Wallace was the same as the college educated democrats today just the "terms" are different.
...and there it is, the agenda you were trying slip by under the mask.
You ask how is it more complicated? My answer is for the same reason it's rude and/or to ask anti-natalists why they're posting manifestos on the internet instead of huffing nitrogen or overdosing on heroine. Ditto pointing out how Joe Biden and the people who vote for him are unusually supportive of murdering baby both in the abstract through support of abortion and in the particular through financial support for Hamas.
You ask if woke Marxists were running the Jim crow south? My answer is that this is a trick question. Would the folks running the Jim crow south have called themselves "woke Marxists" at the time? No of course not. Were they the same sort of people (and in some cases literally the same people) who identify as "woke Marxists" today? Yes, absolutely. The Black Bloc and the KKK are the same picture with a minor palette swap.
So just so I'm understanding this correctly, the KKK, George Wallace, and David Duke are/were essentially woke leftists and Marxists? And the people running the Jim Crow South and supporting the KKK were more or less motivated by the same ideology as The Black Bloc and Antifa? Is this what you are saying?
Yes.
I'm saying that the dipshits donning white hoods to smash windows in minority neighborhoods back in 1920 are largely indistinguishable from the dipshits donning black hoodies to smash windows in minority neighborhoods in 2020. They're the same picture.
Okay so when did the KKK officially become part of the Left in your view? When it was founded by Confederate veterans or did it become woke left later? Or were Confederate soldiers also woke leftists and this predates the Civil War?
From the founding.
As I have argued on numerous priors occasions the split between left and right is best understood as a religious schism between the followers of Rousseau and Hobbes. Hobbes may have won the war, but that doesn't necessarily translate into winning the site.
Rousseau was born significantly after slavery in the US started. Columbus discovered North America pretty close to the conclusion of the War of the Roses so that is how far back we are talking here with race based slavery/colonialism. France passed racial hierarchy laws under the Sun King: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Noir way before Rousseau was born. The English did as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_Slave_Code
It is significantly more likely they were influenced by that legacy than anything Rousseau wrote, who these Confederate veterans had probably never heard of or read. Or were the Sun King and the British Empire proto woke left Marxist as well?
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
You're asking if the people who wanted segregation back then are
different fromthe same as people who want segregation now? Why would an affirmative answer be in any way surprising?He thinks they are the same
Sorry, I switcharood the negations in my brain somewhere along the line of writing that sentence. Yes, it seems to make sense to me that people who want segregation now will have the same ideology as the people who wanted segregation back then.
So the "woke" left today full of non-white people has the same ideology as the people running the Jim Crow South?
I'm pretty sure the generations don't overlap to that extent, so in the strictest sense: no. On the other hand, how am I supposed to tell the difference between people who want separate facilities for people of color, and people who want separate facilities for people of color?
It's pretty disingenuous to compare what modern progressives are doing (which I hate btw) to previous racial policies in the South.
I disagree.
I do not find the similarities to be coincidental nor inconsequential. To me it seems reasonably obvious that the sort of person who would have identified as a "Social Democrat" or "National Socialist" back in the day would be the sort who identifies as "woke" or "progressive" today.
More options
Context Copy link
I think it's pretty disingenuous to act like the similarities are coincidental and inconsequential, but that's not much of discussion, that's just tossing insults at each other.
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
They are doing a giga DR3 and implying the American Right and Red Tribe were apparently never racist. I'm just trying to get them to admit that's what they are doing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link