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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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I live in a very very progressive part of the world, and I went to a small local craft market event today. Near the event, there was a 65ish year old woman waving around a GOP tote bag at cars and people passing by. Everyone was ignoring her, but I went to talk to her.

It started out just fine. I told her (in a friendly way) that she's unlikely to change any minds here, and she replied that that she's just trying to show people that there are others out there who have had enough of the progressive orthodoxy, citing CRT, transgenderism, etc. She felt like maybe this might just convince some young people to even question whether there's another viewpoint out there, or convince those who are hiding their views to speak up more. I definitely respected and agreed with that.

Then, her stream of consciousness-style insane ramblings started coming out. She went on for like 7 minutes without pausing, about so many topics I couldn't even keep track, jumping from one to the other. I recall her mentioning that leftists want to harvest and sell fetus organs, and somehow she started talking about slavery and pre-civil war America, waving a book around trying to show me underlined passages trying to liken the practice of slavery to what progressives are doing today, maybe implying that leftists want to return to pre-civil war America in some way. It was pretty hard to manage to get away.

This comes in the wake of being at my wife's family event where her crazy uncle kept bringing up conservative talking points apropos of nothing, shoehorning them into conversations which everyone tried politely to ignore, and was a total conversation killer. I'm usually only used to leftists doing that.

These experiences were pretty disheartening to me. I spend so much time here on The Motte that I end up feeling like people who are anti-progressive are probably more thoughtful and less crazy than progressives and more in touch with reality. But that's probably not true. I guess a lot of conservatives really are in their own echo chambers just as much as leftists are. Probably a good number of them really take seriously the conspiracy-style theories of talking head personalities in the style of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones. The true disconnect on both sides, from each other and probably also from reality and the true values of most people, is a very sad state of affairs.

I truly believe that the way we tend to talk about things on the Motte and in rationalist-adjacent spaces makes sense, and seems like far more logical discourse than I can find anywhere else. But of course I would, I'm part of this specific world. Any leftist would say the same about their progressive reddit subs, and most republicans would say that about the comments section in the Daily Wire. Is there any evidence that we're not just rambling buffoons in our own echo chamber, just like I'd find on either end of the spectrum?

The extremes of the political spectrum are equally out of touch with reality. It is QAnon vs White Patriarchy conspiracies at the fringes endlessly triggering themselves to their idea of the enemy. And those who don't ascribe to these descriptions of reality in the center get to be onlookers and increasingly harder to find places to discuss what they perceive to be actual reality and move the ball forward. The biggest contribution to my sanity in most cases when I hear conspiracy like theories is Hanlon's Razor, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.". It is just look a couple years back to see the handling of the pandemic and know that the bumbling fools that rule us couldn't conspire their way out of a wet paper bag. Of course conspiracies could exists but it is a extraordinary claim that require equally extraordinary evidence. So what does that say about the future of motte? Nothing if the place gets taken over by extremist descriptions of reality the place is doomed, we will have to try to stay sane.

I would make a distinction between "fringe" and "extreme." "Fringe" would mean very unpopular; maybe 1% of the population believes [X], so it's a fringe belief. "Extreme" means far from the "average" view (for some calculation of average). So fringe ideas can show up wherever they like on any political spectrum, while extreme views can be much more popular, but not centrist.

I use fringe in terms of a network where conspiracies exists outside main hubs of “knowledge” so to speak. On top of that I tried to take two of the fringe clusters and put them on a political spectrum on the extremes. Following another branch of discussion I came to realize that my example that I used for the left sparked some discussion. Trying to find a better example but I’m unsure what would be a better representation for qanon on the left(your suggestion on blue anon is good).

It's a little difficult for me to be sure about "fringe + extreme + left" in terms of conspiracy theories, because I think most of the extreme left conspiracy theories I know of might be too common to be fringe. Best I can think of is normal extreme conspiracy theories on the left, plus a further twist in a sort of "50 Stalins" telephone-game way.

A couple more candidates:

"Bush lied us into Iraq in order to steal their oil."

"Brett Kavanaugh organized gang-rape parties in high school."

That might be the problem in that case that we don't know enough of the lefts conspiracies to be sure where their batshit insane are. Reading things like https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1969/essay-liberation.htm I'm sure that they are out there. Just not as public.

The extremes on the political left and right political spectrum has a end goal of subjugating the individual to benefit of collective/state/nation. That goal has a tendency to warp peoples perception on what drives the world and sometimes it ends up with false beliefs about groups of individuals running things behind the scenes. Conspiracy theories can arise and be perpetuated without this political dichotomy and if one side has had their false beliefs thrust out in the mainstream. It doesn't mean that aren't false or conspiracy theories. Most of mainstream Soviet had a belief in Lysenkoism it didn't make it less fringe out of established science or a conspiracy theory that the scientist opposing it are puppets of the west.

What does centrist really mean here? Can you give an example of fringe and centrist?

I don't know of centrism is a theoretical position that lets us come up with fringe opinions, and I suspect we use it to mean like "a median belief"

Fringe and centrist should have the property that: the left and the right feel about the same about it, but also nobody holds the belief? Does that mean the left and the right equally condemn it? Would a fringe centrist belief be "Murder is good?"

At least a couple of different types--first, a rare belief that (currently) doesn't have a strong political valence. For example, advocates of a number of rare diets or other health-related practices that are generally rejected by the mainstream, but also don't map to current politics. Second, a "compromise" position on a political topic that takes strong elements from both ends of the political scale and fuses them together in a way that partisans on both sides would reject, though for different reasons.

"Wearing magnets is good for your health."

"Human fetuses are morally equivalent to any other human, but humans are bad for the environment, so abortion is a positive good."

White Patriarchy conspiracies at the fringe

Forgive me but isn't this type of thinking exceptionally mainstream in a way that QAnon just... isn't?

No, because "White Patriarchy" refers to two different ideas: One is that there is a secret masonic lodge of old white dudes who wear red robes and sacrifice a BIPOC virgin every full moon to anoint themselves in the blood of the innocent as they secretly control everything, man!

And the second "White Patriarchy" is noticing that white men hold something like 65-70% of all US political offices, but constitute 30% of the population.

One of these is empiricism, one is insanity.

Qanon is just insanity.

And the second "White Patriarchy" is noticing that white men hold something like 65-70% of all US political offices, but constitute 30% of the population.

And yet when people Notice things like this about other population groups, for example Jews, that's considered wacky conspiracy on the level of the first idea you mentioned. It seems there's actually only one group you're allowed to notice and decry the dominance of.

And the second "White Patriarchy" is noticing that white men hold something like 65-70% of all US political offices, but constitute 30% of the population.

One of these is empiricism, one is insanity.

In the name of empiricism, I bid you take a deeper look. I think you'll find these positions are disproportionately held by an even smaller group than that!

But other than Jews ruling the world, this is just special pleading. There's no lack of ridiculous fringe left-wing beliefs, feminist and non-feminist; tarot, astrology, otherkin, are all as absurd as anything the worst of Q asserts, and feminism's mainstream belief is certainly more than Noticing the numbers.

My intuition tells me that it's fair game to consider QAnon "political" but that tarot, astrology, and otherkin are "not political." This is true even granting that my worldview is opposite those who believe tarot etc.

If some rhetorical trick has been played on me to recenter QAnon nearer to the center of "right winger" and no such trick has been played w.r.t. tarot and the left, please elaborate on that.

My intuition tells me that it's fair game to consider QAnon "political" but that tarot, astrology, and otherkin are "not political.

I don't see why this matters. The insanity of a belief seems entirely separate from its political focus. The idea Hillary Clinton is a reptile or drinks infant blood is insane; so is the idea that the moon has exerted psychic control over you since birth or that you are actually a Zergling.

Certain crazy conspiracies are popular on the right, and certain crazy conspiracies are popular on the left. They're all crazy conspiracies.

It's all fun and games until someone decides they're a Baneling instead.

Motte: White Patriarchy is empiricism

Bailey: White Patriarchy is a theory that the observations are caused by a self-perpetuating system of laws, institutions, people

Strawman: White Patriarchy is a conspiracy theory

It's possible I'm being too charitable here, and what I've labeled "Bailey" is what someone else would label "Motte" and what I've labeled "Strawman" is what someone else would label "Bailey." I suppose it all depends on if in the real world, there are activists out there who behave as if there is a conspiracy of white people keeping the common person down.

Still, the self-perpetuation theory is promoted by people who I suspect also attack science and empiricism, so it's no surprise that this position is bears more resemblance to a religious faith than to a scientific theory. (I've certainly never read about anyone trying to falsify this position, while coming from an angle of trying to reduce racism).

I didn’t have any better expression for conspiracy theory on the political left than white patriarchy. Since it can be construed as a straw man does it mean that there is no qanon equivalent on the left? Because in the recent case with Shannon Brandt running over a teenager just reeks pizzagate levels of insanity.

"Trump is a Russian asset"? On parts of the right, this is sometimes called "Blue-Anon."

Whether it's correct or not, "Trump is a Russian asset" is far less crazy as a conspiracy theory than QAnon, as a whole. Imagining that a politician/businessman/public figure might be secretly in cahoots with a foreign country through blackmail or some other means is not an insane idea in itself, there have been plenty of such figures throughout world history. The QAnon metanarrative contains a huge number of intricate pieces and fantastical, improbable parts that would need to be true for the entire worldview to be true, not to forget that it involved a large number of specific date-based predictions on unprecedented events that didn't come to pass.

I disagree. "Trump is a Russian asset" is facially ludicrous given both his history and policies. "Sometimes public figures get blackmailed" is a very far cry from the specifics of Blue-Anon and the Steele Dossier. Similarly, the very broad strokes of QAnon bears a passing resemblance to Epstein's island and the Lolita Express, even though the details don't match. Blue-Anon was certainly more widely believed and higher status than QAnon, but it was no less crazy for all that.

It’s not just noticing that there are more white males in positions of power, it’s positing this was done through malice and oppression. This is the mainstream view as well.

Name me literally a single person who has ever advocated the first theory. I’ll wait.

When you misrepresent and distort the views of your outgroup beyond recognition, it’s very easy to call them insane.

Lotta post SJW types essentialize white dudes as a whole into some sort of malicious entity; when they are just the current hegemonic class.

There is nothing uniquely bad about white people or white men.

I mean, look, you’re talking to a white identitarian, so obviously I’m in vociferous agreement that there’s nothing wrong with white men. However, I think you have at best a surface-level grasp of what serious leftists actually mean when they talk about “systemic white supremacy”. It’s far more sophisticated than a simple attribution of malice to white men.

Yup. I know, because it's the position I hold: That groups who have historically held positions of influence have a tendency to act so as to benefit their own group, and that this urge is completely rational and ethical (on the level of the individual).

This extends up the chain of associations: given a chance, you will help your direct family, then extended family, then your group associations (Eg, I've gotten 10k+ in money for jobs over other equally skilled dudes because I play at the same gamestore as a client.)

There is nothing wrong with this, on the individual level. Eg, imagine two platonic applicants for a job are equally talented in all regards, except one of them went to your alma mater. There is nothing wrong with giving them the job.

Then you do this for 200 years, and you have a ruling class. Of course people who aren't in the ruling class are going to attempt to level out those advantages; they would be stupid not to. You can have opinions on the ethics of it all on top of that, of course, but the core is all practical.

It be how it be. Your ancestors fought against the romans for status, then they fought against the nobility, and now people are fighting the putative oligarchs. When someone eventually casts down the current group in pole position , someone will start fighting them, on into history until we get turned into paperclips or the sun explodes.

I dont think they were saying, "The Right thinks the Left believes in a secret masonic lodge" or "The Left believes in a secret masonic lodge" or anything like that.

They were saying that "QAnon is insanity" and "White Patriarchy is not insanity," and then described a hypothetical world in which White Patriarchy was insanity.

It's probably not hard to find a QAnon true believer that professes a cabal of elites that make literal sacrifice (which is Insanity)

Yes the white patriarchy conspiracy theory is more mainstream. It is the prevailing conspiracy that rules currently in the western world. But it is still a conspiracy theory, it hasn't any more claim on being a true reflection of reality than QAnon. A conspiracy theory doesn't become less of a conspiracy theory when more people believe it.

A conspiracy theory doesn't become less of a conspiracy theory when more people believe it.

Right but I don't think it's fair to characterise it "at the fringes" once it's reached ruling status. Far left, sure, but fringe implies a certain lack of critical mass, does it not?

It is only the extremes that have the belief of big systems with delibirate coordination to surpress the truth. Those closer to the center it myths and half-truths that previal but not the full blown conspiracy world view that everything evil is deliberate machinations by group of people.