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 -
This is the best image I've seen to understand the symmetry of the woke left and Trump-right when it comes to foreign affairs. Partisans are willing to jam round pegs into square holes, and so leftists squint and see the Israel vs Palestine conflict as white colonizers vs oppressed brown natives. This worldview is incoherent when you do deeper analysis, but it has sufficient surface level appeal to rip left coalitions apart in circular firing squads around the world. The right (ala Trump) is steadfast in its support of Israel apart from the unironically antisemitic fringe who'll end up throwing in their lot with Trump anyways as part of the coalition process.
Hlynka's analysis is basically just that the woke left and Trump right both want change and are willing to flirt with authoritarianism to get it. There's some stuff about Locke vs Hobbes in there but that's just intellectual salad dressing for the previous sentence. If status quo bias and democracy vs authoritarianism are the only thing you care about, then yeah the two sides probably look pretty similar. But go beyond those and the differences are massive.
No lol. If anything, expect Israel vs Palestine to simply become more partisan. As leftists become more flippantly pro-Palestine, expect the right to use this as ammo to justify tacking towards Israel to an even greater degree. Public polling backs this up.
We have seen plenty of cancelling by Neocons now and pre Trump. Woke left is also the Democratic establishment at the very least and part of republican establishment as well. The new republican speaker of the house is at least somewhat woke on race, talking about how his black son will have to deal with disadvantages for being black while his white son wouldn't have said problems.
The dialectic of bad left vs bad right and us good in the middle misses the boat greatly. To the extend the neocon-ish people fit somewhere it isn't a moderate side, just cause they have differences with both some on the left and some on the right.
There aren't really sizable factions with anti-authoritarian bona fides and when one criticises the supposed woke left and Trumpian right, what remains and is implied are are mostly the neocons like Nikki Haley who are more authoritarian than MAGA. Although MAGA politicians including Trump seems to be going back to more neocon direction in recent time.
There isn't any sizable faction of moderates around in the establishment. There isn't a sizable faction of moderates among rationalists and associated people neither who mostly seem to fit somewhere between the woke democrat establishment and neocon agendas. Although some people here don't fit into the rationalist associated tribes.
Also, there is some attempt to associate limitless Jewish tribalism (which is blatantly racist) with moderation. Being very pro Jewish does not make you a moderate neither. Being more pro Jewish to someone who is abusing Jews might make you moderate perhaps. But you can be so pro Jewish that you are an extremist and racist against non Jews.
Someone who is supporting attrocities, rejecting nuance, supporting cancelling any speech that is critical of Jews and promoting hate speech laws, slandering anyone opposing their country from funding Israel and its conduct. Plus there is also the extreme element of corruption and influence of foreign lobbies.
On Jewish influence, the moderates are those who have a negative opinion of this pro Jewish racism without going too far to the other side of the extreme. Although, hate begets hate, and to oppose movements you need determination and a will to not be politically correct. There is a certain proportionality necessary when dealing with the extremism of the woke and neocon factions, but one must still try to retain certain principles in opposing them which is about what end goal you are trying to reach.
I admire the people that in opposing the more pervasive bad faction of our time with all the slander, all this hateful provocative rhetoric and all the consistent false framing manage to deal with these issues without accepting to play the role of the villain and reject this false dialectic.
More options
Context Copy link
How would you not see "white colonizers vs oppressed brown natives", even without squinting?
For starters, colonialism has two major cleavages: settler-colonies (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) and old-fashioned imperialism (e.g. most of Africa, Latin America). Most criticism of colonialism is of the latter portion, whereas Israel more closely resembles the former. Settler colonies are harder to criticize because they've tended to have fairly good outcomes. At most you could criticize what they did to the natives they displaced decades/centuries ago, but few people argue that the USA should "give back the land" to the natives, which is functionally what Palestinians are demanding in Israel's case.
Second, while many Jews have white skin, most people would say they're culturally and obviously religiously distinct from whites in a number of ways.
I would go into more detail, but looking at your posting history I'm not sure it's justified. I'm happy to dive in more if you respond though!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Technically Hlynka's salad also lumps in all of the center, social democrats, neoliberals, classical liberals, in with the wokes and reactionaries. Basically it's just him, the ghost of hobbes, and the soul of america, versus everyone else.
More options
Context Copy link
Expect that poll was from March, and newest polling sees a heavy swing towards a pro-Israel position by all three main US political camps, including the Dems, and negligible sympathy for the actual pro-Palestinian position (instead of "I support neither") among any of them.
"Independents" aren't really a political camp; they're a combination of people with no lean, people who don't want to admit their lean to the pollster, and people with an unusual lean (e.g. Bernie supporters might not say "Democratic").
There's considerable support for the pro-Palestinian position among the Democratic vanguard -- the "few college kids on campus" -- which the past has demonstrated have an influence all out of proportion to their numbers.
More options
Context Copy link
The polling following the immediate aftermath of Hamas' attacks was done with the slaughter of over a thousand Israelis fresh in mind. That turn towards Israel will not hold over the long term for the D side.
I'm not so sure about that. Anecdotally, it seems to me that the pro-Palestine protests have shifted normie opinions as much or more than the attack itself.
The fact that they started before Israel even retaliated, and that we've seen big crowds in major western cities chanting things like "gas the jews" and "long live the intifada" is making people realize that peace with Hamas is not possible.
Depends on what you mean by "normie" here. If it's "centrist", then perhaps. If it's the median Democrat, though, that's much more questionable. Remember that normies naturally gravitate towards news orgs that flatter their preconceptions, so they're much more likely to see crying Palestinian children than deranged leftists holding "gas the Jews" signs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don’t understand that guy’s categories. Cutting out the Israel-Palestine and Russia-Ukraine labels,
These don’t look like the normal political spectrum. Maybe that’s because I’m used to seeing the two-axis compass version? Squishing it down to one axis requires putting the command-economy tankies in the same blob as the libleft CHAZ anarchists. That’s a little weird, and I suspect this horseshoe goes away if you control for authoritarianism.
The far left is very heterogenous, but the US's automatic coalition progress means communist tankies and anarchists are indeed lumped together. They'll both either vote for the Democrats, or waste their votes by staying home or voting for a fringe leftist.
Yeah, but then it’s not surprising when those fringes don’t cooperate. The horseshoe has much less significance than the big tents.
To be clear, I’m not disagreeing with you about the horseshoe. I think people tweeting about it are giving it too much credit.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link