site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Wokeness, victimhood and how right wing associated groups "not caring" about being victimized makes you non woke.

This is such a common claim especially here that it deserves to be addressed in general.

What is wokeness about? Its simply the ideology, of lbierals, leftists and those fake conservatives that have been colonized by this ideology that denies any level of legitimate victimhood to its right wing outgroup (the epitome of it would be right wing white christian straight men) and promotes excessive rights and victimhood for its left wing associated ingroup. That frames the left wing ingroup as permanent legitimate oppressed and right wing outgroup as illegitimate oppressors who can never challenge the status of the first.

Its what the ADL, Soros pushes. Both pushing the mantra of white christians as threats to minorities and promoting an onesided hateful narrative and discriminatory policies including totalitarianism and dracognian very one sided hateful hate speech laws. And of course supporting mass migration because it would lead to the extinction of their ethnic outgroup. And do not allow dissent from this mantra and in fact portray all dissent as white supremacy.

Wokeness has plenty of common with certain extreme nationalists of every type and obviously with not only religious Judaism, but the ideological extreme that retains aspects of religious judaism the secular combo of progressive extremism and Jewish ultranationalism has been one of the most key parts of it. And various fellow travelers of that. The one that denies Jews any blame whatsoever on how they treat others except perhaps other intersectional tribes and does not allow any negativity and frames it as antisemitism. Since this is the biggest taboo, I find it important to focus upon it more and I would focus upon a different tribe if I gotten there more pushback. If you are SJW only for the Jews then you are still part of this especially since powerful Jewish organisations like the ADL are important players.

When even Fox News attacks Musk when he tells jewish organisations to knock it off with their antiwhite racism, and entirely denies this you know that the end result of Fox News influence is not going to bring things to jewish organizations with this ideology knocking it off. End of wokeness should mean end of the narrative of the eternally oppressed Jews who should now as lord ordains rule others. This ideology should not be tolerated and Jews should adjust their religious and secular self conception to abadon it. People of any faith can still believe in their religion but should respect the rights of others. If this means their Christianity, Judaism, Islam lacks a certain vision of conquest that existed in the original text, then so be it. And this applies to those supposed secular atheists who seem to have retained aspects of the religion, relating to excessive nationalism.

Are right wing related identitarians like white identitarians then woke? Well, no because they have a different who/whom. It is possible for them to be equally extreme to be similar but not necessarily the case.

Are all victimhood related arguements woke and only abandoning the issue makes one antiwoke?

Not again. Victimhood is actually directly related to justice. Recognizing accurately victims is a necessary component of justice. Excessive victimhood for the ingroup and 0 victimhood for the outgroup is of course injustice and why the woke are unjust. Its what every criminal wants, to get maximum sympathy and get away with it and their legitimate victims to not be seen as victims. And this is why you are part of the woke if you argue like the woke, for zero victimhood for the right wing outgroups.

The argument that the only antiwoke way is to not recognize rights and to concern troll right wing associated groups to not care by people who are in fact sensationalized towards right wing racism is preposterous. We know this argument isn't promoted in good faith for those who subscribe to it don't have a stance of never caring about victimhood ever, nor are they tolerant to what would seem as hardcore right wing racism. More than that, you see this political coalition be sensationalized in opposition of left wing associated victimhood proponents like MLK and civil rights movement even though that movement too like modern woke had its element of seeking excess. MLK argued that USA should treat blacks especially better for having treated them in the past especially bad and used both pressure of sit ons and threat of violent protests to demand that organisations upped black representation considerably treating it as evidence of racism where blacks were underepresented. Lyndon Johnson also considered Herbert Marcuse influence as very important to the civil rights act. key civil rights remaining figures have promoted this party line and with their activism caused multiple race riots too. Modern wokeness is a continuation and part of the progressive hued "rights" movements of the past who had all these elements there too.

If you have a completely hagiographic attitude to said movements, yes you are way is the way of the woke.

Victimhood politics for any tribe tends to increase sympathy for them and can reduce sympathy for others. This is why a political environment where certain tribes are sacred cows and other tribes have no victimhood, is one that will inevitably be extremely racist in favor of first and at expense of the later. The racist hateful people who promote this hateful dogma then pretend to be antiracist and slander others which is an additional injustice.

Concern trolling right wingers and identity politics of the right wing outgroup is wokeness 101 and those who do it are part of it. It is blatant racism to oppose people being opposed to racism because "victimhood politics" i.e. opposing you being victimized is "woke". Such distortion of reality is amazing to witness.

Another false claim I have seen even by right wingers is that adopting the mentality of the woke for your own group would be ethnomasochistic. But the woke are not masochists, they are extreme identitarians and they have gotten plenty of what they want. You could oppose being exactly the same, although some level of tribalism for your tribe too is obviously justifiable and complete lack does not lead to justice but you being preyed upon. The primary arguement against being as selfcentered as the woke would be that is an unjust dishonest mentality and the second arguement that it causes unecessary conflict and the third that it is paperclip maximizing dominance over other things that matters. That is that the woke way is the way where their end point is racist supremacy and their boot over others face, which is both a bad end and results in conflict and could wreck civilization.

I guess one could oppose intersectionality right wing style too on basis that it makes compromises with other tribalisms.

Also, if your group is being mistreated, noticing and opposing this is actually promoting justice and can not be opposed on the primary problems that wokeness has that a) its unjust b) that it alienates unnecessarily others and causes conflict in that way c) that it is a totalitarian vision that never ends that is indifferent and leaves no space for other important considerations.

There is a title for people who support racism against Christians or white people and oppose any opposition. Of course, I personally have a less strict definition of racism. I don't consider all restrictions of any kind racism. I believe we should act in line with reality. In fact I consider say migration restrictions to be anti-racist and mass migration anti nativist racism that leads to genocidal colonization as one example. Just like I consider property rights to be less classist in the ways that matter than a marxist society even though the marxist considers the first classist and his attempt to destroy the class enemy as end of classism.

Plus, I don't aknowledge that some of the things that people whining about isms are problems we should give a fuck about and can be good too, while in a consistent manner other things that might fall under this label are serious problems relating to injustice (treating others unfairly). For example, it is admirable for parents to care about their children first and put effort to raising them right and not Kin-ist and unfair to other children, but it would be evil if for the sake of your family and children having a bigger property you stole your neighbor's house or behaved like a mafia, became Walter White supposedly to provide for your family. I guess in this manner I also oppose this idea from some on the right that there is no such thing as racism, although I approve not taking seriously all the things in a very one sided manner that are called racism which ironically would make you a racist at your own expense, if you did take them seriously. I do think it is foolish not to prioritise the most pervasive racism of our time, especially when right wing associated legitimate grievances are denied by the use of all sorts of dirty tactics. When it isn't this type of concern trolling, the typical other way is to put a smear label of far right, or worse.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that unfortunately for right wingers who want to be exactly like the woke and not be called unjust, that this type of one sided fanaticism would be unjust for any tribe. Any right wing tribalism is not like the woke however, as it can be of a moderate form and pushes back at it in our current political environment where we have excessive tribalism for progressive stack tribes and too little for right wing associated groups. We don't live in a society where even most real right wingers demand that any left wing tribalism is abadoned, in fact you see even them often compromising with opposing real victimization of left wing associated groups and compromising with respecting identification of left wing associated tribes with left wing associated broader tribes of religious, racial, and ethnic nature.

There can be gray areas. What isn't a grey area are massive double standards and a greedy totalitarian mentality of the woke. Who would never have had the success they have if they were just a few kids at college. The concern trolling the right wing outgroup so that it doesn't promote victimhood by opposing racism at its expense is directly a very key part of wokeness and it is a mistake to buy into the self identification as non woke of those who with their influence are promoting this ideology and at best inconsistently promote limited hangouts. Those concern trolling the right wing outgroup should be more honest and say that they are racists.

What should be done about the woke movement? Well plenty can be written, to keep things for once short, I would say that as wokes abuse their power and use both goverment and private institutions to impose their ideology, screwing principles, law, precedent, that the way to go is to ban their NGOs, which includes ethnic supremacist organisations of left wing associated tribes too, not just general left wing organizations, and to not allow the woke to run any institutions and to be intolerant towards their ideology from the perspective I promote here that it is a fundamentally unjust ideology due to excess tribalism for ingroup and lack of due consideration for the group rights of the outgroup, that is no respect for tribalism of the outgroup. And treat all individual branches of the tree the same. The goal should be to stop this ideology from being enacted and to deradicalize people so they abandon it.

  • -26

You've accumulated a lot of reports on this post, and it annoys me that I had to read through this wall of text to parse out the arguments you are making.

Essentially all you've posted is a tribalistic screed. Making an argument that boils down to "My enemies are evil" is just culture warring. You hit all the old classics - Jews, MLK, Herbert Marcuse - but here and in the comments below you basically poison-pill the discussion because anyone who questions your priors or your definitions is just part of "woke."

This is a bad post that barely makes a coherent argument. There are ways to write essays about how evil your enemies are that actually make arguable points and present things to discuss. This is just fist-pounding.

I'm going to refer to this post in the future when people say "All you have to do to not get modded on the Motte is be verbose." This is an example of a very long, verbose, arguably even "effortful" post that is still crappy and low value.

Of course there is a coherent argument there.

Which is that concern trolling the outgroup that it should not show victimhood is promoting injustice for X and Y and Z reasons. Because recognising victimhood accurately is a core component of justice and the progressive extremist movement has denied this to the outgroup and promoted excessive for the ingroup. And then explaining how this movement has operated historically with all its components.

It is a gross misrepresentation to claim that my post boils to claiming my outgroup is evil and I don't make a coherent argument. I explain why this movement has been unjust in this manner. It might not be the argument you would like, especially because you fit with said progressive movement of having double stadnards and have consistently promoted the victimhood of the progressive ingroup and downplayed of the progressive outgroup. Hence your attack and denunciation.

There are plenty of groups that I have disliked throughout the years and been critical off. Progressive extremists/woke are one of them but I have been willing to be critical to right wing groups showing the same extremism although of course i consider it a mistake to prioritize this in the current circumstances. I even qualified and been consistent of it that restraint is a key part.

This idea of "hating on the outgroup" is an excuse for authoritarianism from you ironically who hates your outgroup of course and you certainly have been very willing to hate on those not sharing your progressive politics often enough. Its a way to undermine any valid criticism to promote a limited hangout for the progressive extremist movement. The suffocating constraints of the political commissars, the Amandabs of this world is how we reached the current situation.

The progressive extremism that needs to be condemned and not tolerated is a harmful movement, that we would benefit from its sharp criticism and it been replaced in influence by a more moderate ideology that lacks its one sided tribalism for their favorite groups and their complete disregard for respecting the group rights, and the groups it self that they deem as oppressors. That is the truth, and also what is just, no matter how you try to spin it.

Your insults and slander were expected and mean nothing to me.

** By the way I am disappointed not in you, but in someone else here not addressing the central claim about since wokeness does not respect any victimhood for the outgroup and promotes excessive victimhood for the ingroup, justice requires to actually respect victimhood for right wing associated groups. Because the pervasive concern trolling and arguments I have seen here and elsewhere was against promoting victimhood for right wing associated groups. If I am making a valid point, it would be nice to see someone aknowledge it for a change, and if they disagree on the substance, I would like to see where it is the error in the logic. But it is easier to just condemn as a way to support your extremist faction.

It might not be the argument you would like, especially because you fit with said progressive movement of having double stadnards and have consistently promoted the victimhood of the progressive ingroup and downplayed of the progressive outgroup. Hence your attack and denunciation.

Yeah, that's what I mean. "Everyone who disagrees with me is just in the enemy camp, hater!" is not how you argue here.

and you certainly have been very willing to hate on those not sharing your progressive politics often enough.

I doubt you can accurately describe my politics. I hate few people and like a lot of people who very much do not share my politics.

Your insults are expected and mean nothing to me.

I am not insulting you, I am telling you that you need to improve your manner of posting. This should mean something to you because repeated warnings for this type of boo outgroup ranting may result in a loss of posting privileges.

Yeah, that's what I mean. "Everyone who disagrees with me is just in the enemy camp, hater!" is not how you argue here.

This is hypocritical when you attacked me here in such a vicious manner as being hateful for disagreeing with you about the progressive movement and arguing that the woke movement and those who concern the outgroup are unjust.

There are factions that have negative influence that I am going to be critical towards. If you want me to be pro woke, that isn't going to happen. And yes, of course the mainstream liberals have treated their outgroups as the enemy. To demand that I then treat those who follow that politics as non woke, is to demand to distort reality to your satisfaction. It matters what are the pervasive politics of dominant movements. Why should I lie about the civil rights movement? About the ADL? About George Soros? About any of that?

If the truth sounds terrible in your ears, then you probably should react less and try to learn more, and show some respect to your outgroup that you hate and vilified in your mind for bringing valid points that are taboo to your prejudices.

Your reaction has been a blatant attempt at character assassination and censorship because you judged negativity against woke and progressive extremists and deeming it a bad faction that shouldn't have pervasive influence as "hating the outgroup".

I provided arguments and explained why concern trolling the outgroup and not allowing victimhood for it and promoting excessive for your favorite left wing groups is in line with wokeness.

Instead of arguing in favor of your ideology you try censorship.

I am not insulting you, I am telling you that you need to improve your manner of posting. This should mean something to you because repeated warnings for this type of boo outgroup ranting may result in a loss of posting privileges.

You are hardly an independent party to this when you have done yourself what I argued against which is to promote with fanaticism excessively the victimhood for your ingroups and downplay strongly the victimhood of your rightwing outgroups. You abuse your mod position to advance your political agenda. It is not an improvement of my manner of posting to distort the facts so I promote a more positive picture of those who concern troll the right wing outgroup, or promote a more positive picture of the progressive movements or particular branches of it that you are especially sympathetic towards and are even more authoritarian and SJW about.

You might be trying to play a political game where you try to advance certain agenda where the only space that is treated as legitimate is the one of the limited hangout of progressive extremism that still has its double standards, still censorious to opposition and promote claims "that there are no woke people in the motte", but that is promoting a lie. I am not going to pretend that we are dealing with a few kids at college, and that the progressive movement has not been this. But the core substance of my post has been about an arguement that you want to silence, which has been of substance, that concern trolling the right wing outgroup is blatant racism.

Your demands for censorship and for others to say what you want, else you will slander, hate them and censor them is a part of the problem of what the world is facing today. Many Amandabs working within different institutions have brought things to the current point.

I doubt you can accurately describe my politics. I hate few people and like a lot of people who very much do not share my politics.

Your politics are not a mystery and you are certainly a hateful and rude poster who abuses their moderator position to get away with insulting and being rude against others. And certainly more so with the progressive slant you have against non progressives. You also use the tactic of slandering and denouncing others to win arguments by pretending that posts that include work to substantiate claims are inherently without value.

Clearly, you are insecure about your idea you constantly promote of your moral superiority and moral inferiority of the people you argue with that you typically insult and call all sorts of names, often some sort of racist.

Someone like you can't cope with those who don't respect and accept your false framing of the moral hierarchy, which is why you make an inadequate referee if the goal is to promote something even handed. You know which includes saying things you don't want to hear, that contest the falsity of the morality of those who concern the right wing outgroup and have such double standards as you also have, and are therefore obviously an unjust, cruel faction if one bothers to analyze it. But for the role you do have, you do fit quite well.

  • -12

So, almost everything you just said is wrong. You're allowed to be wrong. What you're not allowed to do here is be insulting and engage in personal attacks. Take heed of that.