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 -
One thing jumping out at me about the lack of trust in social institutions is just how little control these institutions had over the lives of the median citizen and how distant and impersonal these things actually are.
Taking the government as a trivial example here, but up until the end of the Great Depression, the federal government was not a major factor in people’s lives. It existed, but almost everything was regulated from state and local government, and especially local government. Because of this, the average person was governed essentially by his neighbors and those making the decisions would have town hall meetings in which average people could confront their rulers, and demand answers or solutions. They could bring up problems. Even better, the city or county leaders *lived in that city and could see the problems.
Now that the federal government has taken over much of the legal landscape, you no longer have any of that. The President and Congressional representatives live in gated communities thousands of miles away. They don’t see what’s going on in your neighborhood, they don’t walk the streets where there are homeless and drug addicted people and shit on the street and looting of businesses. And because the government runs the entire country, you’re now one of 350 or so people who live in America with no hope or expectation that you’ll be heard in any real sense. There’s no sense of reciprocity between these institutions and you. You have no control, but they control you.
Multiply this by other, similar institutions, and it’s not really that surprising that nobody trusts these things. They’re giant black boxes that you can’t control and don’t understand and are simultaneously forced to obey and give over minute control of your daily life to.
But you do!
Undeniably, the Federal government has a more expansive role today than it did in 1930, but even today the overwhelming majority of laws and policies that govern your day to day life operate at the state and local level. If there are bums shitting in the street and a housing crisis, you should probably look first at what your city government is doing. If the infrastructure in your state sucks, it's more likely the fault of your state government than the Feds. Law enforcement is overwhelmingly a municipal issue and criminal justice a state one.
If there has been a true shift, it is in expectations. People now expect and demand that the Federal government address these problems while neglecting state and local government or treating it as an extension of national-level culture wars. (Or, as @Outlaw83 notes, they'd rather trust to distant Feds who mostly ignore them rather than capricious local elites who know where they live).
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah. along with massive economic and cultural changes, what happened is a lot of people in those communities decided they'd rather be ruled by far-away people in DC who'd listen to you, rather than petty, corrupt local tyrants who could not be defeated on a local level, thanks to generations of control in a local area, and were corrupt in ways that the federal government could never be. The federal government may not listen to you (and even that's overrated - a lot of the reason why supposed popular things aren't done isn't because of the evil elites, but because those popular things aren't as popular as you think when they're not push polled, both from the Left and the Right - the reality is most people just dislike change, period), but it's far less likely a random cousin of a congressman is going to beat you up, or try to do something with your wife and girlfriend, and nobody will do anything about, because his father, cousins, and brothers all are in charge of various aspects of the local area.
This is true of big cities, small cities, rural areas, urban areas.
More options
Context Copy link
Damn it, what did I and 349 of my friends do to be so oppressed? (jk)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link