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 -
A great story; I appreciate you recollecting it here.
A Christian-specific invocation is definitely a surprise (and, I imagine, will be “prepared for” in the future by the admins who were in attendance), even if it shouldn’t be given the fanbases and location. One of the most interesting dichotomies of the modern culture war is the differing reactions to public displays of Christianity based on whether the zealot in question is black or white.
Black Christianity, despite being far more charismatic, superstitious, and money-grubbing, gets a pass in the public sphere for two reasons: 1) soft bigotry of low expectations and 2) its platform elevates Blue Tribe politicians rather than Red ones (I’m reminded of Barack Obama putting on an AAVE affect on the few occasions when he discussed Christianity in a non-academic way).
But even the congregates of American Christianity seem to understand this dichotomy without the framework of PMC/Media Culture; Sunday mornings are one of the last remaining public displays of (voluntary) racial segregation. Indeed, I wonder if the Black Church (perhaps along with the leftist safeguarding of Islam) is the one poison pill guaranteeing the survival of White Christianity in a progressive society… at least until the day that the bold partisanship seen in the last week in the courts of Maine and Colorado finally feels confident enough to openly enforce racist practices limiting constitutionally-protected exercises of faith.
I give it a year.
The black church is ‘tolerated’ because firstly, like you say, it still broadly supports Democrats, and secondly because most high status black Americans still aren’t public religious conservatives. Either they’re Christians in the social justice progressive sense, which the monoculture also tolerates among whites, or they’re Christians in name only like Obama, which is irrelevant. There are certainly exceptions but they’re rare enough.
The black equivalent to conservative Christianity is probably black Hebrew Israelites/nation of Islam, which the monoculture hates more than it does ordinary red tribe fundamentalists. I mean there certainly are black baptist KJV-onlyist churches not much different from white-majority KJV-onlyist baptist churches, but they're a lot more marginal and I think generally older than the mixed/white majority ones, in large part because the kinds of African Americans who would become independent fundamental baptists are more attracted to black Hebrew Israelitism.
AFACIT the monoculture is unaware of the existence of the Black Hebrew Israelites & puts them down to some sort of right-wing psyop when and if they sneak into the national conciousness. It's sinful to notice them, so people don't.
More options
Context Copy link
Is this true? Louis Farrakhan gave remarks at Rosa Parks’ funeral in 2020, and I didn’t see any major mainstream media outrage about this. Frankly I don’t think mainstream progressives give much thought to the Nation of Islam or to the Black Hebrew Israelites or other hotep organizations at all.
The progressive elite, which obviously includes a lot of Jews, essentially decided to tolerate black nationalist conspiracist ideologies after the 70s. There were some prominent fights around eg NYC public schools, but after that it was generally decided that it wasn’t an important enough religious movement to threaten any existing political leadership.
And that makes sense. In the South, traditional black machine politics remains the dominant black form of political expression, dominated by older congregants and middle aged church-going women. In the rest of the country black people are a small minority that is usually pretty electorally irrelevant outside of a handful of cities like Chicago and Detroit.
You are very good at writing! I've been binge reading your comments and they're very interesting. You should consider starting a blog.
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