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 -
The future Liberals want by Noah Smith on substack. It’s not that interesting a vision really: the future of the West is highly diverse, urban, self-expressive (trans accepting), and abundant with oh thanks an olive branch for conservatives.
I think the bizarre thing about this is that Noah — as woke, neolib as it comes — felt the need to write this at all. Everyone knows this is the vision; it’s all we hear about! Conservatives all know that this is what is on offer if society remains on autopilot towards the future too.
What strikes me about it is a vision of total anomie and dissolving of any sense of common culture and this is supposed to be good. Each nations singular (or maybe 2-3 tops) religion replaced by anything or nothing. Each national ethnic group replaced by a multicultural hodge podge with inclusion and acceptance for all. Diversity of income (inequality). Imagine there are no countries…
I can’t help wonder what families are supposed to be like in this vision — or indeed if they really exist. Is a world of radical self invention fuelled by technology compatible at all with human flourishing as its always been known: freedom to choose the burdens we bear for maximum meaning. What if blank slatism wasn’t a description of the world, but a challenge!
It just all seems so ugly. Most people have poor taste so radical self invention will be mostly just ugliness like architecture ripped from its patrimony and place. If politics ultimately springs from aesthetics, this liberalism is eventually doomed (but not before it wins and destroys what little of left of pre-modern life).
The "vision" makes no allowances for reality.
Meanwhile, in Europe and California, they're actually doing the degrowth thing. Shut down the power plants, ban fossil fuel use. Increased profits, increased growth, and abundant energy? No, recession and shortages
You see? When conservatives oppose the 1619 Project, they're helping Putin.
Ah, yes, their neighborhoods are wonderful visions which offer all thing to all people (except nasty car drivers). But that's all they are, visions. And the nasty car drivers stubbornly refuse to go away.
And the only qualities they lack is that of existence and possibility. Yes, you can find architects and artists to draw a Utopian vision. But just because you can draw it doesn't mean you can build it.
To its credit, the "Abundance Agenda" link in the original mentions the National Environmental Policy Act and other regulations. Noah does not; he is too busy blaming conservatives for not getting with the program. He's willing to say empty words in favor of free enterprise, but not to acknowledge that his "liberal democratic future" is in conflict with itself. And it won't be the "Abundance Agenda" that wins.
I don't see why defending bland, generic car based urban sprawl at all makes sense for conservatives. They are soulless, placeless expanses originally envisioned by liberals. The traditional city is walkable, has a strong sense of community, is unique and has a sense of belonging. There needs to be places for people to meet, small businesses and room for local culture. A stroad with endless generic housing with some big box stores selling the same products that can be found on the other side of the planet is essentially the anti thesis to the traditional city. The urbanist walkable city with cafes and restaurants at least has the aesthetic of a real city. My main critic of liberal urbanism is that it focuses purely on the aesthetic and not the function. There is no focus on having a common culture, a sense of belonging, an architectural style unique to the town and its geography etc. It is a disney-world version of a city. I would still much rather have that then the completely atomized suburban sprawl that has been built since WWII. Suburbia has isolated people from their communities, made people fat, ruined the environment and created a boring society. Instead of a public square which is a public space there is a mall which is nothing but a commercial space controlled by someone who has no connection to the town.
Cars are a massive waste of space, force kids to sit in their houses while their mom has to drive them to their friends, and replaces the bakery with bland factory bread. The best thing that could happen to conservatism is 150 dollar per barrel oil.
People in cities become collectivists, because people are piled so close together that just about anything you do becomes the business of your neighbors. If you want to go anywhere you're stuck with your 3mph feet on crowded sidewalks or getting piled together on crowded, dirty, and slow government-run (not just government-built) transportation.
The city of reality is not as walkable as advertised (you can walk in your neighborhood but the city is likely too big to walk to downtown or any other neighborhood), and has little sense of community (partially because people move around all the time, partially because it's so big and crowded -- the paradox of being alone in a crowd is a common one) or sense of belonging. Conservatives pine for those things but the places they existed mostly don't exist any more because they require a small number of people in one place for a long time who mostly interact with each other, and that's just not the modern world. Ironically one of the few places you actually can find this is in neighborhoods full of generational welfare recipients; they may be dysfunctional communities but they are communities.
Exactly. Cities make people “oversocialized” (ol’ Ted K was right) and constantly needing to consider other people’s feelings when you pursue your life’s ambitions (or truth for that matter) dulls everything. I had a post back in the old country about spending a few months living rurally and one observation I missed was how much more ideosyncratic, but not neurotic, country folk are. If you want to build a new structure on your land you just need to figure out who will help you with it and whether stuff will fit in your truck. In the city meanwhile you need to grovel to a planning board for years like a peasant. Freedom is good. I wanted to build!
The other thing is that walkable urbanism is only possible for families — I.E. the only important demographic over the long run — if crime and disorder is very low. I’d love to live in a walkable suburb if we tripled the prison population and had absolutely zero tolerance for disorder. But hey, that’s not in the liberal vision.
This is why there's a weird current of pop culture that looks at the Cyberpunk Sci-fi city as utopia. the city where the very vastness has resulted in it becoming a new frontier, the concrete jungle... etc.
The idea you could have all the idiosyncrasy of the country with all the opportunity of the world at your finger tips... because enforcement had broken and no one could be made to care about stepping on their neighbors toes.
.
Its the only "dystopia" that people are actively excited to revisit again and again, or whose style they try to emulate... no one's clamoring for more stories in Oceania... there's no hype train for being able to play in the world of Atlas Shrugged
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