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 -
What Happened to Society's Life Script
In the fifties, the American dream was, for the vast majority of people, pretty obvious. You find a job with the main employer of the town, whether that was a coal mine or a factory or a railyard or whatever the case may be. You marry, if not literally the girl next door, then something close; maybe a high school sweetheart. If you were a woman you were then expected to stay home and be a housewife, and except for a few very highly-female coded jobs, that's just what you did. If you were a man you might have been required to serve in the army beforehand, but few people went to college; only if you were wealthy and/or very, very smart. It mostly wasn't your decision either way, about any of it. 'Should I go into the military, or skilled labor, or go to college?' wasn't a question very many people had to ask; usually what you did next after finishing high school was readily apparent, often literally by having only a single option or a very small set thereof. If you did have the opportunity to go to college- most people didn't- both the university and your parents had much more say in what you did there. And I think we should note- the vast majority of people here could find respect as a worker bee. This is important because the vast majority of people have to be worker bees to have a functioning society.
Today, that is not the case. Everyone who wants to can go to university, or near enough. Many people stay in university long past the point at which it does any good, in point of fact. The military is 100% volunteer, and few people live with access to a single major employer. Young people can't find spouses, and these days don't seem to be able to blunder into relationships either. Every individual can, with certain reasonable limits, do what he wishes, and nobody with institutional power seems keen to say no, that's stupid, do this instead.
And it seems that we have lost something, there. Occasionally conservative pundits will start talking about the success sequence- finish high school, work full time, get married, and then have children. There's some other obvious things that go along with it, like 'don't do drugs'. But the gist of the success sequence is, well, a (somewhat vague)life script. And realistically the success sequence is the sort of thing our culture should be putting more effort into promoting; it isn't the default message despite every idea therein being a good one.
I think the youth agree with me, here. Jordan Peterson's popularity, notoriously, came from offering boomer dad advice. Recently there's been discussion of positive male role models to replace Andrew Tate; Andrew Tate's pitch isn't much different from tons of other redpill influencers. What's different is he's selling 'you, too, can be like me, just do x, y, z'. Obviously he's a lying grifter, but his fanbase are mostly teens. What replacement for his (dumb)life script are these positive male role models offering? The pro-social version of Andrew Tate isn't the male feminist activist. It's Mike Rowe.
Unfortunately, "work hard, at a quite possibly unpleasant job" isn't a great sales pitch. But I want to circle back to the point I made ending my discussion of the fifties- most people have to be worker bees. In a functioning society there are few girlbosses because there simply are not very many bosses- the average person will always make the median income, live a not particularly impressive lifestyle, and live in flyover. To put it more pithily, average people will always be average. And being average isn't, well, a flashy and appealing thing. In the past, lack of options meant people became average worker bees. Today, people have the option not to do that; they may not be Indian chiefs and fighter pilots and surgeons and other high status jobs instead, but they're being something, and usually that something is below average, gig workers and basement dwellers. It has to be said, therefore- most people can't figure it out on their own. For every unrecognized genius there's a dozen schizos. Boring middle-aged advice serves a useful purpose; to throw out the social pressure to follow it was a mistake. The question becomes, then, 'how do we bring it back?'
I’m not too familiar with the specifics of Peterson and Tate’s philosophies/grifting. However, from my vantage point, those who shriek at them are typically inverse weathervanes, so the two are probably doing something right.
My sense is that Peterson is already on the wane, and his ability to be a “red-pill” influencer is limited by his daughter’s hoetry, as a divorced single-mother, party-girl, and general e-thot. The optics are just bad: Physician, heal thyself. Which makes the AI-generated JP readings of the “having a daughter is the ultimate and final cuck” pasta all the more hilarious and devastating, although he may have gotten many of those taken down (but not all!).
A more blackpilled take might be: “If Peterson wasn’t able to stop his daughter from hoeing around, what chances do the rest of us have?”
It’s also possible the pro-social version of Andrew Tate is… Andrew Tate. Perhaps his advice is net-beneficial to young men, in helping them be more willing to stop cooperating in the face of defection. To the extent his advice hurts the Wonderfulness of women, maybe it helps young men more (albeit, pro-social behavior is often defined as what benefits women, so something that is an X loss for women but a X + Epsilon gain for men would be considered anti-social, even if Epsilon is quite large). He could be providing an essential service in expanding the Overton window, or at least slowing it from further shrinkage or swimming left.
I'm curious why do you think his daughter is disqualifying but his drug addiction wasn't?
That's the point where JP went from an interesting guy with some good points on a podcast to "Oh he's that deeply broken guy who yells at Elmo on Twitter."
Was JP ever really a TRP influencer? My sense was that, when he had his brief moment of being a Person, he was just a vaguely conservativish ersatz dad figure not really associated with the broader manosphere, let alone TRP. The media got a hate boner for him (was it the trans stuff?), and then manospherians rallied around him briefly, in a the-enemy-of-my-enemy kind of way. Then people forgot about him, because his main thing was "make your bed," and he got bored with being a Thought Leader when he realized benzos were more fun.
Jordan Peterson was the closest thing to sensible moderate answer to TRP. When it comes to posture towards women and society, he told young men to be strong, honorable, responsible, and honest; while the TRP told them to be strong, crafty, mercenary, and cynical. Of course, very online progressives hated him, though IMO they never gave a coherent answer for why.
The fact Peterson had a mental break, became a drug addict, lost his daughter to Tate, and was cancelled from his job is a good, if anecdotal, rebuttal of his approach to modern problems. The boomer advice memes write themselves.
I never liked JP too much. He has the valuable academic skill of sounding erudite, but when you dissect what he's actually saying, full of literary allusions and digressions, it often doesn't amount to much. The anti-Scott.
Peterson was always kind of wacky philosophy professor, they don’t tend to have hugely stable or normal lives.
More options
Context Copy link
There were probably a thousand men or so who took his advice to heart and improved their lives for it. So, he's almost certainly a net positive. I hope he gets his life together and can be happy with that small positive influence he's had.
I think he has his own personal life (if not his daughter). His wife became very ill; it is understandable. He did end up cleaning his room. I think he still has a positive influence.
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
More options
Context Copy link