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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24610 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024

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There is something undeniably effective about just having very different people sit down and talk/interact with each other in a non-violent setting. Not that I really disliked either set of people before visiting them, but I felt I definitely understood them better afterwards.

When I was younger, I did a fair number of programs that involved getting grouped with other people you didn't know and having to work together. It was also an eye-opener for me. The rural/urban divide was certainly present, but not the only divide: having been raised in a straight-laced, middle-class, white collar household that I thought knew how to do physical labor, the blue collar work-hard-play-hard approach to life wasn't something I expected.

I have occasionally mused in the last few years that mandatory national service after high school would probably improve national cohesiveness. Not for militaristic reasons (although those aren't completely invalid), but also because being forced to meet and work together with very different Americans would be good for the country as a whole. And there are some useful life skills that some would never pick up otherwise. Even if it's just cutting trails in National Parks/Forests or whatever.

But I'm not sure how I could convince the median voter to go for it: probably half don't trust the country to be left in charge of their kids, and a similar portion think their kids are too good to spend months of their lives on something outside of their worldview.

I have occasionally mused in the last few years that mandatory national service after high school would probably improve national cohesiveness.

This hasn't been how it's worked in Russia.

Also, the usual moral hazard of forcing people to work for you and not letting them quit.

Russia's military is incredibly dysfunctional. Conscripts are pretty much dogs. It's not like being a grunt has a lot of prestige in other countries, but potentially better examples would probably include Korea, Germany, Switzerland, or Israel.

You're not wrong. The self-selection process for the times I've seen it work is likely an essential part of it working at all. Self-actualization is something that requires internal motivation, and can't be forced. But it can be an aspirational picture.

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