site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   28410 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

They're saying that ideas latent in Christianity, deeper currents that Christianity just represents an early emanation of - caring more for the downtrodden, poor, and weak than the strong, caring more about peace and salvation than greatness and power - are to blame for 'cucking Whites'. And that returning to Christianity won't solve that core problem. So this doesn't rebut their argument at all.

Many also claim that Christianity was created by Jews to control Whites.

How would that even work? The Jews (who back then would not have been under any genetic pressure to be cleverer than similar societies) develop Psychohistory a la Asimov around 100-30 BCE, see that they will eventually annoy their eventual Roman occupiers enough that they will destroy the Second Temple, and while they can not prevent that (e.g. by trying to rebel less against Roman rule) because reasons (???), they can at least sow the seeds of their revenge. They create Christianity as a memetic superweapon and task their Agent Jesus with spreading it. For three centuries Christianity survives in the underground before finally Constantine converts (exactly as planned!), leading (as per a straw-Gibbon) to the inevitable decline and fall. (Ok, East Rome managed to hang on a bit longer despite being 'handicapped' by Christianity. And the slave mindset of Christianity did not prevent Europe to colonize most of the world. Details, details.)

Of course, in this silly fantasy history the target of the memetic weapon would still be the Roman Empire, not the descendants of various Mediterranean and barbarian states who would eventually self-identify as Whites. To get to that point one would have to go totally batshit crazy with the plot. Like "Evil reptiloid aliens give the Jews time travel technology" or something.

I can see it as a vibe.

Jesus was Jewish, or of Jewish heritage. His goal was to spread a better cultural way to the gentiles, and also his own people.

This is 'control' in the sense that culture is the opposite of maximal chaos. Normally we make a distinction between benevolent consensual forms of control and malicious manipulative forms of control. But if you squint- there are similarities. Both are ways in which social reality is forged. Both are methods of implanting your 'way' into other people.

And if you feel that Christianity has harmed you- You might recast Christianity's origins in that light. ... And I can see how post hoc ahistorical arguments might be born from that vibe too. Does anyone know of an argument of this sort that seems well historically reasoned going back as far as Jesus? I will be pleasantly surprised.

Honestly... If Jesus only existed in the hearts and minds of the apostles, unkillable in the way that an Idea is.
I'm sure a lot of people would be very upset.
But personally I would not find that to be any less divine.

You can’t silence the truth, you can’t kill us in a way that matters.

Many also claim that Christianity was created by Jews to control Whites. They consider it a cucked foreign religion imposed on them by Jews to supplant the true Pagan religions of Europeans.

I invite these people to study the history of Jewish-Christian relations.

You are not "steelmanning" the anti-Christian reactionary argument, which would be something like, "Christianity's inherently egalitarian and destructive elements were held in check by the natural ethnocentrism and aristocratic spirit of Europeans, but eventually the poisonous seed flowered, and resulted in democracy, socialism, egalitarianism, etc." The question to ask would not be "were Christian Europeans Based™?" but "Were Christian Europeans more or less Based™" than they would have been in a counterfactual where Europe was never Christianized.

That one guy that used to be a mod is right about the fact that they are much more similar to white progressives than they are to Red Tribe whites in America or working class whites in Europe. The whites they imagine only exist in their head.

Wasn't that the original idea behind Scott's tribal classification? All of these DR people are Blue Tribe, of course they don't like or get along with actual Red Tribers.

There was a good thread around here about this a few weeks ago. A white nationalist moves to the Midwest and lives among only all-American whites. He despises them of course.

You'd think Midwesern whites were cattle in the form of men the way he describes it.

In 2018 I moved from a racially diverse swing state in the Sun Belt to a homogenous red state up in corn country. This decision was largely motivated by politics—I was looking to retreat to an imagined Hyperborea free of crime and degeneracy where my volk had political autonomy.

The next two years were the most miserable of my life. But they were also among the most instructive, and ultimately were what made me leave WN on an emotional level.

To put it bluntly, most of my white neighbors and coworkers basically resembled hobbits. They had no ambition to them, nor any aspirations of greatness. Nor did they think about the world in a dynamic way—the more educated among them certainly stayed informed about the wider world, but they largely took it for granted that their immediate universe was a static place where nothing would ever happen.

And the horrifying thing is that’s how they liked it.

I quickly discovered that Midwesterners had no sense of imperial destiny and “right to rule” like you see in New Yorkers, Texans, or Californians. They had nothing like the feisty Faustian individualism of Floridians or “fuck you” pride of Appalachians. They didn’t even have the air of faded glory and gothic tragedy you see in the Deep South. It was nothing but aggressively bland conformity everywhere you looked.

At this point I hope he moved back to his sunbelt home and found a good Mexican woman to marry. He certainly doesn't like (non-hispanic) white women.

Im going to have to quote this post for my review of The Turner Diaries. "American whites are just mindless cattle, barely more human than blacks, and only the best of them are fit for redemption through revolutionary purging" is a literal quote from the heroes.

They actually don't like white people. If you listen to their podcasts or read their writing, they actually have nothing for disdain from them.

So very much this. IMO, it's one of their worst traits.

Sure, I might complain from time to time about the views of older "normie conservatives" — like my parents — but only in much the same way that I complain about my dad's tendency to reckless driving, or my mom's need to call me at random times to double-check her (basic) math. They're still my people, flaws and all. And yes, I'll take a Clarence Thomas, a Larry Elder, or a Ben Carson over a Richard Spencer any day.

Obviously something else happened! Industry, newspaper, modernity, computer. And yet. Is it so implausible that the prophet that spoke to the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden with love has something to do with progressivism? And is a break with "savagery"?

Again, I don't think I or @To_Mandalay are defending this viewpoint, but I've seen this perspective argued many times online. The argument is that for most of European modernity ancient philosophy, Greek and Roman texts, language, culture, architecture, aesthetics, poetry, theater and so on were core parts of the way young men of wealth and power were educated.

These texts obviously largely predated early modern Christian Europe, although the way they were interpreted did not. Even in the 19th century British imperial administrators learnt Latin and Greek (Classics), studied Classical Civilization, went on Grand Tours to see the remnants of Roman civilization and so on. They could quote Virgil and recite Greek aphorisms, and saw themselves in the tradition of their civilizations.

Therefore, as Mandalay says, the argument goes that even though they were (mostly) Christians, they retained some aspect of the pre-Christian or extra-Christian European identity, which held Christianity's egalitarian / slave morality aspects in check. As this faded by the mid 20th century, Christianity and its implications paradoxically or unexpectedly became more central to the way that elite culture imagined itself even though religious observance itself began to fade from the early 1960s.

Elite Christian culture adopted the Classical heritage before the Roman Empire even fell in the West, so the thing where British imperial administrators learned Latin and Greek and the Classics is just the same Christian tradition that sent them to listen to the softly spoken magic spell every Sunday.

Exactly. See Nietzsche's concept of slave morality as the basis for Christianity. The weak and oppressed are defined as good, simply because they are weak and oppressed. This is expressed by the symbol of Christ dying a martyr because he was oppressed by the Roman overlords.

I personally believe we are living in times times that are still incredibly Christian. The modern left is all about acceptance of even the most (previously) repulsing ideas. Whatever was not allowed before, is allowed now, simply because it was not allowed - meaning it was being oppressed. Another important Christian mantra is benevolence. One is supposed to be tolerant against other people, a word that is incidentally used a lot by the left today. Compassion and goodwill can be observed in the stance that the left has about Palestine: they are good simply because they are the oppressed (which is then underlayed by more empirical arguments of course, but this belief is the root of the idea).

While I know that saying "the left" is very unspecific, and there definitely are many counter points, I believe these convictions unite the left in its core and it is not a coincidence they are also present in Christianity.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats