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PaperclipPerfector  21d ago (text post)   24302 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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MIT no longer requires diversity statements for faculty hires.

Allegedly. The only sources I’ve seen covering this are not exactly paragons of journalism, citing emails rather than anything public. MIT’s own website still describes the practice in glowing terms. I am curious whether the general population of MIT staff—the ones maintaining their websites—is in favor of this change, or if any of them were consulted.

Assuming this is credible, let’s make some predictions.

  • social media backlash: guaranteed.
  • news backlash, a la NYT: high. This is red meat for opinion columns, as evidenced by the fact that conservative outlets are already crowing about it. But maybe I’ve misjudged, and no one in the mainstream actually cares?
  • policy reverted: low. I predict a whole lot of nothing. The people who most care about this are less likely to have leverage over MIT. If it does get rolled back, I predict it’ll be downstream of administrative drama within the school.
  • policy spreads to other elite universities: medium? I have no idea which way the wind is blowing. Outlets are trumpeting their preferred conclusion. But I suspect this is going to be localized.

There is this ongoing bet between right wing intellectual influencers Neema Parvini and Auron MacIntyre over whether we'll see the "woke be put away" in a Trump presidency that signs a return of "fresh prince" 90s liberalism or instead a continuance of acceleration and radicalism.

Some part of the elites definitely understands that this isn't sustainable and that these beliefs are luxuries that are no longer affordable now that the West has to compete again for supremacy. Some have been made even more keenly aware of this by the recent Iraelo-Palestinian controversies.

But the outcome of the bet doesn't really depend on this, that's the premise, the outcome depends on whether or not this faction of the elites has the power to take a culture where DEI and somesuch have taken hold and purge it or make it marginal enough that it's no longer the constant center of attention.

Can they put the culture war back in the bottle? It's hard to say, but this looks like some people are really trying.

DEI is the natural state of humanity, the 90s was an extreme outlier. Throughout history humans have always been tribal and worked for their group interests. A group of people working as a group will easily outcompete individuals. Tribes, clans, nations etc exist for a reason. The US is well over 400 years old, not ignoring the first half and ethnic interests were a central part of conflicts throughout nearly all of that. The 90s were an outlier, not the norm even in the US. Go to other parts of the world and democracy simply doesn't work since people vote for their ethnic candidate.

The 90s required the US to be so white enough for white culture to be the norm. The whiteness was implicit and black people were seen as white people with brown skin. This level of implicit whiteness no longer exists.

The 90s came after decades of rising living standards and a high point of the American empire. There was less competitiveness.

The cat is out of the bag and lots of groups have realized that their lobbying gives results. Good luck convincing black people to adopt meritocracy and opposing government transfers of wealth from haves to have nots. If fighting for your group delivers big results, people will do it. Historically people have been more than willing to die for it so expect people to continue to do so.

Sure, but the country does need things from the red tribe- like being willing to join the army during a general shortage of blue collar male labor- that the red tribe can just withhold if they feel like they aren’t getting a fair shake.

If the blue tribe needs red tribe warm bodies to fight blue tribe battles, most likely Red will just respond to calls to patriotism. But if they don't, there's always force (the draft).

I think a modern draft would be a disaster. The draft was bad in the 60s and 70s. It would be horrible today. The backlash and mass noncompliance would disgrace our nation.

Too bad we collectively expended all unpopular draft resources on fighting North Vietnam. To this day there's none left over for anything important.

The draft will never, ever happen. TPTB know that a draft which doesn’t exempt blacks will burn New York City and DC down simultaneously and a draft which does will result in widespread noncompliance and fragging.

will burn New York City and DC down simultaneously

Why is that certain? This is a community that has a high rate of general crime, but is otherwise highly atomized. They have been drafted before. Most are very much apolitical. Drafting would likely only happen in the event of war with China, and they sometimes have a contentious relationship with Asians anyway.

I wouldn’t say it’s certain, but pissing off young blue collar males specifically is highly likely to be expressed with ‘oh the nigs are burning the city down again’ in the specific case of highly concentrated and very badly educated urbanites(which big chunks of the black community are) in close proximity to seats of power.

You’re correct that the black community is not very politically aware, but that political lack of awareness is generally expressed through ‘of course we get the short end of the stick every time’, which is a bad combination with a policy like a draft which by its very nature is going to impact poor young men- the violent demographic- the hardest anyways. And to the nybbler’s suggestion of not formally but de facto exempting blacks that probably won’t stop either black draft riots(lots of these people tend to read anything except explicit favorable special treatment as discrimination when they’re pissed off which they will be because draft) or widespread red tribe resistance. You’d probably just get the cops getting out of the rioters way and pointing them at elite neighborhoods- after all, their kids aren’t getting exempted.

Draft riots are historically common and we know the black community rioting is a thing that happens from time to time. The draft would be a highly unpopular policy without recent precedent and the working class population is likely to view it as a beyond the pale onerous imposition.

Why is that certain?

Nothing is certain, but I'd say it's a very good bet. I'm pretty sure getting the public to comply with a draft requires more social trust than, in the words of the economist, "getting credit cards to work".

It won't exempt blacks. It will merely allow hardship exemptions, including exemptions for being a member of a marginalized class and whose ancestors were once held in an enslaved condition within the United States.

That would be my rough assessment as well.

Blue Tribe excels at soft control, but that does not translate into hard control. They win when they can isolate a situation and then drown it in "process". You can't isolate a draft; it's everywhere and all at once. Likewise for firearms confiscation, or even firearms registration for that matter, or arresting state governors.

There was the draft, in a previous society posessed of a great deal of social cohesion. That society no longer exists.

The draft doesn't require social cohesion (as we had in WWII), just government force (as we had during Vietnam)

The draft not working very well in Vietnam was why we got rid of it, though.

You can have broad based conscription(WWII), you can have hyper-limited conscription of ne’erdowells and people who opted in(GWOT featured a lot of troops who did not particularly want to be in the military), you can’t thread the needle.

The draft not working very well in Vietnam was why we got rid of it, though.

We got rid of it because we withdrew from Vietnam

I don't think press gangs are going to work in the US. Vietnam turned out the way it did for a reason.

The propaganda is going to have to get a lot better too, I could be convinced of domino theory and the commies being a legit threat, but the idea that China is more interested in my demise than Western elites at this point is a hard sell.

I don’t understand why people expect that of Trump. When has he ever struck back at the civil service? “Putting away woke” (?) sounds like it’ll end with the same results as “draining the swamp.”

Most progress on this front has been made by the B- and C-list of conservatives. DeSantis, Abbott…I think Rufo is more credible as a reformer, and he’s not even pursuing office. Would Trump be making these particular mouth sounds if they hadn’t been pushing related issues in the midterms?

In my opinion, the most likely path for making idpol unfashionable is a foreign-policy presidency. Doesn’t really matter who. We’re not getting a “fresh prince” decade by cranking up the domestic outrage.

Desantis and Abbott are conservative a-listers, though.

Trump banned diversity training in the goverment in his first administration. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/25/trump-executive-order-diversity-training-race-gender/3537241001/

In contrast Biden administration was super woke. Trump and people like Rufo will work together anyhow. I wouldn't have too high expectations, but there is going to be considerable difference even from a mostly ineffective Trump who pushes right a bit, versus a Biden administration pushing quite far left.

There are those who want a neutered right, and frame the alternative with negative exaggerations and fearmongering. The reality is like Democrat administrations purged a lot of people in the goverment to put their own loyalists in charge, it isn't only fair for the right to do this to govern in a different manner than that, but also the only way to change things.

Wanting a neutered right, is not the agenda of genuine moderates but people who are on the same side as Biden.

How we got here was through Republicans like Romney called moderate but who supported BLM. And through liberals, framed as more moderate than they are, but who actually are quite far left culturally and implemented those changes. Only a political coalition that genuinely opposes the intersectional agenda can genuinely push it back.

The right is the only coalition push back these things. Can the center do this? Well, some of the people called far right, or considered part of the right if one tries to objectively judge how much they pander to different identity groups, ironically people like Trump are closer to the center than many other people (falsely) labeled moderate like Mitt Romney.

Those usually carrying the moderate or liberal labels, are insufficiently against the whole woke agenda, and too much for it. So they won't push back and can't put it away. What some of them seem to be doing is to sometimes try to pretend they are already doing this. So there isn't going to be a genuine attempt by liberals and people like Romeny to put the woke away, but there might be attempts to define wokeness narrowly, and still support the same agenda. The limited hangout maneuver.

In my opinion, the most likely path for making idpol unfashionable is a foreign-policy presidency. Doesn’t really matter who. We’re not getting a “fresh prince” decade by cranking up the domestic outrage.

Yes, but that will solidify idpol and it will still be fashionable but not dominating the national conversation, until the focus passes and a new Floyd hysteria emerges. That something isn't as discussed as much as previously, does not stop it from being a problem. Moreover, it can coexist just as it continues to coexist with covid focus or the Israel conflict with Palestinians. Moreover, foreign policy presidencies tend to be presidencies engaging in idiotic destabilizing expensive wars that make the MIC richer, but are actually damaging towards their country and the world. Which isn't to say extreme isolationism is the solution.

Identity politics are always here to stay, the question is if we got a sane and fair arrangement, or one that gives valid reason for people to oppose and incentivizes political conflict. Which doesn't change unless the ideology of modern new left liberals and even those in the establishment conservative parties who aren't actually conservative who agree with them stops being influential. Because it is an agenda that does try to screw over, and increasingly at that, the progressive intersectional coalition outgroups, such as white Christian men. The way to have peace, and to relax culture war intensity is to enforce something better and more even handed. Which as is the case always with even handed policies, sharing elements with other groups, shares in a vein diagram ground with the genuine far right. Additionally, it is itself definitely seen by those with the new left liberal agenda as far right, and labeled at such. Although, that isn't actually accurate, and has to do with the strategy of the far left to label everyone other than them with pejoratives.

What is important to understand is that we are never going to get a fair arrangement that reduces culture war intensity, under the hysteric paranoia of the far right, that leads people to oppose reasonable positions because they associate them with the far right. In fact there are issues where even the most hardcore people on the far right have legitimate grievances about their favorite groups being mistreated. And it is in fact possible and preferable to the current situation to share grounds with anyone on issues they have a point, and refuse to share ground with them where they are wrong.

From liberal-ish space, what would aid to relax tensions, is an attitude of compromise and understanding that there has been a real problem of cultural/identitarian progressive overreach. That overreach and progressive extremism also relates to the neutering of the right.

Trump got rid of the worst excesses of Title IX, which Biden just made even worse with a (literal) vengeance. Did you pay attention to that one?

This "trump never did anything so don't support him" thing bothers me coming from liberals because it's transparently dishonest. Just say "I'd rather have Biden's "misgendering-is-a-crime" Title IX policy" than try to trick people into thinking there's no difference.

I’m not being dishonest. I’m specifically not abusing the word “literal” or adding scare quotes to characterize policies I don’t like.

I believe Trump was measurably ineffective at his stated policy goals, and that his 2020 regulations don’t tip the balance. While he is obviously more likely to curb Title IX than a Democrat, that’s a low bar. I’ll stand by my statement: pundits who expect Trump to usher in “fresh prince” liberalism are going to be disappointed.

When has he ever struck back at the civil service?

Check out his admin's work towards revising Schedule F. That actually would be a huge swamp drainer.

Credit where credit is due. That’s much more of a direct attack than I ever expected.

Why hadn’t I heard about this before?

You mean the thing he did at the very end of his presidency which might well be struck down by his own Supreme Court anyway?

Yes, that's the one.

I take your reply as meaning "Because the Schedule F reforms were done at the end of the term and, further, that they stand a reasonable chance of being undone by SCOTUS, one can't count that as striking back at the civil service."

That's a perfectly fine position to take. Let me ask, then, what is the rubric for a successful strike against the civil service? And how does a President get there in one fell swoop?

To me, this feels like goalpost shifting and unrealistically high expectations. As an aside, I"m saying all of this as a never-Trumper. I don't like advocating for DJT for really any reason. Still, I do see things like the Schedule F effort to me meaningful attempts to root out what is perhaps the most entrenched self-serving bureaucratic mechanism in American history.

Unlike you, I’m not a never-Trumper! But I’d want a conservative President with the kind of deep congressional connections and sleazy lobbying ability to actually be able to pass things, especially in the event of a trifecta. That is the primary way of achieving anything in the American political system that isn’t bipartisan. A President who deeply understands and can manipulate the congressional GOP, plus a trifecta, plus abolishing the filibuster are the necessary ingredients for civil service reform in the US.

Trump’s problem isn’t really fecklessness or his personal lack of convictions. It’s that he doesn’t seem to be able to wrangle his own faction in congress. If the US had a party-led system where Trump was head of a party and could fire/deselect reps and senators at will, that would be fine. But open primaries, no term limits and various other factors mean that he’s at the mercy of congress.

But I’d want a conservative President with the kind of deep congressional connections and sleazy lobbying ability to actually be able to pass things

The option is not on the table. It's Trump or 4 more years of Biden. At this time the implicit message associated all this criticism of Trump for not being successful enough (much of which is true) is that you might as well vote for Biden and wait for the Perfect Conservative to come along; it's not going to happen.

Well I have no intention of voting for Biden in November, so I’m well aware of that choice. I just think that’s the reality of the American political system and why a genuine dealmaker (not merely an insider like Biden, although I’ve been surprised at what he’s done despite his incompetence and senility) is the ideal candidate for either party.

The people taking the bet in question are articulating it specifically in the terms of the opposition within Elite Theory between Mosca and Michels. Neither side expects anything of Trump qua Trump because it's built into the framework of their worldview that figureheads have no power and that political movements are always and forever small organized minorities that compete on coordination. The B- and C-listers are the movers and shakers, that's a given.

To wit, you're probably right about foreign policy but this is still within the frame of the bet. A Trump 2 that focuses on Chayna and leaves aside all the culture war stuff is I think decently capable of "fresh prince" type reaction. So would Biden magically turning into Bill Clinton, but that's even less likely.

I can even tell you how you'd sell it by emphasizing the multiracial rainbow coalition that is tired of discrimination. "Lefties are the real racists" can absolutely work if the CIA, NYT and other government organizations agree with you (ask the Israel protesters). Do they want to and will that be enough is the question.

Yeah, there was a recent interview with Trump about a lot of this stuff and he seemed pretty uncommitted. If you read this the author is entirely hysterical, but the substance is thin. A lot of what Trump appears to promise is actually him just repeating and agreeing with the question he’s being fed; “oh, Mr President, are you sure you’re really going to deport all 12 million illegals and put them in deportation camps and use the military?” “Yeah, sure, we gotta do it, sure”. KellyAnne Conway, that avatar of competence, says earnestly that he’s going to move a lot faster this time. We shall see. I think much of Trump’s personal attention will be devoted to trying (and likely failing) to prosecute people he believes have wronged him. So it really depends on his advisors.

I think a Biden victory would see a linear decline along the current trajectory of extreme wokeness being less cool (note this is very different from the grander arc of liberalism).

Trump could go either way. The DEI zealots might become only more enraged and zealous, and those on the left who don’t like Biden will be quickly stirred up if Trump actually gives people like Rufo some amount of political power and attempts even a small amount of Project 2025 stuff. Trump is a controversial guy and most powerful people in America don’t like him, that can’t be dismissed.

But there is another possibility, which is that 2016-2021 sucked all the political energy out of the system, especially on the left, such that the whole thing just kind of crumbles ideologically. Again, not the grander arc of liberalism, which will continue, but a crisis of conscience, as happened to the left after Reagan and Thatcher won and the postwar corporatist consensus crumbled.

I think a lot of it will depend on the specifics of the election, whether it’s a landslide either way, conduct of both parties during the transition period, and on Trump’s rhetoric. As weird as it sounds, I don’t think it’s impossible that he leaves office at the end of his second term having accomplished almost nothing and yet being more liked, or at least more tolerated, than when he got in in 2016.

They already stuffed it back in the bottle in the 90s, and it just made it worse when it finally escaped. Acceleration to total war and the possibility of completely exterminating it for the rest of human existence is the only viable strategy.

There is no killing an idea for "the rest of human existence"

Tell that to the Albigensians!

Yeah, where else in history has a populist, vernacular, radically anti-clerical, vegetarian, dualist form of Christianity that denied the literal truth of the eucharist ever popped up? Clearly with the death of the Cathars all prospects for a pacifistic, gender-egalitarian Christianity died forever and for all time.

Eh Cathars still have a memetic presense, see how they were a pretty big story block in one of the recent MTG sets (and that card sees constructed play too, alongside a few other Cathar cards).

One could argue this is actually disproving the point. Opponents of Woke ideology are prompt to point out how it is iitself a gnostic dualism built in the shadow of Christianity the likes of Catharism and operates in very similar fashion. I remember even back in the early days people trotted out comparisons between the social organization of Tumblr and the Cathar Perfects.

Ideas abstract enough are immortal because they are mere reflections of tendencies inside of the human condition. They are modulated by technology, culture and other factors, but the patterns endlessly rhyme because we cannot escape our condition.

The elimination of anathema as a category requires the literal end of the world as we know it. This is no accident.

I walked right into that one didn't I!

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Weren't they Gnostics? Gnosticism definately still exists.

I probably agree that it'd come back even stronger if they succeeded, but can they? Can we get another Reagan and postpone the total war a few more years? Because I'm sure all the people in charge would like to embezzle a bit more money and retire before it happens.

I don't think ethnic conflict theory will ever go away, because there's a share of the human personality space that are susceptible to it.

However, we are currently rolling out the first generation of commercial gene therapy. If we can postpone the next identitarian push until 2044, it will likely be happening in an environment where people default to the idea that genes can be changed. In that case, if something is genetic, that doesn't mean someone's entire line of descendants are doomed to suffer from it indefinitely.

I'm not keen on watching the billionaires all raise 12 little versions of "Chadius Maximus Esq. the IIIrd."

Recently found out that Zuck’s kids are named Maxima, August and Aurelia. The LARP is real.

Depends on the economy, but I’d say they can if it holds. Racial hostility in America today doesn’t seem worse than it was at the low point of the 90s, between the LA riots and the OJ trial. President Newsom can spout Bill Clinton 2.0 talking points (he has no ideological principles anyway) about unity etc.

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