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 -
There is no objective definition of "Justice", such that we can measure it with a ruler or weigh it with a scale. I believe that Justice is both real and fundamental, but I have no way of making you or anyone else agree with my understanding of Justice other than persuasion or force. Persuasion pretty clearly doesn't work at this point, and we are devolving toward less and less veiled dependence on force.
Do you believe that such arguments are generally productive? Do they tend to lead to consensus across tribal divides, even here? My observation is that the most "productive" outcome is the sort of Blue-Wins-By-Default both-sides-isms that you seem to be complaining about. For me, long-term, good-faith attempts to bridge the divide have resulted in deep cynicism and considerable radicalization. I think it's pretty clear that the tribal gap is currently unbridgeable, and rapidly getting worse. That's why I've written the OP the way I have; because the amoral, outside view of is and not ought is the only avenue for productive conversation across the divide that I can see.
See the edits above, as well as my arguments in the rest of the thread.
It doesn't matter if you think it's an escalation, any more than it matters if Blues think barricading roads, attacking motorists, and facilitating and protecting those who do is an escalation. Your assessment of their actions is what matters, because it determines how you'll react. Their assessment of your actions matters, because it determines how they'll react. There is no way I can see to get either side to accept that the other side's last action was legitimate, or that their own actions were illegitimate. The result is obviously going to be escalating tit-for-tat until the system runs out of capacity.
I never claimed it did. In fact, it not working in either direction is my entire premise. Blues will not accept the pardon any more than Reds accepted the conviction, any more than blues accepted the shooting, any more than Reds accepted the rioting, any more than blues accepted the justice system's delivered outcomes. For the purposes of this analysis, it doesn't matter which side is right. Neither side is going to back down. The conflict is self-sustaining and will likely continue to expand until things break which we cannot fix or even patch.
Good compromise and mutual respect do not seem to me to be options on the table. If you see evidence of them, I'd be interested to see it.
You don't have an outside view but a biased view is the point. This idea of neutrality is a false one when it comes to any and all of the rationalistic and adjacent space. They have a side, and they take it and it is a sneaky way to suppress and sometimes censor opposing views. And how can neutrality exist if "red tribers" take a neutral position, in a conflict where it would be correct for them to take their own side? Would the result be neutral? You might not be a rationalist but have been infected by a part of their way of thinking that is especially harmful in your case because rationalists as leftists who want a left wing status quo, are being strategic at promoting their perspective as an outside, neutral one as a way of imposing their preferences. As someone who seems to be pro red tribe in other contexts, this framing of both sides escalating isn't helpful to the red tribe, in the way the rationalists way of framing things is helpful for their side, which isn't mistake theorists outside the culture war conflict.
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the dynamics of what is happening. The right is full of strategically inept and people who betray their own side while the left are unreasonably extreme because that is their nature in part due to becoming more like this as the right has behaved in an inept and treasonous manner and let extremists take over and collaborated with the left. While extremism has been covered by terms like moderation and hysterias against the far right. Part of the problem is both right wingers being against right wingers, and other right wingers failing to be sufficiently for their side. So the right divided, and the left more united, has resulted in such ends. Part of this division of the right is because of excess fear of the right and its current and future actions, by the right.
No, it is not. This idea disregards the value of the justice system in solving in a correct (aka just) manner particular conflicts on a level beyond just how it affects broader tribal conflict.
It also forgets the point of the tribal conflict which is also about justice and makes it easier for liberals/far left to win, by not keeping them accountable by how what they support is fundamentally unjust. It also helps the left win, since by having right wingers pretend to be neutral and avoid talking about the merits, the right can be subverted by pretending that leftists are right wingers which has been the number one way the right has been destroyed. The left wing people who became part of the right and have had also identitarian sympathies in such direction, cancelled actual right wingers.
Are you willing to treat as legitimate the right wingers to your right?
Blue vs red partisanship helps the left actually because the content of the right wing establishment is sorely lacking and under threat of shifting further left if not policed. And it also breeds conformism to a very left wing status quo, and helps police outsiders who actually do have at least some reasonable ideas that are kept down because the status quo is left wing and opposes them for that reason.
Yes, it is productive because lack of substance and bothsidesism, helps the left by transforming an analysis from "left wing excesses that need to be reined in" towards one of the problem of right wing escalation, or of both sides escalating.
Why is consensus the end be it all? And why isn't it possible even if consensus doesn't exist, to push the envelope more or less in a certain direction, even before winning.
It would be aiding the left by framing right wing moves as escalation, when it might be doing the correct thing and not escalation.
In a particular case there might be a point, because talking about mutual escalation in case like Floyd or Rittenhouse, would be nonsense. Which is why I have a problem with this type of argument, because I do care in fact about justice and see how it can and will be applied in many other issues.
Left wing excesses are a problem because in a genuine way they do promote injustice. If you are unwilling to accept that there is a genuine justice infringed and take the view that we can't say and ascertain that, then you help cover for a real injustice commited.
This postmodern irrationality where we can't assign accurate values because it would be presumptuous, is itself extremely arrogant and presumptuous perspective.
An attitude that promotes blue vs red partisanry as respectable and necessary is going to maintain that divide while doing things like censoring and keeping down people like Colbert, and similiar characters would change things. Your description doesn't capture the divide accurately because the left is the aggressive side, in ways that are in principle unjust, and the right mostly with a few exceptions, fails to fundamentally oppose them. Even some of those right wingers who do oppose them on some issues might even side with them in others. This framing of escalation can and will help paint such moves as escalation.
Escalation does mean a bad thing and the right loses for various reasons but also because it uses harmful language against its own side while not policing the left's use of inappropriate language. You might want to argue that according to your view it isn't bad, but it is possible to offend another side and even fight against them by acting in a manner that isn't escalating the situation. The very language aids the leftists who want to win but present their side's victory as the neutral default against both extremes. It helps marginalize the right and promote a left or even far left uniparty in moderate clothing.
People falsely claiming to be neutrals also fail to support correct language. It seems in this case your perspective does relate to the particulars. I don't think it is part of any big escalation though when considering everything happening and also the timing. Nor do I buy that, not in this specific case but in general, that the right wing moves that counter left wing excesses count as escalation, over trying to put things in a healthier balanced equilibrium even if the left wouldn't like it. Even the left can compromise if pushed enough. And don't forget how we reached the current situation, which was through too much compromise by the right, and cancel culture against right wingers, leading the left to become more arrogant. This is still happening now. If the tittivate against this on the right does increase as there is a little trend, stop cancelling right wingers and try to constrain left wing extremists, the left will not necessarily escalate but might have to compromise. A greater share of people might become non leftists or non leftists get involved in positions of influence. When the right is exercising power, the left loses some of its influence. Some past blue tribers were less extreme and they became more extreme not because the right fought back, but because it didn't. I don't buy your nihilistic perspective.
I also don't see why the system collapses in the way you envision and not more in a South African direction where one side wins but the resulting society is increasingly shittier. Which is a high possibility if the trends continue, and the right fails to become an effective opposing force.
Anyhow, we do disagree about the possibility of compromise arising through strength, and how weakness breeds escalation and submission and then new escalation, etc. If the right was stronger the left would be less arrogant and more moderate. There would also be less leftists, and the nominally left wing party would be less left wing one. Part of the weakness relates to the right being divided due to the existence of impotent and left wing factions. And even outside people who are sufficinelty left wing to count as leftists, there is a problem of buying into harmful left wing perspectives, that make them incapable of being an effective opposition that defeats the left. This isn't to say that the right should be as purity spiraling radical as possible. Actually focusing more on the areas were you have a point, even and especially politically incorrect ones and being persistent is more valuable than losing political capital by being some kind of the boogeman far right stereotype.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link