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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4371 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 26, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It is a reflection of that sense of betrayal. I'm not sure what's odd about feeling betrayed by a large chunk of your online community rallying behind the idea that they don't want to share a country with you. That you would struggle to understand it is a bit baffling.

Like, c'mon: "I don't even want to live in a group of hundreds of millions of people that includes both me and you. Your ideals disgust me on a fundamental level. But hey, now that you've broken out, where's the promotion for us hometown lads?" Surely you can see why I'd find that a bit rich. You cannot at once reject someone as unworthy to share a polis with you and expect them to treat your companionship as meaningful.

The friend-enemy distinction matters. Put bluntly, I see you personally as wanting to put me on the enemy side of the friend-enemy distinction, repeatedly defend that choice, and then post in resentment about a lack of friendship resulting from that. Choose one.

I don't at all think I'm reading too much into a single word, no. It's obnoxious for people to treat me as a representative of a coalition that rejects me and that I reject, and it is a specific coalition, not simply a relative term. Using it suggests neither understanding nor a wish to understand, and I find it much easier to simply build elsewhere than to bridge a determinedly unbridgeable gap.

That you would struggle to understand it is a bit baffling.

Well again, I'm not struggling to understand, I just disagree.

Like, c'mon: "I don't even want to live in a group of hundreds of millions of people that includes both me and you. Your ideals disgust me on a fundamental level. But hey, now that you've broken out, where's the promotion for us hometown lads?" Surely you can see why I'd find that a bit rich.

No? I don't know what to tell you... You can find me as disgusting as you want, but If I find some interesting bit of info at your Substack, I'll drop a link to it when sharing it with others. If I forget to do so, and rake in a million views from it, I'll probably feel pretty shitty about it.

You cannot at once reject someone as unworthy to share a polis with you and expect them to treat your companionship as meaningful.

I don't really expect anything from how your treatment of my companionship. I'm just trying to figure out what your grievances are, and figure out what I can learn from them, and if I can improve. But this particular one... like I said I'm not sure on what grounds you're expecting anything more than "sorry to hear that, bro". Like I said I consider it 100% normal to want to live in a country that respects your fundamental values, so if you're going to get sufficiently values-diverse group together, you will inevitably end up with people not wanting to share a country with each other. It is again quite strange for me to see you insist on this, since like I said you expressed the same sentiment yourself, or at least I don't know how else to understand "I want to live in a culture where my family and I can live according to our values and build alongside people who share those values". Maybe there's supposed to be a difference between "country" and "culture", but no matter how I slice it, it sounds at most like the same thing with extra steps.

The friend-enemy distinction matters.

It matters when you're doing political activism. This place is very explicitly not a place for that, so I don't see the issue.

Put bluntly, I see you personally as wanting to put me on the enemy side of the friend-enemy distinction, repeatedly defend that choice, and then post in resentment about a lack of friendship resulting from that. Choose one.

Quite frankly it's not even about friendship. I saw what you did as akin to meme accounts on Twitter reposting some webcomic or another, but diligently removing the artist's signature. The analogy doesn't quite fit since the post in question wasn't written here, but I can't help but parse the situation this way. It's not even that much of a big deal as far as I'm concerned, so I don't get why you insist on portraying me as making unreasonable demands.

It's obnoxious for people to treat me as a representative of a coalition that rejects me and that I reject, and it is a specific coalition, not simply a relative term.

If you want to tell me how it came off to you that's fair enough, but you can't tell me how I meant it.

Using it suggests neither understanding nor a wish to understand

That's a bit ironic, given the above.

Maybe there's supposed to be a difference between "country" and "culture", but no matter how I slice it, it sounds at most like the same thing with extra steps.

Compare it to individual houses in a neighborhood. A family's rules reign supreme in their own home, no one can demand they do something. But outside that house, they don't hold that power and have to negotiate if they want anything done.

The issue is the misuse of "country" because it implies a certain level of being able to make moral demands of others. We don't live in such an age. If a man from Kansas approached one from New York, the idea that the former could demand the latter change their behavior or views to align with a different morality would be considered absurd by most people.

Compare it to individual houses in a neighborhood. A family's rules reign supreme in their own home, no one can demand they do something. But outside that house, they don't hold that power and have to negotiate if they want anything done.

But that's why it's a bad analogy. There can be subcultures, or countries that contain different cultures by region, but these days there usually is a common culture uniting the entire country, so it's not something confined like a household vs/ a neighborhood. It's also not something based solely on negotiation, and can be quite oppressive. Progressives are usually the first to point this out with things like homophobia, strict gender roles, etc.

For me, I'd much rather hear "I don't want to be a part of your country / culture! Leave me alone, I'll make my own with like-minded people", than to hear demands of being in the same polity from someone with completely incompatible values. Same energy as having a stalker that deluded themselves they're in a relationship with you.

There can be subcultures, or countries that contain different cultures by region, but these days there usually is a common culture uniting the entire country. It's also not something based solely on negotiation, and can be quite oppressive. Progressives are usually the first to point this out with things like homophobia, strict gender roles, etc.

It's hardly common if it's oppressing certain groups, right? That's a sign one group's beliefs are dominating other groups.

I don't follow... there has to be commonality for domination to work. Some have pulled it off, but it tends to be hard to oppress minorities, when you're not the majority.

I don't follow... there has to be commonality for domination to work.

The commonality would just be colocation, right? I can't impact the people of China unless I live there. Not easily, anyways.

It's a part of it, but it's not the whole story. You need commonality of opinion/values in order to "coordinate meanness".

Or, if we're looking to 2020:

It brought me face to face with something I found horrifying in my culture and my people (and unlike many here, they are my culture and my people—I come from a county where all but nine precincts went for Trump this year), and I watched for four years as one of my nightmare scenarios unfolded and a person I've loathed from the moment he stepped onto the national scene became leader of the free world because my tribe chose him.

So—yes. When it comes down to it, with everyone who supported Donald Trump, "I'm ready to bury the hatchet" is about as uplifting and positive I can get. I didn't support Obama when he was in office. I felt like Bush was a good man who would be vindicated by history. I wanted McCain to win, then Romney. I grew up emotionally fully in the camp of Team Red, frustrated at how much it felt as though the left hated and misunderstood me, and I felt deeply personally betrayed when Team Red embraced Donald Trump, as if everything I had ever hoped about them was a mirage and they really did want to be as bad as the left always claimed they did. I can put the past in the past, but I can't pretend I don't strongly wish that particular chapter of the past never even came close to happening.

Sorry, I'm trying to not to take out a bad mood and what I see as a repudiation of Trace's entire ethos on him, and I get the distinction TW's trying to move around ("I'm not going to write off the half of the country who supported him"). But it's hard to read this conversation and not see my (and I guess @drmanhattan16 's?) participation in TheSchism (and TW's twitter sphere) as part of the problem.

But it's hard to read this conversation and not see my (and I guess drmanhattan16 's?) participation in TheSchism (and TW's twitter sphere) as part of the problem.

Sorry, what? I'm not clear on why I was referenced.

Trace said earlier that :

And I'd be lying if I didn't look with grim satisfaction at the place others said would turn into a progressive monoculture and see that it has, despite being quiet, remained precisely the thoughtful discussion space I hoped it would be.

Of writers that could be plausibly described as outside of progressive monoculture (or at least outside of the ethos that formed theSchism, you and I (and I guess DuplexFields?) seem the only current significant overlap between TheSchism and TheMotte, and I'm marginal. Lykurg480 stopped posting here about seven months ago, professorgerm/desolation set their motte account private, ymeskhout and ChrisPratt haven't posted in the schism for years and what they did post were pretty mainstream progressive stuff.

I'll disclose that I upvoted FCFromSSC's "I do not think I share a common understanding of peace and justice with you." I'd be interested to know if you read, upvoted, and/or downvoted it, but it's probably best that I don't know, and ultimately it doesn't really matter if you and Numbers never had similar discussions on the schism by accident, or by plan.

If the overlap between here and theschism were a success story in the sense that we disagreed on matters but could still have serious conversations, than it'd be part of the solution. If it's just a race between those who don't want to bring up the disagreements and those who know they can't, then it's just a top hat and monocle on top of the problem.

Of writers that could be plausibly described as outside of progressive monoculture (or at least outside of the ethos that formed theSchism, you and I (and I guess DuplexFields?) seem the only current significant overlap between TheSchism and TheMotte, and I'm marginal.

Ah, well, I'm pretty marginal as well. I don't post much in either place.

it doesn't really matter if you and Numbers never had similar discussions on the schism by accident, or by plan.

Funny thing is that I can see where that conversation seemed to have come tantalizing close to getting at the important question. I'd be interested to see what Numbers thinks of the Palestinian struggle, as I think FC's post talking about violence could almost perfectly be applied to the their efforts to secure a nation for themselves, but now the left's sympathies align more with this group than they would for your average white American Christian right-winger.

But it's not really even his positions that annoy me at times. It's the way in which he can't seem to contain his style into something which is professional and sterile.

I want to live in a culture where I can build alongside people who share my values. That certainly does not preclude sharing that broader culture with others who have radically different values; I have not told my political opponents I don't wish to share a country with them, nor would I. I'm perfectly happy to share countries and forums alike with people I have wide-ranging disagreements with. Yes, it's horrifying when your tribe demonstrates adherence to values you didn't anticipate and that feel like a repudiation of your expectations! That doesn't entail wanting them to leave your country! The very comment you link emphasizes not writing them off and being happy to bury the hatchet.

It's risible to compare a sentiment of wanting to build alongside people who want to build alongside you to one of telling people you don't want them in your country. Nobody should struggle to tell the difference.

As for your participation in my spheres, I appreciate many of your contributions and am happy for people to participate where they'd like. Participate if you want, don't if you don't want. The whole point of planting a flag and letting people find it or not as they will is allowing people like you to decide whether what's under that flag is worthwhile enough to spend time around.

Yes, I've edited to note you find a big distinction between just feeling betrayed by people voting for someone you hate, and not wanting to share a country or be ruled by "Would they have killed him? From a probabilistic standpoint, I'd give it maybe 1-2% odds at most assuming he was passive/compliant."

There's an obvious difference, but as always the problem is and remains why the distinction matters. Clearly you care, and there's no small number of people who feel very strongly the exact opposite direction. I'm willing and happy to engage, to the extent that I'm allowed to engage, with questions like that at TheSchism if there's a chance of exploring the deeper disagreement.

This discussion, and that you find the current state of the subreddit a success, sounds very much like that's not the point of "the thoughtful discussion space" you hoped theschism would be.

"Share a country" and "be ruled by" are very different sentiments as well. The first is saying something very close to "I don't want you anywhere in any community I could conceivably be physically present in." It's a huge deal to say to someone and mean, particularly over a single hastily dashed out political stance, and it's not like he was saying it about specifically what I was trying to articulate about that scenario. He was saying it about me as a whole, and I think people absolutely should take it seriously if others say it to them. Be ruled by? Sure, nobody wants to be ruled by those they have deep-running disagreements with. That's not the same as sharing a country.

Crucially to the point here: a discussion space like this is much smaller and more personal than a country. If people in a small discussion space can't abide the idea of so much as sharing a country with you, it would be madness to put effort into sharing anything smaller than that with them. If someone both doesn't want to share a country with me and wants to write aiming to persuade others that they shouldn't, either, there's no turning around with a "but we're still cool, right?"

No. Words have meaning. That's about as emphatic a denunciation as someone can provide. If you do not want to share so much as a country with me, then you will at most be someone I occasionally argue with on the internet--nothing more--and my commentary about you will reflect that.

I think people should take it seriously when those on a pathway to a position of power suggest people should -- just morally, not legally -- accept a couple percentage point risks of death rather than be capable of defending themselves against an illegal assault, and accept ejection from public fora before either.

If you do not want to share so much as a country with me, then you will at most be someone I occasionally argue with on the internet--nothing more--and my commentary about you will reflect that.

Yeah, I'd gotten the feeling that's how things were going. I'd hoped for a different answer to the naive experiment, but if the answer is "The friend-enemy distinction matters", Litany of Tarski go.

I post attribution to the things I link. In that specific case, what I linked was a Substack post that someone else had linked here, and I attributed it to the original post and told people where I found it as it was relevant. Inasmuch as you have a grievance against those who have left here with bitter feelings, turn inwards and accept that this place could have been the incubator you envision, and you and yours fumbled that. It will not be what it could have been, your own choices and efforts at culture-building contributed to that, and you can resent those who left if you'd like but you can't rebuild lost goodwill by wishing it were otherwise.

That's all I have remaining to say to you on any of this. I wish you the best of luck finding more people who want to spend time around you.

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