site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Re-reading my comment I think it came across as if I'm trying to split hairs a little too much. If Biden were to get swapped out I think people would have a right to be mad, but if the actual winner of the whole election got switched out, people would have a right to be maximum furious. The latter case is the sort of existential democratic crisis that is worth getting existential mad about. The current what to do about Biden crisis is not existential and thus the anger should be some degree lower than maximum.

Perhaps the better question would be, let me set up this scenario, which would be "more fair" or "more democratic"?

  • Biden dropping out at some point during his presidency, and Kamala taking over. No one voted for Kamala in the primaries, well, to be more specific many voted against her. Biden chose her as an individual with zero direct democratic input after winning the primary. Biden is the source of democratic legitimacy here.

  • Biden dropping out now, and a new candidate taking over at the convention. No one would be voting directly for the candidate like a primary, which is a weaker link of democratic authority, but on the other hand the delegates were chosen more or less democratically from the party constituents and are the source of democratic legitimacy here.

Both scenarios clearly have a break in the direct line of "democracy", defined more lazily here as just "people should have voted for the person who ends up in charge", which is why I say the word is unclear and "fair" is better -- and that it's hard to directly compare which is better without using more accurate words. It's also why a some political scientist types get exacerbated when we call our system of government a democracy, because it isn't. The whole "representative" idea comes into play at some point, and we just need to reasonable decide where to make the tradeoff of general direct democracy vs. vesting that authority indirectly in another.

Put another way, who has the better claim to representing Democrats? Biden as an individual, or the delegates in aggregate? So it might seem like I'm splitting hairs, but actually it's a pretty significant question. Honestly, I think given the circumstances, the delegates actually have a stronger case. The first bullet point is undermined by the self-evident behind the scenes work of the party apparatus itself to stifle other would-be competitors, several states decided they wouldn't even bother with primaries before any serious challenge even emerged. In other words, we can't escape the shadow the DNC and related party machinery casts over the whole thing. I think the second bullet point is "more fair".