site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29967 thread views

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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The French elections ended in a vast underperformance for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National. They won more seats than previously, but nowhere close to their hoped majority, with the big winner being the leftist NFP coalition and Macron's supporter parties also performing reasonably well compared to expectations.

This seems to show that the right-wing populist parties still have a major hurdle to pass on their path to power; they have a lot of fervent supporters, sure, but even more fervent opponents of the sort that would vote for a fence post or a dead dog to keep them out of power. In France this was made easier by leftist and centrist candidates dropping out from three-person races to concentrate votes against RN, but vote concentration might have happened to a lesser degree even before the dropouts.

The right-wing populists are predictably blaming elite machinations, migrant voters etc. but the true reason is genuinely that a lot of their agenda is unpopular, such as their opposition to EU (usually moderated in recent years but still in the background), past or present favorability towards Russia, or simply the fact that their rows of candidates are often full of perceived extremists (fundamentalists, supporters of historical movements of the goosestep variety, antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists, monarchists in countries with a strong republican tradition etc.) or people who just come off as plainly too incompletent for people to vote for them.

These things could of course be solved, and the leaderships of the parties usually want to solve them, but such parties are also affected with a heavy bunker mentality where any accusation of extremism or stupidity aimed at a genuinely extreme or stupid candidate is just taken as more leftist lies that everybody in the party will face, and if the party leadership goes too heavily againt such candidates or touches some pet causes, there might be a revolt amongst party membership who are always looking for signs of their leadership betraying them and going over the side of the establishment.

The French government will probably be formed by some combination of centrist parties, ie. everyone expect RN and LFI, the most left-wing party in the leftist coalition, but if such a coalition is unstable or gets other parties tarred with Macron's current unpopularity, it might create opportunities for RN to do better in 2027.

I'd say this is about a 30th percentile from expectations. They were about 12% to win straight up this time last week. People assuming a majority didn't actually do any research on the matter, but I think it'll actually provide a good foothold for the next Presidential elections as it's a not a particularly consequential election to lose but it should lead to 2-3 years of minority government dithering by the powers that be.

I also feel if there was a grand rally in turnout to 'stave off fascism' that it's unlikely to come a second time in a few years.

I don't see how the 'moderate' left could or would turn their back on the popular front that got them elected, and tie their fate to an extremely impopular central bloc, headed by Macron. IMO this would guarantee electoral annihilation in the next polls. Similarly, I don't see why the traditional right (LR) would do this. There may be very informal and punctual agreements on specific issues, but I don't expect there to be any formal coalition.

That being said, I have no idea how or when a new government will come into office. The current PM offered his resignation, but Macron refused to accept. The left request that the next PM be one of them.

IMO this would guarantee electoral annihilation in the next polls.

At some point a political party that wins elections, or even has a chance, will also have to exercise that power, and exercising power always risks electoral annihilation (and usually leads to at least some setbacks).

The NFP sorta won the election. You suggest to subtract LFI from that, and for the rest to govern in the center. This is what destroyed the socialist party when Hollande was president, and I would assume the memory is still fresh enough among those who did not go over to Macron to not repeat this manouver.

But you are right, Hollande has risen from the dead, so maybe they'll finish off the non-LFI left for good this time.

The problem is that the AfD, Sweden Democrats, RN etc have a lot of respectable voters, because of the secret ballot, but a dearth of respectable candidates, because that invites public humiliation, career blacklisting, insult and pariah status - particularly in higher-status circles.

If you’re a competent and successful lawyer or business owner you can vote for the RN without any opprobrium, because of course nobody knows. If you stand for them, everybody knows.

One problem specific to the RN is that it is a family business, and not a normal political party. If you are an ambitious young politician, and your name is not Le Pen and you are not dating a Le Pen, the RN is not a good place for you, if you don't agree totally and all the time with the current head of the Le Pen clan.

Mégret and Phillipot tried, but nothing came of that.

or simply the fact that their rows of candidates are often full of perceived extremists (fundamentalists, supporters of historical movements of the goosestep variety, antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists, monarchists in countries with a strong republican tradition etc.) or people who just come off as plainly too incompletent for people to vote for them.

also, higher density of clowns, idiots and weird people, and weird people of different variety than weird people promoted as fine

(left to reader how much it is "you needed to be more weird to go to far-right party and far-left is as weird but got more normalized" and "it is actually direct result of far-right ideas" and "overreaction to currently promoted ideas, both terrible and fine ones")

Having been active in a (far-)left party, I have personal experience with party being dragged down with weirdos and people with outlandish views. In a local punk forum (ie. place where you'd expect the far left to have a reliable base of support) there have been more than one post to the tune of "I was thinking of voting for the Left, but I met one of their guys in a bar and he was drunk and shouting that Soviet Union should still exist, so fuck this, I'm voting for the SocDems."

I talked to some french relatives and they said that plenty of the RN candidates just are embarrassingly incompetent and that plenty of them were publicly humiliated in debates and such in the run-up to the election by the candidates of the more established parties.

I don't speak french or paid much attention to the election so I don't know how true this is but similar things are true in Sweden where SD has reasonably competent top leadership but many of their candidates (especially on the local level) are abject clowns who survive electorally not in small part due to not being directly elected.

In Poland actual far-right also has share of extremists (actual monarchists, supporters of theocracy, Russia and people who want to ban woman from voting).

And clowns. And people unusually incompetent, even by standard of politics.

And people who prefer to produce Tik-Tok materials over achieving anything, see Braun with fire extinguisher.

plenty of thr RN candidate just are embarrassingly incompetent

I wonder how much is boosting them and hiding the same from other parties and how much RN having much smaller pool of candidates and how much is RN being structurally stupid.

There's a genuine structural factor. For example, in the European Elections, Finns Party refused to accept one of their MEPs, Teuvo Hakkarainen, as a candidate again, because he was a pitiful drunken failure and a national joke. The said MEP went on to be a candidate for a minor fringe party and got absolutely nowhere, but there was also a fair amount of comments around social medias from Finns Party supporters going "They didn't take Teuvo so I don't trust them any more, they've become too elitist and not for normal men of the people any more". Clearly the party's supporters pay close attention to stuff like this and this limits the party's opportunities to clear away chaff, even if they had to do it in this instance.

and a national joke who views

what does it mean?

This was intended to continue with other stuff that was probably inessential. Fixed.

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