site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You know, this is actually an interesting moral point that leftists usually hammer into mush with their usual lack of nuance and subtlety, what with "words are violence, silence is violence, everything is violence," etc. but... hypothetically, let's say I'm your neighbor, and I'm black, and I become aware of your views. I know you personally are probably never going to take any action against me. You'll be a nice, respectful, and orderly neighbor. We'll get along, and you might even loan me your drill or ask me to watch your cats and stuff, like a good neighbor.

But I know that should the state suddenly go full Jim Crow II and start rounding up me and mine in trucks, you not only won't raise a peep in protest, you will approve. That you are, in fact, quietly working towards that happening, even if it's only very abstractly. Maybe you will feel a teensy bit bad about it happening to me and my family, but not bad enough to protest or even think it's wrong.

Do you see how in that situation, I might not actually consider you a great neighbor, no matter how pleasant you are to my face?

I am not trying to pick on you here - I honestly find you kind of interesting (and yeah, in person I probably would find you pleasant and easy to get along with - though, granted, I am not black), the self-admitted soy blue triber who's gone full wignat. But I have to admit there is something I find deeply unpleasant about your repeated instance that you are a kind and gentle soul who'd never harm a fly. No, you just want the state and men with less scruples to do the dirty work for you. I'm really trying to avoid Nazi metaphors here, but they do spring to mind. No, I do not believe that wanting to change things via force requires that you be willing and able to execute that violence yourself, but I must admit, the men who at least are open about how much they'd enjoy being the (literal) whip hand strike me as more honest (including to themselves). I may find them disgusting also, but for an entirely different reason.

I’m going to respond with a consolidated reply to this as well as the comment below in which you tagged me.

Firstly, I have also fairly extensively pondered the same questions you’re bringing up here. I’ve spoken before about my black female boss, with whom I have an excellent relationship on both a professional and personal level. When I consider all of the terrible consequences in the event I was doxxed and my posts made visible to everyone in my life, I think that maybe the worst potential result would be her being made aware of them; not even primarily because it would likely result in me losing my job, but because it would probably deeply hurt her and poison the goodwill which I’ve built up with her in the time she and I have worked together. This is also true of my remaining black friends; I can imagine how gut-wrenching the conversations would be if I had to look them in the face and justify my stances to them. Simply explaining to these individuals that I consider them exceptions to the rule and bear them no personal ill will would, I’m quite sure, be nowhere near sufficient to prevent them from taking deep offense and hurt.

That being said, you have once again misrepresented my views, both here and below. When you say I have “gone full wignat”, that’s demonstrably untrue. I do not want all non-white people deported; I’ve said numerous times that nearly all Asian-Americans and a huge proportion of Latinos are an unalloyed asset to this country and will - in fact, must - be integrated into the fabric of this country’s future, if they haven’t already. I have even spoken about how some percentage of black Americans can and should be included in a future America. I have a post I’m mulling over about castizo futurism and how we can complete the assimilation all of the various ethnic groups within America, and I plan to include a section about blacks and how they could be integrated if separation is not on the table

Speaking of which, you claim that I support “racial segregation and ethno-states.” No, I don’t! I support the creation of a single ethnostate for the black Americans who want to live there. When you claim, “when pressed, he admits that probably won't happen which leaves only literally ‘shipping people off’ or worse on the table” you are not accurately summarizing any of my stated positions. In fact, I have repeatedly said that I do not want the partition to happen unless and until it is voluntary and peaceful for the vast majority of people affected. I believe that it is possible that this day will come - that black Americans’ ethnogenesis will blossom into proper nationalistic/separatist sentiment held by such a large portion of black Americans that the others will basically be dragged along by social censure and evaporative cooling.

Now, if I’m wrong and this does not happen, then I don’t think the “racial divorce” should take place. I would not in fact be willing to countenance rounding random middle/class black Americans up and shipping them off against their will. I have never once expressed support for any such policy. You seem to believe that if I can’t provide an airtight roadmap showing how we get from the status quo to the future I imagine, I must actually be willing to accept all manner of savagery when push comes to shove in order to make it happen.

I also don’t advocate anything like “Jim Crow 2.0”. I don’t want the state to legally punish businesses for being willing to serve blacks, or anyone else. I support freedom of association, which in practice would, I think, lead to some private entities refusing to do business with some proportion of blacks (and homeless, whether black or white or otherwise) but not on anything like the pervasive level seen in the Jim Crow South. I’m perfectly happy to interact socially and professionally with blacks of good character, up until (and even after!) the eventual “racial divorce”, if such a thing ever does in fact materialize. (And remember that I’ve said that such a thing doesn’t have a great likelihood of happening within our lifetimes.)

So yes, while I am not shy about my personal antipathy and prejudice - developed due to repeated negative interactions as well as observation of available data - toward blacks, I do not in fact want my boss and my black friends rounded up and shipped anywhere against their will, violently or otherwise. You can continue to suspect that I’m lying or that I would change my tune once the rubber hits the road, but at this point I’m not sure what else I would need to say in order to change your mind.

My apologies for not being familiar with what is actually considered "wignat" and what isn't, and also I apologize for misunderstanding what you actually believe. I don't think you're lying (though I do think your solutions are naive and you seem to be quite idiosyncratic for someone in the WN sphere).

That said, the original question was "Would someone feel justified in considering you a bad neighbor if they knew what you really believed?" As you point out, your black boss would almost certainly cease to consider you a good employee or friend if she knew what you really thought of her ("but you're one of the good ones" exceptionalism notwithstanding). So - would she be unjustified in having such a negative reaction? I think your black friends would be justified in not just being hurt, but finding you untrustworthy and potentially dangerous to them, even if you personally have no intention of directly threatening them.

It's asking a lot for people to be cordial with someone they know literally considers them, well, lesser. Some people can do it, but it's a big ask.

I see that your previous reply was more about what Hoff actually believed, or at least what you thought he believed, than anything actually in this thread, and that he acknowledges that you're at least a little bit right. What I'd like to ask, though, is - what makes anti-black racism from whites special?

Perhaps Hoff's black colleagues would indeed be hurt and offended if they knew what his self-proclaimed beliefs were about racial issues. But what else might we all be hurt and offended at each other for? I suspect that at least some of my own black colleagues and acquaintances would also be disturbed about some of my viewpoints on racial issues. I'm significantly more worried about how my colleagues and acquaintances who are rabid blue-team radicals would react if they knew how right-wing or red-team some of my viewpoints and mindset were though (most of these people are lilly-white incidentally). It's entirely possible I would myself be hurt and offended at some of those same people if I was aware of everything they had ever done, said, or thought. Do I have the right to be offended if a black acquaintance makes it very clear that they will always take the side of the black person in any sort of conflict with a white person, no matter who did what beforehand?

I guess this is more of an argument for privacy and tolerance. I'm sure if everybody knew everything that everyone else had ever done, said, or thought, we'd all be at each other's throats. If we all want to get along and live together peacefully, we should be okay with not knowing everything about everyone. And don't sweat too hard if you suspect some particular person in your life might be super-offended at something about you.

I see that your previous reply was more about what Hoff actually believed, or at least what you thought he believed, than anything actually in this thread, and that he acknowledges that you're at least a little bit right. What I'd like to ask, though, is - what makes anti-black racism from whites special?

Nothing. If I found out my black coworkers actually despise me for being white, I'm sure I'd feel similarly.

I don't disagree with your final point. I mean, that's why I've stuck around here, on the Motte, as a mod, interacting with people who have views I find reprehensible, even some people who've outright told me they think I deserve to die. Yet most of them I find tolerable enough. As I said, I'd probably get along with Hoff fine in person. Knowing he's a white nationalist would always be in the back of my mind, but I would not be looking to "get" him or anything. The same is true for many other people here (someday maybe I'll play Command & Colors: Ancients with @WhiningCoil).

But, he asked someone specifically why they should consider him a "poor neighbor" just because he wants to disenfranchise people. And while I could get along with Hoff or WhiningCoil, they aren't trying to directly deprive me of my civil rights or citizenship. They do not (so far as I know) consider me to be a lesser being. If I know someone did think of me that way, yes, I would still "tolerate" them to the degree that I'd be civil and interact with them as needed in a professional manner. But would I be friends or want to live near someone who literally thinks I'm an untermensch? No. And for Hoff and WhiningCoil, it wouldn't be entirely absent from my mind that in the event of a civil war, we're probably on opposite sides. (That said, I have lefty friends about whom I predict the same thing. This shadows my thinking about them as well.)

You're right, of coourse, that we can't and shouldn't know what everyone really thinks about everyone else.

Yeah definitely, of course they would be justified. One of my arguments in favor of separation between whites and blacks has always been that it’s psychologically damaging for blacks to have to share a society with a majority group who, on some level, view them as lesser. I’m a lot more self-aware and at peace with my condescension and antipathy than most white people in 2024 are, but that doesn’t mean white liberals don’t look down on black people. They sublimate those feelings, or redirect them toward poor whites, or come up with elaborate and increasingly baroque apologia about why none of the bad things about black people are black people’s fault, but at the end of the day the vast majority of white Americans just don’t like black people very much, and don’t particularly want to spend time around them. They might even worship black entertainers and athletes, and might participate in the public rituals that idolize black culture, but in terms of the way they live their everyday lives - their social groups, their interests, where they end up moving once they have kids - they don’t want to be around the modal black person.

And black people know it! Thats part of why they tend to be so hostile toward whites: they know that whites are phonies! What they say doesn’t match their revealed preferences! And what I’m saying here on The Motte is what a great number of blacks imagine that their white liberal friends are actually saying behind their backs. This contributes to a siege mentality, and to many blacks living a sort of daily pyschodrama in which they examine every word spoken to them by whites for esoteric signs of those whites’ latent hate and racism. Because they understand that whites don’t actually, in their heart of hearts, see them as equals. Most whites have great relationships with certain individual blacks, particularly in the South. And for those somewhat functional blacks, it must feel like a real minefield trying to deduce which whites like them and which ones merely tolerate them.

This is an inevitable result of two very different racial/cultural groups being forced to live side-by-side, particularly when one of those groups is so obviously far behind the other one and not showing any signs of closing the gap. It’s one of the reasons why I believe that it’s actually best for blacks to not have to live like this.

What bothers me about this point is - who in this whole thread said anything about caring about skin color? Hoffmeister25 didn't, neither did I, nor as far as I can tell did anyone else in this thread.

I think any of us would say, if you're white and regularly using hard drugs, sleeping on the street in filthy rags, harassing and violent towards ordinary citizens, and completely uninterested in getting help or changing, then you go in the truck too, and I'll wave goodbye. If you're black and live a responsible life, keep a reasonably tidy home, work some sort of regular job, treat others around you with respect, and deal with problems in an adult manner, then I'm happy to have you as my neighbor and would in fact protest if somebody wanted to drag you off because of your skin color.

If anything out there makes me a little bit skeptical of black people generally, it's not the 13/52 crime statistics, the HBD IQ gap that may or may not actually exist, or any other such statistics; it's the way quite a lot of black people who are in fact leading normal and respectable lives are so quick to assume all white people want to ship them off to some horrible fate due to their skin color when they've never suggested or implied any such thing. As well as a lot of white liberals. If they're never going to trust me no matter what I do, why should I trust them?

Well, @Hoffmeister25 has explicitly stated that he wants racial segregation and ethno-states. Which he would like to be accomplished peacefully, but when pressed, he admits that probably won't happen which leaves only literally "shipping people off" or worse on the table. You're right that that specific issue wasn't part of the homeless thread, but it is relevant to the "Why would you think I'm a bad neighbor just because I secretly believe you should be forcibly relocated?" question. Hence my question: if you are nice to my face but I know that you are working on a political project to disenfranchise me, am I justified in considering you a bad neighbor?

I actually share your (and his) "concerns" about black behavior and black culture. I am not willing to go over to the wignat side; I know too many black people who clearly do not match their hostile image, and I do not believe that every decent black person I know is some fraction-of-a-percent outlier. But while I personally wouldn't be unwilling to hang out and chat with Hoffmeister in meatspace, I can understand why a black person, knowing what Hoffmeister believes, might balk at it (though some probably would be willing to engage civilly with him, and props to them).

That you are, in fact, quietly working towards that happening, even if it's only very abstractly.

Which is why all interactions become colored with that aggression. Of course, small/tiny/micro interactions happen all the time so naturally that makes all of those interactions micro aggressions.

the men who at least are open about how much they'd enjoy being the (literal) whip hand strike me as more honest

But conversely, that's why they have to have the right to shoot me if I try that, and I'm also not allowed to ban any disagreement but violence so I have to allow him to speak, I can't kick in his door without a good reason even if I'm in charge, I have to follow a process if I want to convict him of a crime, etc. so that it doesn't come to him just saying "fuck it" and shooting me pre-emptively.

He doesn't have to tolerate me, he just has to work with me, and those rules if followed allow that peace even though their pursuit of happiness involves enslaving me and vice versa.

but I must admit, the men who at least are open about how much they'd enjoy being the (literal) whip hand strike me as more honest (including to themselves). I may find them disgusting also, but for an entirely different reason

You bear my quote in your flair.

Well then I feel doubly justified in banning you for this. The edgy antagonism makes for cute flairs but it's not actually what we want you to post.