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.

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.