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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Trump is of course not a national socialist in his politics. He is insufficiently nationalist, insufficiently conservative and insufficiently socialist. His republicans pander to minorities without even directly naming white people to appeal to. His current manifestation probably isn't sufficiently nativist and natioanlist for moderate nationalism. His policies on economic sphere weren't even moderate politically and fit more with Koch agenda, even if he isn't as orthodox in his rhetoric as they would like.
The social democrats of Denmark who are a moderate nationalist party and quite more socialistic than Trump would also be defamatory to call them national socialists. There have been plenty of political parties that are moderate nationalist through modern history in european societies, where it used to be either the default or what people assumed these parties to be and there is definitely a significant qualitative difference between what I would categorize as moderate nationalism vs what I would consider extreme nationalism. And I tend to consider something to be moderate only if it is sufficiently hardcore to qualify at such. Moderate doesn't mean weak to me.
Even though we live in an age where anti european antinaivists who actually have an extreme agenda see all moderate nationalism for Europeans as extremist and try to associate it with nazism. In an age where moderate nationalism in favor of Europeans is under attack by a movement which is tolerant or supportive of quite stronger nationalism for other groups, hence their opposition to the national rights of their ethnic outgroup, and it is actually an extreme condition for a people to not have a collective community and breaking their roots from the past. This isn't to say that everyone who does this understands the doublethink and the inconsistency, but it exists as part of the movement. You seem like a right winger of sorts so I don't understand your point.
Also, the dominant tradition outside of actual socialists combined some level of socialism with capitalism. The idea of a third way between socialism and capitalism, did not just originate with fascist types or nazis, who were more socialistic than most.
The libertarian meme I have seen about statists and collectivists and calling everything fascists is wildly propagandistic. There have been a lot of non fascists who (maybe even share some influence with each other) promoted such model. Post war occupied Germany for example followed such a model of trying to make a deal between capitalists and workers. This kind of thinking also attracted people who have might have been influenced by fascism, had some ideological crossover in regards to economics, but weren't fascists. Including people who were anti-parliamentarians and believing that a dictatorship was a better way to rule.
Both some level of socialism and nationalism has been quite widespread and it simply ahistorical to be calling it national socialism when that regime was more infamous about occupation of european countries which includes atrocities and imperialistic conquest. While they deserve some bad reputation, they are a beaten dead horse with exaggerated negative attention for propagandistic purposes. Like the trope of a a shit politician who sucks at ruling blaming everything on his predecessor, but much worse since this is an 80 years old defeated group. But an even bigger problem of such propaganda is bad unsuitable comparisons.
The Democrats are quite more socialist although also compromising with establishment capitalism. Trump's politics are not even of a social democrat moderate nationalist. He seems to be more on the hardcore big donor corporatism capitalism side. I doubt he would introduce a VAT. Nor is a VAT an example of someone being a socialist since a VAT exists in a huge amount of countries which aren't run by socialists. Although, of course you can oppose it as bad policy, or too socialistic.
More options
Context Copy link