site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 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.

8
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Right, of course context matters, but in the realm of politics two decades is almost never recent. You usually mean something within the last few months to a year, and sometimes 5 years at most, 10 if you really stretch. This holds true virtually 90% of the time, probably even higher, 99% wouldn't even surprise me. A simple search of literally any news article will demonstrate my point quite succinctly. Or even books.

If you use "recent" to mean 20 years ago it's almost explicitly dishonest.

For example, if I tell you that I "recently" moved -- even if I am catching up with an old friend I hadn't seen in like, 40 years, you'd still probably assume recent = last 5 to 10 years at most. I struggle to even come up with any sort of comparable example outside of literal world history where recent would acceptably mean almost two decades ago.

And in terms of ethnogenesis, centuries pass in the blink of an eye.

There's an unfortunate saying that goes something like this: 'a dog born in the stables is not a horse'. I am Chinese in origin, and I can confidently say that if outsiders moved in and learned and spoke Chinese and did so for a thousand years, they would still be foreigners. (No one thinks that Mongols are Chinese.) That is the problem when creedal New World colonial nations cross-pollinate their civic nationalism into the old. They simply do not understand that a nation is more than a mere economic zone of free association.

For the British, they still haven't gotten over William the Conquerer (the difference between the posh and chav class distinctions in England is largely how much francophonian loanwords each uses). Anyone else is an outsider to this culture-struggle. Their cosmopolitan rootlessness precludes them from partaking of a nation's blood and soil, of which nearly all Old World states are in their essence.

I can confidently say that if outsiders moved in and learned and spoke Chinese and did so for a thousand years, they would still be foreigners.

I'm pretty sure nobody can tell Manchus apart from Han anymore without looking at the ethnicity listed on their ID, and they were assimilated less than 300 years ago.

I've heard (anecdotally) that the Manchus are still something of an upper class in China, sort of like the Normans in England.

I remember an incident from a Chinese culture class in college, where the professor was Han, and talking about how Han are the majority... then asked a Chinese student, assuming he was also Han. Surprise: he was actually Manchu. Unless there was some subtle unstated communication going on that I missed, I'd call that at least one thorough assimilation.

I am Chinese in origin, and I can confidently say that if outsiders moved in and learned and spoke Chinese and did so for a thousand years, they would still be foreigners. (No one thinks that Mongols are Chinese.)

Yes but no one thinks the Mongols immigrated "recently".

The point here is that it's not people saying "we don't like foreigners" but rather criticizing policies that are not 20 years old.

You say context matters and then proceed to ignore the context that this is a discussion of immigration to Britain and that "recent' in this context is a lot longer than you seem to assume.

Recent for a tiny sliver of Anglo ethnats, perhaps. 99% of the British public certainly don’t consider the Normans or Saxons ‘recent immigrants’. They don’t even consider the royal family recent immigrants lol.