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.

I can buy that blue tribe is driven by an ideologically motivated positive outgroup bias.

But it isn't just blue tribe or it would have ended when they lost elections. What about the Tories? What about the business owners?

Blue tribe does not cleave easily along political parties. It is the culture of the college educated elite, and generally holds across western nations. The soccer hooligan and the NASCAR redneck have more in common with each other than either does with the Yale Conservative or the Oxford Liberal, and vice versa. The college educated elite like diversity and want to live in a multicultural world, they want to go to the sushi restaurant with their black friend and watch the India vs Pakistan cricket match while drinking a microbrew. It's their culture.

Which is exactly why it does not change much with lost elections.

Uh, I thought there wasn’t really an English red tribe, although some of the upper crust was assimilated into the blues?

Why are we importing American cultural divisions that don’t exist over there to impose on a straightforwardsly age-and-class based set of objections?

I think these “tribes” will turn out to be even stronger categories than politics. Harvard might skew 80-20 in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, 90-10 in terms of liberals vs. conservatives, but maybe 99-1 in terms of Blues vs. Reds.

I have quoted the deep lore.

I think Harvard culture is basically interchangeable with Oxford culture, such that the college elite of both countries are culturally very similar. Which is why I called the political elite of the UK, blue-tribe. I see globalists multiculturalism as a pretty ubiquitous cultural affectation of western college elites.

Sure, I think it's at least reasonable(if possibly debatable) to call the British elite blue-tribe. My argument was that most of the British isles don't have a red tribe.

We can abandon the category. I'm just skeptical that one particular cultural preference -"liking diversity" - can explain everyone moving in one direction on this.

Even if we say there is no real "red tribe" surely some elites just don't give a fuck? If it was just ideological you'd also expect people like Johnson to exploit the anti-immigration sentiments of the populace to great acclaim and glory. Yet they start that way and either don't do anything or make it worse.

Especially since they can get more than enough people for their class while cutting down on the huge numbers.