site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

And your conclusion from all that is that there's no parallel at al???

The one part we could really nitpick about is the one concerning the educated classes, but I'm confident to say that whatever level of trust they have in the current American system is a function of their trust in the Democratic Party's ability to assert itself as the long-term political hegemon on a national level. Most of this trust would evaporate in an instant should Trump win another election.

The Party is means to the end, means to promote the Idea.

If you believe in the Idea and the Party fails, does it mean that the Idea were false and worthless? No, it means that it was weak, that it needs to be cleansed and purged from weaklings and traitors, or abolished and replaced with something better. If the masses reject the Idea, it means that they are dumb ignorant rednecks who need to be put in their place.

And the Elite Human Capital believers in Idea are as strong as ever before (it helps that modern Idea is rather incoherent grab bag of various contradictory things instead of perfectly logically consistent science of Marxism-Leninism).

It depends on how we define the word.

In the case of the USA, if we define 'system' as 'the political structure founded after the War of Independence and the constitution's ratification', then I'd say it's indeed not discredited by any class other than left-wing activists and their sympathizers who see it as implicitly white supremacist and classist. But if we define it as 'the Global American Empire's globohomo Deep State as it exists in 2024', the situation is pretty much the opposite. On a related note, I'd refer to this comment of @RenOS as a good description of the overall loss of societal trust in the US.

The USSR, on the other hand, did not have such political longevity, so the system meant 'socialism in one country, as founded by Stalin', and I can largely agree with your assessment, although I think the idea that the system discredited itself was the main driving force behind Gorbachev's popularity, for the short time it lasted, that is.

'the political structure founded after the War of Independence and the constitution's ratification'

Is long dead. US of 2020's has less in common with US of 1790's than USSR of 1980's had with Russian Empire of 1750's.

But if we define it as 'the Global American Empire's globohomo Deep State as it exists in 2024', the situation is pretty much the opposite.

Yes. The Elite Human Capital overwhelmingly supports GAE, both ideology(as far as we can talk about one) and practice.

Why shouldn't they? The system works for them, life of EHC is as good as it could be. Exact opposite of Soviet elite, who knew they were miserable beggars compared to their Western counterparts.

Open defections are so far rare. The peasants are getting more restive, but what can you expect from dumb rednecks.

This is more like USSR in 1930's, not in 1980's (of course, modern EHC is far from Bolshevik party hardened in revolution and civil war).

Open defections are so far rare.

No other system presents better QOL for the UMC. As I’ve said before, you can go see the Waldsiedlung in East Berlin where the rulers of the richest communist country lived…like the US lower middle class of the Reagan era.