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 -
The big question is 'what do you mean by communism?'.
No, literally and unironically- you can have a command economy without it being communism(France has done it). You can have a society with substantial state ownership of the means of production without it being communism(modern China). You can have totalitarianism without it being communism(Saudi Arabia). If you ask communists themselves, they'll tell you communism refers to the utopian end state of the worker's paradise.
In practice, people use communism to refer to regimes run by Marxists. And it's worth looking at what Marxism is- definitions are important- Marxism is primarily a theory of history. This theory of history argues for economic processes, by far the most important being class conflict, as driving the events of history independent of great men. Basically everything Marx thought about economics was wrong(although not everything he thought about history was), but importantly, Marxism puts enough epicycles into its psychohistory that Marxists can retreat to unfalsifiability in order to defend their theories. So Marxists in charge of an economy- and all developed economies have at least some level of planning from the top- have economic theories which don't correspond to reality, and Marxists default to conspiracy theories and finger pointing when their plans don't work out. This tends to generate useless and counterproductive reprisals to try to stick to an economic plan with predetermined endpoints, because Marxists just don't stop and think that the labour theory of value prevents their spreadsheets from giving good predictions, and also because that Marxist psychohistory gives a utopian eschatology that justifies whatever the cost to stick to the plan. There is a reason traditional religions usually explicitly hold that our actions on earth can't bring about the apocalypse/mahdi/end of the kali yuga- because putting entire societies behind dumb plans is a bad thing that tends to break the machinery which makes that society run.
I think, in a real way, what makes Marxism so bad is the tendency for it to be a kind of fanaticism for the un-lindy. Religious fundamentalists rarely break the essential functioning of their societies; I suppose fascists probably could, but historical fascist regimes have lost wars instead. And of course monarchs rise to power by making deals and sticking to them, while democracies tend to prevent fanatics from holding unfettered power.
More options
Context Copy link