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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29670 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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A delightfully nebulous category, reminiscent of the “rootless cosmopolitans” of old.

Would looking at statistics of which party the journalists employed at the networks donate to make it less nebulous?

Let's say that reference to "the Cathedral" or "the Elites" is not a good way to approach this conversation. What would be a better approach? Reference to Blue Tribe?

The post two levels up adds the word "forcefully" to a description of such a coalition that did not previously contain it. How did that insertion add to the conversation?

It seems to me that @sulla's critique is on point and @MotteInTheEye's point is likewise a reasonable attempt at communication. I don't have nearly as much time as I used to for reasoned argumentation, but if you or @mdurak think the thinking here really is fuzzy, I can at least attempt to throw my hat in the ring as an interlocuter.

I interpreted “under control” of the government as “forcefully.” How else would the government bring something under its control?

I looked up the Cathedral. Interesting idea, but how does “the regime” (by this do they mean Democrats specifically, or the federal government regardless of who holds the executive?) select for an academia and journalism that reinforces regime viewpoints as opposed to viewpoints that increase the power of academia/journalism (the “dominant” ideas)? I don’t see how the mentioned examples of race war or tolerating crime are dominant ideas for the regime — if anything, you’d expect a “regime” to tamp down on internal conflict and use a crackdown on crime as an excuse to expand internal security forces.

Let's say that reference to "the Cathedral" or "the Elites" is not a good way to approach this conversation. What would be a better approach? Reference to Blue Tribe?

Blue Tribe is probably even worse, because almost certainly the vast majority of the Blue Tribe didn't have anything to do with journalist or tech company decisions and the like. Elites is at least a bit more specified, but there are non-Blue elites. As our own statement above says, we should try to be as specific as possible, so maybe Blue Tribe Elites would be better. But even then almost certainly not all Blue Tribe elites were doing X or Y. But every level of specification takes work, it would be crazy to expect you to find the exact people who did x or y. We'd never be able to carry out a conversation. So perhaps settling for some Blue Tribe Elites did X or Y is the balance. It indicates allegiance and position and that it is not all of the group.

Mind you, I'm as guilty as anyone of just saying Red or Blue, when I know it wasn't all of Red or Blue. Trade offs between saving time and mental effort with short-hand and generalizations vs accuracy is a real thing.

I think the Inner Party / Outer Party distinction is pretty good.

The Outer Party is clearly a lot of blue tribe climbers with some red tribe elites mixed in.

The Inner Party is all blue tribe elites.

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