site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 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.

It was a term of art in political philosophy for years, I had legit university courses on "Cultural Marxism". So of course it makes sense, it's even the term the Frankfurt school uses for itself.

There was a deliberate effort by Marxists to switch tactics after the Soviet failure, and they did seek to undermine Western culture specifically. This is undeniable and directly stated in primary sources.

Then the people who use the tactics that the Frankfurt school delineates figured out their enemies found them out and shifted the frame to conceal it and use it as a bludgeon against anybody who noticed the tactics. And then in 2016, it became a conspiracy theory that only antisemites believe in.

They went so such lengths to redact the wikipedia article that it no longer even exists in the history of the page, but it was there.

There is no point in arguing that Cultural Marxism is real, because it is, and the people who use it are extremely invested in making sure people who know it is are ruined. And not just under that particular name. You can call it "Woke" or "DEI" or "CRT" or any number of other names, they will always shift the frame to prevent you freezing a good label. And so long as they control the places that have the writ of legitimacy, there is nothing that can be done.

Labels don't really matter anymore anyways, we now live in a present where everybody knows that the left has abandoned native working classes for a minority coalition. It's a given. The educated urbanites don't even pretend to view the working class as anything else but objective enemies.

They went so such lengths to redact the wikipedia article that it no longer even exists in the history of the page, but it was there.

The archive page from the screenshot, for the curious:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140519194937/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism