site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   29586 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The only way, the only way to convince the Democrats that wokeness is Not Okay is to rub their noses in it like a dog. Smack them on the snout with a rolled up newspaper and proclaim "BAD!" in a thunderous shout. In a perfect world this would never have been required. In a better world they would have learned the lesson in 2016. We do not live in those worlds, we live in this one, and in this one they are still on the woke train. So I will vote for the man whose re-election constitutes the philosophical equivalent of smacking the Democratic Party on the nose with a rolled up newspaper before grinding it into the stain on the carpet.

They did learn a lesson from 2016; Biden the 2020 candidate was considerably more moderate. The problem is that Biden the 2021-2024 President, or rather his administration, wasn't moderate at all, because apparently the lesson they learned was "fake being moderate on the campaign trail and then exploit it once in power".

I think your only hope on this path is that the Democratic machine politicians are pragmatic enough to be willing to appeal to the centre and far-sighted enough to realise that tricking them is not a long-term solution and powerful enough to force the SJer groundswell into line; I'm not rating that very highly.

I think the ultimate way to deal with this has to include shattering all of SJ's walled gardens, so that they get to start seeing rightists first-hand as people, and so that their Authority foundation stops locking onto HR ladies and similar types. This, admittedly, does require power, and lots of it.

because apparently the lesson they learned was "fake being moderate on the campaign trail and then exploit it once in power".

It's worth calling out that this was the lesson they learned from Obama. Obama campaigned as a moderate then, twice, betrayed the expectations of people who wanted a moderate. He was expected to do things like help heal racial divisions, not just by being a black man in power, but by actively holding the door open to black Americans to enter the political mainstream. Instead he said Trayvon Martin looked like he could be his son. He was expected to reform American healthcare (a very key issue at the time, when lots of people were losing access to employer provided health insurance during the Great Recession) but ended up creating (what was perceived as) a complex and expensive left wing boondoggle.

This pissed a lot of people off, but only people who were paying close attention. Republicans cleaned up in the House in 2010 and in the Senate in 2014 because only the people who care about politics enough to pay attention voted in mid-terms. Democratic strategists noticed and they started to reconsider the Clinton strategy of actually being a moderate and thought about, instead, just looking like a moderate in election season. They felt like the learned the wrong lesson from 1996, where Bill's hard turn right had led to him recovering his popularity and resoundingly beating expectations after becoming the first Democratic President to lose Congress in half a century. Gore, despite his obsession with global warming, was nevertheless one step above a Blue Dog in a lot of ways and Kerry was considering an acceptably moderate alternative to John Edwards. It was only when Obama swept in 2008 and then still won re-election 2012 that it was decided that actually being moderate wasn't what mattered.

I think your only hope on this path is that the Democratic machine politicians are pragmatic enough to be willing to appeal to the centre and far-sighted enough to realise that tricking them is not a long-term solution and powerful enough to force the SJer groundswell into line; I'm not rating that very highly.

Right, wokeness took the class of credentialed expert Democrats consider suitable for appointment to government positions by storm. Democratic appointees will be woke by default. Having a moderate at the top of the ticket isn't enough to produce a non-woke Democratic administration. You'd need someone at the top of the ticket who understood wokeness and was actively against it.

Even then, against the present backdrop of elite ideological opinion they'd have a very hard time sourcing non-woke appointees and staffers; they'd constantly be fighting woke flareups in their own administration, and the woke are masterful at causing PR nightmares or internal organizational strife when they don't get their way.

The problem is that Biden the 2021-2024 President, or rather his administration, wasn't moderate at all, because apparently the lesson they learned was "fake being moderate on the campaign trail and then exploit it once in power".

Well, more specifically, Biden couldn’t be moderate because the available people to staff his admin aren’t. For similar reasons republican admins have to be pro-life.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats