site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm curious if it's genuinely a matter of price. The Harris campaign is rolling in dough, and spending it in much worse ways. If it were worries about getting tied to a sinking ship, the endorsement is enough of an albatross.

My first thought is that there's some process limitations that make it hard to get done so quickly. There's reasons charity concerts after disasters often take the better part of a month if not months to assemble: planning properly for a 10k+ person assembly is a nightmare, and converting one type of assembly into another doesn't buy anywhere near the sort of stability you'd hope for.

But I have seen that sorta thing move faster before, and Harris (surrogates) have been motioning around it as long as there's been a Harris campaign. So I dunno.

I think it comes down to Beyonce doesn't want to do it.

Why? I don't know. Speculation? They don't see themselves as circus clowns for whatever the Democratic candidate of the day is. They truly believe in themselves as black royalty. (Which others, like the NFL, seem to agree with)

When it comes to the black elite, it's them and...people allied to them. There's no hostile Elon Musk-style billionaires on the other side. They're the top of the layer cake and have a monopoly on "celebrities who can mobilize black voters" or, more cynically, "celebrities white female staffers believe can mobilize black voters".

They might be willing to take a somewhat deferential stance towards Barack Obama, but he actually was the first black president and actually did win his elections before retiring to make enough money to be in their tax bracket. He can be primus inter pares.

Kamala Harris is no Obama.

Beyonce doesn't actually need to dance around for her and it's somewhat demeaning for there to be an expectation that she has to (for a person that doesn't even deign to give interviews anymore, so certain is she in her cultural cachet) so Kamala can salvage a campaign event. She's Queen Bey after all, her laying hands on Kamala should achieve the goal of telling her people who to vote for. She did Kamala - and the Democrats - a favor already.

There's nothing odd about this: Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johannsen support Democrats but don't have to do soliloquys for whoever the Democrats randomly picked to lead them. They give an endorsement and the party is happy to get that much.

Leave that the dancing bear behavior to the Meg Thee Stallions of the world. She's still hungry and climbing the ladder.

This is kinda off the wall, but I'm wondering if the local democrats didn't make enough problems to prevent Beyonce from performing? The Harris county democrats are at least partly(but not entirely) tied to/infiltrated by the state level GOP and it's entirely plausible that this is a cheap favor by democrats for Ted Cruz.