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 -
To start, the idea that Trump is the next Hitler is obviously crazy, overheated political rhetoric. Trump is nothing like Hitler, historical fascism was a movement born out of millions of angry World War I veterans and nothing like it exists or could exist today.
Part of the issue is that American education stinks and so there is simply no broad frame of reference for strongman leaders other than the good leftwing/progressive guys (FDR, Lincoln) and Hitler. You can't compare Trump to a Salazar, Pinochet, Sulla, Hidenberg, Caesar, Augustus, etc, because people simply don't know history well enough.
However, there is a bit of a "woke more correct" element to the Nazi accusations. Historically, communism/progressivism/leftism was an alliance between the intelligensia and aristocrats with the lowest classes. Fascism was renegade aristocrats and a lower-middle-class alliance. Second, Trump's base actually does want him to be much more of a "dictator" than Trump himself wants to be, but sometimes he gives signals as if he is going to play along. Trump's base actually wants him to act alike a real executive in control of the government -- they want him to fire employees and close departments (contra civil unconstitutional civil service law), they want him to ignore unconstitutional Supreme Court rulings, they want him to take strict and harsh measures that are morally beyond the pale by the standards of the current establishment. Overall, the wishes of Trump's base do pose an existential threat to the current post-New Deal, soft-socialist expertocracy. Thus you can see that the left has a working definition of fascism as being: "An alliance of a strongman with the lower-middle class that poses an existential threat to socialist (soft or hard) bureaucratic state." By that working definition, you can seen how Trump does match the pattern.
Ultimately, this is a case of Scott Alexander's worst argument in the world. You rhetorically group A and B together, when A is something with really terrible connotations, in order to have those connotations rub off on B.
More options
Context Copy link