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 -
All three of these articles about "cranks" on the right parse as: People who disagree with right-wingers think right-wingers are wrong. I am not a crank -- I'm right about everything!
I think this is an unfairly low effort dismissal. I don't like all the people above, but they are thoughtful and making more of an effort at fairness than you suggest. Read Ymeskhout's if you haven't and look at things like Trump's post about AI crowds that were included in it. I understand the traditional Motte argument that Trump lies like a used car salesman and Democrats lie like lawyers and there is certainly some truth to that. And I agree that at the moment Democrat lies are more dangerous precisely because they have a veneer of respectability and acceptability by institutions. However, I don't think that changes the fact that Republicans really have become the party of choice for conspiracy theorists that have very little grounding in reality. It is a very particular kind of mindset that is a not insignificant portion of the electorate and it has become increasingly partisan in recent years particularly since Trump and doubly so since COVID.
He's my friend, I have a cameo in the article. His belief is that Republicans are going crazy, he respects my intelligence but thinks I have a reality distortion field that makes me irrational about Trump. Sure, he can think that -- and I think he's wrong! The theory is that we're wrong about everything, we're conspiracy theorists, we're cranks, we're crazy, we believe things without evidence, etc. etc. etc. Most of these guys don't actually know anything about the evidence: I sincerely doubt Hanania could give a steelman of RFK's position about vaccines, or Corona, or a steelman about anything, frankly. Yassine, at least, has been very patient in having these kinds of conversations, but I don't think he would really accept any of these arguments as legitimate: he isn't convinced, and he's not convinced anyone else should be convinced. So they're not just wrong arguments, they're crank arguments, conspiracy arguments, etc.
Democrats are the party of people who act as if there isn't a Replication Crisis. I see the worst nonsense taken credulously just because it was in a study somewhere. Corona came from wet markets? Puberty blockers are reversible? I can go on bluesky right now and find people arguing that Kamala won the election and has all the evidence and will coup Trump any day now. Please, please, I cannot stand to hear more about how I need to carefully consider the people who call me crazy because they didn't carefully consider me. The right does not have a monopoly on nonsense and that is so apparent that it's embarrassing to be told otherwise.
More options
Context Copy link
I just don't know man. What percent of people believe in Russiagate still?
Let's be honest. We're all cranks on some level. What percentage of people are religious? And for the atheist left, it's arguably worst. They seem to have replaced the religion sized hole in their hearts with a grab-bag of semi coherent belief systems.
What percentage of people believe in astrology? How many believe in bad luck?
I think what we're really noticing is that the left credentializes its cranks while the right does not. We have a (now resigned in disgrace) editor of Scientific American saying that the only reason male athletes beat female athletes is societal bias. The scientific establishment has been colonized by the left, who have used it to give a scientific sheen to many of their wacky, incorrect beliefs.
At one point, people who believed in antiseptic medicine were cranks. People who believed in plate tectonics were cranks.
But (going further back now) doctors of the church who calculated the age of the Earth using Biblical text were not cranks. They were credentialed experts.
I think what broke a lot of people (myself included) was the disastrous and anti-scientific response to Covid, which every step of the way was blessed by the so-called experts. It's not really about magical belief systems (which the Left has in plenty). It's about power.
How many headlines showed up, pointing to random studies, calling right wingers dumb or conspiracy-prone?
How many left figures show up now and imply that the left rejects grifters and grift in a way that the right does not? Perhaps this point is worth its own high-level post.
Maybe I get this impression just because I avoid leftist spaces like the plague, but it really does seem like the right is more inundated with obvious, low-quality grifters. I attribute this to the fact that Republicans have become more heavily dependent on the less educated, but also because a lack of established media orgs leads to grifters fulfilling the demand from an underserved market.
Probably true if we confine our examination to X.
But, literally, there are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of people who are employed in DEI. They are being paid billions of dollars each year to grift in an official capacity. I think we should probably tackle the taxpayer-funded grifters before worrying about random Twitter bros.
I do agree that it's a great time to be a right-wing grifter, but only because it's a growth industry. The number of people making money off left-wing grifts still exceeeds the inverse by a factor of at least 10.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Ymeskhout called it a crazy conspiracy theory to think progressive prosecutors were using procedural manipulation to favor BLM rioters.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link