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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29057 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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Please ignore the context of this tweet (Elon reXt it, so it is CW fire): https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1879273049075458217

What I instead found curious was the usage of "GM (Global Majority) formerly known as BAME (Black, Asian, Middle East)" which I had never read before. But I am not British. Wiki has a short article about the term, maybe it will be longer in future:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_majority&oldid=1257733067

The term was used as early as 2003 as a way to challenge the normativity of a white majority or Eurocentric perspective […]
In 2020, the Church of England created an Archbishops' Anti-Racism Taskforce … "United Kingdom Minority Ethnic/Global Majority Heritage" (UKME/GMH) as more appropriate than BAME.[16] The language of "Global Majority Heritage" is seen as a reminder that minorities often come from a majority culture before migrating to the UK.
In November 2022, the Labour-run Westminster City Council committed to replace BAME with "global majority."

It seems to still be fringe/local use, but I wonder if it will be the new preferred term. Being part of a minority sounds small/miserable, you are an outsider. But being part of the global majority, now that sounds grand and legitimate, you are the demos.

What a stupid, self-abrogating way to discuss something.

It was suggested in a reply that part of the switch is that Minority Ethnic will fall out of usage because White British are a minority ethnic when distinguished from the overarching "White" category in City of London and City of Westminster. Still the plurality, though.

Which led me down the Wikipedia hole. The UK Other White population pyramids are pretty fascinating, there's almost no male surplus at any age across any subpopulation. Noticeable female surplus of White Germans and White North Americans at almost every age. White New Zealander/Australian is less symmetric and "smooth" than the rest.

Which led me down the Wikipedia hole. The UK Other White population pyramids are pretty fascinating, there's almost no male surplus at any age across any subpopulation. Noticeable female surplus of White Germans and White North Americans at almost every age. White New Zealander/Australian is less symmetric and "smooth" than the rest.

European women, like in the Anglosphere, are more likely to go to college and emigrate than the men. The men stay behind. The same thing happens within-country. There are more East German women in Hamburg and Munich than East German men. There are more rust belt women in NYC than rust belt men. So it goes.

I believe you, but this is counterintuitive to me and I really want some theories about why it happens that way. Simply college statistics? Or do women believe they have more to gain from moving than men do?

Fred Pearce's Peoplequake wrote about rural-to-urban migration as a majority-female phenomenon almost everywhere in 2011. As well as pull factors (modern low-end manufacturing is pink-collar work, cities have more mid-level administrative jobs) there is the important push factor that some women are fleeing patriarchal rural and small-town communities for the obvious feminist reasons. Most women really don't want to end up as a farmer's wife*. And if you are betraying your religious parents by moving to the city and adopting a feminist lifestyle then the marginal cost (pre-Brexit, at least) of moving to London over Frankfurt is low.

Most of the young German women I meet in London are Bavarians from conservative CSU-voting families. (Though I suspect the real skew there may still be post-WW2 occupation era war brides.) Most of the educated Polish women I meet in London are running away from social conservatives in rural and small-town Poland.

* The Instragram tradwife trend isn't about being a farmer's wife - it is about being the wife of a man rich enough to buy you a hobby "farm".

Language courses are overwhelmingly female, even compared with the overall college population. And they usually include a year abroad which is a big driver of moving abroad more permanently.

Status and college, basically. Why women are more likely to go to college is pretty simple- there is no other acceptable life path for a middle class(the majority in western countries) woman than one in which she has a college degree. Even housewives are expected to have bachelors degrees these days.

Lmao, this sounds like a parody of what right wingers believe about leftist tactics: From "we are a tiny wittle minority, uguu, you have to wespect our wights" to "We are the majority of the world, we get to say how things are done"

For this reason, I don't think it'll have much staying power.

Funnily enough, I had the exact opposite impression: I rather wonder whether this will be picked up by the far right as a way to legitimize opposition to immigration, in normie eyes: “Real diversity” means preserving the native people and culture of $WHITE_WESTERN_COUNTRY, who are a tiny, beleaguered minority in global terms.

One man’s modus ponens and all that.

This already is one of the main arguments used by white identitarians. It has been for decades. “We must jealously guard what remains of the European genetic legacy; we will be overwhelmed by replacement migration and our genes will be diluted beyond recognition, as we simply are not numerous enough (nor fertile enough) to remain genetically separate under those conditions.” The whole “global majority” gloating has been in use for at least a few years now, and many figures on the online right have noticed it.

"We must jealously guard what remains of the European genetic legacy; we will be overwhelmed by replacement migration and our genes will be diluted beyond recognition, as we simply are not numerous enough (nor fertile enough) to remain genetically separate under those conditions.”

What's sad to me is that these people rarely understand why that's cause for concern besides the cosmetic aspect. Even (by modern standards) extremist racists have only the vaguest notion of how phenomenologically-different we all are.

You can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools.

But actually you can. The tools used to build a house could very much be used to destroy it.

I think the important part of the metaphor is that this isn't just any old set of tools, they belong to someone called "the master." He might lend them to you for a specific purpose like doing housework, but if you start trying to destroy his house, he will instantly call down the thunder on you. The only way to really destroy his house is to forcibly take away his power.

It's a bad metaphor. There's a house, a master, his tools, and the objective of dismantling. Whatever those stand for either the tools are powerful enough to produce a house and defend it from attacks to unseat its master and dismantle it, or they're not. Metaphors-lawyering about which bits are powerful and pertinent or not, and when, and how, for who, all just undermines the metaphor.

It's a counterculture koan. It's purpose is to make you think about The System and sound wise while doing it.

It's ironic that by analysing the phrasing we can neutralise the text. The very tools that the writer used to build this house...

A compromise - it's a bad metaphor if you refuse to consider the second order effects of your actions

In any war both sides use plenty of similar tools against each other because they work. You don't see a war when one side is capable but decides to not use bullets, missiles, tanks, artillery, air force.

Promoting sympathy for X by portraying them as a minority group under threat is a tool that seems like it would work. X is treated with less sympathy because of rhetoric promoting sympathy for Z as a minority under threat and X as the threat. There isn't any logic to why this won't work if you potray different groups with sympathy and others as threatening them.

Throughout history different tribes promoted narratives that were pro their tribe and antagonistic to other tribes, which worked better than if they did nothing.

One can say that going too far with tribalism might lead to backlash, or can be detrimental in how other tribes are treated. But not going far enough is guaranteed to be detrimental and never lead to any dismantling or weakening of ideology against the group that is adviced not to use the master's tools. So it is a bad advice for the side that has been under siege to avoid using any of the tools of their more tribalist opposition. From a general ethical viewpoint, what in excess is immoral and in too little quantity is bad, in the right amount can be the right thing to do. Beyond just effectiveness.

Slavery itself was ended through force and so it was ended by the tool that maintained it. Rhetoric advocating for and against slavery was another rhetoric used by both sides. Both sides even used the bible. Supporters of slavery might have thought of their own political influence and opponents might have thought of their declining political influence and rise of influence of slave states. Economic interests that relate to slavery and then to those whose under industrial revolution and their different societal organization they didn't benefit with slavery as much and might saw such areas as antagonistic, might had been a factor. Both enslaved who opposed slavery and slave owners where thinking of their interests in opposing each other.

This idea that X group unlike Z group should not pursue their own interests and promote rhetoric framing things in defense of themselves because in doing so they will lose, is not only false but very counter intuitively false.

I never understood why this aphorism is a thing. It seems wrong both literally (in what setting that is not a video game do tools come with friendly fire proofing?) and as a metaphor (almost every successful revolution co-opts components nurtured by the system it overthrows). Are there reasons to keep it alive beyond some sort of postmodern appeal (it sneaks in the assumption that your opposition are akin to slaveholders, and appears to say authoritatively that you should reject "tools" on association with the enemy rather than on merit)?

Like others have said, it's a useful heuristic. I'd say that's because it connects to the same idea as "set a thief to catch a thief," and black hat hackers becoming top security consultants. Who knows better how to defend against a tactic than those expert in it's use? If you want to know how to build the strongest safe, ask the world's best safecracker.

This is why I get frustrated with fellows on the right who make arguments like 'well, if the left took over all these institutions via an entryist "long march," why don't we just do our own "long march" infiltration to take them back?" or 'since the left so effectively weaponized demographic change against us (via mass immigration), we'll easily be able to weaponize it right back (via birth rates).' It misses that in the past cases, the right was not on guard against these tactics from the left, but the left, being intimately familiar with them, will see them coming and be prepared to shut them down. No institution is better protected against entryists attempting to infiltrate than one which has already been taken by entryists. (Again, who knows better how to stop and catch a burglar than a better, more experienced burglar.) And just because the right mostly stood by and did little when the left used mass immigration, does not mean the left will stand by and let right-wingers outbreed them. If anything, it means the opposite: they'll be watching demographics closely, on watch for the slightest sign of reversal, and ready to use any and all means at their disposal to shut down any attempt from the start.

It's not about 'rejecting "tools" on association with the enemy' (I personally hate that argument), it's about classic, pragmatic strategy, going all the way back to Sun-Tsu, about not fighting battles that inherently favor the enemy.

I’m sure it’s as falsifiable as any other absolute, but it’s not a bad heuristic. The master of the house has a head start. Better to deny him his tools than to try and catch up.

They don't have to be akin to slaveholders, they just have to be in charge of a corrupt process.

Because it rings true. The contents of Lourde's essay "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House" are largely postmodern garbage, but the title is clearly getting at something. The methods those in power used to construct the institutions they use to exercise power can only build those institutions. You can't build a hereditary monarchy by voting, and the divine right of kings will never get you a democracy.

but the title is clearly getting at something

I find it interesting that my primary take at the title is that anyone that finds themselves with the power (tools) to dismantle the system has enough power that merely taking over the system (house) becomes much easier and more enjoyable. And I think that bears out: quite a few "freedom fighters" have really just ended with taking the throne for themselves. The (rare) principled exceptions to that seem IMO to prove the rule.

A lot of hereditary monarchies start by winning a vote (Hugh Capet, or the old greek cycle where democracy devolves into tyranny) .

the divine right of kings will never get you a democracy

Divine Right of Kings => Mandate of Heaven => Popular Sovereignty imbued by the Creator.

The old Greek cycle almost never resulted in a hereditary monarchy- a series of dictatorships usually had their succession dealt with through power struggles.

Cypselus was the first tyrant of Corinth in the 7th century BC. Like the signori of late medieval and Renaissance Italy, the tyrants usually seized power at the head of some popular support. As in Renaissance Italy, a cult of personality naturally substituted for the divine right of the former legitimate royal house. He ruled for thirty years and in 627 BC was succeeded as tyrant by his son Periander, who was considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypselus

According to Polyaenus, Syloson was a general of the Samians who was believed to have democratic leanings. He suggests that Syloson was the founder of a tyrannical dynasty which ruled Samos for most of the sixth century BC, being succeeded first by Aeaces and then by Polycrates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syloson_(son_of_Calliteles)

Pisistratus  was a politician in ancient Athens, ruling as tyrant in the late 560s, the early 550s and from 546 BC until his death.  Pisistratus' championing of the lower class of Athens is an early example of populism. Pisistratids is the common family or clan name for the three tyrants, who ruled in Athens from 546 to 510 BC, referring to Pisistratus and his two sons, Hipparchus and Hippias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisistratus

To use a left-wing example (since the anti-colonialist movement influenced a lot of the rhetoric): you don't want to be playing into ethnic competition that allowed divide and rule since it won't work for you the way it worked for the white man.

This is basically what Lourde seems to be drawing on to justify claiming that treating groups like black lesbians as non-central is some great betrayal of feminism. This argument is much less unconvincing on its face when applied to some state trying to maintain a hierarchy of ethnic groups.

...but Germans voted in Hitler, and Juan Carlos I sort of ordained a transition to democracy in Spain after Franco (if you squint). Outside of the low-N domain that is the political system of a country, there are even more examples of a house being dismantled using its master's tools, first and foremost the progressive takeover of positivist academia. What is entryism, even, if not an attempt to seize the Master's tools to have a go at the house?

(On the meta level, as a right-winger who is adopting this catchphrase, are you not also aiming to use the postmodernist Master's tool against his house - directly, and one step up the meta ladder in that you are in fact even copying the strategy of claiming that "the master's tools will never..." while aiming to employ the master's tools to that end yourself?)

but Germans voted in Hitler

Did they? My understanding was that the Nazis got much less than a majority, but the votes led to a plurality Nazi bloc in the legislature, and in the hopes of throwing them a bone in order to control them and assuage street violence, the President offered the chancellorship to Hitler as part of a theoretical pseudo-coalition. Then Hitler used the chancellorship to orchestrate extraconstitutional "emergency" power-grabs after the Reichstag fire, enabled through threats of violence to Reichstag members.

This would of course not be the last time someone thought "let's just give Adolf what he wants to satisfy him." But I would not describe what happened as "the German people decisively voted that they wanted the Nazis to have full control over society and Hitler to be a dictator." It's much more like a large group of Germans, some out of passionate love for Nazism and some out of desperation amid economic crisis, voted for the Nazi party, and then they used the first tiny, slight grip on power to establish a dictatorship through violence.

I thought the story was that the broad establishment coalition(conservative dominated but included everyone except Nazis and actual communists) needed either Nazi or commie votes to form a government, and picked Hitler over Stalin.

Either way, it remains true that Hitler did not win a democratic mandate.

"Proportional Representation: Literally Hitler"!

The progressives did NOT dismantle the house; they skin-suited it. This may be almost as good or even better politically, but it's not the same as bringing on their postmodern utopia.

I’m sorry, did you mean “main’s house with the main’s tools”?

—GitHub, probably

The job itself seems like a sinecure and I expect any candidate - GM or otherwise - applying would be disappointed. £65,000 for a secretary in the UK is an extremely high wage unless they’re literally the personal assistant to the CEO of a FTSE 100 or something. They already have someone in mind.

That was my first reaction to that as well. I'm always surprised by how low UK wages are, and that seemed exorbitant. I thought maybe there was some translation effect and that role was much more important than it sounds from the title.

The salary advertised here is at the grade for entry (or occasionally mid) level management roles, on the central London local govt pay scale. The Head of CEx office position (usual "right hand man" role) will be paid £70-£90k at WCC, and would be this person's line manager. Usually an EA role at Westminster Council would be paid £35-45k. This post will almost certainly be at the bottom of the payscale advertised (standard way it works in local govt. with roles at this level) and £54k for the CEx EA starts to sound more reasonable.

The DEI stuff is standard boilerplate WCC use on all their adverts (still a bit mad). I'd be very surprised if it was sinecured, more likely a way for the CEx to get someone with a bit of brains into his office by using a budgeted role who can fill in with doing some other stuff. Worth remembering too that WCC is the richest council by far and can afford to do this type of thing easily.

"Head of Office" is used in the UK where Americans would use "Chief of Staff".

Chief Executive of a British council is equivalent to a US city manager - they are a permanent employee who runs the city under the direction of the majority leadership of the elected council. Total population of the City of Westminster is 211 thousand.

So in US terms the position being advertised is deputy chief of staff to the city manager of a municipality with a population (within municipal borders) of c.200k in the core of a large metro area, with the appropriate pay adjustment for a high cost of living area.

It’s not really deputy chief of staff, that’s a completely different hiring track. This pay band is like a mid-level fast-tracked civil servant’s pay for an executive assistant job title working 36 hours a week (ie much, much less than the example of the FTSE 100 C-level EA, who might be on £90-100k but is also working 60+ hours and travelling). Chief of Staffs don’t do scheduling or hiring (they have their own teams / assistants to do that), this person is going to be bringing in cups of tea and biscuits when the CEO of the council meets with politicians and business leaders.

Nah this won't be a teas and biscuits job, they have separate staff for that, the catering team are usually at the beck and call of senior civil servants at City Hall.

You're right that this isn't a "deputy chief of staff", but I'd be pretty sure they'll be doing slightly more challenging work than pure diary management - the casework part in the ad gives a clue. Still overpaid vs. standard EA at Westminster though.

Sure, but it is still technically a secretarial role that is being advertised at about a 25-50% premium compared to the other secretaries in the same organisation. However, secretaries at the top of government bureaucracies don't necessarily function the same as secretaries lower down, or in private businesses. Basically agreeing with you that the pay is more reasonable than it seems given context but also a little eye brow raising.

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