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 -
This is interesting because I think the government should influence the peoples political opinions. Democratic competition naturally encourages division. If the losing side gets to stick around and try again indefinitely, you quickly end up with a whole lot of people who are really angry about how at least half the decisions went. You want a population that mostly agrees with each other as a backdrop against which the current battles are fought, and unless you believe in the right side of history to a truely insane extent, thats not gonna happen on its own.
What distinguishes this from authoritarianism? Perhaps here we can steelman Levitsky and Way: The left, for all the questionable things they may have done, really have influenced public opinion to a great degree. By contrast, the measures that they worry about with Trump would attack relatively "late in the pipeline" - prosecuting rival candidates for example doesnt do a lot for public opinion, but its good at winning elections. Obviously, this kind of influence has failed eventually, as shown by Trump 2x (and maybe some of the more extreme measures against him are because of that), but maybe as an optimistic lefty you see this as an abberation - bad macroeconomic luck, or the left overplaying their hand, or something like that. Certainly it seems easier for the left to regain this influence, than for the right to build its own version in 4 years. So a republican competitive autocracy would look like those third-world examples, and a democrat one wouldnt necessarily. Here I go doomering again I guess.
See this is where I disagree vehemently. To have the government effectively decide where the Overton Window sits and basically indoctrinate its people into a set of beliefs and values in order to swing the elections is tyrannical. And at least in a bad old tyranny there was a limit to the things that a tyrannical regime would care about. The old tyrant wanted my loyalty, he wanted my obedience. He did not, however care if I agreed with trans ideology, if I agree with blank slatism, if I think that Israel or Palestinians are in the right. That is honestly something I’d rather like about a monarchy or something like that. Instead of having to teach everyone to agree that we need to support some side in a conflict, you just tell me we’re sending weapons to Kazakhstan and be done with it. Instead of teaching my kids to see trans as an option, just decide you’re allowing it and leave my kid alone.
I feel like no democratic society actually is allowed to have an organic culture because it’s all being manipulated all the time. You’re being told what you must think and believe by professional opinion shapers rather than allowing opinions to develop naturally.
I understand that you feel that way, but I think youre not engaging with my arguments at all. Im not saying the government should "decide what the overton window is". I think they should apply some effort to persuasion. The whole reason youre worried youd have to agree with trans ideology is that your country is already so divided that theres two diametrically opposed ideologies which can change places based on 2% fluctuations of the vote. Wouldnt it be great if you hadnt gotten into this situation to begin with?
We worry a lot about factions in power being corrupted by that power, but we should also worry about factions out of power developing unrealistic and insane standards because they can afford to. In your comment below, you like church, family, and community: do those work without something to pull the people in them towards agreement? No, but you arent paranoid about it there because youre not worried about the enemy tribe. Very well then: have a national divorce, once, and then run your government as I described. Dont raise paranoia into a general principle which would in the end tear down that new nation as well. The liberal principle of the separation of state and society that you want to use to protect traditional institutions, is the same principle by which the state thinks it needs to protect individuals from them.
But the thing is that you can only actually get there by manufacturing consent. The only way to get from a very divided situation of a 2% swing on a major issue like trans, and especially trans kids is to do exactly what was done (and had been done previously to normalize gayness and before that integration) take control of the education and mass media systems and pump the culture with pro trans content. Which is why kids are getting easy-read books in their schools so that five year olds can be taught tge wonders of grown men pretending to be women. And then when they turn on the TV every citizen will be given hours of such propaganda and every show must have a token gay, trans or bisexual character.
If people were honestly coming to the conclusion that such things were good, fine. But that’s not how most of this stuff happens. Most of the ideas that we have consensus on are not coming about from people in their own homes and communities wrestling with the issue and spontaneously deciding to go along. It’s people being subjected to propaganda, then eventually accepting that they have to go along because they don’t want to be seen as the bigot. And eventually they are made to understand that HR will be+displeased if they say such crimethink out loud.
I agree, thats going to be diffcult to get out of either way. But if you could start out in a situation without problems like that, do you think theres no reliable way to prevent opinions from shifting too far apart other than evilbad propaganda?
Stop resting the legitimacy of government decisions on the backs of the peasants. When there was a monarchy, people didn’t try to convince the peasants, they tried to convince the king.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
In particular there are always motives for a government in control of the Overton Window to push the window towards Big Government and away from checks & balances.
Not only that but weakening any competition. Churches and the family are competition for the loyalty and power of the state. A state full of strong families doesn’t need to provide nearly as many social services. Because the wife raises the kids, they grow up healthy and well adjusted, achieve more, and are less likely to engage in self-destructive or criminal behavior. But this leaves a lot less need for government intervention in social structures. A society of weak families needs government services: subsidized daycare, welfare, addiction counseling, abortion, etc. and to boot is less able to teach its children itself which means less competition for the tender minds of the youth. The same is true at larger scale of churches and communities. Yet, to listen to modern culture, none of that is true. The modern culture, through every organ teaches that parents are at best clueless, and at worst bigoted. Women must be protected from their husbands, schools must act bravely to protect kids who want to change their gender, etc. now abuse can and does happen, but it’s much much rarer than it’s held out to be by official organs. And again the same applies to churches and communities: the abuse and rabid fundamentalism the public is told to fear are rarer than advertised.
But all of those are competition. So the public must be taught to be selfish (to break community bonds), to fear religion (which provides help and might contradict the government on some issue), and to prioritize everything else over the family (and thus remove competition for values and services).
Congratulations: this is a point that makes considerable sense in retrospect that I hadn't seen before. Thank you!
More options
Context Copy link
For an extremely literal example, see kulturkampf- although the German state lost that time, this has been an enduring tendency of German centralization of power.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link