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 -
Well all ideologies do, not just religions, but regardless of that in politics you will inevitably have a mix of true believers, slightly less true believers all the way down to people who don't believe at all and are just in it for advantage. And you will also have a mix of exactly what ideology or what part of the ideology they believe or value most. So it's certainly more complicated than just pragmatists vs ideologues, I agree. You'll also have your alliance of groups (Evangelicals, business neo-liberals etc.) who also have their own internal balance of pragmatists vs ideologues.
You will have people who do not in fact care about the ideology whatsoever, but are in it for the power. They will push the most pragmatic approach (do whatever we can to win) and will be in tension with the truest believers (maintain our principles at all costs), and they will have varying webs of people who are on the scale at different levels and in different parts of the coalition to convince. That's why pivots are generally not immediate until an internal tipping point is reached.
In my direct experience at a national level most politicians are closer to the pragmatist end and will pretty happily jettison any principle they can get away with for power. It interests me that the Democrats may have accrued more true believers (or at the least truer believers) as it stands, because I think that generally makes it harder to win.
Until just recently there was no need for this kind of hard discussion between pragmatists and true believers because both were winning. It didn’t really start to conflict in a big way until after the October 7 attack. Even during the first Trump administration the strategies to resist it were still more or less in sync.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link