site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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.

106
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You're forgetting that reality has a left wing bias.

Consider the keffals drama: if it was a rightoid vying for a rightoid cause, they would not have enjoyed the success that keffals did. Keffals manages to represent the mainstream, popular interest, and thus with minimal effort on her part she can succeed in her goals. While keffals instigated and pushed forward the situation, she only managed to do so because the broader world was prepared and receptive. Compare something like the Ottawa trucker protests. Possibly due to the police being supportive of their cause, they managed to dig their heels in and create a protest that seemed to actually be challenging the powers that be. Gofundme was allowing them to receive donations. The media was altogether against them, the house of commons passed the emergency act and started freezing bank accounts and arresting people, and suddenly their whole movement was fucked. Keffals, while she might seem the underdog in a given matchup, enjoys the support of the cathedral, while the truckers, while they may have seemed to momentarily have the upper hand, didn't.

The relative penetration of either side on online platforms just reflects the inherent bias of those platforms. Fun, playful rightoid youtubers either got taken down, or completely shifted their politics towards leftoidism to protect themselves. Very serious and careful, usually quite milquetoast, rightoid youtubers are also still around. The result is that it seems like only leftoids can be playful, when in fact the platforms themselves filter away playful rightoids.

I don't see any meaningful way in which the "the Right [lost] the terminally online". Many terminally online people are rightoids. You don't usually see them on reddit or twitter, because they get banned on reddit or twitter. Or they attenuate their views there to avoid being banned.