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.

So, your original statement was that "racism = prejudice + power" is "cultural marxism" because cultural marxism is "the idea that we live in an exploitative system, where people are divided into classes, one designated the oppressor, and the other the oppressed."

Your original question was "what was specifically Marxist about class conflict" and that was the answer.

My claim was that the latter statement was extremely broad, and is held in various forms by many historical and present groups unrelated to marxism.

It's not extremely broad. There just aren't that many groups analyzing social relations through the lens of oppressor and oppressed classes. I'm pretty sure you will have a hard time finding a framework that does so, which is not descended from Marxism.

You'll notice that this doesn't directly mention 'enemy classes' at all.

In plain language, what do you think this means:

We are, in Marx's terms, "an ensemble of social relations" and we live our lives at the core of the intersection of a number of unequal social relations based on hierarchically interrelated structures which, together, define the historical specificity of the capitalist modes of production and reproduction and underlay their observable manifestations.

You already claimed that what I said is extremely broad, even though it's very easy to follow. How would you react if I quoted this instead?

Although it is worth noting they are correct about many things in some ways

Why does the concern about statements being extremely broad, and is held in various forms by many historical and present groups unrelated to marxism, vanish when you happen to agree with them?

Aside from the veneer of "lets all agree" vs "i very disagree", it's the same thing - universalism, progressivism, liberating the oppressed, etc.

False. "I have a dream" and "girl can do what boy can do" allow racism and sexism to go both ways, while "patriarchy" and "racism = prejudice + power" hold only one group can be racist and/or sexist.