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 -
That's a good description of what I've observed of American politics.
To riff on this, I've recently been thinking a lot about how the Right tends to win elections. It seemingly tends to always boil to two particular claims, which could be expressed as slogans:
the Left will lose your money - we'll be responsible with it
the Left will make you unsafe - we'll keep the threats at bay
In other words, in the end, it boils down to safety, both material safety and personal safety. Currently, the right-wing parties are doing quite well in the polls for the upcoming Finnish elections, and there's simultaneously a lot of ongoing debates that favor the Right because they can be turned into safety debates on these fronts:
the left-wing government has got the country into debt (after Covid and Ukraine, yes, but also to implement other programs) - this will lead to the "road of Greece" and an economic catastrophe (MATERIAL SAFETY)
the left-wing government has signed treaties to preserve too much of the Finnish forest, shackling the forest industry from creating wealth and jobs (MATERIAL SAFETY)
the left-wing government has not done enough to combat crime or send away criminal immigrants, leading to street gangs (PERSONAL SAFETY)
the left-wing parties only started the process to join the NATO when forced by the Russian invasion, leaving the country in a limbo (PERSONAL SAFETY)
And so on. Not that I'd agree with the made claims in this format, but they're certainly currently having an effect. Of course, the government in turn benefitted from the early years of COVID epidemic, managing to keep the disease numbers low with comparatively modest measures compared to many other countries and thus turning this into a safety issue of its own kind as well, but that's gone too, with the excess death numbers rising and COVID generally receeding from consciousness.
I'd argue that these safety issue are particularly among those that play a process in people starting to grow more conservative in their 30s and 40s, this being connected to them earning more money, getting kids and becoming increasingly concerned about the potential for crime and unrest in their own neighborhoods. Moreover, there's what could be called an 'altruism shift' - while there's a natural tendency towards altruism and caring for others in most/all people, when they have kids the natural target for this altruism becomes doing everything you can to aid your own kids in growing, instead of the more general kind of save-the-world altruism that people might have when they are younger and/or childless.
However, the American and British right simply have failed in one or both safety fronts, multiple times. Whatever one might say about Brexit, even if one doesn't take the harsh tone described in my original post, it isn't very easy to demonstrate exactly how it has made the British people safer, either on material or personal safety front. It's become pure culture war - and while culture war can have handsome electoral dividends, someone always needs to find a way to turn it into a safety issue in some way for benefit. ie. immigration is pretty easy one ("The left wants to take false asylum seekers to live on your tax monies and do crimes!"), but Brexit is harder.
The American right is doing a bit better, but even there, much of its activist energy seems to be spent on things like the trans issue, again not an easy one to turn into a safety issue, though the whole "anti-groomer" thing seems to be an effort to do that - and also (in an electoral sense) botching the COVID response thing, giving the Democrats themselves a powerful safety issue ("the Right wants to spread a dangerous virus because they listen to loony conspiracy theorists - we'll keep the virus at bay") for a while. Still, I would guess that the current inflation spiral and the post-Floyd rise in crime rates were enough to at least give the Republicans the House in the elections, though it would be harder to just ride those same issues all the way to presidency, unless they are reignited again in a big way.
A Right narrative for Brexit’s “failure” is that of COURSE the EU is punishing Britain for leaving, with punitive measures subtly built into every trade issue.
Geopolitical power plays are a great narrative. Just as Communist China claims the famine which killed nearly a hundred million was mostly the result of the west’s embargo, Britain’s conservatives can claim unpleasant EU trade unfairnesses will continue until either Britain once again allows Belgium to be its sovereign or the EU collapses under a dozen Greeces.
They can, of course, claim that. It just doesn't seem to be working very well for them, at the moment.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The republicans can easily put together a narrative about safeguarding the public from inflation, they would just need a plan to implement.
They don’t have one.
The Republican plan is to not spend 6 trillion dollars while inflation is happening.
You know that's not true.
Their plan is to spend about the same amount because most of the budget is sacred cows, while also increasing effective monetary supply by cutting taxes; because that's been their plan for 40 fucking years.
There's a difference between passing the government budget and passing the government budget plus another 6 trillion in BBB/equity bs.
More options
Context Copy link
Exactly. A genuine plan to reduce inflation would either be incredibly unpopular or would go against the GOP agenda. Or it would be an outside-Overton-window solution that probably won’t work in the long term(eg gold standard).
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