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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32962 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Yes, and what do you think being judged for not going to church or not going to the rally is? It puts social pressure on you to conform. Thats what social cohesion is, limiting the options available.

You may not like the culture they are building and enforcing, just the way i don't necessarily like that small town America forced gay people ro stay in the closet but it is a step towards a more homogeneous culture. And often that is led by "church ladies" or the equivalent. HR are the church ladies of your company. They tell the pastor you were seen at a strip club or with a woman other than your wife, so as to shame you and enforce certain standards.

And i already noted the communication degree is probably not necessary.

Yes, and what do you think being judged for not going to church or not going to the rally is? It puts social pressure on you to conform. Thats what social cohesion is, limiting the options available.

Social cohesion is persuading me to work for the benefit of the group. You can make me go through the motions with threats of ostracism, but you're not going to make me walk the extra mile for you, not unless there's something in it for me. That's the opposite of cohesion.

Maybe you're an outlier but history shows us people will do a lot to avoid being ostracised. Fear and shame are strong motivators and every cohesive society uses them liberally. Because they work on most people.

We learn them as kids very early. You'll get mocked for having the wrong shoes or being a nerd, or nowadays not being a nerd, and most people react by publicly at least going along with it. Not everyone of course, but enough.

People here are likely to be more contrarian than average, but for most people thesectools are extremely effective.

Maybe you're an outlier but history shows us people will do a lot to avoid being ostracised.

I'm not. The entire Eastern Block functioned the way I described, and you've misunderstood everything I'm saying. Yes people will do the bare minimum to avoid getting ostracised.

It seems the West is now determined to reproduce the East's success. Have fun doing so, but don't act surprised if the progressive dream of equality is achieved through making everything equally crap.

My point is this is already how it is and has been in the West. The change is just in what not how.

I'm in my 50's and this dynamic is entirely normal here.

I would just like to add that Western Conformism being the norm at all is arguably a strong reason why we're even having this discussion right now--the counter-culture rebelled so hard that it re-wrote our culture practically on accident. So, to echo Arjin's perspective, maybe we should strive to emulate neither the Commissars nor the HUAC.

With respect, you have no idea what you're talking about. In your arguments you only brought up absolute minorities as a counterpoint. Sure, they can be dominated. Them adhering to the rules only when they're afraid of being caught is fine because they're absolute minorities. The game is completely different when a good chunk of society is cynical.

I'm confused. Of course particular instances of social cohesion can fail. Christianity arguably lost its cohesive grip, "Wokeness" could lose its current grip or fail to entirely eclipse older ideologies, but the behaviours and the fact that the people pushing the social buttons are important remains. The bedrock of all social technologies starts with shame and fear and works from there. Christianity, communism, wokeness, whatever, i am not making value judgements about the particular ideology being pushed, just the generalities of HOW which they all share.

The fact remains in my opinion however that most people in most social do get "assimilated" and are not cynics. Thats what ideas such as doublethink and the king has got no clothes and people complaining about how people can flip ideas on mask mandates so easily gesture at. Its not based on facts its based on social pressures.

And most people (probably adaptively) bow to social pressure. Most assimilate it seamlessly into their world view, "light" cynics mouth the words only at first but as the old adage goes say something enough times and you begin to believe it.

That leaves only a small cadre of outliers, your "true" cynics which are likely to be over represented here. But nothing in my over 50 years on this earth across multiple countries makes me think they are the majority. Or even a large minority.

The fact remains in my opinion however that most people in most social do get "assimilated" and are not cynics.

Well, now I'm confused. All this time I've been arguing that they are and you never actually denied it until now. You were saying that cynically showing up at the events, and chanting the slogans is what social cohesion *is*.

And most people (probably adaptively) bow to social pressure.

I never said they don't, I'm saying that doesn't make them not cynics.

"light" cynics mouth the words only at first but as the old adage goes say something enough times and you begin to believe it.

So you think people actually believe the corporate propaganda about "we're a family"?

That leaves only a small cadre of outliers, your "true" cynics which are likely to be over represented here. But nothing in my over 50 years on this earth across multiple countries makes me think they are the majority. Or even a large minority.

Do the many countries include any post-communist ones? Actually, the question is a bit unfair, because I'd turn any answer you give against you. If you weren't there you have no chance of knowing what I'm talking about, and if you were and didn't see it, you were just blissfully unaware.

Just to be clear i am talking at a meta level. People can become cynical about a particular ideology. Which is a symptom that, that ideology failed to, or is failing to influence enough people to maintain/create social cohesiveness. But that doesn't mean they are cynics in general. I know quite a lot of post Soviet people who are huge advocates for capitalism for example, so their cynicism was limited to the failures of communism specifically (for pretty good rrasons of course!)

Wokism might well have a lot of cynics against it specifically, but tomorow those HR ladies will be promoting Trad-Catholicism or Retro-Paganism or whatever.

They are always valuable and important even if a particular ideology promoting cohesiveness fails. Because there will be another and another until one sticks for a while.

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I think this is wrong: niceness and cooperation, voluntary selflessness, the whole Goddess-Of-Everything-Else stuff, that is how things get built. Shame and coercion only get you so far, but the externalities will eventually come back--and as we see right now, when the dam bursts, those leading the sudden revolution are more than happy to throw out the old baby with the nasty bathwater.

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