site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33388 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I thought right-wingers hated cancel culture as it was impressing on the First Amendment? Unless right wingers think this isn’t cancelling?

  • -16

I'm not gonna make a long response because it's Sunday night, but if you think about it from 30,000ft voting is a proxy for violence. Once upon a time if my team disagreed with a decision that yours tried to impose on us, we would try to violently resist. Now we vote instead and my team (hypothetically) says 'eh, I guess we're losers on this one' rather than resort to violence. But 'cancel-culture' is pretty clearly (to me) a bridge beyond voting, that's trying to be cute about 'nonviolence.'

All of this is to say - as a general rule - I prefer voting to violence. But 'cancel culture' isn't voting and it isn't 'nonviolence.' "Heading to Africa, hope I don't get aids" does not mean you should be made unemployable and homeless and it's egregious that it's dressed up as cute nonviolence.

As always:

My rules fairly > Your rules fairly > Your rules unfairly

Unfortunately, this probably mirrors the thoughts of a majority of progressives decrying the cancellations of, and status attacks on, insufficiently "patriotic" people in the aftermath of 9/11. There are very, very few principled libertarians.

As far as I know one guy got fired, for saying that people working in the World Trade Center were little nazis who deserved it. And technically he didn't get fired for that, the public attention just forced the university to acknowledge that he was a plagiarist who got promoted to full professor without any qualifications.

The appeal to an imaginary era of right wing censorship is so strange, when the only example anyone can come up with is that people stopped buying Dixie Chicks albums.

To be perfectly clear, I think calling the victims of a major tragedy little Nazis who deserved it would be a firing offense for a professor today, with the possible exception of that tragedy being a GOP convention blowing up, but it seems like a lot of the woke ridiculousness was prefigured by things like freedom fries.

Yeah, I'm definitely not saying things didn't get weird after 9/11 (and in some ways both are typical of American National Hysterias) but professors weren't getting fired for refusing to swear loyalty oaths to The Homeland. The scale and level of coercion were so completely different that it's hard to see the comparison being made in good faith, until you realize some of the people doing it were 3 years old at the time and are working off a mythical version of events we actually remember.

I mean as a principled libertarian I'm not opposed to such tactics in all cases, like Hobbes points out, the state of war is a binary switch and once one's natural rights have been intruded upon, all means to restore them are permissible. As misapplied as it can be, defending yourself is a legitimate justification for terrible things so long as they don't stray into pointless cruelty.

I think there are much worse things than "cancellation" that are entirely morally permissible to do to people who have in fact silenced others.

But here I'm merely pointing to the Nash equilibrium conservatives find themselves in. Which also explains the examples you give and the potency of Bin Laden's successful tactics to provoke retaliation. Complaining that these are unprincipled is just ignoring the nature of power, which always comes before principle in practice.

"people who have in fact silenced others..."

By this do you mean specific people or people who belong to a group you don't like? The difference is constantly being elided or not indicated.

Specific people of course, I don't believe in groups, only in associations of individuals.

Though of course if you're going to have voluntary membership of an organization whose stated purpose is solely to destroy and undermine natural rights, wear its uniforms and do its bidding, I think it's reasonable to assume you are personally guilty. Not that I'm saying it applies in this case.

As always, this just resolves to ’I want to think of myself as anti-cancel-culture but I also want to cancel people’.

Why are you treating this person like an ordinary average normie? They were vp of marketing. A vp of marketing who tried to do something controversial to bring in a new customer base, but their map of the region was off, and so they scuttled their ship. Scuttled it so bad apparently anheuser are restructuring their whole marketing department 'to bring them closer to the brand', aka because it's far too obvious how much they all despise bud's customer base. It was a high risk high reward gambit, and you are ignoring the risk so you can claim right wingers are unprincipled cancel culturers.

Frankly, while this might sound bad formulated like this, it can also be a perfectly coherent position under certain circumstances.

I want to think of myself as anti-killing, but I also want to kill murderers.

Which is consistent. Just like being anti-murder and still believing in a right to lethal self defense. Or having a strong preference for civilization not to end in nuclear hellfire, and yet maintaining a stockpile of warheads and a willingness to press the button, for the sake of MAD.

You think he'd want to cancel people if there was no preexisting cancel culture?

Why not? It's not like consumer boycotts, getting people fired etc. are tactics that haven't been used by whatever political sides long before we started to call them "cancelling".

Consumer boycotts aren't cancel culture. Because for some mysterious reason, when the right had a lot more cultural and political power, left wing figures remained distinctly uncancelled. Whenever asked for an example people reach for the Dixie Chicks, which is wrong for obvious reasons, or have to go all the way back to the Hayes Code or McCarthyism which, unlike modern cancel culture, are recognized as an overreach.

Hold on. I'm not attacking people in the 50's for criticizing McCarthyism, I'm attacking people now for not criticizing Cancel Culture, especially when they did criticize McCarthyism.

"Why are all these Jews in 1935 scared of Adolf Hitler? He kills himself and Germany bans Nazism!"

Isn't that closer to what you are doing here:

They weren't seen as an overreach in their time. Maybe someday cancel culture will be

?

obvious reasons

That's a really weak argument. A cancellation attempt doesn't have to wipe someone from the face of the earth for it to have an effect. Otherwise no one is ever cancelled.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/23/can-things-be-both-popular-and-silenced/

That's a really weak argument.

No it's not. Nybbler is pointing out no one made a cancellation attempt. James Damore lost his job, and even though he could find a new one, he was still cancelled. Louis CK's film got dropped by distributors, and even though he's a popular comedian filling up venues, he was still cancelled. Please show me how anyone even attempted to cancel The Dixie Chicks. Did anyone try to get their record label to drop them? Did they try to get a venue to boot them out, even after tickets were sold? Anything?

Dixie Chicks isn't cancel culture anyway. They were "cancelled" for things they said in public as part of their public performance in the job they were being "cancelled" for.

The same can be said of, e.g., many cancelled academics.

No, because of the other factor that they were "cancelled" by their own customers (or people who would otherwise be their customers).

If students refused to attend lectures by a professor because of their content, and weren't substantially assisted by outside forces (including other staff, Twitter mobs, etc.), I'd agree that wasn't cancellation.

You can't actually make anyone pay attention to fine distinctions though, particularly when the other side has a megaphone, which is why the whole "Cancel culture is just us doing what conservatives have been doing to us all along" thing works every time.

Alternatively, those fine distinctions amount to conceptual gerrymandering and aren't compelling to anyone who isn't already in agreement.

More comments

Some right-wingers don't like cancel culture (when done by the left) but not First Amendment reasons.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I am very anti cancellation and don't like what happened here but in the end am not particularly bothered by it.

Your comment reminded me of this quote from Dune:

"When I am weaker than you I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles"

The way to deal with such "people" is to treat them according to their own principles even when you have power. I know it doesn't apply strictly but it's just "Paradox of tolerance and all that shit" the way leftists use it.

I think there's a difference between an executive getting fired because of some tweet he made on his personal account that's pro-trans, and the executive getting fired for a business decision that actually alienated a core demographic. The former would be cancelling, the latter is how things should work.

If an executive of any given company with a large leftist demographic gave a promotional product to Donald Trump, I don't think people on the right would be too outraged about the executive being fired. They might thing think executive doesn't deserve to be fired because they personally like Donald Trump, but it wouldn't cause the same sort of outrage as the executive being fired because he tweeted out "Donald Trump is a swell guy".

Personally, I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. If you’re tweeting on a personal account on your own time, I think the principle of free speech applies — no one should be held to account for anything they say on their own time, on their own device, and on their own personal account. The only plausible exception is if the tweets in question are made by someone famous and famously connected to the brand, or if the tweets are directly related to their role. A CEO cannot help but represent his company, so he’s a bit more liable. And sometimes the comments bare directly on things that they deal with (for example the head of accounting commenting on various races and their ability to do math) which would be exhibit A in any racial discrimination suit. But if some random grunt is posting on his personal account from his personal device on his own time, I don’t think anyone should be fired for that.

The only plausible exception is if the tweets in question are made by someone famous and famously connected to the brand, or if the tweets are directly related to their role. A CEO cannot help but represent his company, so he’s a bit more liable. And sometimes the comments bare directly on things that they deal with

I'm mostly okay with a rule that "anyone who tweets that they hate their own/their company's customer base lands in hot water".

If their role is to represent the brand, I get that. It’s just that I don’t think it’s reasonable to allow companies to fire people for political or social speech that has nothing to do with their role in the company. It’s kind of an end-run around the principle of free speech if I have to worry that the wrong person misunderstood my tweet and might get me fired. If you’re in a position that has nothing to do with being the face of the brand or in a role where your political or social views have some bearing on whether you can do your job properly, then it’s just using your need for a job as a cudgel against “heresy”. And I fear the chilling effect on free speech when most people have to police their own opinions on important issues because they have to have a job.

It isn't. A marketing executive being fired for an atrociously bad marketing campaign is not cancellation.

Bruh. Come on.

If Bud Light put out a commercial that featured only white people and leftists boycotted them and the VP of marketing got fired, we'd all agree that was a cancellation.

Bruh. Come on. How close are the demographics of bud light drinkers to 100% white compared to 100% trans.

Of course if you make up a stupid example your interlocutor will be made to seem stupid.

It matters who's bringing the politics in. It's possible to put a political meaning on just about anything someone does. It's a favorite tactic of activists--in order to avoid the norms about not beinging in politics where it doesn't belong, the activist just calls some non-political thing political so the activist is justified.

The most likely scenario with a Bud Light commercial featuring white people is that the company decided either to market to an area that was mostly white, or by chance picked people for its commercial who were white, If so, that would be cancellation because Busch was staying nonpolitical and the activists were the ones who introduced the politics, even if the activists try to obfuscate it by saying "well, having an ad full of white people is already political".

deleted

For a brand like bud light, if you really want to have a trans spokesman, don’t pick the femme trans woman known for advertising fashion and Kate Spade purses. Pick a trans man with a beard, for God’s sake. Do you even know your brand?

Part of the problem seems to be that they did know their brand and , and they didn't like it.

The "the brand is too fratty and is dying" quote from the VP can't have helped calm people down. It is a variation of the common "you're about to be demographically eclipsed and you're the past. Catering to you is outdated" rhetoric you see a lot on the Left.

I wonder if the Right just has a trauma response to it now.

Low interest rates truly broke capitalism. Bud light is(was) the best-selling beer in America. Sure, sales have been going down, but this is regression to the mean if anything. Producing a massively popular product year after year with a 10% net profit margin somehow wasn't enough.

Producing a massively popular product year after year with a 10% net profit margin somehow wasn't enough.

I suppose the argument is that loyal fans are locked in and you should try for new demos

You might see that stat and think, “Well, this means that Nike will prioritize men over women in its new, odd, gendered segmentation of the company.” That’s not necessarily how this all works, thanks to a phenomenon I’ll call Undecided Whale. The idea is that a company, as its aims grow more expansive, starts catering less to the locked-in core customer and more to a potential whale which demonstrates some interest. Sure, you can just keep doing what’s made you rich, but how can you even focus on your primary business with that whale out there, swimming so tantalizingly close? The whale, should you bring it in, has the potential to enrich you far more than your core customers ever did. And yeah yeah yeah, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but those were birds. This is a damned whale! And so you start forgetting about your base.

Which explains many cases where this happened before the current economic climate (the author gives the NBA and China, Scifi Channel maybe going to Syfy to try to be more cool might be another and the entire phenomenon of wokifying movie IPs comes to mind)

Wait, Bud Light has/had 15-20% of the domestic beer market?

That's pretty wild -- high risk/reward for marketers; even a percent of that in either direction is a shit-tonne of money.

Doesn’t surprise me. Every supermarket beer aisle is at least 10% Bud Light. It always has at least one full refrigerator all to itself.

If you want trans for bud light you pick a FtM that has managed to actually become burly and with beard. There has to be one or two. Not creep like Dylan that is simultaneous mockery of men and women.

This is a sleight of hand I've seen several marketing execs use over the past few years, and while it is admittedly genius, it is still sleight of hand. That is not cancelling for a marketing executive, in marketing generating a surplus of negative feelings towards your brand is the definition of failing and precisely what you should be fired for. I can see some people calling it a cancelling, but those people would probably be using the term for rhetoric rather than accuracy.

Your hypothetical doesn't match on the salient points. If a company put out a commercial that alienated it's actual customer base (which leftists aren't to Bud Light), it's not cancellation if those customers then boycott and the VP of marketing gets fired; otherwise you'd say it was cancellation for the New Coke guy to get forced out. If it's not the actual customer base and the VP of marketing gets fired because people who don't use the product "boycott", that's something different. If the VP is getting fired for something in her private life, that's also different.

New Coke did it's job, which was to mask the transition from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup ... at least that the popular conspiracy theory. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/new-coke-fiasco/

The same argument can easily be extended to show that no one has ever gotten cancelled for anything. Anyone who has ever been fired for a racist or sexist view has not been "cancelled", because racism and sexism are evil so of course public knowledge that an employee of a company has racist or sexist views will be alienating to that company's customer base.

This is literally what leftists say all the time. "We're not cancelling! We're simply speaking for the majority, we speak for the paying customers!"

will be alienating to that company's customer base

Why are you trying to smuggle in a future tense here, when Budweiser is reacting to what actually happened? How many left wing cancelations can you name where this was the case?

The same argument can easily be extended to show that no one has ever gotten cancelled for anything.

Yes, by those trying to be disingenuous. You can never convince anyone who doesn't want to be.

A part of this is the disintegrating barrier between public and private life due to social media, as well as who gets considered a public figure. A part of this is because of a shift in progressive values over time, where what may be considered racist or sexist has changed generationally to the point that under previous conditions, certain intersectional talking points would have absolutely been considered racist or sexist.

New Coke was legitimately a worse product. No one would have known or cared about Dylan Mulvaney's Bud Light deal if it wasn't for social media outrage. It wouldn't have affected the product at all.

if it wasn't for social media outrage

That is the whole purpose of the Mulvaney campaign, to be a social media thing. That it was negative rather than positive was a judgment error.

Which would mean something if she was VP of product. However, she was VP of Marketing and directly responsible for the promotion on social media.

deleted

Yeah I think you're right, if it wasn't a replacement it would probably have a dedicated fanbase. Were you alive (and cognizant) when Pepsi blue came out? It had fans, despite tasting like accidentally calling your teacher mum.

I wasn’t alive to try it, and I really wish they’d reissue it as a limited-time thing so I could.

Just drink some Pepsi, it's close enough. They did try it as a separate thing (the ill-fated "Coke II"), it didn't make it. Probably because anyone who likes Pepsi will just drink the real thing Pepsi.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats