site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Where I’m going with the country comment is that as I said, sometimes culture changes quite organically, and therefore it’s not enough to say “it’s different, therefore not good” is really not an argument.

I think most of the trends are generally negative, and that we do have a serious decline in both civic duty and work ethic, civic nationalism, and even education ethic. Those things can be taught, and they’re not. In fact I think this is something the Chinese are doing right. Go to any forum where Chinese are talking about China and you just don’t hear the kinds of self-flagellation that you do in Atlanticist cultures. They are taught to love China and being Chinese. But, such things can absolutely be taught. Kids don’t come out of the womb with ideas about loving their country, studying and working hard, or civic duty. In fact, you can find differences among whites in various Atlanticist countries.

I obviously don’t see race mixing itself as a problem, so the rise of race mixing in an otherwise healthy culture wouldn’t be a problem for me. The issue is the bad memes, and those come from unassimilated immigrants, the media, and the school system.

I feel like I've already answered your contentions in my previous comment. You've not provided a distinction mechanism between what constitutes 'organic' change and what's not.

I guess, in total, I just fundamentally disagree with you on where culture comes from in the first place. Culture doesn't fall from the sky. It flows forth from people and the conditions they create for themselves. I can agree that US 'nationalism' is dead in the water. But I'd argue that being a product of its people.

It's not hard to teach a Han-Chinese to love his country when it is undeniably his country with thousands of years of history where he is surrounded by people who look, talk and think like him. It's a little different when you were brought to 'your country' as a slave. It's a little different when the countries media is dominated by people who don't look like, talk like or think like you.

I think the history of the US has taught us that you can't railroad over these differences. And that the same ingroup pathologies you would seek to harness for your greater American cultural project will work against it when people see themselves as having more in common with those who look, talk and think like themselves. I mean, regardless of all else, why should anyone pledge their hard work and duty to the US and not, say, Israel, Mexico, China or Africa?