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 -
Two things.
First I think your analysis conflates disputes that will be resolved by exercises of power (persuasive or coercive) with disputes about who is more powerful. When people argue about misgendering or the use of slurs in certain contexts it's not because of some perceived power differential, it's a genuine dispute over how it's appropriate to use words. When people object to using "Nigger" in even the "mention" sense it is generally because they think it is inappropriate when used that way. Similarly when people defend its use they think it is because using it in the context is appropriate or valuable. This is a dispute that might be settled by exercises of power but the dispute is not centrally about who is more powerful.
Second I think the emergence of a Cymbeline is impossible due to the distributed nature of the groups involved in Culture War disputes. The reason Cymbeline can credibly capitulate Britain to Rome is that the Britons, as his subjects, are obliged to follow his wishes on the matter. There is no similar entity or institution (or set of entities or institutions) in our modern distributed politics.
Imagine I'm a trans person and I want to negotiate a Truce With The Transphobes. Two questions arise. First, who am I? What entity or institution can credibly claim to speak on behalf of trans people everywhere? Second, who am I negotiating with? What entity or institution can speak for all the anti-trans groups and organizations out there? International relations are a bad model for intra-national group relations because in international relations there are generally well defined entities that can credibly make commitments on behalf of their nation. Not so with Culture War groups! We often talk about groups as if they were agents, with wants and desires and engaging in actions, but it is important to remember this is an abstraction, a convenience, not reality.
As an aside I think this second thing is a powerful contributor to the degradation of political discussion. It leads us to unclear thinking or, at least, substantial inferential distance with the people we are conceiving of this way.
I want to make clear that I'm not sure I have a solution, I'm as trapped in the matrix as everyone else. I'm not sure I can imagine anything that looks like a realistic solution, at best we're all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars.
I broadly agree with your second point. The lack of organized groups, with leaders to whom loyalty is owed and goals that are to be met and not exceeded, has been a significant contribution to the CW spiral. BLM isn't a group with demands, it is a gag reflex that engages whenever a Black person is harmed under sufficiently dire (apparent, reported) circumstances. One can't negotiate with it.
And the way that you, as an individual Trans person, would work toward negotiating a truce in whatever small way, isn't by actually negotiating. It is by engaging in loyalty and working on building groups within your own community that are well run and loyal, encouraging your compatriots to show loyalty and deference. It is only once groups exist that command loyalty that negotiation is possible.
I can't find the quote, but I remember a bon mot about, I want to say Syria on gaining independence?, that went something like "Today, 50% of the population thinks they are merely major religious or political leaders, 40% think they are great writers, 5% think they are Prophets, and the last 5% think they are God." I'm probably butchering it from a history book I read a long time ago. But one of the things I do think Moldbug gets right is that what is missing isn't leadership, it is obedience. We can't all be leaders, we can't all think of ourselves as leaders, or nothing will ever get done. I guess we can take it back another three hundred years and say that we're still living through the consequences of the Protestant Reformation?
As to the first point: I disagree. The increasingly confusing restrictions on the use of the word Nigger, or the application of pronouns, or which sports teams people practice with, are all exercises of raw social power. Performed by their advocates for the purpose of demonstrating power, resented by their targets because they are exercises of power. I'd compare the use of speech codes by analogy to this kind of exchange:
Imagine you've just gone through a bad breakup. You're a little sick of everyone talking about it, asking you how you're doing, asking you what happened, you just want to move on and talk about something else for a bit. You go over to your brother's house to watch the game, you say "Hey, listen, I don't want to talk about the breakup, I'm tired of talking about it, let's just watch the game." He proceeds to ask you about it, over and over, even though you remind him that you don't want to talk about it.
Most people in that scenario, even if they weren't that upset about talking about the breakup to begin with, will become furiously angry at being forced to talk about it. Talking about the breakup was merely embarrassing or unpleasant, but being told that you aren't allowed to say you don't want to talk about something is saying that you have no power to determine that. The other party, your brother, will in turn become angry that he "isn't allowed to ask questions." Because that is limiting his power.
The goal of symbolic actions, like banning words, is to exercise power. Power that cannot be exercised arbitrarily does not exist. Make it clear to your enemies that you can do symbolic, or absurd, things, and it will be clear that you could do dangerous things too.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link