site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 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.

Breitbart should be shamed and cast out of the right wing media for this outrageous use of left-wing boogeymen to attack a solid rightist.

Breitbart was founded in Jerusalem by a cast of mostly Jewish individuals. There's even a photo of the founding group with Bibi Netanyahu from the early years. Of course they are going to police people on the right for antisemitism, just as Israeli-American Yoram Hazony tried to resuscitate Reaganism and pull the right away from blood-and-soil nationalism with his "national conservatism" rebrand.

There's a lot you can say about Jews but one thing you can't say is that they are idiots or politically uninterested. They are very good at policing both the right and the left (Corbyn) to weed out people who aren't seen to be in their favour. In the case of Corbyn, they were helped by the fact that he was also distrusted by the wider business and security elites in the UK.

It's funny reading Pedro's texts in the hit piece where he references Buchanan. If memory serves, Buchanan spoke about being purged by neo-con Jews which he served with under the Reagan admin. He noted that many never had a bad word to say about him during that time, but when he started to criticise the war plans against Iraq, suddenly they started to shout that he was a racist and various left-wing Jews picked it up in the media and ran with it. That's also how Sobran and others got purged.

I suspect this might be a reason why some on the right tend to view Jews as a unified bloc who work together across ideological lines whereas whites tend to actually put their ideology first and foremost rather than their ethnic interest. It's debatable which strategy is best.

pull the right away from blood-and-soil nationalism

When has the right touched blood and soil nationalism this century?