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 -
I think this is where the distinction of socialism/capitalism breaks, given that in the original Marxist literature socialism and ultimately communism was supposed as an ideal against the reality of "capitalism".
In practice basically all radical left regimes collapsed into some form of what is called "state capitalism" - basically bigshots with political power call the shots and various corporations do their bidding. Of course there is also an incest with different "czars" of different parts of economy or bureaucracy using their influence or even direct ownership for political power struggle. But the state and politics have primacy, if powers at be decide to run "anticorruption" raid against your corporation or they decide to cut the corporations out of financial markets or regulate it to oblivion that is their prerogative.
The key understanding is that radicals do not have a positive plan, they have revolutionary zeal and faith that it pays off in the end. If corporations "wokewash" their revolution, that only means that "true revolution was never tried" and repeat. Filthy reactionaries won again, but only temporarily. To evaluate radical leftism by an outcome like "capitalism strong vs communism enacted" means adopting their own irrational logic. To many people with experience in such a situation across the world it is clear that these ideologies are unworkable and that having a new crop of cynical power brokers like nomenklatura is inevitable. Corrupt Chinese multibilionaires tied to political clans such as those of Xi Jinping or Jiang Zemin are a feature and inevitable result of Maoist revolution, not a bug.
In that sense rich and powerful using the new radicalism to get ahead and get wealth or power is nothing new.
More options
Context Copy link