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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29421 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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This is an incorrect reading of the cited discussion. I was responding primarily to the destruction of American cities that occurred during the '60s and '70s, someone else mentioned that suburbanization began before that era, and I noted that this may well have something to do with Shelley. I don't think any single policy accounts for the damage that was done in the name of equality, but that the aggregated weight of civil rights policies, leftist approaches to crime and business, and the Great Society policies accumulated to basically ruin urban cores.

I will certainly agree that the civil rights policies have been terrible for black culture as well though.

Nevertheless, your implication that the "destruction of American cities" was the result of intentional efforts to destroy white bourgeois culture" is ahistorical. If you mean that efforts to end obviously unjust social practices had some negative unintended consequences, then why not say that, instead of "my outgroup evil"?

Nevertheless, your implication that the "destruction of American cities" was the result of intentional efforts to destroy white bourgeois culture" is ahistorical.

No, it was, it's just that some suburbanization would have happened anyway. The destruction of American cities was the result of ethnic cleansing engaged in to drive white people out of the cities, which was then called "white flight".

Not if the term, "ethnic cleansing" has any meaning.

You say tomayto, I say tomahto? What's the difference between "obviously unjust social practices" and "white bourgeois culture", from the perspective of the people driving the changes in question?

I was of course referring to blatant racial discrimination. Practices which were seen as obviously unjust by most people at the time, which is why both major political parties found it politically advantageous to pledge in their platforms to enact civil rights legislation as early as 1948. (I assume that a link to the 1948 Democratic Party platform is unnecessary).

Edit: Apparently, I was mistaken in my assumption that a link showing that the Democratic Party also had a civil rights plank in 1948 was unnecessary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Democratic_National_Convention

assume that a link to the 1948 Democratic Party platform is unnecessary).

The democrats were the segregationist party, and more generally post-1975 political divisions don’t map well onto earlier ones, so if anything democrats would be more likely to oppose civil rights law.

Yes, but my point was that the 1948 Democratic Platform quite famously included a civil rights plank, leading to the walkout of Southern Democrats, who put forth their own candidate in the general election, ultimately leading to this famous photo.

Edit: Note also that you are proving my point: If even the majority of the more segregationist party supported civil rights, then civil rights must have been a mainstream position, not a radical one.

The people who disproportionately influenced the end of blatant racial discrimination disproportionately despised "white bourgeoise culture", and saw destroying it as a good thing. The song I linked is famous because it captured the essence of the social critique being leveled against the mainstream of its time. Listen to the song, note the problems the song is asserting exist, and then tell me those "problems" weren't addressed.

Hating bad things doesn't make one good. Virulent racists hate rape and murder a whole lot; that doesn't make their solutions net-positive. The "end of blatant racial discrimination", as your phrasing appears to concede, succeeded in altering surface detail without addressing the core of the problem. Lots and lots of black people lived in misery and died violently as a result.

I don't know that the likes of Pete Seeger and the Beat poets are representative of those who were "driving" the changes in question.

The people who disproportionately influenced the end of blatant racial discrimination disproportionately despised "white bourgeoise culture", and saw destroying it as a good thing.

Maybe yes, maybe no. But:

  1. The African American leaders (MLK and the like) who were actually effective were a whole lot friendlier to white bourgeiose culture then those who were less effective. So the correlation seems to be the opposite of what you claim.
  2. More importantly, the fact that I oppose X and oppose Y does not demonstrate that I pursue the end of Y as a means of destroying X. That should be obvious.

Hating bad things doesn't make one good

No one is talking about who is good or bad. We are talking about the accuracy of an empirical claim.

The "end of blatant racial discrimination", as your phrasing appears to concede, succeeded in altering surface detail without addressing the core of the problem

  1. Ending blatant racial discrimination is a perfectly legitimate and important end in itself.
  2. And the core of the problem is?

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