site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30975 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I fundamentally don't understand the right in latin America. Why does it like the US? Latin Americans aren't exactly leading in the field of woke-ideology. More woke ideology has been produced on single American college campuses than much of the rest of the world. Do they think they are getting their based right wing state together with Victoria Nuland and Kamala Harris? Pro dollarization means pro wall street. How right wing will they be selling out their country to foreign financial interests that want everything ESG-rated?

I am all the way to the right. However, in Latin America6o I consistently find myself supporting leftist parties. They don't want their natural resources sold off to foreigners or their country turned into a banana republic, and in general they seem far less interested in hanging out with the elites in the wokest country on the planet.

The right in Argentina has elected a world economic forum banker. While he might anger some feminists on twitter it is clear where Argentina is heading.

The United States, for all its heavy-handed and blundering interference, cannot hold a candle to leftism in terms of destroying countries. Socialism in the UK after WWII left it with rationing longer than Germany had. Communism kept Cuba poor and wrecked Venezuela. No matter how bad it gets, communism can make it worse, unless it's already communist.

The US is the bastion of leftism today. The US has invented more genders than the rest of the world combined. The US is involved in organizing pride parades all over the world. The US is world leading in critical theory, third wave feminism and pushing radical forms of diversity. The US is probably the only place in the world in which people got fired for not wanting to defund the police.

wrecked Venezuela.

Along with having their assets illegally stolen, blockades and sanctions.

Latin American countries do best when they cozy up to the US. Conservatism isn’t about trying grand new ideas to chart your own path- it’s about doing more of what works. For Latin America, that’s being pro-America and using dollars and having economic ties with the USA and capitalism and all that.

Why does it like the US?

Because the United States rocks. It's super rich, there's massive opportunity for people from all sorts of backgrounds, and people that aren't jaded often do still view it as the land of opportunity. Throw in some Chicago Boys influence and you're going to have some people that are enthusiastic about economics that gets called "right-wing" in some circles.

The US has destroyed latin American countries, sucked resources out of them and bullied them for a century. Pretty much every awful social trend comes from the US.

You need to provide supporting evidence for this.

I would agree we’ve bullied them. I wouldn’t agree we’ve destroyed them. What have we mostly done when we’ve intervened? Defeated communists. Sometimes propping up a dictator. But communism has failed everywhere so I feel fairly confident this was a net positive for them.

I think the “destroyed” Latin America is factually false. And of course the country that most adopted neoliberalism - Chile is the richest. And one them that went most commie like Venezuela is poor despite resource wealth.

The US has destroyed latin American countries, sucked resources out of them and bullied them for a century.

No, it hasn't. This is loser ideology. "Nothing is our fault, we are the victims of history".

I will concede that resource extraction tends to be bad for a country's economic development. But there is no alternate history where Latin American countries like Cuba, Argentina, or Venezuela become economic powerhouses on the basis of their homegrown human resources.

Like nearly all countries, Latin American countries are best off when they import the technological advances of the United States without fucking it up too much with their own corruption, socialism, and zero sum thinking.

I fundamentally don't understand the right in latin America. Why does it like the US?

The left hates the US, the right hates the left.

the right hates the left.

In other words, a world economic forum banker who likes the US should be enemy number one.

I would imagine the WEF doesn't look all that left-wing from a South American perspective. One can, at least, easily find a positive article about Bolsonaro on their page, for instance. Apparently Colombia's ex-prez Uribe has also given the closing address to one of their events. I daresay that Milei working for WEF might tell more about WEF than about Milei, actually.

In general, the idea that WEF is some sort of a global left-wing plot is really based more on American (and partly European) right-wing imagination and malicious readings of what the WEF actually says and does than on actual WEF actions and content.

The financial industry absolutely is. They are pressing hard for global homogeneity, less national sovereignty and the values of a Netflix show. The biggest spreader of woke ideas has been the corporate elite. The goal of liberal elites is to turn the world into a giant heathrow terminal. Massive surveillance, bland consumerism and placelessness.

Do you really think they are getting their traditional culture, Catholicism and social conservatism together with Amazon and the US state department?

The Latin American left has traditionally been quite big on national sovereignty, though. Probably quite against global homogeneity (the support for indigenousness etc.), too, though.

Do you really think they are getting their traditional culture, Catholicism and social conservatism

Insofar as everything I've seen on social media says, those aren't Milei's thing quite as much as privatizing everything, slashing taxes and generally implementing a libertarian economic policy is.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats