site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30072 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 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.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Come on now, that's not Vivek, that's his mother writing that 😁

I think his claim to believe in God is one of those useful lies to the voter base rather than anything he sincerely believes in.

I don't think that's necessarily so; his family is Tamil Brahmin, there's no reason he can't be a Hindu syncretist because there is the tradition that 'all gods are emanations of the one God who is behind all of reality' so yeah, he can say he believes in God with a sincere face and he doesn't even have to deny Jesus because within all the strands and traditions and philosophies that come under the umbrella of Hinduism, Jesus as a divine avatar to the West isn't impossible. Your god is your god and my god is my god, but the Brahman lies behind and above it all.

I don't know his family background so I'm only noodling around based on what is on Wikipedia, but if his family are Tamil Brahmins from Kerala, they could be in the Iyer tradition, and that's founded by a non-dualist (the only reality is the transcendent God, and the 'self' which we think experiences the world is ultimately not different in essence from that God) - I'm just pulling bits and pieces out, I'm sure the real version is a lot more complicated:

The central theme of Shankara's writings is the liberating knowledge of the true identity of jivatman (individual self) as Ātman-Brahman. ...According to Shankara, the one unchanging entity (Brahman) alone is real, while changing entities do not have absolute existence. Shankara's primary objective was to explain how moksha is attained in this life by recognizing the true identity of jivatman as Atman-Brahman, as mediated by the Mahāvākyas, especially Tat Tvam Asi, "That you are." Correct knowledge of jivatman and Atman-Brahman is the attainment of Brahman, immortality, and leads to moksha (liberation) from suffering and samsara, the cycle of rebirth. ...According to Shankara, the individual Ātman and Brahman seem different at the empirical level of reality, but this difference is only an illusion, and at the highest level of reality they are really identical. The real self is Sat, "the Existent," that is, Ātman-Brahman.

...According to Alf Hiltebeitel, Shankara established the nondualist interpretation of the Upanishads as the touchstone of a revived smarta tradition:

Practically, Shankara fostered a rapprochement between Advaita and smarta orthodoxy, which by his time had ...developed the practice of pancayatanapuja ("five-shrine worship") as a solution to varied and conflicting devotional practices. Thus one could worship any one of five deities (Vishnu, Siva, Durga, Surya, Ganesa) as one's istadevata ("deity of choice").

Panchayatana puja (IAST Pañcāyatana pūjā) is a system of puja (worship) in the Smarta tradition. It consists of the worship of five deities set in a quincunx pattern, the five deities being Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Surya, and an Ishta Devata such as Kartikeya, or Ganesha or any personal god of devotee's preference.

So Jesus is your personal god? No problem with that! You believe in ultimate God, I believe in ultimate God, whatever version we worship as our personal God doesn't matter that greatly.

It's quite fashionable these days for many Hindus to Abrahamic-wash their religion, passing off our hundreds of thousands of deities as manifestations of Brahman/God, as you right put it. This is particularly true for the more aggressively proselytizing brand of Hinduism, which smooths over theological differences by saying it's all good, you're just invoking one of the many facets of God when you pray to Shiva or Vishnu.

I still suspect that he is, at heart, an atheist or agnostic. I've heard that it's still taboo for a presidential candidate to be an outspoken atheist, so his protestations to the contrary don't convey all that much information. I suspect that, like most of the PMC/UMC, rich Brahmins are mostly LARPing rather than holding sincere beliefs, especially when you consider the rest of his life.

Not that it makes a big difference, Hinduism is undemanding enough that you can pretty much do whatever you like without the Hindu card being withdrawn, including being a nastik (a sect of Hinduism that denies the existence of gods while still holding other spiritual beliefs). An Atheist Hindu is actually not a contradiction in terms, though I strongly suspect he's just the former.

No way to prove it, of course, but I'd still bet on him just saying the lines that make a nominal Hindu palatable to a Republican audience, especially if using the monotheist doctrine.

My girlfriend is Hindu and told me that the Hindu gods are all manifestations of one god. Is that not a traditional belief? Is that just a result of Christian influence? She put this forward as though it were a standard Hindu belief.

No it is not.

It's one interpretation that's been an around for an extremely long time. Though it might be so that it's popularity in modern times might in some level be a result of the long term influence of the Muslim and then Christian rule over the subcontinent in recent centuries, but much of Hindu tradition and the majority of Hindus are polytheistic in nature.

I don't think he's necessarily being insincere; we're all judging by a Judeo-Christian template, but I don't see that it's impossible for the guy to be agnostic but spiritual-not-religious or "some kind of great impersonal cosmic force out there, sure". I don't think we can make confident pronouncements on "he's too smart to believe in deity so he's lying to the normies/trying not to spook the Republican Bible-bashers" about someone who comes from the background of a particular sect of Hinduism which is non-dualistic.

You're welcome to disagree, it's not like I have a way to prove my suspicions myself!

Oh, I'm not saying that doesn't play into it, but it's hard to know! How Christian is Obama, really? Happy enough to go along with Michelle and pick a suitable church to attend, or genuinely convinced, or just playing along for the black vote? Without being able to read his mind, who can say?

When he says ‘god is real’ he means ‘I’m assimilated, not a savage who worships the contents of your dinner plate’. This is very important for someone named ‘Vivek Ramaswamy’ running in a Republican primary.

I think much the same. It's a meaningless platitude to appease the Republican voter base who might otherwise worry about statues of Ganesh in the White House. Being nominally monotheistic lets you brush a lot under the carpet.

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