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 retired permanently from performing several years ago. Most of my IRL friends are still people whom I met while in that sphere, because I can’t just magically recreate an entire social network in my thirties. I have complained many times about how it’s easy for right-wingers who grew up in conservative areas, or who were never closely affiliated with any left-wing people or communities, to say, “Just move to a red state, join a church, get new friends, etc.” as if ripping up your entire life and starting over is just a super simple thing for people to do. I’ve burnt a considerable number of bridges by even revealing a fraction of my true beliefs, and I would almost certainly lose what’s left of my friends and my side job if I were outed.
You have a poor mental model of me. It is very true that I like a lot of things about living among college-educated people with artsy-fartsy tastes; I’ve commented before about how when I attend classical music concerts, I’m acutely aware that the vast majority of the people in the audience with me are not remotely conservative, and that this is not an accident. Progressivism correlates highly with having good taste in music, in film, in literature, etc. That correlation is only partially causative; a lot of it is simply that intelligent and educated people are socialized into progressive values by the sense-making institutions they gravitate toward, as is the case with me, but part of it is also that psychological traits such as openness to experience are related to leftist instincts. I also unapologetically love the urban lifestyle, and for a number of reasons that also correlated with progressivism. It’s not the progressivism that is the appealing part. I’ve said many times that my overriding goal is to figure out how to do my small part toward facilitating a reconciliation of white left-wingers and white right-wingers. Both have an integral part to play in the future of our civilization.
I’ve been severely behind on my effort-posting due to some professional and social obligations as of late, but I had a big effort-post planned about how a recent orchestra performance I attended, which featured a very racially diverse group of young performers, represents the sort of “best-case scenario” of multiracial elitism, as opposed to multiracial populism. I hope to write more about this dynamic in the future. I have numerous non-white friends and colleagues, and my racial views cannot possibly be summarized as simply “not liking the things non-white people bring.”
Again, not remotely true, and I’ve explicitly said otherwise. You’re correct that I have not laid out a comprehensive genealogy of “wokeness” because I myself am still working out exactly what I think the most useful and accurate model/explanation is. Certainly the Enlightenment is a factor, but there are lots of other ideological strains that contributed - transcendentalism, unitarian utopianism, even ancient religious traditions like gnosticism play a part. It’s a very complicated story, and in no sense whatsoever do I give non-whites any prominent part to play in it, at least not until up until the 50’s, or a bit earlier if you frame Jews as non-white. Again, you’ve assumed a ton about my worldview that is not supported by my actual statements.
I don't often fall back on my progressive bona fides, as the only child of a lesbian mother. I had 'two moms' before there were books about it.
You don't even have to move to a red state. In our very blue state, we've joined a local traditional church, and made new friends that are on the same page regarding the madness and degeneracy of current year.
Your attachment to an urban lifestyle may be working against you here.
More options
Context Copy link
I totally agree on the culture part. It shouldn’t be simply abandoned because it’s been more or less co-opted by the progressive elites as if they own it. And tbh I think honestly unless it’s reclaimed, it’s going to be lost when civilization rebuilds itself in the West. Good art belongs to everyone, and I don’t see why it has to be marked as progressive to read good books or listen to good music.
The eschewing of those kinds of art by the counterculture is part of why conservatives have such a hard time making good art. They don’t learn to understand good art, and how and why it’s good, so they end up creating childish art that can’t really compare. Christian media generally sucks mostly because they have to resort to telling rather than showing and can’t create characters who disagree without having them be cartoon characters.
More options
Context Copy link
This is a good post, and it echoes a lot of what I think personally.
I think the future for conservatives is rescuing the blue tribe, not throwing in our lot with the red tribe. I like classical music, and museums, and old cities with beautiful car-free corridors. And conversely I am disgusted by big trucks, obesity, Walmart, and pit bulls.
If the blue tribe and the red tribe are going to different planets and I need to choose, I'm going with the blue tribe. That's who my people are. In my opinion, they are the best people, even if they are more likely to be captured by the woke mind virus. For me, the ideal outcome is for the blue tribe to return to sanity rather than to let the red tribe run things.
I used to want to be part of the blue tribe but after seeing how they treated the red tribe since around 2008 I just don't anymore. The condescension and classism is so hideous. How can you see people who you feel culturally superior to and have contempt toward them rather than compassion and empathy for their condition? Yes, walmart is a hideous place, but god so is Baltimore. The red tribe likes big trucks and guns because they're tiny scared people in a big scary country. If you're taking the bait and seeing them as some Jan 6 insurrectionist threat rather than people with decades of subpar education under a semi hostile cultural millieu that confuses them and your response is "ew, no thanks" then I think that view is morally repugnant and I don't want to take part.
Red tribers like big trucks and guns because they're fun, not because they're "tiny scared people in a big scary country" (or "bitter clingers" as Obama put it).
More options
Context Copy link
You can have compassion and empathy for the lower classes without wanting them to actually run things.
Do you think that painting people as obese walmart shoppers who dislike the things that you like is a good display of empathy and compassion? Can you see how I might interpret your opinions as being rooted in condescension and classism?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I don't think I do have a poor mental model of you.
Yes, I understand it's not the progressivism per se that is the appealing part. But for all the reasons you mentioned, the things you like are basically "white progressive culture." You don't like that it's progressive. I kind of sympathize with your dilemma (not a lot), but I think you are pointing in the wrong direction by insisting it's not white progressives responsible for the things you don't like.
My entire point is that none of those things used to be the exclusive province of progressives. Classical music was a very right-wing tradition for a long time. Ditto for literature. We find ourselves in a very odd and atypical moment in history, in which the vast majority of smart and high-human-capital people are left-wing. There’s no reason this needs to be the case now, it hasn’t been the case for very long, and my contention is that it will not continue to be the case for very much longer.
Abandoning the cities, deriding high culture as faggy elitist status-signaling (as a number of conservatives on this very site have done) and going all-in on rural populism is a toxic dead end for the right wing, and I would rather actually try and rescue those parts of our culture - the BEST parts of our culture - from the mind virus of minoritarian identity communism. Being a white identitarian is inextricably tied up with this; I believe that white people are largely doing this to ourselves, and that all we need to do is stop. However, if we don’t stop very soon, things genuinely will be out of our hands and those who hate us truly will have the whip hand. Right now, white progressives are allowing vindictive race communists, like the individuals I mentioned in my original comment, because they’ve forgotten what made white people great, and forgotten that they have the strength to fight back.
It’s like if a huge jacked guy was allowing himself to be bullied by a scrawny manlet, simply because he had some psychological condition that caused him to forget that he has muscles. Some perceptual blindness that causes him to ignore the evidence of his own strength right before his eyes. He could snap out of it in a second and flatten the bully, but something is stopping him from doing so. And there are people like me standing off to the side yelling, “Bro, you’re fucking massive, just pummel this guy!” And he’s like, “Nah man, I’m puny and weak, and plus, even if I was super strong, it would be morally wrong of me to fight back.” That’s essentially how I see racial dynamics in this country, at least as it concerns whites and blacks.
I'm bemused that you just wrote a long screed saying at greater length what I said above - which you claimed was wrong.
Let me clarify. White progressives are allowing themselves to be dominated and led off a cliff by non-white race communists. This is not at all the same as saying that white progressives are “in charge”. What I’m saying is that that people actually driving the dynamics of cancellation and of the enforcement of woke values within woke spaces are not primarily white, even if those spaces are numerically mostly white. The white individuals who are contributing actively to the weaponized parts of wokeness very often have something else wrong with them - they’re trans, or they’re extremely mentally ill (but I repeat myself), etc. Whereas the high-level non-white leftists are usually much more well-adjusted, clear-eyed, cynical operators who merely recognize the opportunity to win power for their own group at the expense of the group that had power before.
This comment was reported, and I have to agree that this sort of glibness isn't appropriate here. You are allowed to argue that trans people are mentally ill, but it has to actually be some kind of an argument, don't just throw low effort boos like that.
(I was reluctant to mod this one because you are responding to me, but this comment isn't actually a response to anything I said, which makes it even more of a gratuitous dunk on your outgroup.)
Lol, reluctant. As if it isn't plainly obvious what your goal is here - a grand display of your power. "Ha ha ha" you say, "every single comment in this chain by both of us was reported multiple times, but I will enforce this one on you because I can, because this exchange didn't end with you slinking away defeated and I will not accept that result."
PS my mental model of you is flawless.
I'm going to indulge you for a moment because why not.
Yes. For exactly the reasons I stated, and I also because I do not disagree with the object-level claim, yet the rules here clearly require you to actually support negative generalizations about a group, not just flippantly toss them into a one-line boo light. And also because the person who reported Hoff was being petty (many, many reports are basically a handful of people vindictively reporting either people or arguments they don't like), but in this case, they did have a point.
Dude, if I wanted to grandly display my power, I would be using it a lot more than I do. For example, when you jump on me in a discussion you weren't involved in with a load of personal attacks just because you've got beef, you are pretty clearly testing me to see if I will wield my "power." You would probably love it if I modhatted you (as I almost certainly would if you were crawling up someone else's ass like this). You'd make for a very dramatic victim of the system, I'm sure. Yet I enforce the rules as impartially as I can, even when confronted by belligerent pests trying to get a rise out of me, as seems to have become your idle hobby.
This is absolute nonsense. Even @Hoffmeister25 agreed his comment was bad.
"Every comment in this chain" was not reported. A few were (I don't think any of them received multiple reports), and most of the reports were spurious. (The vast majority of the reports we get are dismissed without action.) In many previous exchanges with Hoff, I've let the matter drop after we've both had our say - often with him having the last word - so your claims are flatly and objectively untrue.
I'm sure you think so. Yet the objective and observable evidence says otherwise. Carry on, my dude.
I did to you what you did to hoffmeister. I used your words to develop an uncharitable model of you based on incomplete information (how would I know which posts were reported or how many times?), deployed it and then insisted on its accuracy despite obvious flaws. I think that's a bad way to behave on the motte, and I think you should stop it.
I understand it falls afoul of the speak plainly rule, however past conversations have taught me that no matter how I phrase it, if I simply tell you you have made a mistake you will dismiss me automatically. And reporting you is pointless as I have explained before. So this time I made the same argument you did, so you could discover the problems with it for yourself.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Fair enough, it wasn’t a good or high-quality statement, and I agree that it deserves a mod warning.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'd be curious to hear what makes you see this kind of mental health divide because I don't think it's so clear.
For example while Jussie Smollet was an opportunist, he did not seem clear eyed to me, like something was really wrong with him to try that. And I feel like that example can be applied pretty broadly to people who do and do not benefit from wokeness. People with personality disorders will manipulate those around them for status and gain, while being completely not "clear-eyed". Isn't that kind of model more plausible, where everyone is crazy? In that sense it's kind of a codependency across victimization lines.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link