site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Artists are about being transgressive, challenging social and cultural established values and thought, novelty, and all the rest of it. You can't pay them to produce 'conservative' art, and those who do so will be and are derided as sell-outs.

That seems to be implicitly conceding 'art' as a whole to the left and ignoring both contemporary conservative artists and a long history of conservative art because they don't fit into the stereotype of a starving/drug-addled/insert other caricature of left-wing artists here. I will grant that non-religious conservative art (at least in the Anglosphere) seems to be at a low point right now, but I don't think that is some timeless quality rather than a whole-hearted embrace of lowbrow anti-intellectualism (this is also why they're hard up for everything from political philosophers to bureaucratic subject matter experts).

'Good art' is not going to be given that accolade unless it accedes to the values of the liberal and indeed progressive strain of cultural hegemony. "Norman Rockwell type art" is not intended as a compliment.

You're unlikely to be celebrated by your adversaries, but that doesn't make much sense as a goal for a conservative art movement. If you can make good art, people will consume it, even people who don't otherwise agree with you. If you build it they will come, etc... Per my remark above, the problem with conservative art right now is that it is overwhelmingly bad, being too preoccupied with being conservative while relegating being art to a very distant second.