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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29526 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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It describes a circular tendency. The cultural producers/media types and right-wingers attack each other and grow further apart from each other in a circular motion. The right-wingers just seem to almost automatically ignore their own role in this development, just pretending that their comments are harmless screaming into the void and change nothing.

So let's imagine an alternative world where the right wing base smiles an nods when someone like Moldbug tells them they are just hobbits who need to be ruled over, and they need to forget about fighting for hobbit things like abortion bans. The only way this results in the views of the right wing base being better represented among cultural producers, is that the entirety of the right wing base has been moved leftward. Therefore, you cannot use this to explain why right wing views aren't represented in our cultural institutions.

All of these, expect arguably DeBoer, have moved rightwards, in large part due to attacks on them by the leftists.

If moving rightwards refers to who they're friends with, sure, if it refers to their views, I'm not sure I'm buying that. But even if you're right notice how any movement here is limited to specific individuals, while you're explaining the same mechanism being responsible for a shift of entire institutions when it's done by the right.

Therefore, you cannot use this to explain why right wing views aren't represented in our cultural institutions.

I'm not trying to say it's some sort of a complete explanation. It's just one of the things affecting the representation. I mean, it should be an obvious, uncontested point that this sort of a two-way street exists - right-wing actions also lead to a counter-reaction.

But even if you're right notice how any movement here is limited to specific individuals, while you're explaining the same mechanism being responsible for a shift of entire institutions when it's done by the right.

It was you, yourself, who chose to mention specific individuals.

Institutions consist of individuals. If enough individuals within some specific institution are pushed to some direction, that will at least put pressure on the institution to do likewise.

I'm not trying to say it's some sort of a complete explanation. It's just one of the things affecting the representation. I mean, it should be an obvious, uncontested point that this sort of a two-way street exists - right-wing actions also lead to a counter-reaction.

What's the point of posting an explanation that is so incomplete, that you can observe the same phenomenon on the left with opposite results?

It was you, yourself, who chose to mention specific individuals.

But you tried using them to make a point which is unsupportable.

Institutions consist of individuals. If enough individuals within some specific institution are pushed to some direction, that will at least put pressure on the institution to do likewise.

There's a few problems with this. One is that left wing attacks on people seem to have the effect if moving an institution even more to the left, see Evergreen. Then, even if the reaction - counterreaction mechanic had the same effect for the left and the right, not every individual has the same influence in an institution. If the people attacked by the left and move rightwards, but the people making hiring / firing decisions remain hard left, the institution will go even further left.

I mean, it should be an obvious, uncontested point that this sort of a two-way street exists - right-wing actions also lead to a counter-reaction.

It should be, but it isn't. There's little counter-reaction against the left, and nothing significant or lasting. The "counter-reaction" theory is mostly an excuse to advocate the right do nothing.

Institutions consist of individuals. If enough individuals within some specific institution are pushed to some direction, that will at least put pressure on the institution to do likewise.

Or to cut those individuals out (as indeed often happens) or force them back into the fold.

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