site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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.

33
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The EU has a bureaucracy that makes no bones about openly pushing for the "ever closer Union", ie. federalization of EU; that is the true ideological quest of the Eurocrats, not identity-politics or left-of-center politics as such. The federalization project has tended to be evolve at a snail's pace, though. We'll see if the coming years speed it up.

I am personally undecided what balance of EU-beuracratic following of American progressivism is an artifact of American cultural influence versus federalist designs. Eurocrats absolutely have their own sort of internal messaging programs and strategies to try and build public support, but while one part of that is pro-Europe, another is the teardown of prior loyalties, especially nationalist inclinations. Identity-politics as framed by the US- white versus black- is a meaningful alternative framing to European 'identities,' as it homogenizes European diversity into a collective that the EU can claim to represent as Europeans, as opposed to national identities that object to EU-centralization on national grounds.

For the lack of / failure to create a European nationalism despite significant effort, diluting the rest works almost as well.

I don't think it's very useful to look at EU messaging and such through the lens of how well it fits American progressivism. If you look at, for example, the Twitter accounts of European Commission and European Parliament, it is generally vaguely progressive/technocratic, but the common themes include:

  • EU as a climate leader (absolutely more central here than climate/environmental issues are in US Dem messaging, for instance; even Biden's major climate act had to be called Inflation Reduction Act, lol)

  • EU as a global actor, currently particularly in the sense of EU supporting Ukraine (Europeans have never exactly needed American progressives to tell them to fear Russia and oppose Russian expansion)

  • EU as an innovation leader (businesslike technocratic appeal of the EU)

  • European unity (connected to the above, at the moment)

These are all quite similar to the main arguments of local Europhiles, and they're fairly consistent with messaging the EU has pushed out for a long time. Race/gender/sexuality messaging is not nearly as prominent, apart from some appeals to "women's achievements" style basic feminism.

Race/gender/sexuality messaging is not nearly as prominent

It's becoming more and more prominent such as the European Commission's Anti-Racism Action Plan 2020-2025. Feminism/"gender equality" has always been a core component of EU social messaging.

It is partially an importation of American progressivism, albeit adapted to local conditions.

Again, I'm not arguing that there isn't a progressive element to EU messaging - rather that the EU messaging is quite different from current American progressive messaging, where race/sexuality/gender messaging often seems to be front and center, not something that usually takes a back seat compared to the issues I mentioned.

Yes, and I'm saying it is becoming more and more prominent and is on track to becoming front and centre.