site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 13, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Pushing for greater authoritarianism in the public discourse is their only strategy, and it's becoming less effective quite rapidly.

The gentile left and hard right may be critical of Israel, but they disagree on everything else (including mass immigration) so imagining them somehow teaming up specifically to oppose Jews seems unlikely.

On the other hand, I think this rhetoric is going to have a real deterrent effect on Jews.

Alternatively, left wing anti-Zionist Jews will continue to have leftist DEI views on race, and conservative Jews will continue not to say “we should team up with black people against whitey”, those in the middle will pick a side, but wignats will continue to pick the extremes from both sides and claim they’re the same people.

It’s mostly for boomer centrist Jews like my Uncle who now speak down “White people” whenever they can because that’s the zeitgeist but certainly weren’t speaking like that 20 years ago.

I don't think they will team up. I think the gentile left will decline and the hard right will grow. And I don't think the progressive left will just become moderates either. I think those people likely have personality characteristics that make them affine to ostensibly radical causes, basically a latent Religious impulse. It is said that former Communists made far more loyal members of the Nazi party than conservatives.

former Communists made far more loyal members of the Nazi party than conservatives

Source? Would love to read about that.