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 -
Coming from the opposite place (a socialist with a history in the shovel swinging strata):
You've really nicely explained to things I've always just taken for granted in here.
A: there is an such a thing as elite capture, but there is also such a thing as "Dude, nobody fucking likes you". The level of authentic dislike or lack of interest in conservatives and conservative politics people have is wildly underestimated in places like this; right down to me polling my crew of redneck proll tradies over lunch about the transes and the SJWs and the majority answer being a combination of "I don't care" or "What the fuck is that?"
B: So, in an attempt to solve A we switch to a more salient message: these groups are attacking you, destroying your "way of life", the fact that your life is worse than your dads or your granpappys is because of THIS! And that might work in the short run. It will work in the short run, even. But dudes I used to work with and still talk to who fully bought in to Trump style messaging are getting woke to the fact that nothing in their lives improved even with a three branch R sweep; that their boss still buys a new corvette every other year but their kid had to move back in 8 months after moving out or they would end up homeless.
The current problems politicos need to solve are the (1)disintegration of community sentiment and the (2)disintegration of the economic middle; and the strategies of the parties have been to say "Just hold hands and thing happy thoughts and we'll slap a few bandages on it and if you complain about (1) in the wrong tone you have 5 cousin fucking teeth you pathetic FUCK" from the dems, and "(2) is good actually you comunit bitch but actually both are because of immigrants(brown) and the gays but we won't actually do anything about either".
Both major parties aren't attacking the root of the problem, but people notice that the D's attack the symptoms and the R's at least will sympathies with your grievances. Both parties are fucked in the long run if nothing changes, but the R's are fucked sooner because they keep not even pretending to do anything with the policy goals of the bottom of of the top bottom alliance. (except abortion, and look how that's turning out.)
Maybe this is a one-story-two-screens thing but I would say it's the other way round, it takes a long time for awareness of "the transes and the SJWs" to filter through society but the more people see of it the less they like it.
See this article: https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/09/09/transphobia-uk-press-media-negative-coverage/ and specifically this graph: https://www.thepinknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Trans3.png
Data from https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/43194-where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights-1
When the majority answer is not a combination of "I don't care" or "What the fuck is that?" but "Dude, you're an asshole" then I will agree with you.
This is why the UK conservative party has dropped to 20% in the polls even though their opponents have bad ratings. It's not that people have realised conservative policy doesn't do anything for them, it's that they've realised electing 'conservative' parties don't get you conservative policy.
I'm saying that this was true, but it's started wearing off here in the leading edge of every discourse. These dudes were real conservatives, they received the message, they performed the ritual actions, they mouthed every shiboleth.
All the aforementioned dudes have either become so kranked up that they have been subtly ejected from every single one of their non obligatory social circles because they went from "woke is bad" to 'I'm trapped in a fucking car with a guy they won't shut the fuck up about how the jesuits own an observatory in Arizona named LUCIFER' (I'm sorry the trauma came out there)
Or they have backed way the fuck off with the passion, the pride.
They are AGHAST about whatever the current target of outrage on fox news is; absolutely shocked they tell you, while sipping their budlight (metaphorically, this is so cal after all. They be sippin those local craft brews; maybe a nice cab from the inland valley.)
They no longer have the passion of the convert. They looked at the last 6 years, and realized all that shit they believed either wasn't true or didn't actually matter to them.
That's not "don't care / what the fuck us that" means. You're portraying them as not wanting to stop any of it, even if they could and what they actually seem to be is not able to do anything about it at the moment, and not letting the raage consume them. "Outraged, I tell you, while sipping craft beer", is probably an accurate description of most culture warriors.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Any discussion of the UK Conservative's dismal polling that talks about ideology first and competence second is bogus.
The Tories are polling 20% because they f***ed up the technical implementation of Brexit (notice that not even the people who negotiated Johnson's deal are willing to defend it), f***ed up the COVID-19 response (the US was probably worse, but compared to the universe of rich countries the UK had an above-average death toll AND an above-average level of disruption caused by lockdowns etc.), f***ed up Trussonomics, and are also presiding over a slow-motion collapse in the NHS and the criminal justice system, and the final working out of the consequences of the UK's 70-year old system of housing communism (all of which they have done nothing to stop).
The very online debate is about whether the Tories can mitigate the damage by moving to the right to engage the post-2019 base of insane pensioners or by moving to the centre to appeal to the pre-2016 base of well-off people with jobs and families, but in the real world that is about mitigating damage caused by incompetence.
Keir Starmer's message in 2024 is going to be a variant on "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?", and whichever way he tacks on ideology, Rishi Sunak won't have a good answer.
More options
Context Copy link
To back this up: IIRC, a lot of the change in the polls is due to ex-Conservative voters deciding that they won't vote next time, rather than them switching to the social democrats or liberals.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is the pointy tip of the culture war. It isn't (or at least shouldn't be) the vast bulk of conservative or progressive ideology.
"I'm actually not very invested in drag queen story hour" should be the default answer for almost everyone.
I am in discord servers with exorbitant proportions of trans people and I never hear about drag queen story hour there.
Drag Queen Story Hour tends to involve actual in-person drag subcultures that have a long history and often have much more to with (often black) gay men than trans women.
That’s very far removed from the typical autistic, usually-white geeky programmer socks AGP transwoman on Discord or in other very online locales.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I would argue that there are not problems that need to be solved so much as goals current politicos are actively pursuing. When progressives talk about "overthrowing the old order" and "fundamentally transforming America" the destruction of the American civic identity and the elimination of the middle class are exactly what they are talking about.
The Biden-voting Brahmins want the US to be divided by race and class because they imagine that this will eliminate threats to their power. The reason prorgessives hate capital H-A-T-E groups like Moms for Liberty, and people like Elon Musk, Chaya Raichik, and (dare I say it) Donald Trump is that they are a unifying influence, even that influence is just saying out loud what everyone else was already thinking. Things like; Epstein didn't kill himself. Fauci Lied people Died. We shouldn't be entrusting our children to mentally ill sexual deviants.
Anyone paying attention could see that policies of Obama coupled with the failure theater of the "moderate" patrician-wing of the GOP had led to decline in American quality of life and prestige and that's exactly why MAGA resonated as a campaign.
Ons suspect that reason Progressives are so opposed to having skills best testing in education is that aside from being a direct threat to them financially, they want their students to be largely illiterate and easily manipulated by TikTok and other such platforms. Literate students might start to ask questions and become aware of what they've lost/missed out on.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link