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 -
No the liberals are well aware they're possibly never getting back into power.
All of Canada's left depends on Canadian media propped up by government subsidies. There isn't a newspaper, tv channel, or magazine that survives without it.
The conservatives have made it a CORE part of their platform that they'll defund it all... this is the thing their base cares about, this is the thing the party bosses all salivate over... If you told them the journalists would starve to death on the street they'd take the week off to watch it happen and jeer in real time.
They'll Let the CBC and every Canadian broadcaster die, such that it will just be Rebel News and American Media.
Unlike the US where there is sufficient demand and backdoor bribes to keep legacy media going, in Canada it will just die.
And then it will be 4 YEARS until the next election.
The big lesson they learnt from Harper and the convoys is the only thing preventing the total Americanization of Canada (and permanent shift to a US style 60-40 right-left division of time in power (as opposed to the 20-80 Canada had in the 20th century) is State funding of Media...
And they will spend ANY political capital and suffer any scandal to watch those journalist die deaths of despair.
The Big Shift (title of the book that predicted this would occur naturally in the 2010s) was Harper's dream, that if he hit the liberals at just the right angle enough times, their party would die. The New Democrats would become the left wing party, the bloc would become permanently more powerful in Quebec, and Canada forever after would function as America Jr. in terms of how politics played out...
This didn't happen because Trudeau had a magic to him, and every institution fought tooth and nail to prevent the 4th Harper Victory that would have locked it in.
But with Conservative Pierre Poilievre's now 40+% in national polls (this in a 5-6 party system)...and with Poilievre framing himself as Stephen Harper, but more blood-thirsty and Trucker levels of hostile to the media...
This looks like it might be the end of the Liberal-Laurentian era of Canadian politics.
Canada is a country where the parties aren't systemically locked in like in the states... and Great parties have died before. (see the progressive-Conservatives going from a Majority government to 2 seats in the 90s never forming government again, and then harper and his hostile Westerners to absorb them, then slowly purge the remainder of their leaders)
This is not going to happen. Guaranteed.
The media, even when entirely ideologically captured, has enough of a self-preservation instinct to half-heartedly lick the boot after a regime change. And any Conservatives, even and especially those who aren't knowingly playing the role of controlled opposition, are so starved for flattering media coverage that they'll let them flatter them and will forget any plan or promise to deal with the media, until it's too late, it's election season and the knife is buried so far in their back they can't pull it out anymore.
And even if that scenario doesn't happen, CBC is a big enough institution to scrape by on debt for a good long while. Interest rates are high, but so what? If they can get liberals reelected they'll get bailed out.
CBC is a Crown corp, I don't think they can borrow -- and it's hard to overstate how much the CBC has turned into a woke organ over the past ten years or so.
I used to have it on more or less 24/7 in the house -- it wasn't always good but it was rarely offensive enough to go turn it off.
Now I will sometimes listen in the car, but have a policy of turning it off whenever somebody starts bitching about the underprivileged -- I rarely last an hour, and I doubt that most non-woke people are so generous. I don't think the CBC will disappear, but I don't think it would cost the Conservatives that much support among those who would ever consider supporting them to pare it back hard and turn it into a strict news network.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Remarkably optimistic for you, Kulak. What do you think is the real chance they abolish the CBC?
Not Kulak but 50-50. The CBC has been slipping in public conciousness ever since they lost the NHL rights to Roger's in 2015 and Peter Mansbridge retired. The only people who watch CBC news are old Lauerntian boomers. The only relevant CBC show in the last decade was Schitts Creek which ends this year. I'm not sure the majority of Canadians would notice or care.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link