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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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You're not wrong in the general sense that each Tribe had cultural perspectives that are invisible to the other, and probably that the Blue Tribe's limitations there are smaller given the overwhelming cultural dominance of the Blue Tribe. ((That said, I'm not sure these gaps are as complete as people think: go to weird places and you'll find people who touch both spheres. It's just that the movers and shakers aren't.))

But your example seems weird:

One of those fundamental Hobbesian bits of insight that liberals see to lack is the understanding that violent schizophrenics attacking people on the subways is not some aberation, it's the default, and if you aren't going to do anything about it someone else just might.

This is absolutely something liberals and the Blue Tribe have as a perspective, and indeed even the most ivory-towered of them will fairly consistently blame conservatives for 'not grappling' with it in a genuine way rather than just shoving it out-of-sight. They just believe that the Correct solutions are near-completely opposite from the Red Tribe ones: favoring Therapy and voluntary treatment for the literal-schizophrenics and improved material support for the non-clinically insane. I think these things are wrong, but they're not really a gap in awareness, just evaluation of information.

This is absolutely something liberals and the Blue Tribe have as a perspective, and indeed even the most ivory-towered of them will fairly consistently blame conservatives for 'not grappling' with it in a genuine way rather than just shoving it out-of-sight. They just believe that the Correct solutions are near-completely opposite from the Red Tribe ones: favoring Therapy and voluntary treatment for the literal-schizophrenics and improved material support for the non-clinically insane.

I actually think this proves Hlynka's point. Liberals don't believe violent schizophrenics on the train are an underlying state of nature we'll always have to deal with, they believe its caused by a lack of therapy or support, and with enough support, we can live in a world where there are zero violent schizophrenics on the trains.

I think quite a few Hobbesian social conservatives think that violent schizophrenics should be institutionalized well before they're at the points we see them as violent or schizophrenics in the modern sense, and with enough throwing them into loony bins, we can live in a world where the are zero or near-zero. Like, I interacted with Clayton Cramer on this topic back when he was writing My Brother Ron (albeit more in regards to Bellesiades), and while that wasn't all of his position, it was a pretty sizable portion of it.

There are more narrow versions of this claim that are meaningful -- only Red Tribers believe this can only be resolved by armed police, or realize that some portion likes to hurt not because of the deserving-target's pain but for the feel of blood on their fingers -- but their narrowness turns them into policy matters.

I do not believe that I have ever encountered even one violent schizophrenic on the train, in my life, almost 40 years. There are a handful of cases where I've encountered some sort of an obviously insane ranter - cannot diagnose them further than that, of course - in some form of public transport, usually the bus, but as said, these have been only a handful of cases, and they haven't been violent. I can't even recall any of my friends talking about such cases, apart from Americans, of course. That might indicate there's, indeed, some way to make violent schizophrenics on the train something other than a state of nature we'll always have to deal with, whatever it is.

I actually think this proves Hlynka's point. Liberals don't believe violent schizophrenics on the train are an underlying state of nature we'll always have to deal with, they believe its caused by a lack of therapy or support, and with enough support, we can live in a world where there are zero violent schizophrenics on the trains.

They're both wrong. Violent schizophrenics on the train are a result of the sovereign's policies -- including policies of providing support.

The standard Blue Tribe perspective is not that this is the default, but that this is somehow the fault of society/capitalism/racism or something else. That these people are victims of their environment, and therefore are owed welfare as compensation. That if they're causing problems it's our fault and therefore our duty to fix their problems.

Not that they are inherently violent schizos by default and welfare is a useful way to suppress their violent tendencies, that's a utilitarian center-right position, and a fairly uncommon one (though one I partly hold, though I'd like to see more emphasis on mental health treatment and less on enabling.)

I think Red Tribers believing that some people are inherent violent schizos is a stronger claim, but it's a different one from "violent schizophrenics attacking people on the subways".

((And even that runs into framing problems. There are people that think capitalism causes literally every case of schizophrenia, but the more common take among liberals and even some leftist is more the Ozy mealy-mouthed 'they're bad unless 'supported''.))

The standard Blue Tribe perspective is not that this is the default, but that this is somehow the fault of society/capitalism/racism or something else.

That's kind of my point.

They just believe that the Correct solutions are near-completely opposite from the Red Tribe ones: favoring Therapy and voluntary treatment for the literal-schizophrenics and improved material support for the non-clinically insane. I think these things are wrong, but they're not really a gap in awareness, just evaluation of information.

This is not a point in their favor. Believing this at the start of the project is one thing. But that particular project has been going on for decades now, and anyone still believing it works is operating from profound willful ignorance of the actual results (both in general, and in the specific case of Jordan Neely), or a faith unshakeable by evidence.

With a few quibbles (cfe "immigration" here), I'd probably agree with you.

But it still means that talking about how we absolutely must handle and solve the problem of schizophrenics will get them to happily nod, think you agree with them, and then turn right back to Housing First arguments.

This is absolutely something liberals and the Blue Tribe have as a perspective

Is it though?

Yes. You don't see it as often from your perspective, but if you go into progressive spaces taking your own libertarian bent, you'd absolutely encounter a ton of Blue Tribers certain that the smallest change to welfare or building regulations will result in an endless violent mob that can't be reasoned with nor danegelded with some small payoff, or the country turning into a clone of Somalia, respectively.

Blue Tribers in progressive spaces can make that argument seriously because they've tabooed the harsh-but-obvious answer: "Well if they riot from lack of welfare, can't we just shoot them?" They believe the fact that they won't consider any punitive solution against the "less fortunate" makes them "the good people", and the the purpose of police and such (if they have any at all) is to enforce the taxes and regulations which keep the "less fortunate" fed and safe.

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