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 -
Non-socialist parties which don't get the "far right" adjective in the press, off the top of my head (even using an inaccurately broad sense of socialism):
UK, Conservatives
UK, Lib Dems
France, Macron's party
France, Union of Democrats and Independents
France, Republicans
Germany, Christian Democrats
Germany, CSU
Germany, Free Democrats
And that's just the 3 biggest countries. I.e. every single major right-of-center party in these countries, excluding the French National Front.
Hence, your statement is false in a way that's clear to anyone with passing familiarity with the press.
(Meta-comment: another example of The Motte's descent into hysterical tribal right wing persecution complexes, and move away from Scott-style balanced, empiricial rationalism.)
You're confusing "the press is always calling everybody who's not socialist 'far right'" and "if the press is calling somebody 'far right', their actual political affiliation could be anywhere rightwards from socialists". Do I need to draw a Venn diagram to explain the difference?
The "99%" figure is clearly a rhetorical device (I can't believe I have to explain that) - I readily admit I did not make a compendium of all mentions of "far right" ever in the press and calculated how far from socialists they actually are. What I meant (I can't believe I have to explain that, again) by it that the accuracy of this label is overwhelmingly very low and most of the mentions of "far right" is nothing but the label, and can be attached to anybody on the right. And has been attached to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, etc. I don't watch French and German politics that closely so I'm not sure how that label is being used there.
You sure know how to demonstrate that famous "balanced, empiricial rationalism" thing. Or maybe you do think that's what "balanced, empiricial rationalism" actually is? Oh my.
If "far right" were used to mean "not socialist" by the media, then the media would call non-socialist parties "far right".
If you're reacting in part to the emotional tone of my comment, then fair enough, I do have feelings about what's (in my personal perspective) happened to The Motte. So my phrasing is admittedly not emotionally balanced/level.
That would only be true if the media had to use only one single term to describe the whole spectrum of parties. Then this term would either be "far right" or not, and your claim would be correct. However, in reality it uses a variety of terms, and some of them are used without any accuracy, as general pejorative labels. That doesn't mean the media always wants to use general perjoratives when talking about every party, of course.
I am flattered to be elected (by a single vote, but apparently it's enough) a representative of the whole forum, but I think your lament is rather misguided and driven by misunderstanding more than anything. You may consider that if somebody tells you they didn't mean what you say they mean, then maybe they didn't mean what you say they mean.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link