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 -
I hope you're right! But I've always viewed the crazy COVID response itself as being because of leftism. I remember the leftists in my life talking about how COVID was Trump's fault and saying they need to take the pandemic response into their own hands. And people did this, making everyone think that COVID was the most serious illness ever that was going to destroy our country, which caused businesses to have everyone work from home because they didn't want to seem like they were uncaring. And before you know it, we had 3 years of lockdowns. I think that if a disease as non-deadly COVID happened 20 years prior, it's possible we wouldn't' have locked down like that, it was maybe only because the leftists had such groundswell power.
That's what I keep thinking, but they keep proving me wrong!
Yes people will be outraged. It’s a motte and bailey. I just think it will be far more muted. You can go on Reddit when you feel like it and post something like Trump isn’t that bad in a bash Trump thread and get downvoted.
I just think it will be 4-5x smaller this time around compared to 2020.
More options
Context Copy link
There were strident Covid responses by both left- and right-wing governments. Few Hungary-loving conservative influencers seem to be familiar with what sort of Covid policies Hungary had, for instance (though it was far from the strictest ones). While Covid policies were polarized into left-right fairly quickly, things were considerably hazier in a host of other countries.
There's a pretty clear reason for this though, right? As dispositions, left and right aren't intrinsically authoritarian or libertarian in nature. In the United States, the broader right tends to be the home of people that are more libertarian-inclined, not uniformly, but to the extent of having guys like Ron Paul (in the older days) and Thomas Massie around.
I do think it's interesting to look around the globe and note that being Covid-insane (or Covid-cautious/Covid-serious if you're not the kind of hater that I am) doesn't really look all that linked to political ideology, but to belief in the power of the state to improve lives through controlling citizens. But really, in the United States, this does look like the sort of thing that will wind up highly left-coded and it's reasonable for Americans to react to their own politics accordingly.
There is, but it's not that American conservatives love freedom more than American liberals. Trump was president at the start of Covid, which made his response a natural angle of attack for Democrats. Rather than defend his performance, Trump argued that Covid was actually not that big a deal. That more or less set the partisan alignment on the matter.
More options
Context Copy link
Well, the obvious counterexample would be Sweden, ruled at that time by Social Democrats (who had historically based their power specifically on the power of the state to improve lives through controlling citizens), but with a notoriously lax Covid regime compared to most other European countries. (Belarus had a laxer one, but it's also led by a bonafide authoritarian populist who was initially elected as the left candidate and has exploited Soviet nostalgia even more heavily than Putin.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link