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 -
The most obvious point against this is that the Christian nationalists (or whatever you want to call them if that term displeases) don't want to be cultural secessionists (for the most part). They generally see themselves as the rightful heirs to the American legacy and to give that up in favor of being the Amish mk II is to abandon their birthright. People like Rod Dreher have advocated for separation from secular society, but somewhat tellingly, Dreher lives in Hungary now, not the United States.
Logistically, it is problematic as well. The Amish aren't very numerous and are able to isolate themselves from external influence via technological proscriptions as well as the hard division their beliefs create from everyone else. You can't really be Am-ish. By contrast, Christian nationalism encompasses potentially tens of millions of people in the US. At that scale, you can't really wander off into the wilderness to start your own society, even if you could persuade people to do so.
They may not want to do that, just like the Essenes before them preferred not to secede territory to the Pharisees, and Jesus wanted his own nation to find agreement with him, and Mary didn’t want to flee to Egypt under Herod… but their wishes don’t factor in at all, only the will of God. They had to do what was necessary. Any good Christian must ultimately capitulate to reality: “yet not as I will, but as [God] wills.”
Not Amish. I had used Amish as an example of growth, but the subculture to copy would be Hasidim. The Hasidim can live in the middle of NYC and yet retain complete cultural sovereignty. They have their own rules, their own courts, their own ambulance service, their own local police; the politicians know they blockvote and come to their communities to make a speech every election cycle; they lobby fiercely for their own issues; they hire in-group; they have the highest birth rate in America; their schools barely teach English. Rather than technological proscription, the Hasidim simply have their own phones with only certain app permissions. And having millions would make this process much easier, not more difficult; you can spread out your centers in culturally influential places.
I've actually proposed this sort of model to Christians of my acquaintance before, and have gotten three general replies:
that even this much separation from the mainstream constitutes an abdication of the "Great Commission" (and that, therefore, the Amish aren't Christian at all)
that they can't emulate the Hasidim, because they're not Jewish — meant in two rather different ways:
2.A. that pulling off that sort of community — particularly the "their own rules, their own courts, their own ambulance service, their own local police" stuff — requires fundamentally immoral and "scummy" tactics which they could not countenance, as only the Jews would ever stoop to such depths.
2.B. that pulling off that sort of community requires a tolerance from the broader system which is extended only to Jewish groups — to a great extent because they can accuse their critics and opponents of antisemitism — while Christians attempting the same would find no such leeway.
I’m not convinced by those replies. Re: 1, the early Christians themselves abstained from participating in normative Jewish life, and the Roman Christians abstained from the Pagan civic rituals which defined mainstream Roman life. They formed their own schools based on Christian teachings. Even if we didn’t have this historical example, an insular community may do a better job at securing and promoting Christianity than a lukewarm, mainstream Christianity. The Great Commission is time neutral — it took Lithuania 1400 years to become Christian. And a Christian has an obligation to love God, which means surely he has an obligation to develop a community which permits the most love of God.
Re 2A: we are lucky, because the original founding document of America recognizes that God provides the right to freedom of association and freedom of religion. What better way to practice these rights than to worship the one who provides it?
Re 2B: America’s lax tolerance of this is because the community is insular and skilled at politicking. When you organize 200,000 men hierarchically, who all believe the most important thing in their life is the protection of their community, they are able to accomplish great things.
Critically, it was the very abstention of the early Christians from public life that, ultimately, led to their success -- while there were certainly some failures to communicate doctrines like the eucharistic presence (leading to claims that Christians were slaughtering and eating human babies) and universal fraternity (leading to non-Christians seeing Christian spouses calling each other "brother" and "sister"), there was also a sense in which the strength and conviction of the early Christians impressed the Romans. Later on, Christians whose theology spared them from the fear of death worked in hospitals treating the sick, which astounded the Romans who abandoned the plague-ridden. It was these things that the later Christians could point to and say, "look how impressive we are, you should adopt our belief system."
This co-existed, of course, with attempts at public preaching. You've got to do both. You can't abandon the public spectacle of St. Paul, but you must, you must, embrace the cloistered enlightenment of St. John. Any form of Christianity that embraces one while rejecting the other becomes imbalanced.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
And notably the much softer Gab-style parallel society is not taking off like an arrow.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link