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 don’t think this makes sense when you factor in the confession of privilege, the insulting and denigrating of the privileged, and the guilt that the white liberal possesses. If the white liberal were motivated by status seeking and dominance, they would not accept being lowered in status and denigrated for their characteristics. This literally loses them social points, opportunities, resources, accolades. You would also, then, see more men rather than women become liberal, because men more than women are motivated by the pursuit of dominance.
And the explanation also doesn’t make sense because “self-aggrandizing fantasy” applies even more so to the conservative worldview. Conservatism in America boosts white status simply by not denigrating them. The only way to salvage the argument would be to claim that the white liberal is actually competing in status against the white conservative, but this is definitely not the case on college campuses where white liberalism flourishes. They are competing, in essence, against non-white liberals.
I find a much better explanation in, “they have genuinely been conditioned to dislike themselves because of incessant repeated negative association involving their characteristics”. This also explains why the “group favorability” survey shows that white liberals rate white people lower than other races. Then it explains why Jews are resilient to this, because so much of their religion is about ethnic pride and ethnic resilience.
I dispute your first point. The white liberal is still motivated by status seeking and dominance, but within their own ingroup. They are seeking status and dominance amongst other white liberals. They're not surrounded by non-whites and they see those people as powerless, what's the loss in status? As far as they're concerned, non-whites aren't even at the table, and they don't engage with them anyway so what's the point.
You can see this same phenomenon among Catholic flagellates who see it as a demonstration of piety and it was called out as status-seeking behavior among Jews in the Bible (Matt 6:2 - "when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so they may be seen by men").
White liberals self-select. Go to any woke convention or conference and it's as white as the driven snow - this is especially ironic when comparing to the rainbow of diversity seen at /pol/ meetups.
Men more than women are motivated by the pursuit of dominance, true. But social dominance is, and has been, historically the arena of women.
To an extent, every subculture’s members compete over status and social dominance, even if they are at the lowest rung of society. Prisoners after all continue to compete over status. So while white liberals will compete amongst each other over who is more virtuous in relation to their ideology, it is still possible that the origin point of their ideology is informed more by actual belief rather than dominance. They belong to a subculture based upon a belief and “compete” over how well they measure up against each other. But what informs the belief first?
You see such a dynamic play out in the royal courts of kings. Those of lower rank compete against each other over approval by the higher rank. But they are not trying to dismantle the higher rank, and neither did they instantiate the higher rank themselves. In cases of extreme white progressivism, whites see themselves as eternally at a lower rank, similar to an ancient class system involving kings or nobles; they have internalized this, and now they compete for favorability. So they donate their money away, they will step down from their position if it means a minority can take their place (or they won’t accept it), they lobby against their own interests, they want their leaders to be non-white including in their own organizations.
They believe that white racism needs to be over-corrected, possibly forever. Minorities at the table aren’t enough.
Right but for another Catholic example, the social competition in the religion is over humility re God. (“The least among you shall be the greatest.”) In antiquity, those who were considered the most humble were seen as holy and praiseworthy, and martyrs (the most self-denying of the community) were said to have a “crown of victory” and were immortalized forever. This is a good demonstration of the complexity at play in ideological belief and peer conpetition. Humans cannot help but to pursue status because it’s in their deepest evolutionary nature, but they can also adapt their status-seeking according to an ideological framework which actually denies them power. For early Christians, the highest status in the community was the least status in the “world” (power, riches in the world). For white progressives, the highest status is to be a self-denying white and to promote minorities. That earns them status in their peer group, but the ideological presuppositions are motivated via indoctrination rather than status seeking (similar to religious indoctrination, just with the rigorous conception of the Good).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link