Is there a culture war in the US right now?
There is an ongoing debate about the symbolic significance of monuments and statues (for example, of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill) in the US and the UK. Recently, Boris Johnson got accused of ‘wanting a culture war’ over his comments about the statue of Winston Churchill. “If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history.” Johnson was represented as a politician who tries to replace the complex policy debate with divisive identity. Allegedly, he has intended to draw the clear distinction between those who want to ‘photoshop’ the UK’s cultural landscape and complex history, and the defenders of its culture and heritage.
In 1991, James Hunter applied the notion of culture war to frame the American society of that time. Accordingly, American politics and culture had been deeply polarized; there were two major warring groups, determined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological worldviews. A culture war occurs when “The actual diversity of attitude, opinion, and belief in the general population is not reflected in the kind of artificially polarized rhetoric of the special purpose groups… Complexity, subtlety, reflectiveness, nuance—all of the things that make for serious and substantive democratic engagement get forced into a grid of rhetorical extremes… Plurality is reduced to duality; polyphony is very quickly reduced to a crude, hackneyed, and discordant diaphone.” (James D. Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America).
The current debate about systemic racism in the US should concern the concrete problem of the unfair and unequal treatment of the particular group of people and the violation of their most basic human rights. Put differently, the debate can be framed as the exposure of the ultimate flaw of the entire American experiment: from the beginning, it has been built and designed entirely to perpetuate racial inequality. The second approach can be easily transformed into a cultural conflict perspective. Thus, Ibram X. Kendi insists that there is no room for neutrality or reticence in American society. If you are not doing “antiracist work,” you are ipso facto a racist. By ‘antiracist work,’ he means fully accepting his version of human society and American history, integrating it into your own life, confessing your own racism, and publicly voicing your continued support. Currently, does this blueprint have a chance of being realized? Is there a culture war in the US right now?
In 1991, James Hunter applied the notion of culture war to frame the American society of that time. Accordingly, American politics and culture had been deeply polarized; there were two major warring groups, determined primarily not by nominal religion, ethnicity, social class, or even political affiliation, but rather by ideological worldviews. A culture war occurs when “The actual diversity of attitude, opinion, and belief in the general population is not reflected in the kind of artificially polarized rhetoric of the special purpose groups… Complexity, subtlety, reflectiveness, nuance—all of the things that make for serious and substantive democratic engagement get forced into a grid of rhetorical extremes… Plurality is reduced to duality; polyphony is very quickly reduced to a crude, hackneyed, and discordant diaphone.” (James D. Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America).
The current debate about systemic racism in the US should concern the concrete problem of the unfair and unequal treatment of the particular group of people and the violation of their most basic human rights. Put differently, the debate can be framed as the exposure of the ultimate flaw of the entire American experiment: from the beginning, it has been built and designed entirely to perpetuate racial inequality. The second approach can be easily transformed into a cultural conflict perspective. Thus, Ibram X. Kendi insists that there is no room for neutrality or reticence in American society. If you are not doing “antiracist work,” you are ipso facto a racist. By ‘antiracist work,’ he means fully accepting his version of human society and American history, integrating it into your own life, confessing your own racism, and publicly voicing your continued support. Currently, does this blueprint have a chance of being realized? Is there a culture war in the US right now?
Comments (252)
Yes, and the rich and powerful are winning. They always win. :sad:
This.
There's nothing grass roots about what's going on. It's top-down.
Could you expand, please. I did not understand you.
Isn't this obvious?
Is that so simple? May be, this time 'a culture war' is different and rich and powerful will
lose if the events will be out of their control.
It is not obvious at all. Look around you, and you will find it. There are a lot of ways to frame the ongoing events in the US.
Powerful interests are funding the "spontaneous" protests. Black Lives Matter, the organization, takes in huge amounts of money in contributions from corporations. Globalists have spent decades weakening national interests and nationalism worldwide. How on earth do you think it came about that the manufacturing capacity of the American heartland got sold out to China while the residents ended up on fentanyl?
I haven't the inclination today to explain all this to you but I hope you'll do some research on your own. All of a sudden the New York Times wants to destroy Mt. Rushmore? Where'd that come from?
If you'd like to know where to start, read your Chomsky.
Does it mean that corporations have the complete control over the current agenda and what can happen next? Likely, yes. But you cannot be completely sure.
Quoting fishfry
I do not know. Do you mean that all this was planned a long ago?
Quoting fishfry
There were a few accounts that the "spontaneous" protests were completely organized.
Yet, there are no proofs, and since 'the public opinion' is entirely shaped by the media, it actually does not matter. What matters is how the media forms the current agenda.
Chomsky supports BLM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-0BmqyWJ30
I could not imagine that Chomsky is relevant to understand what is going on in the US
right now. May be, we should go back to Althusser and even to earlier leftist theorists?
In two words: cheaper resources. The cost of economic success is always paid by the working class. The millions lifted out of extreme poverty in China may pay the same price eventually, or a higher price.
It's always been that simple, read your Freakonomics.
_____
Friv 9
I've sworn off talking politics on this site so I've pretty much said my piece. My only point is that the current unrest is the opposite of grass roots. It's top down. If you disagree that's ok, I won't stab you like this Hahvahd grad would for disagreeing with her. She's not grass roots either, she's the end product of decades of Marxist influence in the academy. "I'ma stab you." Harvard. I'm glad I'm old and won't get to see the ultimate endgame.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/01/harvard-grad-threatens-to-stab-anyone-who-says-all-lives-matter/
She lost her job and now after threatening to stab people, she's crying that she's receiving threats of violence.
https://nypost.com/2020/07/01/harvard-grad-claira-janover-lost-deloitte-job-over-tiktok-stab-threat/
Harvard! Not SJW State. Harvard. This was not an accident. This was planned long ago in circles of power you and I aren't part of.
She was obviously joking.
The story was reported nationally. There's nothing factually false about the story regardless of the source. You could google her name and get a hundred other accounts. She got fired. Were they only reacting to a tabloid too?
Perhaps I'm not understanding your point. I didn't threaten her and I am not the nationally known accounting firm that fired her. Perhaps your beef is with them. What does the source of the story have to do with it? You can watch her original TikTok video and see whether she strikes you as a Harvard grad you'd be proud to employ to work with your corporate clients.
Quoting Wheatley
And I'm sure the people now threatening her are joking too. Come on, man. I watched the original clip. She wasn't joking. Of course she (probably) wasn't actually going to stab anyone. And neither are the people threatening her life. She received from the universe exactly what she put out, in spades. Ancient philosophical principle.
Did the lamestreem (mainstream) media even bother to report it. I'm just curious. :lol:
So what if it went viral? This isn’t evidence about the true motives of this lady.
Quoting fishfry
My point is that your taking sensationalized TikTok videos way too seriously.
You said this:
Quoting fishfry
You might want to point to a more serious source of information to support that conclusion.
Is just another fancy name for politics.
If you feel strongly that this demented young woman was wronged, here is her GoFundMe page where you can donate to her cause.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-claira-janover-is-incredible-fund-part-ii?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
Can you explain to me what do you think is in the air these days that induces a bright, ambitious young woman to get herself into Harvard and then, after graduating and nailing a high status job at a big time accounting firm, posts a TikTok video that immediately renders her unsuitable for employment anywhere?
If it was just one person going crazy, it wouldn't be a story. It's a lot of people. She said she'd stab anyone who said all lives matter. Do you believe all lives matter? Would you stab someone who disagreed with your opinion? Would you even jokingly threaten to stab someone on the Internet where your video will exist forever?
What is in the air? And why is it happening? The answer is that these ideas have been percolating by design in academia for decades; and this woman is a product of forces far beyond her understanding. Forces from the top, and not from the bottom.
Now I do see that I get frustrated in political conversations, because it's not like the math threads. I can't prove my claims from first principles and put those principles into a historical context. In fact it always amazes me that people can write books that argue a political point; because the social sciences strike me as a black art. So I won't try.
But you tell me, if you think I'm missing the point. Why do you think this woman did what she did? Especially knowing very well what the online culture is like? Did she think nobody would care that she passionately claimed that she would stab anyone who had a different opinion than her? Didn't there used to be some kind of notion of civil disagreement in this country? What happened? "I may not agree with what you say, but I'ma stab you if you say it."
You support that ethos? And, "I'm a stab you." Harvard teaches young intellectuals to express themselves in ebonics? When did that start?
I have my ideas about all this but I can't argue them from first principles in the same way I can with math. So you tell me, maybe I'll learn something. You think she's a one-off and that because the NYT didn't print the story it doesn't mean anything? I'll remind you that the NYT helped Bush lie the country into the Iraq war by promoting daily stories about Saddam's yellowcake uranium and reactor tubes. In terms of reach and consequences, the NYT is the greatest purveyor of fake news in the world. The NY Post doesn't even come close.
Me? Why don't you send an angry tweet to the company that fired her? I did nothing other than express an opinion. That's not a very serious level of commitment or even interest, although I will admit that this story caught my eye this evening. And as I said, you can donate to her GoFundMe page if you feel that strongly that she was wronged. Arguing with me won't help her, I'm not even on social media. Here's her former employer's website where you can give them a piece of your mind. Talking to me does nothing for her.
https://www2.deloitte.com/ng/en.html
But do help me to understand your point of view. What is it about "I'ma stab you if you say all lives matter" that you find acceptable and sane from a Harvard grad; or from anyone at all for that matter? What do you like about this?
I'm wondering if this is the best place to merely express your opinion. Here's the crucial question: do you want others to comment on what you've said, or would you rather be left alone?
That's a great question. I think I'll leave it at what I've already said. But I do invite to you at least try to explain to me what is it about this situation that doesn't bother you when a Harvard grad expresses herself by threatening to stab people who say that all lives matter? I asked you all these questions in my earlier lengthy post. Feel free to respond because maybe I'll learn something.
Do you think it's a good or bad trend in society that instead of civil argument we have young people taught to express their opinions with fits of violent rage?
I really don't care about that lady.
Quoting fishfry
I'm not a psychologist but it's a fact that people with high intelligence are capable of saying and doing very irrational things.
Quoting fishfry
Politics often gets messy, there's always going to be some crazy person doing some weird things. And it doesn't really matter the side of the political spectrum.
Ok, you think she's a one-off.
I've been following the news lately (and for decades) and I think she's the end product of a plan. That would be my opinion. I'm not a scholar of these matters but the name Gramsci comes up a lot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci
I don't agree with that opinion, but I respect your right to express that opinion here. :smile:
Well thanks for not threatening to stab me!
I am going to stab you.
The locution is: "I'ma stab you." These days that's how people can tell you've been educated at Harvard. Your bourgeoisie roots are showing. Or as the kids say, your bougie roots.
I'm sensing that you don't think much of Harvard. I invite you to start a topic on your opinion of that university.
As Claira would (and did) say: The sheer entitled caucasity.
I don't care. One life lesson I learned is that paying less attention to ideologues is good for your mental health.
The question of the thread is whether there's a culture war going on. There is. It's between people willing to call out the insanity of Claira and people like her; and people claiming it's a one-off and that there's no significance to it. On the contrary, I find this a very significant story. It encapsulates everything wrong with the culture at this moment. If you don't pay attention to idealogues, what are you going to do when they come to your house or your town to set the place on fire, pull down statues, and take over neighborhoods by force, with the acquiescence of the local politicians? I'ma barf.
I'll let you have the last word.
You would have to show that she isn't merely a fringe group. Or else it's just your opinion.
Nothing you say is going to convince them otherwise, that's why they are called idealogues. Call them out for what they are, and do everything you can to stop their unethical behavior.
I'm perfectly safe where I am.
Pitchfork-wielding protesters descend on wealthy Hamptons estates
NY Post again, but I have lowbrow taste. And
Nearly $1 Billion Is Shifted From Police in Budget That Pleases No One
That's from the NY Times for those who like lying warmonger fake news sources. That's 17% of the NYC police department's budget at a time when homicides and other violent crimes are exploding. And the new "bail is unfair" movement means that violent criminals are set free the day they're arrested. Plenty of links if you feel like doing the research.
You say you're safe from this insanity and I hope you're right, and I hope I'm safe too. How insane will these idealogues, as you call them, get before none of us are safe?
Ok I'm really done you can definitely have the last word but how can you say you're safe from all this? Don't you follow the news?
That's only your point of view. It might be in your interest to keep NYC police department fully funded, but don't expect everyone to be on board. They give their reasons for the police budget cuts, you may not agree with their reasons, but that's what politics is about.
Quoting fishfry
Lucky for you there are idealogues on the other side sticking up for your interests.
Quoting fishfry
I'm not going tell you about my personal life on a public forum. All I'll say is this: I have no power to do anything about all this instability. I might as well worry about other things. There are plenty of people who do worry about it and have the power, and I think they'll get on just fine. I'm not going to have any impact on this debate, let's be honest.
A caravan of protesters —some wielding plastic pitchforks— descended on the Hamptons Wednesday to blast the rich and decry the nation’s rising income inequality.
https://pagesix.com/2020/07/01/hamptons-billionaires-car-caravan-protest-targets-east-end-vacation-homes/?_ga=2.188831215.559590100.1593669536-1434620757.1590193080
Did you only read the headline?
You believe everything you read in the tabloids?
I don't read tabloids. :vomit:
And Jerry Springer.
It has happened before but revolutions do not come out as those who fight them hope because they go into them to destroy the existing power and do not have a plan for destroying power, so when the fighting is over, those who understand power take over, and at first people are glad for their leadership, then they realize it is not the leadership they want.
The American revolution began as an intellectual revolution and that needs to be repeated to get a good outcome to a revolution.
It is a good point! I just want to add that the successful destroying of certain 'old' forms of power would be impossible without their simultaneous replacement with 'new' powers. Otherwise, it is not
about revolution, it is just a chaotic riot without any consequences: the 'old' organizations of power would reproduce themselves automatically.
Quoting Athena
Do you understand the current situation in the US as the beginning of the next revolution?
Any 'successful' revolution was led by an organized group that could articulate a clear ideological agenda and establish new forms of power and societal life. Do we deal with a similar situation now?
I read Chomsky a while ago. Please correct me if I misunderstand or misinterpreted him.
According to Chomsky, the interests of the ruling elite are masked by a particular ideology.
The concept of ideology presupposes a specific frame of reference: there is 'real world,' distorted
and falsified by the ideological system of inaccurate representations. This conceptual scheme was criticized by Althusser, who pointed out that ideology should be reformulated as the system, maintaining a necessarily imaginary relation of an individual to the 'real' world. Let say that I accept your evaluation of the current situation in the US, and I consider your examples as 100% real facts. (Actually, I could bring my own examples, supporting your perspective). But, in our environment, it does not matter anymore. Anyone can object to our sources of information and bring different ones, supporting their own narratives. Further, we will inevitably become a kind of marginal, isolated group. Our sources of information cannot compete with the dominant mainstream media platforms: they determine the current agenda and maintain the prevailing public opinion. When the media start supporting a different narrative, the current one can become irrelevant and eventually forgotten.
Who remembers now judge Kavanaugh's nomination? The media could represent him guilty, and at that moment, so many people hysterically supported this narrative. Let me come back to https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6106/fake-news/p1
"Definitional question. In 2002 the NYT ran stories by Judith Miller alleging that Saddam Hussein was acquiring yellowcake uranium and aluminum tubes for the construction of WMDs Those articles, appearing as they did day after day after day in the Paper of Record (TM), helped turn the tide of public opinion in favor of invading Iraq, and gave cover to politicians (Hillary and Joe Biden to name two) to vote for Bush's war despite millions of liberals (who used to be against war, way back in the day) marching in the streets against it. That was by the way the last time we saw anything from the anti-war movement in this country. Something that troubles me."
You made perfect points here. Nevertheless, once again, what the NYT did in 2002 is wholly forgotten today. Chomsky's conceptual framework cannot be applied to analyze the current crisis. Its fundamental flaw is the assumption that we deal with the 'real' world. Yet, we firstly deal with the medium, producing various effects (fake news).
It's a way to make everybody a moron and let people go fighting their strawmans. Even the name "Culture wars" makes hubristic claims of a war going on. The portrayal of the "enemy" is the most stupid thing in this war. For one side it the "marxists" and for the other it "fascists" and the "1%".
As if really, we genuinely would be living in the 1930's. But what better way to beat two dead horse again and again.
I agree. This is just one of possible ways to frame our situation. How would you define the unfolding
event in the US? Yet, one could try to apply Hunter's definition of 'culture war': there are a few current developments, verifying his perspective.
Let's remember that Presidential elections are the silly season in the US when this discourse spills out of the normal political commentating ring (talk radio, right wing/ liberal & progressive channels). US politics is obsessed with values, morality and lifestyle, so naturally some debate in the culture war realm would be invented. But now you not only have a populist president, but a very incompetent populist president, which just makes things even worse. Populism itself seeks to divide people to "us" and "them" us being the ordinary people and them being the filthy elites.
If this wasn't bad, add into the toxic stew a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, which has not only killed well over a hundred thousand in the US and is strong and well and spreading in the country, but also put the US and the World into one of the worst economic depressions ever.
So what better time to pull down a statue of George Washington and set in on fire.
Weee...culture wars!!!
I'd laugh at this tragicomedy if it only would stay as it is.
But likely it will be even worse. If you think this is the low point, you will be surprised how more low and stupid it can get.
Your points make sense: 1)Trump 2)elections 3)pandemic 4)economic depression 5)populism
I would add a few more, but even this combination is explosive enough.
Quoting ssu
Quoting ssu
Don't you think that pulling down statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln would perfectly fit
to the situation of a culture war? And, there would be the division of people into the two camps:
in favor of and against. Still, it is not clear how pulling down these statues is caused by the above combination.
You could add burning the American flag and destroying other symbols of the US -
will the union survive after all?
Oh, it's fits perfectly a culture war! But so do the protectors of the statues, who think that officials will do absolutely nothing to protect public statues, and that they have to create patrols to defend the cultural heritage of the nation from anarchists. Perhaps not Mt Rushmore, but other places...
And we could start/continue it here too!
We could start a huge fight about it here in the PF. And then, by the standards of how the culture war is fought, the discussion should degenerate to personal insults and end in someone getting banned. And that banning then would be seen as "cancel culture" and PF being taken over one side or the other (depending on the viewer, likely).
That's a much more philosophical culture war, as both sides are philosophically wrong in one way about factual matters and philosophically wrong in the opposite way about normative matters, but they've got which kind of wrong they are about which direction of fit reversed from each other. (And also a populist vs elitist leaning in one of their kinds of wrongness each, hence the left vs right gloss they get painted with).
Maybe I should start a different thread on that, if anyone's interested.
Do you think that these two groups of stereotypes and their supporters do initiate the current cultural conflict? If not, we need to find the divisive imperative. It is not clear if it is possible to single out the primary determinant. Can the ongoing debate about racial inequality function in such a manner? Does it leave room for neutrality or reticence in American society? Do people have to choose between opposite views on American history, the symbolic significance of the familiar cultural landscape, the acceptable limits of violence during protests, the legitimacy of certain political discourses, etc.? If yes, there is Hunter's culture war situation: " The actual diversity of attitude, opinion, and belief in the general population is not reflected in the kind of artificially polarized rhetoric of the special purpose groups … Plurality is reduced to duality; polyphony is quickly reduced to a crude, hackneyed, and discordant diaphone."
Quoting Pfhorrest
From what philosophical position can you articulate your judgement?
The one under discussion in this thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8626/the-principles-of-commensurablism
Especially as captured in this diagram:
I think the “right” “Silicon Valley Libertarian” does the top pattern with regards to norms and the bottom pattern, to a lesser extent, with an elitist lean, with regards to facts.
Meanwhile the “left” “Social Justice Warrior” does the top pattern with regards to facts and the bottom pattern, to a lesser extent, with a populist lean, with regards to norms.
I appreciate this level of formalization. Let say that one accepts your proposition about the philosophical foundations of being ‘right’ and being ‘left.’ Yet, how can you demonstrate that this divergence is the cause of the real culture war? People can peacefully agree or disagree on different philosophical principles, but the same people could irreconcilably wage the culture war.
There could be ‘irrational,’ unarticulated actual reasons.
Yes, and no.
We are ahead of the game because we have history and advanced communication technology.
We are in trouble because we ignored history. We replaced our domestic education with education for a technological society with unknown values, and because this education leaves us ignorant or the democracy we inherited, we can not defend it. We herited perhaps the best possible democracy and we don't know enough about it to defend it, nor could we establish anything better.
Forums such as this one could resolve the problems. We can take back our power and we restructure our laws so they do what they were intended to do. For example from the book Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges:
"He (Roosevlet) sent a message to Congress on April 29, 1938, titled "Recommendations to the Congress to Curb Monopolies and the Concentration of Economic Power". In it he wrote:
"the first truth is the liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism- ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way to sustain and acceptable standard of living."
Our democracy is open to change by reason and consensus. We do not need to change that. We need to read and talk and realize what has gone wrong and how to right that wrong.
At the same time technology and science has totally revolutionized our consciousness and never before have we been so close to realizing the awesome potential of our democracy. Up until now we have lived with many false believes and without the organization and wealth to fully manifest our democracy. Our consciousness is bringing us to a New Age, a time of high tech, peace and the end of tyranny.
What we have to do now is bring together past wisdom with today's knowledge and potential.
WE HAVE TO DO THIS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO ONE TO DO IT FOR US. OUR LIBERTY DEPENDS ON WHAT WE DO, NOT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DOES FOR US.
Return to the intellectual revolution that began our democracy and that was not stated by the Bible! We must bring an end to the Myth of Christianity being the foundation of our democracy. That is just plain un-American and there is no way we should be supporting Israel any more than we should support China or Saudi Arabia or Russia. Making money the bottom line and using religion to support this and the "power and glory" of military force, is destroying our economy, democracy and liberty.
I am thinking may be I don't belong here at all? Which one objects to the notion that a cooperation is an individual? Which one is againt monopolies and would return things like banking and the media to several small owners? Which one understands what bureaucratic organization has to do with the shift of power from power of the people to power of the state? I am really sorry but I am very ignorant of philosophy and I don't understand what it has to do with political and economic power or lack of it.
Thomas Jefferson believed everyone must be educated if we are to have a strong and united republic, and that was not education for a technological society with unknown values. It was education for citizenship and independent thinking and good moral judgment and this education stimulated inventions and the advancement of science because truth is essential to our democracy and liberty. The strongist opposition to that education is Evanglical Christians who also give us the myth of our democracy depending on Christianity. Christianity without education for democracy is theatening to our democracy.
Our culture war is still the war against Christian England and those who wanted to remain loyal to the king. It is still the divide of the federalist papers and Jefferson's democracy and still the divide of slave owners, aristocrats and autocrats, against the people. It is a divide full of lies on one side and the side of science that corrects false information.
Tearing down all the statues is destroying the good with the bad. But as I keep staying we don't know our history and are not prepared to defend our democracy. Welcome the result of education for a technological society with unknown values.
To be clear, I don't think those are the foundations of the actual left and right, just of those two stereotypes that are associated with the left and right. I think they're both a mix of left and right in actuality: their good parts are left and their bad parts are right.
Quoting Athena
Sorry, I'm not following how this related to the bit you're responding to. In any case, political philosophy is all about the analysis of power and authority. I'd be happy to explain more if you have some more specific questions, I just don't know where to go from here.
What forms culture?
How do people come to know the different philosophies and decide which ones are the best to use when they prepare to make a political decision?
What is the relationship between philosphy and culture? That is what I really want to know. Like which philosophy should I study to understand economics and politics?
PS I totally understand what philosophy has to do with democracy, but I don't see anything about that here.
In any case, I’m not painting the entire left-right divide as exactly like what I just described, but rather noticing that symmetrical deviations from that nice neat philosophy closely match two extant ideological groups. All the people in those groups are going to vary a lot. A general pattern isn’t a strict law
I doubt it. More like the two sides of a normal distribution.
Kinda, sorta. It's from the top, but not as far up as you think. This trend has been happening literally forever. Democracy = progressivism. The only way to go is left, and left means breaking up any concentrations of (official) power.
Have kids been brainwashed? Yes. Did that all originate from some powerful, globalist cabal? No.
"Public opinion" is the well of power that has been drilled by the universities and the press, the rest is human nature. How do you insulate the once noble institutions from the corruption of power? You get rid of the middleman.
How could that be?
The American colonies were set up for the benefit of the ruling class of England, and required the suppression of both aboriginal culture (yea, their very existence) and the cultures of those brought here to labor--to do the hard work for others making the money. White indentured workers and black slaves both got bad deals, though the blacks got a considerably worse deal.
The on-going exploitation of white labor, black slaves, and later black and white labor (never mind the genocide of the aboriginals) has been de-emphasized in favor of the story of triumphant bourgeoisie progress up to and including the present moment.
Resistance to the oppression of workers crops up regularly; so far, the working class has been unable to gain the upper-hand over the ruling class. Black Lives Matter is one more chapter in the efforts of working people (this time primarily blacks) to get out from under the heavy hand of the bourgeois capitalists.
This will not be the last chapter, rest assured.
At some point, some democratic strategist had a bright idea. It made so much sense! If the party moved to the left, what would that gain them? They were already the party of the left, and all votes to that side of the spectrum were effectively won. But what if they moved to the right? The left had nowhere else to go, the logic of winner takes all makes the emergence of a third party challenger unlikely. But suddenly, a whole universe of "reasonable republicans" would become accessible to their ballot boxes. They could only win!
The Republicans might have responded by moving to meet them in the center. But they were cannier than that, they understood their side better: the right is not really about ideals, unless a tribal fealty to power is an ideal. So then, they moved to the right, and took their whole party with them. The democrats didn't gain shit. But, being morons, they chased after the republicans, left their whole base behind them, and became the party of nothing. The republicans, happy to oblige, moved themselves ever further right, straight into the abyss.
Now we have a left which is abandoned, incohate, powerless, bewildered, and despairing, and a right, still delirious with their monumental upset in 2016, which has evolved into a full blown fascist clown cult. Media algorithms have further segregated the two sides to the point where they don't share a common frame of reference, they both walk the earth, but live in entirely separate worlds. They are entirely separate cultures, and entirely opposed. In such a situation, the "culture" war may plausibly be a prelude to plain, war.
LOL BLM represents the working class. That's funny. The working class's number 1 priority has always been Trans Rights, so I guess it makes sense.
Unfortunately I think it will stay, the foundations are too strong (academia churns out new brainwashed minions every year), to firmly entrenched in the minds of the general populace. It will fail, its designed to suicide itself, but not before their pound of flesh becomes a ton. Not before we repeat modern histories worst.
The war is not for culture, though. It's for power. One side doesn't want it, they just want to stop the power grab. They're too concerned with culture, because "politics is downstream of culture." Well, that depends on the power structure.
So they did actually show up to the culture war, with their culture of conserving the system.
Really? I am quite sure democracy is about empowering the people and the first formal democracy is at least as old as Athens when citizens with nothing to loose because they were not property owners fled when Athens was invaded leaving only the top 1% to defend Athens with their private armies. When the Perians began invading, a serious defense was needed so the top 1% made a deal with the people who didn't own land. In turn for military service, they would get a say in government. The left and right is that simple. How do we justify the peasants having a say in anything?
Here is another to understand the left and right...
"Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933 and eventually taught at Columbia University, wrote that a self-regulating market turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. He decried the free market's assumption that nature and humans are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary value, unltimately commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves unto they die. Speculative exesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a continued prosperity." Empire of Illusion ny Chris Hedges
It is odd that Christians tend be on the right, while those with no god to care for them, tend to be on the left.
Quoting Athena
Some people hate here the idea of consensus changing the democracy. Too bourgeois, I guess.
I think the current political hegemony in culture—academia, the press, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, corporate America—is quite a bit more powerful than the winning of elections. Even the most conservative of politicians is forced to play catch-up to it. Even to mention what the Chief Justice of the United States said 30 years ago would be to render oneself unfit for office in the public eye.
Before Eisenhower?
Weren't Democrats the one's that came up with the great idea of the Confederacy?
Or how about quotes from Democrat President Woodrow Wilson:
There's your democrats! Better than Trump? Great guy. :roll:
Quite a lengthy reply from someone who didn't trouble to read past my first sentence!
Your thesis does not square with the reality of an absence of army barracks full of peace loving tie-died hippies.
Quoting Athena
Not odd at all. I define the right as a "Tribalistic fealty to power". A spiritual hierarchy of Immigrants < Unbelievers < Believers < Wealthy Believers < Priests & Anointed Politicians < J-Man & G-Man holds appeal for those with this kind of disposition.
What people want and what works for them are two different things.
Good point!
It is possible to frame the current situation differently.
Quoting Kev
The culture, the culture war is just one dimension of the unfolding conflict. There are a few active agents,
parties, or institutions that shape and articulate its meaning. May be, in general, they do not care about culture at all. But in this particular moment, some significant symbols can acquire the primary importance. A while ago, Trump probably was not interested in culture or history. Nevertheless, after the Mount Rushmore speech, he can make his 'defence' of American heritage (and Mount Rushmore monuments) the main message of his campaign. Therefore, the culture war may escalate.
This has always been the case. Things either progress, or progress slowly; those are the options. Specific policies are irrelevant, the general constitution of the power structure is what progresses. Public opinion becomes more and more powerful, and more and more people try to get ahead of it for their own little piece of power. And there is no cost to the public that can be directly linked to having the wrong opinion, so there is no self-correction.
And then what? There is no winning option on the right. The culture will continue to change in the direction it always has. Like I said above, there are two options: progress, or slower progress.
May be. In today's political environment, predictions do not matter. What matters is the instant alignment of active forces. To articulate the most powerful and clear message, to control the current agenda - right now.
Quoting Kev
What do you mean by "Specific policies are irrelevant, the general constitution of the power structure is what progresses"?
Quoting Kev
Generally, you are right. Yet, in the UK and the US there is no complete political consensus. Still.
I mean that official power decentralizes and weakens. Any policies that contradict the ultimate value, being the lowest common denominator, are only temporary and will be corrected.
Quoting Number2018
There isn't? What about on issues of the past?
Ok we agree on half the thesis and not the other.
Forgive me for being such a hit and run kind of poster on political topics, but I often prefer to just say my piece without defending my positions to the death. Especially since I hold many unpopular opinions.
So rather than drill down into the details of why I believe it's a plot from on high, I'll merely state that it's my opinion; and I am aware that others think all this just happened by accident. It's no fluke that Harvard turns out a product like this young woman. And neither is the fact that the NYT is suddenly attacking Mt. Rushmore and the Fourth of July and the very founding principles of this great nation, flawed as it may be. It's no accident at all. That is my opinion.
Could you clarify what does 'progress' mean you?
Probably, your basic premises are the existence of stable 'right' and 'left', that the primary mode of power is the totalizing domination of prevailing public opinion, and the culture has its traditional role in the symbolic order reproduction. (Please correct me if I misunderstood you). On the contrary, I think that we deal with the situation where 'progress' not just causes the intensification of power, but also constantly
reconfigures political and cultural fields, changes the function of institutions, creates new tensions and modes of power, and pushes
the society away from the state of equilibrium. It is impossible to single out just one dominating tendency.
Quoting Kev
You can look at Boris Johnson defence of Winston Churchill statues or the last Trump’s speech Mount Rushmore speech, he made his 'defence' of American heritage (and Mount Rushmore monuments) one of the main messages of his campaign.
I do not understand being opposed to consensus. Can you please explain.
Ah, Jesus didn't stand for a hiarchy of power did he? He said we do not understand what power is, didn't he? Neitzsche was concerned about Christians being sheep. Aren't they suppose to be good slaves and give charity? They certainly are not to aspire to worldly wealth and power. What is the good of their heirachy of power? Whereas pagan philosophy is about human excellence and rule by reason and opposes authority over the people. It is all paradoxical.
Trump absolutely is a leader of a culture war. Opposing wearing a mask and following the advise of health experts is totally opposed to science, and therefore, orpposed to rule by reason. Disrespecting native Americans and advancing the exploitation of natural resources and the damange done to our planet, is totally opposed to science and rule by reason. The two sides are this battle are intense.
All the great achievements in human history depended on a hierarchy of power. It's called leadership and it's something humans need (and compete to become) on a primal level.
No, public opinion only needs to be dominated to the extent that the public have power. If not, public opinion is only important as so far as it prevents a revolt. This is the foundation of all official power, and if you lose this foundation the whole thing crumbles.
Quoting Number2018
There is no intensification of official power, just the exercising of existing power. But we have seen a gradual increase in unofficial power that is being exercised now as well.
Quoting Number2018
But where has society moved, as a whole? To the right or to the left? Eventually you get to a point in history where there would be a consensus. That doesn't mean that moving left isn't the right thing to do, but the power structures that shift at all will always shift left, short of a coup or revolution. Official power is given more and more to the people, and at that point the horse is out of the barn.
Just to clarify, culture moving to the left is a shift towards accommodating the lowest common denominator, while the power structure moving to the left is decentralizing official power (moving it more and more towards the lowest common denominator). With official power being in the minds of the masses, obviously there is the incentive for any institutions designed for disseminating information to guide those minds.
This is smart. People do not change their minds on things like this unless it is rooted in a more fundamental change of perspective.
But without arguing with your judgments of political events, I would suggest that the coordination behind them that you see is organic and not coming from any one entity.
Well, my point was that the consensus that people have in things like "something has to be done to police brutality" is obviously important was responded with the following answer.
Wellcome to the new PF:
Quoting StreetlightX
Quoting Kev
I understand your point. My position is that the traditional articulation of the political spectrum does not reflect the current state of affairs. Ideological platforms and programs diverge from the real exercise of power. Also, what you could call 'left politics' necessarily contains a few incompatible tendencies.
Quoting Kev
Our society does not exist as a closed system. Globally, it is a part of a dynamic
political and economic landscape. The expedited shift to ‘the left’ may cause systemic disbalances so that the chances of a coup or revolution could increase. There are similar interpretations of Trump's presidency or Brexit as the results of unbalanced shifts.
Quoting Kev
Quoting Kev
It is not clear if we deal with the people as the autonomous, self-determined source of the social agency.
Judith Butler proposed that the media has become an essential constitutive part of the people.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8489/arendt-and-butler-on-political-action-and-subjectivity
Similarly, the media provides the decisive support for the functioning of the culture and other societal institutions. And, it is not just about the role of the media: simultaneously, a multitude of various neoliberal capitalistic processes directly invests and determines the societal processes. As a result, the contemporary society, while ‘shifting to the left,’ accelerates to the state of disequilibrium.
I'm trying to learn to be smart. When I talk politics my natural style is to be provocative. I often exaggerate a point or deliberately take the unpopular side of some question. And then when I provoke some people TOO much, I get defensive or argumentative. I've decided to break that cycle.
Quoting Kev
A straw man I never expressed. I did not say that one entity, whose name I'm sure we don't know, pulls all the strings. That's not what I believe. I do believe there's an interconnected web of very (very!) powerful people in the world who most certainly do get together to plan what they've got coming for the rest of us.
If you want me to identify some specific suspects, I can give you the Davos crowd; and also the annual Bilderberg meeting.
If you want me to name some names, Henry Kissinger comes to mind. I could look up a bunch more names if you like.
Do you honestly think all those billionaires and world leaders DON'T conspire against the rest of us? On what evidence do you assert that claim? I would say that the evidence supports my view of things if you look at the transformation of the world over the past fifty years. Or look at how the establishment handled the banking crisis of 2008 and the banking crisis of 2020?
Yes there was a banking crisis in 2020, didn't make the news unless you followed financial events. In September, 2019, something called the "repo market" began to seize up; and without pretending to understand what that was, if it did seize up it would take the banks and then the world economy with it. So the Fed started printing trillions of dollars. In other words the frenzied hysteria over covid served to cover up, in the public's mind, the fact that the system was about to crash back in September; and that the Fed's been frantically printing since then to keep it all from blowing up. You can look all this stuff up,
Do you think the Davos and Bilderberg set DIDN'T plan to steal the wealth of the world? It just happened by accident? They're a bunch of regular guys and gals just like you and me who just happened to have the wealth of the middle class wind up in their laps, two crises in a row? Because they're just lucky. Uh oh I'm getting excited again!! I'm sure you're right. It's my imagination again. I should move along, nothing to see here ...
Firstly, they already own the World. Tell me the time when they or their predecessors didn't own it.
You and your companions, ordinary citizens, might have in your pension funds in aggregate the ownership of far more than the few billionaires, but that doesn't matter, it's the Davos people who sit at the board of those pension funds and various mutual funds. It's easier to invite to Davos Bill Gates than is to invite their 50 000 people who in whole owner far more than mr Gates. Besides, the executive people are there as employees without an employer, mainly. That's why they can pay themselves the astronomical salaries. The "owner" is that 2% paid in dividends, if even that is paid.
Secondly, do you think they care about anything else but getting themselves rich? I don't think that a person wanting to be an investment banker cares a shit about if the market collapses sometime in the future, all is good as long as he or she makes the money to put their children into Yale or Harvard and retire in that Mansion somewhere to play golf. In fact, many of them feel as much responsibility as you do about the economic situation, because they are just a cog in the wheel.
The fact is that speculative bubbles and financial crises do happen as they simply don't care. It's not an accident, it's just the train wreck that happens, it's taken as granted, because, who cares? Their job is to make money for themselves, not to worry about the society. The economy at large...that's for the politicians to handle. If the market collapses sometime, oh well, then better to get out before. And never underestimate socialism for the rich and the final backer of the whole system, the central banks.
The people who believe like Alex Jones or his leftist counterparts that it's all a conspiracy are the truly naive people, even if they call everyone else to being so blind. These people need desperately to make sense of the World and they desperately need their culprits. Someone to point their finger to be so utterly evil, that they have planned everything to go as things go. They simply cannot fathom that the truly large events happen without nobody deliberately having planned them. Nope, that's too much for them to understand.
Quoting fishfry
Here I agree with you.
It seems like the US has this tendency to happily start ideological pogroms if they cannot burn people as witches anymore. Just take some issue that is wrong and evident to the vast majority to be so, and then in their virtue signalling people get a little carried away in the US. Somebody said earlier quite correctly that the culture war isn't something that has happened only now, it's something very dear to American culture since the start.
Do you share this opinion? It looks that you are not serious about it.:smile:
Yet Taibbi does have a point.
And it's a point made by others here, that this "revolution" or "culture war" is instigated also top down. With Trump it's obvious, but part of it is true on the other side. And if a top seller book on the issue is written by a corporate hack that gets her money from consultancy on corporations on the issue, yes, there is a point to what Taibbi is saying.
And what to say, Americans love witch hunts.
Before we got so technologically smart we realized people from around the world were coming to the United States and non of them had experienced democracy. It was a priority for schools to teach children a set of American values, Americanizing the children and knowing their parents would learn about citizenship in the US from their children. I can quote from the 1917 National Education Association Conference and other books written back in the day if you want validation of purpose of education before the 1958 focus on technology and ending the transmission of our culture.
There are groups of indigenous people who have done well with a different organization of people. They did not develop technology as we have, but they had good lives. It might be time to know the truth of these people and rethink our organization of people, and make our organization more compatible with liberty and morality?
Wow it appears PF knows nothing about democracy! Are you supporting what was said or agruing against it?
The place to end police brutality is through cultural means, education and media. Unfortunately in 1958 we lost our wisdom and focused excessively on the rapid advancement of technology. We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, with education completely focused on advancing technology. That meant leaving moral training the church, and only brute force to maintain social order because not everyone goes to church nor can believe the biblical ,and those who do, do not agree on God's truth nor do they have a better way of resolving religious differences than killing people who disagree with them. This change in education has serious, social, economic, and political ramifications.
What change should we want?
The economy does run on human labor, though. "Resources" are not measured by weight or volume. Resources are anything required to produce human value. Without human labor there are no resources. We can run out of raw materials (technically we can't, because the physical material does not just disappear), but the existence of raw materials is not the most important condition in the creation of human value.
Quoting Athena
How do we measure "good" in "good lives"? Who decides what is good? There is a non-arbitrary way to measure value, and that is based on what people are willing to pay for.
If people want to live like the natives did, or adopt certain aspects of that culture that they think is good, they can do that. But the design of power structures is a completely different issue, unless you want people to live in small tribes.
And by what non-arbitrary standard is the state not a part of "the people"? The media is the media, the universities are the universities, and the state is the state. They all exist, a priori, for the people and by the people. But to consider "the people" self-determined is to reify the abstraction. There is no such thing as "the people." There is a complex system of individuals that can appear to function as a single unit in particular instances. These instances can largely be understood by accounting for incentives. As power becomes more accessible to more people we see sweeping changes in social behavior.
As power becomes decentralized we also see a shift in how power is used. As the power structure shifts to the left, so does the culture. Politics is not downstream of culture, it turns out. The will of the people changes depending on how much power the people have.
This is what I thought you meant, and am just using the word entity to refer to the group as a whole.
Quoting fishfry
No, I do believe there is plenty of conspiring going on. I just don't think that explains everything, though. And I don't think the absence of these conspirators would solve much (others would probably have taken that place). I think the conditions were set up to make such grand manipulations possible, but not by design. Good intentions have been acted on in the form of poor engineering. There was never a chance that the public would not have become corrupted.
Oh, I'm one of those conservatives who believe in representative democracy, even with it's failures and defects, and believe that changes can happen through consensus, mainly when the at first opposing side finally takes the agenda as it's own too.
Add things mentioned here alreadt: de-escalatory tactics, use of other officials than just the police in every occasion, a wide variety of methods that have been seen successful in reality, not emerging from some ideological agenda. Yet I really would not put the issue of the police using excessive force into being part of the culture war. Is wearing a mask and combating the pandemic part of "the culture war"?
Quoting Athena
Why the year 1958?
I think the "culture war" and the ongoing polarization have made the discourse highly contemptuous. And unfortunately, on purpose. To discuss values and morals in elections is good, yet things normally ought to be far more palpable to the voter concerning real issues. Because now the duopoly of the two ruling political parties use the "culture war" card in my view as a distraction. Both democrats and republicans seeks to use the culture war to their advantage.
I mean stop for a while to think about it: is really a nationwide topic of uttermost importance which toilets can transgender people use? For transgender it might be important, but I do think this is quite a small minority. Before it was burning the flag. Now it's tearing down statues of George Washington and people talk of "a cultural revolution" taking place in the US. In my view which statues deserve to come down and which to stay is not important compared to things like what to do about unemployment as the pandemic induced global economic downturn is a big problem... not to mention the thousands that still will die from the pandemic.
The impact of Sputnik.
Quoting Athena
I graduated high school in 1954 and college in 1958, but I don't remember that kind of instruction. In the 1960s the civil rights movement affected school curricula in that way.
Who knows the actual meaning of these words today? Historians should not be counted.
Probably, activists that are using this words do not know the history.
So, which one is currently holding social order in the US?
I'm no expert. I'm a Chomskyan in my worldview but I've never read much of his or anyone else's work. I acquired my knowledge of politics and the social sciences from the media, mainstream and alt-; and not from reading any academic works. It's kind of you to think I might be able to correct or inform you, but sadly this is not the case.
I wanted to read your post in detail and respond suitably, but it might take me a while to get to it. Just wanted to let you know that your post made an impression even if I haven't yet responded.
Ok. Still, even knowing that I'd push back. The powers that be are far from monolithic. I've read articles claiming that the deep state is at war with itself, with various factions trying to figure out what to do next. There's an interconnected web of individuals and organizations, but they may well have conflicting agendas among themselves.
Quoting Kev
Ok, you're taking my position to an extreme. didn't say that EVERYTHING is under their control. Someone wins or loses an election or breaks their leg or wins the lottery, they didn't plan that. The big, broad outlines are well within the global plan of the past decades.
Quoting Kev
Ok good point. Could it have been any other way? If you put humans on a planet, does a secret global elite inevitably develop? Probably. Still, it's a good filter for understanding the news. The kids aren't pulling down statues in a vacuum.
This is actually a bigger problem than we often think. You see, part of "struggle" in the "culture war" is to redefine terms like "marxist", "nazi" or especially what being a "racist" means as people are very timid at being called racist. When you take the terms out of the historical context and the original ideology, you can accuse people who don't have anything to do with the ideologies and paint the dark picture you want of those who you oppose.
Quoting Professor Death
The control far is more subtle control in the US. What you disagree about is given to you by the media and by the political elite. You see, disagreement in the "culture war" doesn't threaten any way the economy or those in control.
In a way, the culture war is a way to sidetrack political discourse from present real problems (the growing inequality, the costly and inefficient health care system, hugely expensive education system, low real wages, politicians being controlled by lobby groups etc.) to other issues that arouse a vicious emotional debate to make people see themselves as parts of tribes...and vote for their party (in the US). Besides, what better way to divide the middle and lower class to hating each other than a culture war.
(far easier issues than increasing salaries of employees, with naturally the exception of GS:)
Do you mind if I ask how old you are? I don't think we share the same memories of reality. For sure we have read the same books. Do you know what a non renewable resource is? I grew up in California and we went to ghost towns. Towns that were once thriving economies because of gold. Then there is oil. Have you heard of an oil well going dry? Do you know for awhile our national wealth depended mostly on being the world's supply of oil? The US was an exporter much more than it was an importer. Our national wealth was built on a labor intense industrial economy. I don't think there was anything not made in the US. What happened?
Not that long ago I don't think anyone would have measured happiness monetarily. For sure hippies did not. In the past people thought happiness was about friends, family and social prestige that could be attained by entertaining people or volunteering. We lived in a truly different culture than the one we have now. A career choice was about self fullment more based on being service to others than monetary reward. Especially for women, we nursed and taught, because doing those things made us feel good about who we are.
Oh yes, I do wish we adopted the human values of the past. Yesterday something went wrong with my car that I had just driven out of the shop after have the engine rebuilt. It stopped at a stop light, and would not go any further. I called the shop that is run by Japanese and immediately they sent a mechanic to resolve the problem. He could not easily resolve it so we agreed to have it towed to their shop. The mechanic insisted on staying with me and then his boss showed up and had the mechanic drive me home, and he stayed with my car until the tow truck driver hauled it away. I kept assuring them I was fine and they could go home, but they insisted on being sure I was home safe. I felt like a queen with their focus on protecting me and pleasing me. I remember when that was normal. Do you hear me? I remember when people treated each other much, much better than people are treated today. There is nothing money can buy that is better than that.
Do we have culture war? I think so. I think technology that is extremely impersonal and prevents us from getting to a real human being, and putting a monetary value of everything has made our lives hell! What you said about resources is horrifying to me. You do not seem to have a good understanding of reality and I suggest you read something like Youngquist's "GeoDestinies".
We live on a finite planet and perhaps our understanding of reality should take that into consideration. It helps us understand things such as why we now think our national goal should be having the most advanced and expensive military force of earth, forgetting before WW our nation was known for resistance to war and military spending. What we are today is not what made us an international leader. Our industrial base made us great not our military might.
Do you have culture wars? We sure do and I hope we talk about this more.
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In 1958 the US replaced its domestic education with education for a technological society with unknown values. There are huge social, economic and political ramifications to this change. And yes, culture wars have followed this education for a technological society with unknown values.
There has been an argument for strong leadership. Will anyone end our cultural war and tell us what values we are defending?
For sure what is happening today is amazing. I don't think we have had such unity since the early days of unions. Unions succeeded because we all supported them, unitl Ronald Reagan destroyed them and our industy moved over seas, while us tax payers have been paying for the military might to defend our over seas industry. That might not seem philsophical but it is the same as Athens history when Athens philosophers determined logos is the controlling force of the universe, not the gods, and democracy was born with a growing middle class.
I suspect right now Black Lives Matter is succeeding because when we saw a police officer gloating while he took a man's life and we identified with the man saying "I can't breath". This is what the establishment is doing to us. More and more of us are realizing what Ronald Reagan started is not in our best interest and we are still furious about what the bankers did to our economy and our lives. The rich and powerful are gloating and we are finally waking up to our reality is not what we fought two world wars to defended.
Among other things we want back our industrial base and an acceptable standard of living for hard working people. We want human values to come back and we aren't buying over priced designer things in a competition to be better than others any more. US is coming back! And we are going to take down the controllers who stold our national wealth and put it in their pockets. We are mad and glad to be united again.
It depends on how the power structure is set up. Here you can read a developed theory with a lot of primary sources on how the political structure is the determining factor in the trajectory of a society. https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ It's pretty long winded, but there's a lot of gems in there.
The gender issues are a national issue, and Evangical Christianity is in step with this. Such issues are extremely important to religious people and determine who they for vote or against. As you indicated perhaps not everyone cares about gender identy issues, but us secular people are no longer united by education for democracy, and the Evangicals are united! To assure the vote of the largest, united. God motivated voting block, it is very important to appeal to them. They don't know, voting about who gets to use a toilet or not, is not a politically important decision. While they get hysterical over such issues, they are clueless about the really important political decisions being made for them and without their awareness. Thanks to the 1958 National Defense Education Act, few people realize they no longer have meaningful political power. They think voting over who gets to use a bathroom or against abortion rights, is the meaning of political power. The New World Order/Military Industrial Complex doesn't need them, only their votes. Those in the seats of power will be Havard or Yale graduates properly prepared to be among the ruling class.
As for tearing down statues and oh my god allowing women to vote and making it law they can not be discriminated against, some good things did come out of no longer transmitting our culture. There were good things about that culture and bad things.
But civilization existed for thousands of years before that gold and oil was of any value? Why? Because nobody had done the work to find it, drill it/mine it, and transport it. Non-renewable resources are such only as long as they are 1. resources and 2. non-renewable. Like I said, the actual material does not disappear. We don't know if oil will ever be renewable, although it most likely won't be a resource by the time we had such technology. But when you pay for gold, you aren't just paying for a raw material. You are paying for all the work that went into delivering you that raw material.
Quoting Athena
Happiness is not measured monetarily, who would say such a thing? But does that mean you wouldn't spend money on something that makes you happy? You probably take trips/vacations that make you happy, and there is a lot of human labor, other than yours, that goes into that. Money represents human value, so you will trade value for value. Now if you disagree with what other people value, do your feelings dictate reality? Are you always correct? And I'm not saying that you're never correct, or that the trend you see isn't there. But you seem to be tracing back the causality to people's freedom to choose (money).
I don't have time for anymore right now, but I'll come back to this.
What do you mean you don't remember that kind of instruction? I can not give a better reply until I know what you are talking about. But I was in high school when the 1958 National Defense Education Act was enacted and I vividly remember that day, because we were afraid of a nuclear war and were doing drills of getting under our desk and covering our heads with our hands. Like that would do any good in a nuclear war. Anyway my teachers were walking about like they were in a state of shock. It was really frightening so I remember that day.
In the afternoon a male teacher announced the purpose of education had been changed. We were now educating for a technological society with unknown values and we should prepare for the day when automation took our jobs. He was right, and now what he was talking about is obvious.
My grandmother was a devoted teacher and because her generation was defending democracy in the classroom, I began researching what that meant when the US began having serious social problems and declared a national youth crisis. I have done this research by collecting old books about education and text books. I will verify what I say with quotes if I am asked to do that.
PS the classics used to be required reading. Now they are not found in school libraries because kids would rather read Captain Underwear, a story of a school principal who is in underwear. I would ban many books in school libraries and put the classics back in, because books equal culture or the culture of lack of culture.
Maga.
Wasn't that above what the people who voted for Trump wanted? Didn't they want to "drain the swamp"? Didn't they want to believe in all of that?
No. No way, you will be divided into two camps that hate each other. The white racists against the marxist iconoclasts. Pick your side, pick your tribe.
Divide et impera
I agree with you.This words have completely lost the meaningful historical connotations. And, it is not clear what they actually mean in the context of the current situation.
Quoting ssu
How can you stay above the fray? What is your position?
We continue to learn about health and our nature. Embracing elements of the culture of the past is not an impossibility. I would even say it's a probability. Have you heard of the "trad" lifestyle? We are constantly looking for what helps us in life, and that process is possible because people have, to a large degree, free choice. What you are suggesting is that you know what is best for people, and they don't. Again, not saying you are 100% wrong, because I'm sure there are some things you could do better for some people than they could do for themselves, but a system where people cannot choose for themselves is deeply flawed.
Quoting Athena
Those are two different things. But I have to point out that a society that does not quantify value (money) is going to be a much worse hell. We're not talking about the native tribe you wish you could live in, we're talking about a society with hundreds of millions of people.
The problems you have with other people's freedom is rooted in your problem with human nature. Human nature IS problematic because we are not designed to live in this world. This world is basically ideal relative a state of nature... and yet it comes with many new problems. Because we are not meant to achieve the ideal, only to strive for it. We are meant to have challenges that we don't have anymore, and our mechanisms for dealing with those problems have found other ways of occupying themselves. We used to need people to a much greater extent, and because we don't anymore our relationships have suffered, and the reality that our psychology depends on those relationships has become evident.
Quoting Athena
I really have no idea what this means. I've never heard of a successful company without a top-down hierarchy. There's never really been an effective group of people that didn't have clearly defined leadership roles. What is your statement based on?
Thank you so much for this link. As you may know I'm a great consumer and sometimes even connoisseur of alternate ideas. I've always been someone who can read something interesting and provocative for its own sake, without feeling the need to join the movement.
In that spirit I clicked your link, and found what is evidently a little area of the Web I hadn't seen. Someone with a following perhaps. Looks a little intellectual-alt based on the typeface and visual style.
At the top is a name, Mencius Moldbug. Wiki brings up Curtis Yarvin, whose page begins:
Yes I can see that. It connects with a libertarian book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe called Democracy: The God That Failed. The title says it all.
But this is nothing new, right? Wasn't it Socrates who totally distrusted democracy as nothing better than mob rule? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat.
I'll take a look at that essay and the site. I'm always interested in these little communities of alternative thought out there.
From just that one Wiki paragraph, though, I would say I am not in agreement with his remedies. Sure, democracy doesn't work, but even the Founders knew that. We don't have a democracy, we have a Constitutional republic. "If you can keep it," as Ben Franklin said. Our system of government is designed to protect the rights of minority interests. Minority in the sense of less than the majority. Democracy just lets one tribe bully another. It's a terrible idea.
But monarchy? No. I dig the Queen, she is one classy lady. But I would not want a hereditary monarch decreeing what I may do and what I may not do, and when the nation goes to war and wether it works for peace, decided by such an individual.
And corporate governance? What does that mean? Run it like a business? Regularly prune the least productive 10% of society and organize the world into a hierarchy where every single person gets a written report from their superior on how well they serve the globalist agenda?
Man this guy's dangerous. He's an authoritarian globalist, not an alt-right or right-wing type.
Curious, what about this guy interests you? Can you summarize so I don't have to read it all?
ps one more para from Wiki.
Interesting. He's a techno-libertarian. I lean libertarian but I oppose the techno-libertarians. Corporate governance based on clever algorithms and sociopathic child-CEOs. No thanks.
He's not authoritarian, he just stresses the importance of the problem "how do we get there from here?" He theorizes that there is no such thing as incremental progression towards a more ordered society. Occasionally that may happen, but it will always reverse afterwards. Recently I've heard him put the problem of the American government as a "power leak," which is how I imagined it as I read the Gentle Introduction.
I'd recommend you just start reading... because it will likely suck you in. Don't put too much stock in the wikipedia page about him, you'll probably disagree with what it says. His own ideals are not really important in his writing, it's more about how he gives the facts of history a new meaning as he provides more information that you probably didn't know was out there. You can stop at any time and still come out with some valuable insight.
Ok I'll check the article out. Thanks.
I accept your criticism. Probably, the concepts that I use look like vague, taken out of the context and the appropriate conceptual framework. For Butler, in her book.
'Notes toward a performative theory of assembly,' 'the people' means the spontaneously formed, self-organized group, acting-in-concert: it is the primary source of social agency, able to reconfigure the existing political and social fields. The book's central point is to show that protests movements in the West still have the potential and future. Further, giving the concept of 'the people' the priority means maintaining the old tradition (from Rousseau) according to which 'the people' has the ultimate sovereignty over political and judicial institutions. But what does it mean that 'the media' has become the constitutive part of 'the people'?
'The media' is not just a few mainstream media platforms. There are also social networking platforms, numerous apps, sophisticated infrastructure, animating, and organizing flows of information and images. They function in machinic, automized manners. No essential social event is possible without being processed and amplified by 'the media' initiated events. They produce self-sustained images that are not located in the individual consciousness, and that can shape and manage various mass behavioral patterns and reactions. Agitated and affected by 'the media,' 'the people' directly produce value: the newest digital technologies and platforms constitute the most dynamic field of neoliberal capitalism.
Quoting Kev
Power does not become more accessible to more people. It looks like people can make more and more individual choices. Yet, the whole environment of our lives has already been structured and programmed. So, even at the most intimate level, we do not produce, we reproduce.
Quoting Kev
The will of the people’: you applied Rousseau’s concept. It looks like we witness the tremendous ‘shift to the left.’ Yet, ‘the people’ and ‘the will of the people’ are in the reciprocal relation with ‘the media”. And ‘the media’ is unseparated from the newest neoliberal capitalistic processes. ‘Progress’
means formidable acceleration. The culture is crucially dependent on the financial and media support. Your point is that there is the ongoing ‘shift to the left’ in the US and maybe in the West. Let say that the ‘left program’ has been realized: the statues are pulled down or exploded, the flags are burnt, streets are renamed, history textbooks are rewritten: what would remain? ‘The culture’ would survive. Yet, it would be a different culture. Probably, it would not need recognizable historic symbols anymore. The media events and the capitalistic innovations would produce social and political engagement and support the social order.
People usually have some point in what they are saying. Often they describe well certain a problem. Yet especially with what they give then to be the solution, one should be extremely careful and critical. If you can find things that you agree with even if on the whole you disagree with many other points, you aren't falling into the mold of the tribal culture war. One only needs to actually listen what people say to stay above the fray. People seldom do that.
You see, the culture war needs you to be totally against the other side. Understanding any point from the other side is something like appeasement and giving up your ground, a sign of weakness. But you shouldn't let be get played how the culture war does it. Are you for or against taken down historical statues? Are you for or against defunding the police? Are you for or against abortion? These kind of questions want to lure you to give clear "yes" or "no" answers in order to draw you to be either on one side or the other.
Real answers, the one's that actually work, are usually long, complex and, well, boring. People get excited about short snappy answers that one can yell out. "Build a wall and let Mexico pay for it!" is a perfect example of this.
Quoting ssu
I agree with you. Nobody wants to patently analyze the determining processes. Yet, are there real
answers? Or, are there just the illusions that allow us to pretend that we are above the fray?
The ancient police could represent the ideal of harmony and the realm of rationality. Yet, behind the surface, there were irreconcilable conflicts and antagonisms.
Quoting ssu
What about you?:smile: :razz: Do you support taking down historical statues?
Taking down statues means that you have something so traumatic in your history that you cannot face it otherwise and cannot accept it being a part of your history, but see it as something needed to be erased away. If you cannot even move the statue away somewhere else from a prominent place (as the prominence of the place of a statue gives respect to it), but you have to destroy it, I'd say there's a trauma and people have problems with their history.
(Statue of Joseph Stalin, now in a park 130km away from it's original place in Vilnius, Lithuania.)
As a history buff I always enjoy statues as they tell a lot of the time when they were put up and what some people (at least those who participated in the statue project) saw as important "to exist to be a reminder future generations". Also that the authorities did then accept them is notable too.
So I'm all in favor of the "World Peace" statue in Helsinki, which was given from the city of Moscow at the last year of the existence of the Soviet Union. The statue, which is a perfect example of socialist realism and can be found in multiple copies in the former Soviet Union, is a great reminder for us Finns just how much we bowed to the Soviet Union, how we truly had Finlandization going on and how much the official lithurgy of "friendship" we had with the Superpower at our eastern border. Tearing it down won't change history. I think it's a great statue of our appeasement of a totalitarian system next door.
(World peace, Helsinki)
Consider, though, that the US has statues of CSA rebels everywhere. These enemy leaders fought to maintain the institution of slavery.
Why should black citizens (and not only them) be expected to tolerate such statues?
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/506314-jk-rowling-noam-chomsky-sign-letter-warning-of-restriction-of
https://nypost.com/2020/07/07/j-k-rowling-among-dozens-to-call-for-end-to-cancel-culture/
Then what happened? Chomsky is getting #cancelled. Leftists are outraged that he or anyone else would dare speak out for free expression. That's how bad things are out there. For some reason I can't find a link to the story about his getting in trouble with the left. Whose champion he's only been for fifty years.
That's it. You say "Chomsky" to a leftist and they say, "Old white man who believes in free speech. On the list for the guillotine." When the leftists find their Robsepierre, none of us will be safe.
ps I did find a link, unfortunately it's from a very disreputable source, one that's helped lie the country into more than one war. I speak of course of the New York Times.
Artists and Writers Warn of an ‘Intolerant Climate.’ Reaction Is Swift
Down below we find:
If you're for free speech, it's because you're a privileged old white guy. And if you're old you're irrelevant and your ideas are deemed wrong by definition. Noam Chomsky? He's for free speech. Cancel him.
These are dangerous times. People think awful stuff "couldn't happen here," but every bad thing that ever happened in the world happened in a place where the people thought it couldn't happen.
None of the people with these authoritarian ideals would ever put themselves in danger to advance their agenda. The fact that Noam Chomsky is now alt-right is just hilarious, not scary.
There is violence ramping up in the States, but it's gang violence in places where the police have been neutered/walked out. Stay out of those places.
I am having a hard time following your reasoning. When a gold mine is closed the businesses close, and then everything including real estate has no value. We recentedly experienced this in a big way when the banking/housing crisis crashed our economy. All that property lost its value. Lives and futures were destoyed. Now where is the happiness?
Happiness is not measured monetarily, who would say such a thing? But does that mean you wouldn't spend money on something that makes you happy? You probably take trips/vacations that make you happy, and there is a lot of human labor, other than yours, that goes into that. Money represents human value, so you will trade value for value. Now if you disagree with what other people value, do your feelings dictate reality? Are you always correct? And I'm not saying that you're never correct, or that the trend you see isn't there. But you seem to be tracing back the causality to people's freedom to choose (money).
I don't have time for anymore right now, but I'll come back to this.[/quote]
Okay, I am gone. I doubt if anyone questions more what they think than I do and I am not interested in defending myself. Have a nice day.
And before the gold mine was opened how much value did the real estate have? Your problem is not with the loss of value, your problem is with the change in value at all. You think it would be better if the gold was never mined?
The housing crisis was caused by central banking lowering interest rates and creating moral hazard. The property lost it's make-believe value because it was never real. Lives and futures were destroyed because the economy was recklessly manipulated under the pretenses of helping people. They proved that consumption based economic doesn't work. Now we're about to prove that a 2nd time and more-so.
Where is the happiness? Why are you asking me?
Quoting Athena
Do you even see the irony here? You doubt yourself so much that you strongly feel that you know that other people don't doubt themselves as much as you.
I wonder where those writers and academics were years, even decades ago, when the alarm bells were being rung. Better late than never, I suppose.
But special consideration needs to be given to Chomsky. He’s been a free speech warrior throughout his entire career, even defending the rights of Holocaust revisionists (his defence of Robert Faurisson was legendary) and war criminals.
And why were they tolerated before and not anymore? I think one mass shooting doesn't answer everything here. Why are there even now, in the halls of power in Washington DC, statues of those CSA rebels? That's the important question.
I guess many will eagerly argue that it shows the inherent widespread racism that prevails in the US still today. Others will correctly point out the "Lost cause" myth making and those southern politicians that were putting them there well after the civil war. That is a fact which is now often mentioned: statues being put up as a way to support a cause of Jim Crow. Likely nobody will dare to say now anymore that northerners accepting these statues in the first place was part of consolidation, trying to get over a painful civil war. I of course can mention that as I'm just an ignorant foreigner. Luckily there was a time that at least the old veterans could meet peacefully afterwards and respect each other, which still is quite rare after civil wars.
But that is ancient history that has no use for this time. Now we can use that history to divide Americans again. So that's a no to Confederate statue parks like what they have in former countries of the Soviet Union and Easten Bloc for socialist statues. Better be like it never happened.
The Harper letter is funny and so is NOS4A2's idea that the right is the victim of cancel culture. For years, and even to this day, Marxist thought is all but banned in the US. They try to discredit BLM because a bunch of Marxists push a fucking conservative agenda (respect my rights and life!), totally ignoring what they stand for. Now a couple of rabid racists and their enablers are barred from a couple of shows, because - hello - racism is out of vogue (Fucking finally, right?!), and all of a sudden it's a problem. Those cancellations are profit driven and not ideological. It's not a culture war, it's marketing. Live goes on and the racists will retreat in their "cultural norms and values" code and how it's under threat from everything they don't like, which includes leftists and anything with pigment.
I am bothered by the removal of statues because I hate to see the destruction of art and history. I don’t want to see the removal of a statue for the same reason I don’t want to see the destruction of a totem pole (Slavery was rife in local tribes). Because where does it end? Might we deface the pyramids?
It seems to me a free society demands that we allow more room for history to be written. Instead of tearing down a statue, build a statue.
I’ve never said such a thing. But I will say everyone is a victim of cancel culture. You will only deny it until it comes for you.
What's the problem with statue cemetaries I say?
Quoting Benkei
Well, we don't worship statues and we don't adore those who have statues made of them. As a person who loves history I cherish remembrance of history. I don't like iconoclasts. Old catholic churches that have been painted over in white during the days of protestant fury simply look sad. Iconoclasm and the need to destroy statues and art tells clearly that non-permissive idealism is on the rise.
Quoting Benkei
Statues aren't for this time, it seems.
Quoting Benkei
Why do you think it's funny? You think all those that signed it don't have any point?
Quoting Benkei
It wasn't banned. Americans just have these "scares" from time to time. The focus of the scare just changes.
Quoting Benkei
Who are the rabid racists you refer to?
Quoting Benkei
You should give an example.
Quoting Benkei
Life will surely go on. Just hope that the only body count we follow will be with the pandemic. As I said, in the fall a lot of Americans will go off their unemployment benefits. And they have toxic elections in front of them. Hope everything goes well and we are just a couple of foreigners talking nonsense here.
It is not clear what are the forces that are fighting for the liberal values. The letter appeals to resist primarily just one wing. I still do not understand: Trump declares that he is the defender of free speech, but he is represented as a real threat. After reading this letter one can get impression that there is just one real threat, and there is also" stifling atmosphere".
Quoting fishfry
Probably, people who do not live in the US cannot understand what is going on there.
NYT sacking of their opinion editor because of complaints from readers. The guy with the Greek sounding name that was a thing for a while. Ivanka Trump. University gets pressured by its clients. University doesn't want to lose clients. People really are over analysing this stuff.
Perhaps the letter should be examined a bit:
The fear basically is that fire is fought with equal fire, that the resistance "hardens into its own brand of dogma or coercion". You see that illiberalism which the paper refers to is basically pushed from both sides. Remember that populism, the idea of "the people" who are forgotten and even discriminated by "the elite" is a juxtaposition which creates an enemy, is much used both on the left and on the right. Populism doesn't seek to discuss things, it seeks to dominate and stifle other opinions.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.artnet.com/art-world/most-hated-public-sculptures-591839/amp-page
Well, something being simply ugly is a bit different!
The above was so f*cking awful that nobody wanted it, because president Kekkonen is still respected by many in the country. As it was transferred from place to place it finally broke (so no iconoclast was the culprit here below). My old grandmother felt bad for the artist as he was for a time the butt of jokes in the country.
It is a mistake to assume what someone else thinks.
Quoting ssu
I understand your points: there are a few arguments that are commonly used in the discussions about
populism, and I am familiar with them. I would not like to discuss Trump in this thread; yet, could you
explain me why
?
When he was elected, it was quite common to determine it as 'a fascist upheaval'.
In four years, differently from Hitler, he did not destroy democratic institutions in the US.
I am not going to defend Trump, I just do not understand why it was written in the letter.
Well, that is typical leftist rhetoric. Just like the rhetoric of marxists taking over the Democratic Party/the DNC is common at the right. One has to learn to tone down the rhetoric, you know.
Quoting Number2018
Let's say Trump's praising of authoritarian leaders makes people worry as the US President is still one of the most (if not the most) powerful person in the World. Yet of course Trump's ineptness evidently shows he's not a person that could change the US to an authoritarian state. What he can do is create a huge mess.
I think this interview below with Stephen Pinker makes the case pretty well as he was one of the signatures of the Harper's letter and someone who has been tried (unsuccessfully) to be silenced in the typical fashion after making "politically incorrect" points. Freddie Sayers interviews Pinker and here they discuss the letter, the culture war, why the illiberal woke left and the nationalist populist right pose a threat to freedom of speach and also how the two sides share a lot in common, both for example eager to deploy the race card. Pinker as usual makes good calm arguments.
On the contrary, I do not think that this interview fully clarify the case. We still do not know if we witness the culmination of the process or it is just the beginning. What will shape the parameters of the allowed debate? How the new political correctness will change the freedom of expression in various fields? This is how Jordan Peterson describes situation in the academic domain: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-the-activists-are-now-stalking-the-hard-scientists
I don't think we have seen any culmination here. Let's remember that even if similar uproar was in the universities in the sixties and seventies, this started basically just in the 2010's. I figure this thing will endure at least this decade or so.
Quoting Number2018
And this is where many stop instantly reading.
Yet the example Peterson gives is actually a perfect example how cancel culture works today and how the culture war is fought in the academic circles.So the horrible racist attack against human rights, women, minorities and diversity that Hudlicky did is to write the following:
You can judge what Hudlicky says, but what is noteworthy is the dramatic response. First was the absolute crisis that the journal Angewandte Chemie endured:
So suspensions and resignations. Yet this wasn't the only actions that the Journal took to cleanse it from such ugliness that had creeped into the Journal (for an hour) with Hudlicky's article:
The official response from Hudlicky's university, Brock University, is telling:
Luckily the university has done a lot to advance human rights and reconciliation with the following organizational reforms, which it proudly states (to separate the fine university from Hudlicky):
At least the graduate students weren't offered crisis help, but it's good to hear that the Canadian university is deeply committed to the decolonization of it's chemistry department.
That's a separate question, also worth looking into.
Still, you did not answer why black citizens of the USA should tolerate statues honoring CSA rebels who fought for the institution of slavery.
As an European, I made the point how in Europe statues from a very painful past of a totalitarian dictatorship have been dealt with. You don't have to destroy the statues, you can put them into a statue park as a reminder of the past history. And those who glorify the ideology that caused so much misery today? They are annoying, but they aren't exactly the same kind as their historic predecessors. Those statues do tell of a past, just as does the ruins of the labour camps. Yet then comes the question what about any slave owning American politician in the past starting from George Washington? How Americans deal with their past is their thing.
How do you deal with political parties that have risen up in arms against the country and lost? It's actually easy, if after defeat they change their ways, they can be accepted back. That's how you get past civil wars. The leftist party that started our civil war and then luckily was defeated, is now at present in the government here. And nobody, neither the prime minister or any other member of the party, is thinking about a bolshevik revolution as they did in 1918.
It is my understanding some states in the US are more highly identified with military prestige than others. They are more inclined to believing the US represents the Power and Glory of God. This seems at odds with a growing sense of guilt and our notions of national destiny and what this has meant to those who are not White Anglo Saxon Protestants. As Israel is for Jews, the US has been for White Saxon Protestants and neither nation embraces equality. Their commitment to democracy is questionable, and perhaps both nations are divided by the hypocrisy of standing for a limited democracy that is not all-inclusive
There two concerns in that paragraph. Both sides of the Civil war believed God was on their side and people who believe they are doing the will of God are much more committed than those who don't think they are doing the will of God. Some of us are godless peaceniks. We are more in line with Quakers who have always opposed war. Where do you stand on the issue of God and war?
The other issue is how inclusive or exclusive are you? A major force behind the racism in the US was Southern Bells who used media and education to assure their elitist position in the south would be culturally protected at the expense of people of color. This is very much with us today, with a Black man being killed by police after a White woman reported she felt threatened. This prejudice is part of people's identities just as military prestige is part of some people's identities. "I am important because you are not and as the police officer kneeling on a Black man's throat I am gloating with my sense of power". I am a southern bell. I am a southern gentleman who serves God and country. We go together like a right hand and left hand. That is so much better than being a dirty hippie, at a love-in with people of all colors, right?
My mother was a "Southern Belle" and I can assure you she was anything but what you describe. In her later years she helped "women of color" as best she could.
Did you grow up in the deep south? I did.
Quoting ssu
Quoting Benkei
Even more to the point than losing subscribers and caving to "mOb mEnTaLlIty" James Bennet, the Editorial Page Editor, was fired because he didn't do his job. He said he "did not read the essay before it was published" and an internal review found that the publication was rushed and contained multiple false statements. This has happened multiple times under Bennet (here is my favorite one). This was simply the straw the broke the camel's back. What the letter is expressing is an outright lie. Being fired because you suck at your job isn't an example of "cancel culture".
But do you know what is an example of "cancel culture"? An Amazon worker who was fired for leading a protest due to the company's poor COVID response (and at-will employment in general), but I didn't see that example spelled out in the letter. In fact that right there is a more concrete example than anything offered by the letter.
Yes thank you. You know that in the last couple of days some of the signatories have actually apologized for daring to agree to something that J.K. Rowling agrees with. I won't bore you with the details, those who follow the transgender wars know the story and if the rest haven't heard it by now they're not interested.
So yes, people apologized to the cancel mob for putting their name to a letter supporting free and open speech and dialog.
This frightens me greatly. Not just because of the mob, but because the entire corporate apparatus is behind it. If you're not woke you're ostracized and the very idea of free speech comes from privilege.
This is sick. This is a nightmare. Somebody talk me down, tell me this isn't happening.
I had a thought the other day. Every awful thing in the world that ever happened, happened in a place where the inhabitants believed such a thing could never happen. This is Mao's cultural revolution on the streets AND in the halls of corporate and political power, come to our country. It's here now.
I don't find it funny in the least. Nor that some of the signatories to the letter have now apologized for daring to come out in support of free speech. I find that very dangerous and scary.
Quoting Kev
That's a pretty glib way to speak of major parts of the country falling outside the control of the government.
The alt media have been screaming their heads off for decades. And frankly the left used to support free speech. This anti-freedom left is a frightening development. It's been percolating for a long time but really got going when Trump won the election. All they want to do is blow up the country now, whether literally as Antifa or figuratively like Pelosi and Biden. Biden just adopted Bernie's entire platform, plus said he wanted people to buy American. So he's just coopted Trump's platform too. Amazing. And Pelosi just said that "people will do what they do" in response to protesters pulling down a statue of Christopher Columbus in Pelosi's home city of Baltimore. That's disgraceful. She cares about nothing but her own power now, and her power depends on staying in front of the mob.
Quoting NOS4A2
He's always been there. Like I say, I'm a big fan.
Hope you don't mind if I prefer to keep the issue of free speech nonpartisan. It is for me. I'll stipulate that there's not much of a constituency for free speech either on the left all the right these days.
Quoting Number2018
People in China who remember Mao's cultural revolution, and people in Germany who remember You Know Who, understand all too well.
"It can't happen here" is happening here.
I would really dispute this. Americans might have this hubris of "Manifest Destiny", but their attachment isn't similar as the Jewish have for their homeland... starting from the religious texts of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament.
Quoting Athena
Yet every side in every civil war believes that their cause is righteous, morally right and justifiable. Why would they otherwise resort to violence in the first place than to defend what is right? Civil wars aren't fought just by mercenaries, who are quite rare in reality.
Quoting Athena
And how many do you think there are who believe this today?
I've noticed this and many media outlets have noticed this too. Which just makes it more hilarious. So seems like the Harper's address really made some waves in the glass.
Quoting fishfry
It tells extremely well just how off the track public discourse is going. You see, I object to the idea that all this is because of a few 'cultural marxists' infiltrating somehow corporate boards or newsrooms. That I think is nonsense. What I think has happened is simply that a) the social media has created a mob mentality by itself and b) people are afraid of this "mob" and then self-censore themselves and react by excessive virtue signalling. Then a small contingent of very loud actors know how this now system operates and get their voice heard when they cry out. It's not that they are all "cultural marxists", a lot of those that fire then the people, make the decision to cancel somebody have little if any ideological support of cultural marxism. Likely many aren't even leftists.
Just as an example of this from the opposite side, in order to show how this is more of an "environmental" problem: let's take the cancel culture / attacks from the right. Some time ago, when Trump was more popular than now, a Republican or another commentator would get attacked by Trump supporters if they criticized Trump (and weren't part of the normal anti-Trump crowd). Hence the majority of Republicans who may have some criticism towards Trump were silenced by the fear of this mob. It's not that Trump was behind these attack, not even likely the Russian trolls (as they are still few of those), it's just the way how vitriolic the social media has become.
It's not maintainable. The mob is not organized enough or smart enough to control the majority, who are not in the mob and never will be because of the inherent exclusivity (narcissism).
Their MO is to tear down anyone with power. That precludes them from ever truly organizing, and has led to infighting as we've seen many times now.
You're acting like the people capitulating to the mob are great men who've been broken down... they're not, they're just cowards. There's plenty of people who already look at that letter as horseshit because they've already learned these people cannot be reasoned with.
Really can't express how funny this is to me
Indeed, as evidenced on this very forum where reason seems in short supply on certain topics.
I think the behaviour is cultish, with cultish characteristics. Purity testing (virtue signalling), in-group reporting, rigid adherence to ideology, us vs them mentality, Belief in the moral superiority of those in the cult, punishing dissent or doubt, use of shame/guilt to influence/control members of the cult, the ends justify the means...all characteristics shared by these extreme activist types and a cult.
Now what Checkpoint Charlie looks like:
Some remains of the "anti-fascist protective wall" as it was known in East-Germany:
Yeah no one actually believes that nonsense about "erasing history". Obviously statues and monuments are not how we document or learn history (that's what history books and history classes are for), but how we celebrate and honor certain individuals (or events).. but its politically/socially problematic to just come out say that you support the celebration and valorization of e.g. confederate traitors/slavers/etc, so you talk about "erasing history" instead, as if that was what any of this was about. But of course documenting history doesn't entail celebrating racists, so that doesn't hold any water whatsoever. And many of these statues and named buildings are far more recent, and were acts of defiance in light of legal losses by schools or other organizations trying to resist civil rights, de-segregation, and so on. So the entire argument against removing/renaming is completely disingenuous.
And the hand-wringing over "cancel culture" is absolutely hilarious. As if any of these idiots has a right to have a massive platform, or for people to buy their books or watch their shows. If you want these privileges, its simple common sense to avoid saying dumb, offensive stuff, and if you can't manage that you should expect this sort of backlash.
I don't think you've achieved maximum melodrama/hyperbole here, I think you still have room for even more- go big or go home! :lol:
...you’ve reached maximum delusion. You have no more space up your ass for your head to fit inside of.
(Wikipedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taller_Buddha_of_Bamiyan_before_and_after_destruction.jpg)
I dont think Fishfry was was addressing you either you clueless hypocrite. The concerns he expressed are 100% legit, and dismissing them only shows your hopeless bias. Kev made a good point about reason not being an option.
Junior. :roll:
Do you happen to remember Mao's cultural revolution? You don't see echoes of that in our present situation?
Exactly. Kind of reminds me of how the n-word has been reinterpreted as something that is racism to something that isn't. If we're tearing down racist symbols then why aren't we abandoning the use of the n-word? If we can reinterpret a symbol, then why not reinterpret those statues being torn down as a history lesson rather than a racist symbol?
Are the statues of Confederate generals put up around 1900 important historical artifacts to you?
Culture is not who we are. But it does supply us with the language we need to know it is not who we are. If we are intimate enough with our culture, and with each other, we can recognize in each other just what it means that our culture is not who we are. Problem is, we have to convince ourselves that our culture really is who we are to become sufficiently intimate to it to achieve its function of helping us to intimate to each other who we really are. Culture wars, therefore, is a delusion. A very dangerous one. Reason is reductive. In the end, there is nothing that really belongs there to its terms of deciding who and what belongs to a group or class. But the conviction of the decisiveness of that determination catches us in a regress we can only escape by recognizing that all the terms of that determination are fallacious. Culture can only fulfill its role of offering us the language of our knowing each other by recognizing through each other, with each other's help, that it is not who we are if it only operates by inclusion, and never by exclusion. But reason can only be reductive, and induction, inclusion, can on;y occur in the moment the reductive process fails us in our recognition of its emptiness. But we are never alone there. For we had to have help from each other getting there, and that help intimates us to each other as forcefully as it intimates exclusion is a vicious circle. Culture warriors are living in an abyss of their own making.
Our present situation is ultimately different from China’s state of affairs in 1966. All in all, China was primarily an agricultural country where the vast majority of the population had the traditional, ancient culture and style of life. Mao mobilized “cultural revolutionaries” to accelerate the country and tighten his grip on power. Likely, what we deal with right now, is not ‘a culture war’ or ‘a cultural revolution.’ If our culture, our symbolic order, has not been maintained via ‘traditional symbolic means,’ our ‘cultural revolution’ has already happened. Therefore, it is a struggle to redefine the parameters and limits of free speech, public political debate, the way to initiate, and frame public opinion agendas. Freedom of speech is the subject of the expedite socio-political construction rather than the fixed and timeless entity.
As Kev noted:
Quoting Kev
‘the narcissistic majority’ (the similar term is ‘the silent majority’) will survive and feel well enough even if the more significant restrictions of political correctness will be imposed.
:lol: still hopelessly lost, poor little guy.. stick to what you know- in your case, splashing around in the kiddie pool. "100% legit", what a rube.
No, not really. Thus the amusingly hyperbolic/melodramatic nature of your previous comment. Dial it back a few notches, no need to be Chicken Little over something fairly common-sensical.
I agree with you.
But reinterpretation of a symbol is just the first step of destroying it.
Quoting jgill
Quoting jgill
In principle, I am against destroying statues or any other historical artifacts.Yet, likely, this particular statue cannot play any role in our cultural practices. For most of us the symbolic significance of this monument has been completely lost. Probably, it can explain why so many people do not care about statues anymore.
No, you're destroying what it means, not the symbol itself. People are destroying symbols rather than what it means, as if that symbol could only mean racism, yet they contradict themselves when the use a raciat symbol (the n-word) in a way that isn't racist. Its typical of politics - contradicting oneself.
I think you misinterpreted me. I don't think the silent majority is narcissistic, not as it pertains to their political position. The mob is not the majority, but a relatively small and vocal minority. I say the mob is inherently exclusive because they must remain a minority to stand for change--this is also why they must always see themselves as an underdogs; if things need to change, then obviously the people who want them changed do not have enough power.
They are narcissists because they want to be the ones to fix the world. This is why peer pressure is also such a big factor in how the mob operates. Identity is the driving force on the individual level. They are creating their identity, and how they are perceived by their peers is the biggest part of that.
There's two problems with this: 1. Hungary was not willfully part of the USSR. 2. Hungarians decided to keep the statue.
If Russians were the ones saying that the statue should stay up, while the Hungarians said it should come down, that would be different. If black southerners decided the confederate statues should stay up because they want the reminder of history, as a sort of "goodbye" to the confederacy, that would be different.
Do black southerners get to make that choice? No. So we'll never know. A lot of white people have spoken for them.
I'm glad you're so optimistic. My concern is that in contrast to, say, the Occupy protests of 2011, the current destruction and violence is approved of by Democratic leaders. I don't share your view but I suppose we'll all find out. I'm not worried because I'm not a statue of George Washington and they're only coming for the statues /s.
is not just a kind of symbolic violence. It is also actual violence. I completely understand your position and your
concerns, but who knows what happens next? Your understanding is that all was initiated be Dems and the elites. Are they interested in further escalation?
Getting back to China, in 1968
Mao cancelled his cultural revolution. Right now, if Dems
win the elections, will they try to stop the trend?
Getting back to my view, there a few scenarios, and
I worked out just one of them, in the most general level.
Surely that is nothing I ever wrote or believed.
Quoting Number2018
I've asked myself that question. I'm of the opinion that the mainstream Dems (Pelosi and company) are using the leftist violence to further their aim of deposing Trump; and believe they'll be able to get the genie back in the bottle after they win the election.
On the contrary, I think they'll find that they've unleashed forces that they can no longer control; and that if the Dems should win, nothing they do will satisfy the radical leftist mob.
We'll all have to wait and find out. Personally I'm not optimistic.
Sorry. Even if we take your Chomsky’s conceptual
framework: is the ruling elite interested in destroying
the US?
Lets hope it will not happen! Thank you for your honest
opinions! :wink:
Arguably yes.
I grew up in the deep south before the civil rights era, and as I recall neither I nor any of my classmates paid any attention to the statues of confederate soldiers. But those monuments pale when compared with . . .
In the mid 1950s Stone Mountain was a sort of miniature wilderness, owned by the Venable Brothers. The carving had been half done and left to the elements. Rusty girders swayed and creaked in the wind. I actually did some rock climbing on the lower half of the images. Then, in1958, the state took over and later the area became a kind of Disney world with cheap attractions. I returned briefly in the early 1990s and heard the theme from Star Wars blasting from giant speakers below the completed carving.
It appears the carving will remain intact for the immediate future because of a state law and unresolved controversies about its existence. Some local climbers would like it blasted away and the face opened to climbing. Won't happen.
There are no problems here. You have drawn a comparison with confederate monuments. I did not.
Which ended up in cannibalism, btw.
At least Deng Xiaoping first ended the utter insanity of the Cultural revolution with Boluan Fanzheng (meaning eliminating chaos and returning to normal) and started the dramatic transformation of China with programs like Four modernizations and Reform and Opening up what were continued under Jiang Zeming. But that hardly interests any Western leftist intellectuals as those policies showcase what true development looks like (that reeks too much of capitalism and modernism). Which fits the picture perfectly. The only thing they'll see happening in China is that China opened it's borders to Western sweatshops and, oh yes, the Tianamen Square massacre happened. That's it. Otherwise nothing remotely important has happened in China, which is a truly condescending attitude.
Quoting Number2018Fishfry is correct. There is an American culture war going. And no, it's not like in China.
It is similar to the era as the British experienced in the 20th Century and especially after the Suez crisis, basically the time when the Britts started questioning their own Empire. The UK faced such dire situation after fighting WW1 and WW2, that the bureaucrats in the halls of power in London simply didn't think that they had much anything to salvage from the wreck. The UK was still in the technological race in the 1940's and 1950's for example in aircraft development, but what killed it, just like what killed the British space program at the cusp of the satellite era, was lack of vision from the government. Add to this the losing of the colonies and putting aside the Commonwealth... as if not having a war for Australian, South African or Canadian independence and having the queen still as their monarch isn't something that the British should be proud of.
The Empire came to be a joke, perhaps in the most brilliant way depicted in the sketches of Monty Python. The monarchy came to be a tourist attraction and a cornucopia for the tabloid media to feast on. And now, the UK might even break up because...why not? The USA isn't still there, but I guess there will be a time when the Founding Fathers are the most hilarious butt of jokes and everybody around is laughing. That will just tell that then Americans believe that the myth of the US is a joke. And if it's a joke, then, why wouldn't the Texans opt to be independent again? How do change this way?
Self-criticism turns quite often to vicious self flagellation and to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Self criticism is good, but too much of it and people will think that nothing good came out of the experiment. The critic seldom ends his rant by saying "but on the other hand, there is also some good". Hence the good aspects will be forgotten. Americans aren't still there, they still have great pride and belief in their country. Such belief in one's country isn't shared by many others.
And this isn't any sinister conspiracy: if people have doubts of the righteousness of the cause, the cause will falter. Those practicing self flagellation will see those who aren't flogging themselves as sinners. It's not that people would be against the freedoms on what the US was built. They will question if the US was ever built on them. And many will come to the conclusion that no, they never meant anything in reality: Others believing they are important are simply utterly naive.
Is this all really an urgent problem as fishfry says? I think that it is. Hence when a life long dedicated critic of US foreign policy like Noam Chomsky underwrites a letter on 'Justice and Open Debate' arguing that the "The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted" and not only from the political right, in my view the alarm bells are ringing. The liberal society is at threat.
It is a vicious circle that we must avoid, and it's not avoided by thinking that you can win the other side. That kind of bickering will lead to a worse situation.
I understand Fishfry concerns and appreciate his opinion. As far as I see, there is a principal difficulty: we do not know how to articulate the ongoing crisis in the US. Our clishes and stereotypes
cannot adequately reflect on the situation and help us. You can call it "an American culture war", but
it does not say anything about the singularity of the event. Another point is that 'real facts' immediately got distorted and transformed by various media. Reasonable opinions are marginalized and pushed aside.
Quoting ssu
You see. For most people there is no problem at all. Why?
It's very difficult to articulate something that is a longer process, something that takes years even decades to happen. To articulate something you basically have to have a narrative of something that is happening. That narrative only emerges from history. From history we get things like that there was a "Cold War between two Superpowers". Of the present that is hard to agree simply because only in hindsight we know what happened.
Quoting Number2018
For most the pandemic isn't a problem.
I haven't got it, I haven't lost my job and nobody I know has died of it. So I guess it's not a problem for me, even if the kids stayed at home for the spring and didn't go to school.
So let's assume that this is a "once in a generation event" or even once in 30 years event. You think this time will be seen then with indifference?
Could you expand and explain what makes you think so?
Did that already on page 6
We noticed.
You think the letter was dumb as hell and pitiful, that part of the signers are against transrights, black Americans and Palestinians and that they failed to mention an Amazon worked being fired for leading a protest. And that you think that "cancel culture" is a fundamental component of liberal democracy (except when it's an Amazon worker leading a protest or something I gather).
So thank's for that valuable contribution, maw.
I wasn't directly talking to you, since I know your reading comprehension skills are not too good:
Quoting ssu
Quoting Maw
Lol
Even now, I am confident that most people at The Times do not hold these views. Yet they are cowed by those who do. Why? Perhaps because they believe the ultimate goal is righteous. Perhaps because they believe that they will be granted protection if they nod along as the coin of our realm—language—is degraded in service to an ever-shifting laundry list of right causes. Perhaps because there are millions of unemployed people in this country and they feel lucky to have a job in a contracting industry. "
https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
During Norman rule of England the Anglo-Saxon peasantry, treated by the older regime before the death of Harold as comrades, were treated by Normans as property, slaves even, and with no more dignity than Black slaves in the Antebellum South. Probably the most outrageous lie about this era is that it was a "Dark Age", when, in fact, it was the leadership that was uncivilized, and the people themselves that preserved, and even continually developed, the arts of civilization. The artifacts from this era are exquisite, but made, no doubt, not by the elites, but by these "unwashed peasants" treated in the most appallingly cruel terms by those elites. The Normans found the English difficult to govern in the terms they would prefer to impose upon them, largely because they had the immense advantage of being native speakers of English, something their Norman rulers have not master to this day, a disadvantage infecting even the elites of America today. And so, the Normans took to a strategy of gradualism in the form of "Acts of Enclosure" which gradually removed ancient privileges of villagers, the vast majority of the English, to the point that five hundred years later village life began to become untenable. One such village actually pulled up stakes and left as a group, to become refugees in Holland. There they were treated as common laborers, a life they were not suited for, so they went back to England and, some of them, found a ship that would take them to the Americas. They had a charter, but at the time America was divided between the English colony on the Tidewaters of Virginia, the Dutch colony at what would become New York, and the French trading posts in the Maritimes (though I am not clear on the timing of the French appearance). But upon arriving at the headlands of Cape Cod, they decided to violate that charter, sailing north rather than risking the shoals of the cape. I suspect their actual intention was to settle in some location more or less under the control of the Dutch, but settled at Plymouth. They were, by the way, my ancestors, though my family name came over a little later. The critical factor in this is that this group of villages represented a third strain in the divisions of the American settlement, and they established a boundary or sorts between the two factions of what would become the English Civil War, with the "Cavaliers" in the south and the "Roundheads" to the north.
Because of primogeniture laws, these Cavalier classes were loaded up with displaced sons with all the accoutrements of nobility but no title, lands, or real wealth. These men craved the status of their uncles and brothers and cousins, and so came to America, with a cadre of servants, in the hopes of rebuilding the English Manorial System here. But their men were Englishmen, and at a remove from the context of English oppression of its servant classes they soon became unmanageable, and so slaves were imported as soon as they became available. And it was instantly obvious that Black slaves could not be permitted to work side by side with the White workers, lest they too become "corrupted" with English rebelliousness, and, well, sass. Blacks, too, could be rebellious, but they could not produce the kind of back-talk the English laborers could sling against their Norman overlords. Shortly after the introduction of a small group of slaves to Jamestown (though here my knowledge is sketchy) a Native tribe attacked and almost wiped out that colony, which later retaliated with such ruthlessness that the region became open to further colonization, and the American attitude towards Native peoples began to become entrenched, at the very same time that slavery and segregation were calcifying into the American soul.
In the North things were different. Settlers there were neither nobles nor villagers, but townsfolk. The towns of England had always had a special status, with their own legal systems and even some crude democracy. And by the time of the settlement they were becoming part of a burgeoning mercantile and industrial power, in direct competition with the old feudal regime. These people could not impose the kind of fealty claims upon their workers that the aspiring nobles of Virginia took for grated as their birthright. So, though their work demands were every bit as cruel, those who survived indenture, apprenticeship, and journeyman status, and that survival was by no means certain, had to be rewarded sufficiently so that a fresh supply could be enticed into the ranks of the workers. The seagoing classes were especially close and equitable, by the standards of the day, even almost democratic and cosmopolitan. And that personal investment in each other in some limited arenas could not help but influence the greater society. Also, their religious devotion was to gather in church on Sundays, and wait for the "spirit to move". This could come form any member, however lowly, again, putting pressure on the group to sustain some glimmer of democratic feeling. The Plymouth colony, and a growing number of other similar colonies in the region, were culturally villagers, and the village system of England was democratic long before the Normans tried to ruin their ancient habits and rights.
But in the North, too, Indian wars interrupted the development of some reconciliation between settlers and natives. There is circumstantial evidence to believe that in the aftermath of the English Civil War King Charles II deliberately generated strife between settlers and natives, leading to King Phillip's War in New England, and to the Bacon Rebellion in Virginia. These events would set the stage for the Westward Expansion of the colonies and set the hatred of native peoples digging deeply into the spirit of its people. But both incidents may have been, and I thing very probably were, generated by the subversive activities of the king's agent in New York, Edmund Andress, selling arms to Indians and provoking aggression amongst tribes and between tribes and settlers.
And there you have all the elements we now find so implacably corrupting our society today. There is also something else. Throughout history there has been a tradition of all social orders to require defense. Men, sometime women too, were expected to show some capacity to assist in all defensive requirements. In the most democratic settings of ancient England, the moot, or hundreds, the vote was taken by a "show of arms", meaning, not a show of hands, but a show of some weapon, however crude. This ancient trait in human life may take on entirely different, even unrecognizable form, but the requirement to sustain the existing "culture" is a powerful force for the suppression of progressive thought and habit. There may well be a substantial faction among us who are naturally inclined to bigotry, but I think the majority of warriors in that suppression are at least as much conscripted as willing participants. I'm not a sociologist, but it should be intuitive enough to most of us how it is possible to enforce such conscription in bigotry and sexism, all it takes is persistent shaming and humiliation of those who violate the norm.
Later in American life, a preacher appeared on the scene. George Whitefield. He was an itinerant fire-and-brimstone preacher who traveled about the frontier driving a rebellious alternative to Puritan and Church of England and other established religions. He founded the American Baptist Church. This created the most dangerous strain in American "culture wars": Christian dystopianism. This dystopian strain is even more dangerous than racism. It is the view that governments that try to ameliorate the suffering of people created by their fellows in a kind of tacit, largely subterranean conspiracy, goes against the will of their god, and must therefore be thwarted if that god's design is to fulfill itself in the second coming. This inspires a corporate dystopia in which we are urged to believe that only under threat of financial ruin will working people be productive. The two conspire to employ racism as a call to arms against any agitation for redress. And conscripts to that call will, of course, fulfill their role, even if it is diametrically opposed to their instincts and interests.
The trace of all these strains is arduous, but if we avoid the labor we will just go around in circles trying to conscript each other in views that really belong to none of us.
Yep. Bigotry and sexism. The biggest problems in the Western World at the moment... And definitely the norm.
A good point among others is made by Weinstein (starting at 17:52) that under Clinton the left's traditional voting block, organized labor, was replaced as it made some quite expensive economic demands. And it replace was with identity politics was cheaper, or that you could get people with very little relying on identity politics. I think Weinstein's insight is great to answer why identity politics, rights of minorities (sexual or racial) have become the focus rather than the working class in general. I've now started to think that the whole "culture war" with it's "identity politics" is really a way to divide Americans and have the voters fight each other than to unite in the oppose status quo and face the real problems in the country .
Anyway, it's nice to have such different sides having a fruitful discussion in present day US.
You should check out Weinsteins podcast, The Portal. Its excellent.
:vomit:
It is not just a matter of cost. Since capital has become mobile and fluid, an ‘organized labor’ has become outmoded, attached to immobile ‘real economy,’ and cumbersome commodity. Also, there has been a permanent tendency to accelerate consumerism and develop various techniques for the production of suitable subjectivities. The success of identity politics is the vital effect of neoliberal capitalism’s productivity. Moreover, identity politics has become a ubiquitous and flexible tool for framing public opinion agendas.
Quoting ssu
It is probably impossible to find logic and common sense reasoning behind the contemporary ‘culture war’ or ‘cancel culture.’ Likely, their primary drives are the reciprocal process of neoliberal deterritorialization and reterritorialization, followed by further mobilization and utilization.
To enact this replacement they mention three bases of power or influence: the media, education, and the courts. Somehow these were used to convince organized labor to care more about identity politics than their rights and their paychecks. Courts tend to be more judicial than persuasive so I think we can rule them out of the convincing part.
The media, as Weinstein says, tends to report news that aligns with whatever political narrative an outlet favors, and they tend to not report what doesn't align. I think what he means is that news outlets cater to the interests of their audience, because they're interested in maintaining and growing an audience in order to make money. That being the case, organized labor was more interested in identity politics than news about what effected their rights and paychecks?
Identity politics thrived in academia around the 70', I imagine. It's unclear, however, how academia so readily convinced labor to care more about identity politics than their rights and paychecks.
Getting back to the courts, Weinstein claims that the Warren Court overreached and much of their decisions had to be rolled back. That's fascinating because the Warren Court is famously known as the only court that tended to support the interests of the working class, shortlived as it was.
Yet racism isn't?
I don't think they convinced them to change their ideas as the working class was simply sidelined. The last traditional leftist politician was Bernie Sanders and he had these problems with the woke mob. And let's remind ourselves, it was Clinton who did NAFTA. Also to the disgust of many woke people, many of the classic blue collar workers went and voted for Trump. This is something seen also in Europe too. The "woke" left isn't so interested at the "old proletariat", the white man working at the factory. Thus part of this old guard of the labour movement has been disappointed with leftist parties promoting globalization and have then turned to right wing populist movements. Which of course turns them into the enemy for the woke mob. We also should remember the political activists and the actual ordinary people who vote for a party usually have not so much in common. And this is why I fail to see any "Marxism" in the woke activism as they seem far more interested in race and gender than in class in the way before. More fitting would be call this woke mob simply postmodernists, even if it doesn't sound so good. Postmodernism is very fitting, because there simply isn't a real agenda behind the ideology.
Quoting Number2018
I agree. The modern social media has created the platform for cancel culture, but it's has just become what it is without anyone having an agenda for it to be this way. Yet it seems it's far easier for democrats to be "progressive" by endorsing the toppling of confederate statues than endorsing raises minimal pay. Guess which endorsement could be a problem with the corporate donors?
Have done that. Both brothers (Eric and Bret) have good podcasts.
The narrative any media follows is the what the audience wants to hear and what the owner wants to promote. Anything that challenges one or especially both is simply left out. You can observe that many news media that do classic investigative journalism do have the ability to make objective and high standard journalism and reporting, however in today's climate that is rare. So better for Fox News to report on "Joe Biden supporters" rioting in Portland.
Quoting praxis
Has the academia convinced us of anything in politics?
The change has happened easily, actually. You divide labour to minorities, separate by gender, talk about white priviledge, use intersectionality, talk about how worse women, racial or sexual minorities (or female sexual minority pocs) have it in the workplace. The old calls for "all workers to unite" sounds hollow against the allegations thrown at the "old movement". Dominate the discourse. And what isn't talked about before elections, goes to the background and isn't a priority for the next administration.
Can you show any evidence of that happening in the 70’s? Evidence would be convincing.
Remember that today's identity politics is quite new with safe spaces and cancel culture. Identity politics as a term was coined in 1977, intersectionality was coined only in 1989 and terms like woke or sjw were started to be used only in the 2010's. In the 1970's there was the Soviet Union, genuine Marxism-Leninism and a real Cultural Revolution going on at the start of the decade in China. The Civil Rights Movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King had just happened few years ago.
But I'm not sure just what you are asking about.
:yikes: I neglected to realize that the Clinton administration was in the 90’s, two decades after you say term ‘identity politics’ was coined, and two decades into the working class becoming less expensive to capital class/government.
It is difficult to find out what is actually going on in Portland right now. What is your view?
As far as I see, there are two major narratives in the media: peaceful protesters vs. rioters; both are completely incompatible.
People are laying siege to a federal courthouse in Portland. Looks like a war zone.
Here is a livestream from Sunday.
I wonder why it is so difficult to report that there are a) peaceful protesters, those especially during the day who do follow curfews etc. b) protesters that will get agitated c) provocateurs who do love a riot, prepare and train for the event d) looters, who will use the opportunity to loot when the police isn't stopping them because, why not? Protests and demonstrations are made of various people with different agendas if they are of any larger size. Especially if the groups c) or d) are allowed to operate, they surely will do that. And there has to be only a tiny group. Yet I'm not seeing helicopter footage of Portland or Seattle burning, so I do believe it really is concentrated on limited areas with in the end not many people involved.
The same could be said about the protests themselves. First there is the cause of police brutality and killing of George Floyd itself. The there is the "official" Black Lives Matter movement which has it's own peculiar agenda. I don't think it ends just there: when you have a botched pandemic response in the US which has caused massive unemployment, there are other reasons for people to be unhappy and if one way is to go and participate in a protest, there's your answer.
But note that rioting doesn't even have to have a clear dedicated cause. Once when young people get the habit of confronting the police and they have nothing to do, riots can erupt. I remember in Sweden few years ago the media was totally clueless why there were youth riots with absolutely no movement behind it. In the end, they just died down. Sociologists had a lot of explaining to do.
Yet unlike says, for example the above coverage really doesn't look like a war zone. Actual war zones are empty of people. War zones look like the following. Notice the huge difference to coverage from US cities:
If this is a true report, and since the protest in Portland is going on for 60 days, most likely that it has
a kind of a clear cause, differently from what ssu thinks.
Quoting ssu
The war zone metaphor refers mostly to the tactics of those involved—teargas, projectiles, makeshift explosives, riot shields—and the resultant destruction and chaos. You’re right, though, that it is not the best metaphor, and accurate phrases such as “mob violence“, “riot“, and dare I say “terrorism“ suffice.
It takes a sheer act of lunacy to claim a riot is a peaceful protest. Euphemisms such as “mostly-peaceful protests” serves to disguise the violence and anarchy, which is what everyone is objecting to in the first place. Everyone gets that there are peaceful protests occurring and for valid reasons, but no one is really objecting to peaceful protesting( for god sake anyone who dare say otherwise is met with the most hostile bigotry). People are objecting to the violence and intimidation against the innocent, none of whom have anything to do with the death of George Floyd.
Because none of their targets have anything to do with the injustice against Floyd, there must be some other belief motivating these actions, or else they are blinded by sheer stupidity and propaganda. This is culture war stuff. This is politics in the street. If it goes on much longer it is simply insurrection, and one lacking any ethical cause.
However, I noticed that often times right-wing media tends to edit and skew public opinion using other outlets as sources of validity for example case in point:
Quoting NOS4A2
MLK said:
“A riot,” King said, “is the language of the unheard, And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”
When black Americans argue for the government to hold police accountable for brutality you will have degenerates who will dissent violently This is the crux of why people damage property. However, some people are indeed opportunistic just as there are claims by some, that white nationalists are inciting these riots to cover up their motives to traffic drugs (Source:https://www.startribune.com/police-umbrella-man-was-a-white-supremacist-trying-to-incite-floyd-rioting/571932272/).
These protests have drawn a plethora of people and like any group that has to speak out there will always be those with alternative methods to spread dissent.
That wasn't my intention to say, so sorry if I made myself unclear.
In this case there obviously is a clear case, the case of George Floyd and also movements like the BLM behind it. However it's obvious that if this is the reason for the protests, there are obviously many with different agendas involved. The example of Sweden was a different example, but I gave it to show that clashes with the authorities can emerge and continue for various reasons...or even without them, once they get going.
There were a few accounts of the riots in Sweden. Professor of political science at the University of Uppsala, Tommy Möller wrote in an op-ed:
"Unless the integration of the newcomers succeeds better, in the long run, the social glue that makes a democratic welfare society of our kind possible risks being torn apart." Accordingly, there are huge gaps in the social fabric, so that various groups create alienated communities. Is that reasonable to hypothesize that similar processes take place in the US right now? Maybe it could explain why courthouses have become the targets of systemic attacks.
Blacks have been in the US for four hundred years and you have had slavery, so it's a bit different. Sweden hasn't had slavery (even if Swedish ships participated in the slave trade) and it hasn't had colonies in Africa or Asia. Present day non-European minorities are a new thing (Finns as an ethnic minority don't create problems).
I guess the attacks on a court-house means that the legal system is viewed as racist or something.
MLK was committed to non-violence and believed riots intensified the fears of the white community while relieving their guilt. The temper-tantrum excuse is no longer viable.
Besides, committing mob violence and vandalism against people who do not deserve it is cruel. The weeks of violence and civil unrest, all of it at the expense of locals and the tax-payer, has made a world already coping with a pandemic far worse.
This is the difference between a riot and protest, People often times conflate the two.