Isn't this (more or less) what we'd expect to find?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
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Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#32I’m a person who has seen the culture war start and evolve to its current status. I knew it became about money when certain outspoken people in the movement against ”left wing” ideas started going on speaking tours and selling books.
They would act as though they were intellectuals and people who had common sense. I listened to hours and hours of them talking, and an observant person saw through their act pretty quickly.
These people could rarely offer any depth in any other subjects other than ”guess what I saw on Twitter yesterday”.
They get money by believing people online (especually Twitter) represent a majority opinion, and after building that strawman they go on speaking tours to scare people to be afraid of college kids with blue hair.
Outrage porn sells. It’s easy to sell outrage and this symbiotic relationship is very lucrative. Unfortunately they flooded many of my favorite places online and I’ve had to learn to tune them out.
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#33Yes. The culture war is to a great extent a US import. The US is extremely polarised, possibly uniquely so for a country with a single national language and mostly-shared ethnic background (compare Belgium, which is highly polarised but along language lines). The UK has its own natural fragmentation lines (north/south, class system, four nations, catholic/protestant) but those are not the lines on which the culture w…
As a twenty-something who grew up in Texas but has spent my adult life learning and working in the UK - I really disagree with calling any large cultural ideas as "US imports". The perception from the UK is that the US is much more polarised than it actually is - and from my perception the UK is even more polarised, but just refuses to believe it.
I think this is because minority populations are so much smaller in the UK. Minorities have less of a collective voice and influence on culture, and hence most brits "collision cross-section" with racism is smaller. Hence they think of it as less of a problem, but it isn't. I've had Indonesian colleagues yelled at on a bus, Chinese friend shrieked at for using their phone, and my black friend who just feels like he wont ever "be british". My Indian colleague can talk my head off about the racist hiring techniques he's had to deal with. It's not "not a problem" it's just that most brits don't even know someone who is a minority, let alone one that's experienced racism.
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#34I like the More in Common Project. But it overlooks the disproportionate representation of the extremists in our institutions. This happened at my alma matter earlier this year: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator... . They also voted to abandon entrance exams at my magnet high school: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4979 It’s not comforting to know that only a tiny minority of people a…
I know those diversity sessions...
They claim everyone who is white or passing as white is racist. I had to "confess" that i'm racist and promise to do better or it would have consequences for my career.
Sidenote: I volunteer at a refugee center and took in a syrian family. Literally hitler, i know.
A colleague got fired because he wouldn't confess and left the session.
So even if that Dean said he is a racist, he's probably not unless you warp the definition of racism.
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#35Yes. The culture war is to a great extent a US import. The US is extremely polarised, possibly uniquely so for a country with a single national language and mostly-shared ethnic background (compare Belgium, which is highly polarised but along language lines). The UK has its own natural fragmentation lines (north/south, class system, four nations, catholic/protestant) but those are not the lines on which the culture w…
I’m not saying talk Radio and Fox News aren’t part of the problem, but blaming that alone for the polarization is short-sighted. A huge part of our polarization is due to our Supreme Court resolving social disputes before society has reached a consensus. Folks in Europe often don’t appreciate how different American constitutional law is on social issues compared to European norms: The UK makes teaching religion manda…
"The UK makes teaching religion mandatory in public schools"
The UK does no such thing - education is handled completely separately by the different parts of the UK.
There certainly weren't "daily acts of collective worship" when I was at school in Scotland 40+ years ago and there aren't now when my kids went to school.
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#36I like the More in Common Project. But it overlooks the disproportionate representation of the extremists in our institutions. This happened at my alma matter earlier this year: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator... . They also voted to abandon entrance exams at my magnet high school: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4979 It’s not comforting to know that only a tiny minority of people a…
In the first link, some administrators took part in an anti-racism training and in the second a school got rid of an entrance exam. What’s extreme about either of those things?
The first describes a quasi-religious ritual in which all participants ritually affirm that they are unworthy sinners, racists. Those who believe get the satisfaction of publicly proclaiming their sin, signaling their superiority over the outsiders. Those who don’t believe have their faces rubbed in the fact that other people have the power to make them lie in public about who they are and what they believe. It shows who is in charge.
The second is the destruction of an institution. A school for the gifted and talented with no mechanism to keep out those who are neither rapidly becomes just another school. Once the City University of New York was one of the major public research universities of the USA. Then it moved to open admissions. Now it’s nothing special. In contrast Berkeley instituted affirmative action which allows for different standards for different ethnic groups. It’s probably the top public university.
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#37When I was younger, this was a quote that was always thrown around:
“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
Is this really true though or does change occur in ways that are a lot smaller, more incremental and undetectable than we realize?
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The proportion in the UK who are any kind of Marxist is vanishingly small. The extremist pushing "culture wars" do like to argue it's about "Marxist ideology", but what they paint as Marxist rarely has anything whatsoever to do with Marxism. EDIT: It's fascinating to see the votes on this change without anyone even trying to make an argument to justify the claim it has to do with Marxism. I'd love to see one of those…
A lot of the Scottish intellectuals I've talked to where pretty explicitly Marxist (including, but not limited to, my supervisor who had a poster of Lenin in his office). Also I think current SNP politics are pretty close to Marxism-Leninsim.
"Also I think current SNP politics are pretty close to Marxism-Leninsim."
Care to share which policies those might be?
Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#39I like the More in Common Project. But it overlooks the disproportionate representation of the extremists in our institutions. This happened at my alma matter earlier this year: https://freebeacon.com/campus/northwestern-law-administrator... . They also voted to abandon entrance exams at my magnet high school: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4979 It’s not comforting to know that only a tiny minority of people a…
In the first link, some administrators took part in an anti-racism training and in the second a school got rid of an entrance exam. What’s extreme about either of those things?
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Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study
#40The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...