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‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#481

Post by gsk22 »

monoideism wrote: post #470
gsk22 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't know what you're on about. The term "culture war" is extremely vague and with an obvious negative connotation, but as far as I can tell you're simply complaining that politics are more visible in everyday life. Can you succinctly define what makes a "culture war", and how that is different from political debate?

OK, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war#Broadening_of_the_ ... Specifically, stuff like QAnon, facemask protests, BLM, trans rights, "white privilege", anthem protests, etc etc etc. There's pretty widespread recognition in the US of culture war flashpoints. But before I engage anymore: are you American? Because we're discussing these political topics in the US context in this thread, explicitly.

I am American, which is why I was asking. I just don't understand how "culture war" is any different than "political disagreement over social issues". Why do we need a scary new term?

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#482

Post by stale2002 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #452
stale2002 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Karl Marx WAS a great economist. He really was not. He was great at politics. He was great at taping into things that workers cared about. But his actual economics that he laid out, in Das Kapital? The actual mathmatical equations in it, and falsifiable predictions in that book? The labor theory of value? All pretty worthless. Basically no serious academic takes the labor theory of value seriously. It is non-sense.…

>> Karl Marx WAS a great economist. > He really was not. He was great at politics. Not in the governance sense (he wasn't a statesmen), so you must mean in the other sense ("activities within an organization that are aimed at improving someone's status or position"). But this is sort of a difference without a difference, right? For most of human history, people who were "great at X" were in truth at least as good at…

> Anyways, can you define "serious academic" in a way that doesn't make this sentence tautological?

Sure. Basically the entire field of modern day economics does not take the labor theory of value, in the way that Marx means it.

In terms of an actual description of how economies work, almost all real life, professional, economists do not take Marxian "economics" seriously.

> to give more nuanced analyses

It is not a matter of something being "nuanced" or not. It is instead that the vast majority of modern day economists do not take Marxian economics seriously at all.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#483

Post by SuoDuanDao »

shadowgovt wrote: post #474
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the 'knowledge is useful' stance presupposes that these classes have value, that what they're teaching is actually true or useful. That's precisely what many of us don't believe. Suppose we were discussing a risk management seminar which you had reason to believe was teaching a flawed methodology, one likely to cause serious harm if widely adopted. Would you be similarly sanguine in that case?

> That's precisely what many of us don't believe. With respect, I'll defer to the career sociologists and psychologists on the topic, much as I'd defer to the risk management PhD on the topic of risk management. I've known too many tech-savvy folk who think humans can be reduced and deconstructed like a computer, declare humanities research bunk because it doesn't fit their mental model, and get profoundly surprised…

With respect, these careerists subscribe to journals that will literally publish translations of Mein Kampf so long as a few buzzwords are exchanged. On a less sensationalist but more quantifiable note, 70% of the research comprising the field can't be replicated. I think my scepticism is warranted.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#484

Post by stale2002 »

gsk22 wrote: post #453
monoideism wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, fine if hold that viewpoint, but don't gaslight us that nothing new is going on. Politics has invaded everything, and it wasn't like this even 10 years ago.

Disagreeing with your assessment is not gaslighting. I do agree America is more politicized now, but that doesn't mean the answer is to retreat into a shell and pretend the issues don't exist.

So then you agree that this stuff is invading people's personal life a lot, which was the original question?

Cool. You agree with me.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#485

Post by nailer »

shoemakersteve wrote: post #204
nailer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Collusion is a very specific charge. Yes. And Russiagate was the belief that the Trump org colluded with the Russians. Which was debunked. Not that citing Wikipedia means anything, but from the main article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... : > there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.

It was not "debunked" in any way. We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents. They just couldn't prove criminal intent. As far as Trump's obstruction of justice, correct me if I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure the Mueller report basically said "He did it, but we couldn't come up with solid enough evidence that we would be confident we could indict a sitting president" and the last line saying something like…

> We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents.

The references in this thread so far say the opposite. If you have others that prove "We know 100% they colluded with Russian agents", add them.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#486

Post by nailer »

jlokier wrote: post #388
nailer wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > How did “we lost the paperwork” turn into “well you look foreign so leave your country”? > You should have seen the despicable "Go Home" vans that were circulating for a while. How is losing the paperwork for legal migrants comparable or even closely related to telling illegal migrants to leave?

Because both sets of people were treated exactly the same by the system. I.e. inhumanely. FYI, they didn't lose the paperwork. UK gov destroyed the paperwork, then deemed people to be illegal migrants. Then those people were told: quit your job (or we'll force it), leave your spouse, move out of your home, and leave the country. Have 2 weeks notice because we're nice. Obviously with nowhere to go to. And because marr…

> UK gov destroyed the paperwork

You're right. I quoted the parent but it's an important distinction.

> Because both sets of people were treated exactly the same by the system. I.e. inhumanely.

The destroying of paperwork was incompetence rather than inhumanity. The removal of illegal migrants is also not inhuman: it is lawful and reasonable - if you enter a country illegally, you may be kicked out.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#487

Post by iguy »

shadowgovt wrote: post #474
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the 'knowledge is useful' stance presupposes that these classes have value, that what they're teaching is actually true or useful. That's precisely what many of us don't believe. Suppose we were discussing a risk management seminar which you had reason to believe was teaching a flawed methodology, one likely to cause serious harm if widely adopted. Would you be similarly sanguine in that case?

> That's precisely what many of us don't believe. With respect, I'll defer to the career sociologists and psychologists on the topic, much as I'd defer to the risk management PhD on the topic of risk management. I've known too many tech-savvy folk who think humans can be reduced and deconstructed like a computer, declare humanities research bunk because it doesn't fit their mental model, and get profoundly surprised…

> With respect, I'll defer to the career sociologists and psychologists on the topic, much as I'd defer to the risk management PhD on the topic of risk management.

This isn't a good heuristic, without some way of judging the entire field. Would you defer to expert career scientologists about E-meters? Would it help if they published papers on the topic and held conferences and you picked only the best-cited ones from that process? Why not?

I think the relevant question is: If they were completely wrong about how the world actually works, would this have had any negative consequences for them?

This would lead you to some degree of skepticism of risk management professionals, too. If the risks are small and frequent (like estimating how many car crashes per month) then you can trust that people & methods that are badly wrong will have been weeded out. But when the risks are of rare events (like, say, housing market crashes, or nuclear war) then professionals can pass an entire career without being tested against reality. So you should be wary that the most prominent voices are chosen for reasons other than actually predicting the risk.

And career sociologists, of course, aren't heavily rewarded for accurate predictions.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#488

Post by throwaway2245 »

lsd5you wrote: post #458
throwaway2245 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't really matter whether 30% of the population supports these things or 60%. In two-party democracies, 30% and 60% are exactly the percentages that do matter. At 30% support you can expect no change - even human rights violations will scarcely be considered a relevant political issue with such a level of support. Once you hit 60% support, you can expect reform that won't be rolled back. Exactly as we have s…

In the UK 60%+ of people have consistently supported reducing immigration, over decades. It's more correct to think that when 60% of the elites support something change occurs.

a) Recent polling suggests that this figure has dropped from 60%+ to now more like 25%, and,

b) Immigration levels were constrained by being a member of the EU; which the UK has now consequently left.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#489

Post by gsk22 »

stale2002 wrote: post #484
gsk22 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagreeing with your assessment is not gaslighting. I do agree America is more politicized now, but that doesn't mean the answer is to retreat into a shell and pretend the issues don't exist.

So then you agree that this stuff is invading people's personal life a lot, which was the original question? Cool. You agree with me.

If you want to play that game, the original statement was: "Culture wars have invaded both work and family life."

I questioned whether this was really "invading" family life - that implies that across large swathes of the American population, family/home life has been meaningfully changed.

I did not question whether political discussions had increased in the public sphere, and as you mentioned, I agreed with that point of view.

I'm happy to discuss, but I don't appreciate the smug twisting of words.

Re: ‘Culture wars’ are fought by tiny minority – UK study

#490

Post by notsureaboutpg »

throwaway2245 wrote: post #185

The idea that it is a culture 'war' comes out of a right-wing framing. A (small) group of Conservative Party MPs in the UK have presented it as such and indicated that it's useful to their cause that there is a perceived enemy to unite behind, whether or not they agree with any particular policies. e.g. https://inews.co.uk/opinion/tories-culture-war-win-back-popu... similarly referenced from an international perspect…

Eh, communists also portrayed their struggle against the capitalists as not only a political, military war, but also a cultural/social war. That's why it was called the Cultural Revolution after all. The Communist Party of China explicitly mentioned that the bourgeoisie was using old ideas, culture, and customs to stage a comeback after being overthrown. That squarely places culture in the same realm as the military/political in terms of warfare.
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