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A Worsening Culture War

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Re: A Worsening Culture War

#261

Post by dTal »

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #189
notriskfree wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the UK is not the US and we have different issues in the UK that we are dealing with. Living and working near London I always assumed the increased ethnic diversity and global outlook in the capital led to less racism. I assumed it was the rural homogenous countryside that had more endemic racism. I guess we all misunderstand each other all the time.

>Living and working near London I always assumed the increased ethnic diversity and global outlook in the capital led to less racism. From https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9477.... >In the short run, however, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend…

If trust of one's own race is lower also, this seems unlikely to be a consequence of ethnic diversity per se. Rather, I would speculate that, due to the tendency of people to group with their own race, more diverse neighborhoods simply tend to be more transient neighborhoods - places where people are "just passing through" and not really there by choice. There is no point attempting to build community bonds in an area with high churn, and that you yourself plan to move out of at the soonest opportunity.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#262

Post by eyelidlessness »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #260
RichardCA wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average American doesn't even know who Kimberle Crenshaw is. For most of us BLM just means waiting for the next police shooting to show up in the news and on social media (because someone captured a video recording) and hoping our own nearby community isn't involved. Law enforcement in America is a web of federal, state, and local (city or county) laws and no one knows how any individual police officer is trained…

In my opinion American BLM is racist in of itself. There needs to be changes but popularizing the polarities of the topic only serves the ad driven model of media which supports it.

Your opinion is wrong. Full stop. Stating that Black lives matter, and orienting a movement around that statement as an organizing principle, is not polarizing: it’s a recognition and rejection of extant polarization. Polarization which claims lives, specifically Black lives, disproportionately and institutionally. There is nothing racist about naming the phenomenon and challenging it directly. But demanding that the people who have so identified and challenged it find mask the underlying racism in the name of more inclusive language is essentially an argument to recognize and protect racism itself as part of the culture. No thank you.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#263

Post by alexpetralia »

Roritharr wrote: post #9

The craziest part of this american culture war, to me, is that it seems to spill over to the rest of the world. My sister and I, living in Germany, have a very loving relationship, but we absolutely disagree on almost everything political and basically are stuck in our seperate bubbles. This gave us an interesting observation: 5 years ago it took us about two to three months, to have a fight over something that start…

Yes, similar to Schelling points, I call these Schelling fulcra. Not "what do people focus on?" but specifically "what issue illustrates our tribal divisions?"

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#264

Post by dkdk8283 »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #262
dkdk8283 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion American BLM is racist in of itself. There needs to be changes but popularizing the polarities of the topic only serves the ad driven model of media which supports it.

Your opinion is wrong. Full stop. Stating that Black lives matter, and orienting a movement around that statement as an organizing principle, is not polarizing: it’s a recognition and rejection of extant polarization. Polarization which claims lives, specifically Black lives, disproportionately and institutionally. There is nothing racist about naming the phenomenon and challenging it directly. But demanding that the…

Thank you for taking the time to reply and state why vs just disliking me.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#265

Post by eyelidlessness »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #264
eyelidlessness wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is wrong. Full stop. Stating that Black lives matter, and orienting a movement around that statement as an organizing principle, is not polarizing: it’s a recognition and rejection of extant polarization. Polarization which claims lives, specifically Black lives, disproportionately and institutionally. There is nothing racist about naming the phenomenon and challenging it directly. But demanding that the…

Thank you for taking the time to reply and state why vs just disliking me.

Of course! I don’t even have enough information to dislike you. Honestly when I see comments like yours I assume the experience is one of cultural exposure and subconscious bias unless I see otherwise. I grew up in a place (Virginia) where (for instance) racism was so much a part of the fabric of everyday life that I didn’t recognize a lot of my own biases. I just thought they were common sense. I didn’t have a framework for thinking of systematic bias, so I started from the assumption that equality is the default absent obvious inequality. And “obvious” was of course experiential and educational, so I didn’t see what my (for instance) Black neighbors considered normal and I didn’t understand how their experience informed their reactions to (for instance) police.

Moving to another place (Seattle) where (for instance) racism is still a part of the fabric of everyday life but a part of the social discussion was challenging as I was introduced to ideas that felt unintuitive. But empathy helped me grow and understand more than I did, and helped me value and pursue that growth.

It also helped me recognize (for other instances) I had unconsciously internalized other biases. I had rejected my own sexuality (I identify queer, demisexual) and my gender identity (I accept he/him/they/them pronouns equally).

I hope a little empathy goes far for you. It’s not often in a followup like this I see someone willing to reciprocate the empathetic spirit and acknowledge a contrary view kindly. Who knows where it’ll take you, but I hope you’ll consider that your experience may be coloring your ideas and that you may have room for other ideas in that consideration.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#266

Post by salawat »

mikepurvis wrote: post #68
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If American politics are straining your relationship with your sister and you are not even American, sorry to put it like this but only you two have yourselves to blame. Next time your sister brings the topic up say "yeah right" and move on. This. America is not actively shoving its politics into our conversations, we're doing that ourselves (I'm from Germany as well, btw.). Yes, talking about whatever social shena…

There's obviously cultural differences, but the political priorities and overall dialogue are just completely different too. Like in Canada, we already have gun registration and background checks (the "common sense" laws that Biden wants but that the NRA says are radical) and the fight is about banning specific classes of assault rifles. In Canada, we already have state health insurance, and the fight is about whethe…

>Like in Canada, we already have gun registration and background checks (the "common sense" laws that Biden wants but that the NRA says are radical) and the fight is about banning specific classes of assault rifles.

The 2nd Amendment issue in the United States is something I don't expect a non-American to understand. The rest of the world tends to take the process of enumerating freedoms positively. The law says you have it or don't.

In the U.S. the culture was framed around the preservation of liberty and the enumeration of the boundaries, and limitations on the ability of government and regulation to encroach. The problem with that is it opens a can of worms constitutionally that increasingly have led to the torture of common language in order to attempt to change the meaning of already passed laws instead of passing new ones which seem to be growing increasingly difficult to do.

Further, you have an entire caste of people specifically trained to use language in unintuitive ways.

As far as "Assault rifles" go, most people can't even define what one is. The fact is, an AR-15 that has the "look-and-feel" of a military patterned rifle is functionally equivalent to more "traditional looking" stock rifles like a Mini-14.

They are the same fundamental device. Neither one is more or less capable of killing someone. To anyone with experience with firearms, the "common sense" espoused by gun control people amounts to hysterics. All it is is a bunch of people tryimg to legislate everyone else's rights without demonstrating any understanding of the subject matter at hand other than being a special interest mouthpiece.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#267

Post by mikepurvis »

salawat wrote: post #266
mikepurvis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's obviously cultural differences, but the political priorities and overall dialogue are just completely different too. Like in Canada, we already have gun registration and background checks (the "common sense" laws that Biden wants but that the NRA says are radical) and the fight is about banning specific classes of assault rifles. In Canada, we already have state health insurance, and the fight is about whethe…

>Like in Canada, we already have gun registration and background checks (the "common sense" laws that Biden wants but that the NRA says are radical) and the fight is about banning specific classes of assault rifles. The 2nd Amendment issue in the United States is something I don't expect a non-American to understand. The rest of the world tends to take the process of enumerating freedoms positively. The law says you…

Fair, but my point is that the gun debate in Canada has long ago moved on from where it is in the US. Even the most vocal gun advocates in Canada have come to agree that the exact reforms currently on the table in US are reasonable; they’re good for responsible gun owners, good for reducing gun violence, and have not in fact turned out to be a slippery slope to totalitarian gun-grabbing.

But it's because of this misalignment across a variety of issues that it’s difficult to have a straight discussion of cross-border political alignments— you need to have at least some semblance of a picture of how the Canadian left and right differs from the US left and right. (Another key one, for example, is that the Liberals in Canada officially strive to be a centrist party; the "real" Canadian left is the NDP and Green party, neither of which have ever held power at the federal level, though the NDP have come close a few times.)

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#268

Post by foofoo4u »

hannofcart wrote: post #186

This might be slightly offtopic but related to this article: what sources of conservative opinion would American conservatives on HN recommend to a liberal who genuinely wants to see things from the other perspective? Are there any right leaning bloggers/talk show hosts that you would recommend?

I highly suggest you make yourself familiar with Thomas Sowell. He has written countless books on the topics of economics, politics, race, policy, and more. I find he makes the most compelling arguments for the "conservative" side of the spectrum.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#269

Post by lern_too_spel »

claudeganon wrote: post #183
lotsofpulp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viewpoint that both groups are just as bad or just as good for wage earners is a problem. It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. They’re nowhere near perfect, but there’s no reason to pretend Dems and Repubs are the same.

> It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. The most solidly blue state, California, just enshrined a law to screw over gig workers and has among the worst housing crises in the country for average (and below) wage earners. Both parties are not equally bad, but the idea that the Democrats support working people is pretty la…

The Democratic Party was against Propositions 22 and 13. You can blame both on underinformed voters.

Re: A Worsening Culture War

#270

Post by claudeganon »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #269
claudeganon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s easily verifiable that Democratic states have better laws for wage earners, and have pushed for policies that benefit wage earners. The most solidly blue state, California, just enshrined a law to screw over gig workers and has among the worst housing crises in the country for average (and below) wage earners. Both parties are not equally bad, but the idea that the Democrats support working people is pretty la…

The Democratic Party was against Propositions 22 and 13. You can blame both on underinformed voters.

The Democratic Party in California is quite cozy and takes a lot of money from the people who wrote it, so I find this claim of opposition unconvincing.
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