Is there a culture war in the US right now?

Number2018

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?

praxis

Is there a culture war in the US right now? — Number2018

Yes, and the rich and powerful are winning. They always win. :sad:

fishfry

Yes, and the rich and powerful are winning. They always win. :sad: — praxis

This.

There's nothing grass roots about what's going on. It's top-down.

Number2018

↪fishfry

There's nothing grass roots about what's going on. It's top-down. — fishfry

Could you expand, please. I did not understand you.

Banno

Is there a culture war in the west right now?

Isn't this obvious?

Number2018

↪praxis

Yes, and the rich and powerful are winning. They always win. :sad: — praxis

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.

Number2018

↪Banno

Isn't this obvious? — Banno

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.

fishfry

There's nothing grass roots about what's going on. It's top-down.
— fishfry

Could you expand, please. I did not understand you. — Number2018

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.

Number2018

↪fishfry

Black Lives Matter, the organization, takes in huge amounts of money in contributions from corporations. — fishfry

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.

All of a sudden the New York Times wants to destroy Mt. Rushmore? Where'd that come from? — fishfry

I do not know. Do you mean that all this was planned a long ago?

Powerful interests are funding the "spontaneous" protests. — 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.

EricH

read your Chomsky. — fishfry

Chomsky supports BLM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-0BmqyWJ30

Number2018

↪EricH

Chomsky supports BLM.[/quote
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? — EricH

praxis

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? — fishfry

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.

Wheatley

read your Chomsky. — fishfry

praxis

Is that so simple? — Number2018

It's always been that simple, read your Freakonomics.

phuong2020

The red haired woman is the most splendid demonstrations of someone who so perfectly embodies the Orwellian principle of living out a lie - a so called free speech advocate who actually wants to restrict speech. She weaved so many concepts into a twisted apologetic against free speech liberty, blamed Trump for the pathologies of today which started long before him and which he hates, and not Obama with his Title IX nonsense and similar, . Now that is one free speech organization China will happily support.
_____
Friv 9

fishfry

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. — Number2018

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.

Wheatley

↪fishfry

Are you really going to draw conclusions from a tabloid??

She was obviously joking.

fishfry

Are you really going to draw conclusions from a tabloid?? — Wheatley

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.

She was obviously joking. — 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.

Wheatley

The story was reported nationally — fishfry

Did the lamestreem (mainstream) media even bother to report it. I'm just curious. :lol:

Wheatley

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? — fishfry

So what if it went viral? This isn’t evidence about the true motives of this lady.

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. — fishfry

My point is that your taking sensationalized TikTok videos way too seriously.

You said this:

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. — fishfry

You might want to point to a more serious source of information to support that conclusion.

Wheatley

culture war — Number2018

Is just another fancy name for politics.

fishfry

Did the lamestreem (mainstream) media even bother to report it. I'm just curious — Wheatley

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.

fishfry

My point is that your taking sensationalized TikTok videos way too seriously. — Wheatley

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?

Wheatley

↪fishfry

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?

fishfry

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? — Wheatley

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?

Wheatley

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 — fishfry

I really don't care about that lady.

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? — 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.

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? — 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.

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. — Wheatley

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

Wheatley

I've been following the news lately and I think she's the end product of a plan. That would be my opinion. — fishfry

I don't agree with that opinion, but I respect your right to express that opinion here. :smile:

fishfry

I don't agree with that opinion, but I respect your right to express that opinion here. :smile: — Wheatley

Well thanks for not threatening to stab me!

Wheatley

↪fishfry

I am going to stab you.

fishfry

I'm going to stab you. — Wheatley

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.

Is there a culture war in the US right now?

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