Are the statues of Confederate generals put up around 1900 important historical artifacts to you? — Echarmion

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's two problems with this: 1. Hungary was not willfully part of the USSR. 2. Hungarians decided to keep the statue. — Kev

There are no problems here. You have drawn a comparison with confederate monuments. I did not.

Sure...

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. — Number2018

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.

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. — Number2018

Fishfry 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.

Fishfry is correct. There is an American culture war going. And no, it's not like in China. — ssu

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.

Is this all really an urgent problem as fishfry says? I think that it is. — ssu

You see. For most people there is no problem at all. Why?

As far as I see, there is a principal difficulty: we do not know how to articulate the ongoing crisis in the US. — Number2018

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.

For most people there is no problem at all. Why? — 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?

One of the organizers of the Harper's Letter tweeted that he kicked a friend of a friend out of his house in a foreign country simply because the latter was criticizing Bari Weiss (another signer). These people (and some of you posters here) have worms in your brain, just chomping away.

These people (and some of you posters here) have worms in your brain, just chomping away. — Maw

Could you expand and explain what makes you think so?

Did that already on page 6

Did that already on page 6 — Maw

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.

We noticed. — ssu

I wasn't directly talking to you, since I know your reading comprehension skills are not too good:

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). — ssu

the whole term, (which is extremely goofy, by the way) is primarily a concern for people of a certain class or occupation or politico-ideological beliefs that want to distract away from actual material concerns that a majority of people face. — Maw

America is the product of the English civil war, and the two sides in that war, though more or less reconciled in England, are still at each other's throats in America today. The events of 1665-6 never get much notice, but actually set the stage for the mess we have since made of our country.

The English Civil War is the most forgotten important civil war in Europe. It would be interesting to hear why you reason that the English Civil War sides are present or bear resemblance to the modern USA.

Bari Weiss, another signer of the Harper Letter, just announced that she has quit the New York Times. In her public letter of resignation she complained how NYT colleagues who publicly criticized her were not reprimanded by the Times.

Lol

Bari Weiss on her resignation and the transformation of the New York Times into the platform of woke culture: "a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m “writing about the Jews again...New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never areThere are terms for all of this: unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge. I’m no legal expert. But I know that this is wrong...The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.

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

The problem with history is that historians make a fetish of telling us everything we don't want to know. My studies are motivated by getting at the root of enigmas clearly overlooked or deliberately omitted by most of the literature. The English Reformation, for instance, has its origins in resentment against the Norman authority claims that caused the nobility to rebel against the king in demands for a Charter of rights (mostly the rights of nobles lesser than the king, the House of Commons, for instance, was not a move toward popular democracy, but a separate chamber of un-elected knights so lowly, compared to the other titled nobles, they only had commoners under their authority, hence the House of Commons, not of commoners!), and in resentments against Roman colonization reemerged in the form of Norse or Norman rule under the outrageous authority claims promoted and sustained for them by the Vatican.

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.

Thanks for posting the letter. People should read it.

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. — Gary M Washburn

Yep. Bigotry and sexism. The biggest problems in the Western World at the moment... And definitely the norm.

No, I said dystopian "culture" is.

I hope this point does not get lost. The dystopian view is that suffering is endemic. It ranges from apathy that let's it happen, as a pretext to making it happen, to zealous promotion of the view, if not the fact. Radical free-marketeers use this as a pretext to set profits above the most basic forms of justice and equity, while evangelicals use biblical passages to divide the world between the saved, themselves, and the damned, everybody else. Together these factions wield enough clout to keep America in the dark ages of social justice, and have managed to re-institute the condition of slavery outside the terms proscribed in law. And fully a third of America languishes under this moral perversity, and these days a lot of them, maybe most, are white. Even Trump supporters.

A very interesting and thoughtful discussion between Eric Weinstein and senator Ted Cruz with a moderator Michael Knowles, which brings up good points. Weinstein, who is basically a society critic at first confuses Knowles and Cruz by going against both political parties and both the American right and left, but later this creates a good conversation.

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.

Eric Weinstein and senator Ted Cruz with a moderator Michael Knowles — ssu

:vomit:

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. — ssu

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.

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 . — 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.

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. — ssu

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.

Yep. Bigotry and sexism. The biggest problems in the Western World at the moment... And definitely the norm. — Kev

Yet racism isn't?

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. — praxis

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.

It is probably impossible to find logic and common sense reasoning behind the contemporary ‘culture war’ or ‘cancel culture.’ — 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 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. — praxis

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.

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. — 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.

Evidence of what? Identity politics?

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.