There is no winning option on the right. The culture will continue to change in the direction it always has. Like I said above, there are two options: progress, or slower progress. — Kev

Generally, you are right. Yet, in the UK and the US there is no complete political consensus.
— Number2018

There isn't? What about on issues of the past? — Kev

This has always been the case. Things either progress, or progress slowly; those are the options. Specific policies are irrelevant, the general constitution of the power structure is what progresses. . — Kev

Public opinion becomes more and more powerful, and more and more people try to get ahead of it for their own little piece of power. And there is no cost to the public that can be directly linked to having the wrong opinion, so there is no self-correction. — Kev

There is no winning option on the right. The culture will continue to change in the direction it always has — Kev

I think we’re past the culture wars. One side didn’t show up. Thus most institutions lean in a certain direction. Nowadays it’s closer to a cultural revolution than war. — NOS4A2

The war is not for culture, though. It's for power. One side doesn't want it, they just want to stop the power grab. They're too concerned with culture, because "politics is downstream of culture." Well, that depends on the power structure. — Kev

I think the “right” “Silicon Valley Libertarian” does the top pattern with regards to norms and the bottom pattern, to a lesser extent, with an elitist lean, with regards to facts.

Meanwhile the “left” “Social Justice Warrior” does the top pattern with regards to facts and the bottom pattern, to a lesser extent, with a populist lean, with regards to norms. — Pfhorrest

I was hoping this thread would be more on the culture war between what I'd colloquially term the "Silicon Valley Libertarian" and the "Social Justice Warrior" stereotypes, reckoned "right" and "left" respectively, though inaccurately. — Pfhorrest

both sides are philosophically wrong in one way about factual matters and philosophically wrong in the opposite way about normative matters, — Pfhorrest

what better time to pull down a statue of George Washington and set in on fire. — ssu

But likely it will be even worse. If you think this is the low point, you will be surprised how more low and stupid it can get. — ssu

Culture wars is a trap that we have fallen in for. — ssu

If you'd like to know where to start, read your Chomsky. — fishfry

It has happened before but revolutions do not come out as those who fight them hope because they go into them to destroy the existing power and do not have a plan for destroying power, so when the fighting is over, those who understand power take over, and at first people are glad for their leadership, then they realize it is not the leadership they want. — Athena

The American revolution began as an intellectual revolution and that needs to be repeated to get a good outcome to a revolution. — Athena

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

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

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

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

Isn't this obvious? — Banno

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

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

nobody can predict the future. But any systemic solution to the systemic problems would have to involve some kind economic rearrangement and redistribution... intensification of political correctness is just more cosmetics that don't go to the heart of the problem. And I just don't see them voluntarily going against their (economic) interest. — ChatteringMonkey

only real threats to that system will prompt a real reaction. — ChatteringMonkey

When the media focus and our focus is turned somewhere else and when in a few years similar issues rise again. — ssu

Changing a whole legal system is a daunting task. Doing something about systemic inequality is another. — ssu

It's not about the meaning of the protests, it's just what happens afterwards. — ssu

Yes, the OWS was cleared away in the middle of the night in November without any media present in a coordinated operation and then it disappeared after 2012. You can argue that it was different. Well there were similarities... — ssu

you might learn something from the past before thinking that this now everything is so totally different — ssu

Perhaps more organized force is required for enduring change on the level rightly desired by the movement. — fdrake

How many years of merely symbolic protest must be endured? All it creates is minor collateral damage, leaving the conscience of every oppressor fundamentally unswayed. — fdrake

I think we all know there's a difference between people who live on social media 24/7 and those who prefer to talk to others in person or read a newspaper or books. — Outlander

You get to see the judgements, views, and opinions of billions of people you don't know and may not ever. What does that do for the concerned reader? — Outlander

I've always found it odd how on Trump's twitter posts even the top comments rarely ever have more than a few thousand retweets. And only a few replies down you have very few comments and discussions. — Outlander

Do you count the early days of YouTube as 'social media' or would you say that's reserved for the social network/microblogging explosion? — Outlander

Social media has redefined any definition of media. We see something good, bad, or sad, we can share it. In an instant. It truly is the people's house. — Outlander

I don't think you or I can ever name a period in history where society wasn't rapidly changing. — Outlander

Social media has redefined any definition of media. We see something good, bad, or sad, we can share it. In an instant. It truly is the people's house. — Outlander

Most media sources, large corporate ones or personal channels tend to lean toward one political persuasion or the other. It's more or less balanced — Outlander

I think each majority political view has its problems, rather extremes that can lead to bad outcomes. And some simply view one as 'more restrictive' or 'less wholesome'. It's a delicately balanced yin and yang I suppose. — Outlander

You seem to delve into some aspects of violence in certain settings and that's alright by me. What would be interesting is a theory that explains the cause of violent actions. — TheMadFool

Do you mind expanding on the underlined bit? — TheMadFool

I think we're going off topic. But it's a very tough subject that can't be avoided in a thread about violence. — David Mo

Can you formulate a theory of violence, one that explains the origin of, perpetuation of, and end to, violence with duality? — TheMadFool

From what I’ve seen it’s pretty vacuous in terms of politics. It reminds me of the Occupy protests. — NOS4A2

Probably. But to air on the side of safety. For many folk when it comes to things that don't immediately and blatantly affect them, "things don't matter until they do."

Basically, they do. Some are just less relevant than others. That is to say can exist without major coverage.
31 minutes ago — Outlander

The problem of ‘how can power be desired?’, (‘how can the subjugated group support domination?’) has allowed to develop the conceptual framework, explaining fascism as well as the contemporary capitalist production of our subjectivities.
— Number2018

Sure. It's popularly known as the carrot and stick policy. If the carrot doesn't work to get the donkey to walk, the stick is used. The problem is that at the end you don't know if people are because of the carrot or because they are afraid of the stick. Within human psychology there is a reluctance to recognize that if you do something it is because you are a coward. Then you become a fanatic of the tyrant and hate those who draw attention to your cowardice and immorality. This is a classic of all cultures and submissions.
The coward who is caught hitting the weakest one with the herd, instead of stopping, he will intensify the blows to show that he does it this way because he is very macho. — David Mo

What Trump needs to do is double down on his MAGA platform, and he will. There will be zero Trump supporters who will change their vote due to what you see as a major change in ideology. — Hanover

No predictions are really clear. It's all speculation, but I really can't see middle America finding anything acceptable about defunding the police. In fact, there is tremendous support for the police nationwide. It's just been silenced for the moment. I don't even think the African American leadership is totally comfortable with these attacks on police departments. Most big cities are Democratically controlled, meaning the mayors and police chiefs are typically Democrats and oftentimes minority. I'm not fully convinced that even inner city minority citizens want to see police withdrawal from their communities, as I've heard their complaints in the past were that it took too long in their communities for the police to arrive, if at all. — Hanover

but what do we see as the predicted outcome of the current awakening to racial inequities? Is it that people will do as you suggest and throw their very being into its elimination, or will they march while the marches take place and then go back to business as usual, or will they hold their breath until all this passes, or will they recommit to protecting the institution that they never thought racist in the first place?

My prediction is that they will not do as you think they should, but that it will likely be one of the other approaches — Hanover

Leaving aside the question of how bad and systemic the problem truly is, unless you are the one oppressed, it is unlikely you will spend the time trying to resolve the problem, whatever it is. — Hanover

If the people are constituted through a complex interplay of performance, image, acoustics, and the various technologies engaged in those productions, then “media” is not just reporting who the people claim to be, but media has entered to the very definition of the people. — Number2018

It is the matter of the state of things.
— Number2018
Don't you think that this is actually part of the problem? — Heiko

Systemic racism obtains when a system(s) function (regardless of explicit rules) to favour certain racial groups over others. It doesn't require overt individual racists (though it may protect and even reward them) nor does it necessarily require any conscious acts of racism at all (and obversely you could have conscious acts of racism in a system where no systemic racism exists, only rather than being performative of the system, they would be antithetical to it). Systems are culturally contextual, they're embedded in cultures and how they function depends on their relationship to the culture they're in. So, often it's what the system allows rather than what the system demands that's important. — Baden

Where exactly would the difference between the "positive" picture and the defining negatives be when we are talking about conscious processes? You can not think a "citizen" without a "state", but behaving like a citizen where there is no state might be possible. That is for the negation of the negation. But when we are talking about the "state" symbol there is the notion of "souvereignity" and we know the authority, although it is referred as a symbol and (hopefully or not) never realized. — Heiko

Symbolic violence.
The negative prejudices and stereotypes that are reproduced by institutions are a central factor in institutional violence and a trigger for personal violence.

Symbolic violence encourages the adoption of discriminatory or coercive positions in ideology, economics, gender relations, destruction of nature, etc. It is based on an extensive network of values assimilated from childhood and then reinforced by society's legal norms to inculcate in us an oppressive culture because it is uncritical and prepares us for passive and/or active submission to unfair structures. For example, public stereotypes about the immigrant or atheist can support the passivity of authorities in the face of labour exploitation or a legislation or practice that prevents access to public office based on religious beliefs. — David Mo

You give a soft idea of Foucault. As if he authorizes all means of domination that are not directly violent. I remind you that on discipline and punishment he wrote more than one book and on "pastoral power" he made a very harsh criticism in volume I of the History of Sexuality. For example: Under the pretext of ensuring the salvation of the sheep, the shepherd builds a subtle device of power, capable of unfolding even over the intimate solitude of the believer and leading him towards a new form of widespread servitude. — David Mo

simply forcing every teenager to stay locked up for several hours a day listening to uninteresting talk is violence. Even more so when he can be qualified as "unfit" or "very deficient" -or similar. — David Mo

You give a soft idea of Foucault. — David Mo

You don't need to be very patient to see the state go berserk. We get images every day. — David Mo