Opinion of the destruction and annihilation of culture

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Oh, BRTD.

[Figueira]

Voted H without clicking the link. Now let me see what BRTD is up to now....

[RFayette]

BRTD's mechanism for determining whether a stance is liberal or conservative:

Question 1:  Do I agree with it?

If answer is yes, the issue is liberal.
If answer is no, the issue is conservative.

/End

[SATW]

BRTD's mechanism for determining whether a stance is liberal or conservative?

Question 1:  Do I agree with it?

If answer is yes, the issue is liberal.
If answer is no, the issue is conservative.

/End

haha, pretty much. it's crazy when you think about it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Anyway, obvious HD&A, partially since 'culture' (yes, even heritable 'culture'!) does not really mean what BRTD seems to think it does.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

BRTD is a destruction and annihilation of culture

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

FYI it's a quote from a song.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

FYI it's a quote from a song.

Please don't add to your embarrassment.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

To clarify, I'm obviously not talking about aspects of culture. What American liberals tend to support is severing those from the cultures that spawned them and adding everything to some giant melting pot. Think of things like yoga and ethnic cuisine. American liberals also want people not to be bound to whatever culture they're born into and to follow whatever they want (think of white anime nerds, even if they're not exclusively liberal), and hold that cultural aspects that don't match liberal values need to be disposed of, and their important to any culture is moot. American liberals tend to judge everything on objective grounds.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

To clarify, I'm obviously not talking about aspects of culture. What American liberals tend to support is severing those from the cultures that spawned them and adding everything to some giant melting pot.

As I said in the other thread, this is a distinctly American nationalist position, not a distinctly liberal or conservative one.

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Uh, I am a white anime nerd, and I can tell you that any intimation that being an anime nerd is in any way comparable to or in any way supplants being a member of some heritable culture makes you part of the cancer that is killing anime fandom. Similarly, if you can't see the pathos inherent in the way that, say, Quentin Tarantino movies are set up, you're part of the cancer that led to The Hateful Eight.

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You're thinking of French centrists.

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I sig because I love.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's awful of course, but then I'm a conservative so I would say that.

Liberalism has historically supported the idea of being free to discard culture when it is no longer of use, and has also claimed to be guided by objective values.   The relativism of much of the New Left might be considered a departure from that, though I think the overarching concern for egalitarianism generally assumed in discussions on "cultural appropriation" remains within the sphere of the left.  The criticism of appropriation, when made by leftists who are outsiders to the culture in question, is (as best I understand it) not necessarily that these cultural practices have any sort of intrinsic value, but rather that they must be protected because they are a way for oppressed classes of people to express themselves.


(I'm using the terms liberalism and conservatism here in broad philosophical terms rather than by the standards of contemporary politics.)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Isn't this what people complain about the suburbs?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

While I was at work yesterday, I contemplated BRTD's point: that "protection of culture" was traditionally a conservative issue. My "conclusion" was that, under traditional political circumstances (this even going back to friggin' Cato) conservatism had supported the protection of whatever nation's culture and general identity. What liberalism sought was, in a sense, the death of culture as a barrier between humans--free trade, immigration; this extends, in a sense, to even modern international relations theory. It would only be with, let's call it, the evolution of liberalism that a third stance developed between the original two (conservatism's view of culture as both a weapon and as an institution to be protected, and liberalism's desire to confound culture's influence). This third stance would mirror conservatism's view of culture's power and importance while seeking to use it towards different ends: the protection of immigrant groups and indigenous peoples, for example. Instead of there being one supreme culture that the nation must protect, there were a million of these actors that deserved an amount of equality with the host, dominant, white, European culture. I've gotta get to work in a few minutes, and this was much more eloquent in my head when I thought it up.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Isn't this what people complain about the suburbs?

As I've noted multiple times, this is the case primarily in stereotypically liberal white cities.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Isn't this what people complain about the suburbs?

As I've noted multiple times, this is the case primarily in stereotypically liberal white cities.

But that's not true. I believe you that it's the case in stereotypically liberal white cities--having never lived in or had any desire to live in one, I have no reason to doubt you--but it's not 'primarily' the case there. As I just said in the other thread, there are way more 'all conservative, all the time' types in this country than 'all liberal, all the time'. This is absolutely one of the problems with suburbs. The only difference is that the preferred model for the nondescript white American norm is different.

shua and Cathcon are, unlike you, making good arguments for a relative lack of concern for preexisting cultural norms being a (philosophically) 'liberal' value. All that that really proves, in this particular argument, is how (philosophically) 'liberal' generic American conservatism is. I get that the notion that the American right is more (philosophically) 'liberal' than the American left is typically a conservative talking point/accusation and so you may very well really not want to buckle under to it, but in this particular case it contains a kernel of truth. Or rather we might say that this is one of the respects in which the American center (such as it is) is less (philosophically) 'liberal' than pundits like to think, since distinguishable cultural minorities have become (to nearly everybody's surprise) a moderating force in American politics in recent decades.

[RR1997]

Massive FD&A

[RFayette]

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I sig because I love.

For a second there, I almost spit out my coffee when I thought BRTD said that liberals tend to judge everything on objectivist grounds.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Isn't this what people complain about the suburbs?

As I've noted multiple times, this is the case primarily in stereotypically liberal white cities.

But that's not true. I believe you that it's the case in stereotypically liberal white cities--having never lived in or had any desire to live in one, I have no reason to doubt you--but it's not 'primarily' the case there. As I just said in the other thread, there are way more 'all conservative, all the time' types in this country than 'all liberal, all the time'. This is absolutely one of the problems with suburbs. The only difference is that the preferred model for the nondescript white American norm is different.

shua and Cathcon are, unlike you, making good arguments for a relative lack of concern for preexisting cultural norms being a (philosophically) 'liberal' value. All that that really proves, in this particular argument, is how (philosophically) 'liberal' generic American conservatism is. I get that the notion that the American right is more (philosophically) 'liberal' than the American left is typically a conservative talking point/accusation and so you may very well really not want to buckle under to it, but in this particular case it contains a kernel of truth. Or rather we might say that this is one of the respects in which the American center (such as it is) is less (philosophically) 'liberal' than pundits like to think, since distinguishable cultural minorities have become (to nearly everybody's surprise) a moderating force in American politics in recent decades.

What the hell is Amherst if not full of white liberals?

But as I touched on in the original thread, I think you're underestimating just how alien of a concept this is to me.

[Ban my account ffs!]

This reminds me of when I was in 9th grade and my one girl friend got super super pissed off at my other girl friend (friend B) to the point where she wouldn't even talk to her (even though she was still in the group with us)...because friend B wore a pink shirt and EVERYBODY KNEW PINK WAS HER COLOR.

This argument of "cultural appropriation" has reached 9th grade immaturity levels, thus it has jumped the shark and I really don't care anymore.

It's just another way for people to be divided and pissed off at each other while having a "conversation" about nothing productive.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Isn't this what people complain about the suburbs?

As I've noted multiple times, this is the case primarily in stereotypically liberal white cities.

But that's not true. I believe you that it's the case in stereotypically liberal white cities--having never lived in or had any desire to live in one, I have no reason to doubt you--but it's not 'primarily' the case there. As I just said in the other thread, there are way more 'all conservative, all the time' types in this country than 'all liberal, all the time'. This is absolutely one of the problems with suburbs. The only difference is that the preferred model for the nondescript white American norm is different.

shua and Cathcon are, unlike you, making good arguments for a relative lack of concern for preexisting cultural norms being a (philosophically) 'liberal' value. All that that really proves, in this particular argument, is how (philosophically) 'liberal' generic American conservatism is. I get that the notion that the American right is more (philosophically) 'liberal' than the American left is typically a conservative talking point/accusation and so you may very well really not want to buckle under to it, but in this particular case it contains a kernel of truth. Or rather we might say that this is one of the respects in which the American center (such as it is) is less (philosophically) 'liberal' than pundits like to think, since distinguishable cultural minorities have become (to nearly everybody's surprise) a moderating force in American politics in recent decades.

What the hell is Amherst if not full of white liberals?

First of all, Northeastern white liberal/hipster places seem to have a very different vibe from the Midwestern and Western places you talk about. Second of all, when I lived in Amherst, I was going to UMass, so I'd count the UMass campus as the 'city' I was living in more so than Amherst itself. When I was going to UMass, I wasn't really hanging out with a hipster or liberal activist crowd. The exceptions were devoutly Jewish. Now I live on the outskirts of Greenfield, perhaps not The Greatest Small City In America but, at the very least, not a sh**thole. Greenfield has some vague cultural similarities to Northampton--itself not as monolithically a 'movement liberal' city as is commonly supposed--but with fewer Smithies (which is unfortunate) and more French-Canadian Catholicism (which is fun).

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That's not what I'm underestimating.

This argument of "cultural appropriation" has reached 9th grade immaturity levels, thus it has jumped the shark and I really don't care anymore.

I mean, neither do I; the issue I take with the way BRTD talks about it is, I hope, different from the issue Intersectional Feminist Activist #3 would take.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

On my drive back home, I tried to develop this line of thought further. Conservatives, at least perhaps up until the rise of neoconservatism, held that not only was "our" (the "we" being whomever) culture sacred and in need of protection, but also that it was not transplantable. Culture arose organically, it was argued, and it was useless to attempt to bring aspects of it to others (the irony being that among those cultural institutions safeguarded by conservatives in the West were originally liberal triumphs). The liberal belief was that what some might call an aspect of culture, such as democracy, could, in fact, be instituted in new lands. After all, humans were adaptable, and the spirit or history of a people was not genetic! The central ironies of thought here were:
A. While conservatives considered our own culture vulnerable, other cultures were resilient.
B. While conservatives considered culture "natural", it must still nevertheless be upheld and reinforced by rule of law.
C. While liberals considered culture easily transferable, they did not consider that aspects of other cultures might undermine our own.

Of course, since the rise of right-wing liberalism and neoconservatism in the GOP, many original philosophical assumptions have been abandoned. We can transfer our beliefs to the Near East; cultural institutions are not something that need to be protected (I'm imagining Maggie Thatcher's public ambivalence about the rise of divorce in the UK); laborers in other countries are considered "equal" to workers in our own country to such that it matters not whether one is employed or the other; and so on. The GOP uses both "traditional" aspects of conservatism--"takin' er jobs!" "OMG China!"--along with newer stances--"We can bring democracy to every country!" "Your ability to be left alone is the most important governing priority!"--in its rhetoric to piece together a nominally right-wing coalition.

As for the "illiberal" left--ranging anywhere from paleo-liberals to modern day "SJW's"--[insert attempt at explanatory paragraph].

This was probably all said in a freshman-level political theory reader already and is in no way original. Just trying to piece this together.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well if I needed any convincing that assimilation of whites into a general culture in the US and abandonment of the labels they were born with is a good thing, this weekend would've done it.

(For why, compare the reaction to this in the US to the attitudes in ethnostates in Europe. Americans are standing against this specifically BECAUSE of the destruction and annihilation of culutre, they no longer have a culture to "defend")

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

You're an idiot. We are standing up against it because these people deserve to not have their culture trampled upon.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You're an idiot. We are standing up against it because these people deserve to not have their culture trampled upon.

Their culture will be destroyed the CORRECT way if they're allowed in, by assimilation. Not the way Trump and other bigots want to destroy it.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

You're an idiot. We are standing up against it because these people deserve to not have their culture trampled upon.

Their culture will be destroyed the CORRECT way if they're allowed in, by assimilation. Not the way Trump and other bigots want to destroy it.

F#cking Leninists.