13671

Al, you must have missed @scottagibson’s memo in another thread: Liberals don’t wage culture wars, only conservatives.

13672

I get that it’s tough to defend the offending side in a unilateral cultural war motivated by racism and bigotry, but surely you can do better than this weak sauce?

13673

Reading what @Alstein wrote in full context, it sounds like he agrees with Scott that only conservatives wage culture wars, and he’s arguing that liberals need to change this and engage as well.

13674

Whether you want to or not you are engaged in a cultural conflict; we all are. Arguably, we always have been. Whether you call it a war or not is up to you–there are pros and cons to such designations I suppose–but there has been a struggle for the soul of this country since well before the Constitution was ratified. At root that struggle is cultural, and it has only become more complex and more heated over time.

Our political system is ill-suited to channel that struggle into productive or stable situations. I’d argue that the political system envisioned by the Founders only came into being through an act of philosophical legerdemain, a sort of hand-waving away of the obstacles they damn well knew were going to bedevil the new republic in the hopes of the new nation somehow growing into a new type of polity. This prestidigitation failed, miserably, as by 1820 the nation was pretty much divided and would remain so for the next four or five decades. Even after 1865 though the newly rebuilt nation was once again a construction of smoke and mirrors, as the deeply held beliefs of our different cultures were still there and still opposed to one another.

13675

It’s true that both sides in any war are engaged in a war, but it isn’t true that both sides in any war want to be engaged in that war. It can be the case, and often is, that one side is the aggressor and the other is defending itself against aggression.

My point is that it doesn’t seem to me that the left in general, and the Democratic Party in particular, spend their time ginning up outrage about culture, maliciously and dishonestly and hypocritically, with the object of setting one group of people against the other for the purposes of gaining electoral advantage.

Republicans e.g. foment fear that the Other will subvert elections by illegally voting, while Democrats advocate that everyone ought to be able to vote. Republicans foment fear that the Other will corrupt your children with their wicked ways and ought to be stopped, that only the right faith has any place in our world; while Democrats argue that we should tolerate people’s different faiths. Republicans see the expansion of the protection of the law to previously oppressed people as an attack on them, personally, as if a state of affairs where two gay people may marry is secretly an attempt to force every Republican themselves to gay marry. Democrats just seem to want everyone to enjoy the protection of the law.

Perhaps it is true that the left ought to launch its own offensives in the culture war. I’m skeptical, as I think we won’t really be much good at it, and doing it will simply give ammunition to the right to justify their endless grievance. Recall the reaction to Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ comment, especially from the media, which took it as an unwarranted, uncivil attack on ‘ordinary Americans’.

13676

cf the cancel culture thread

13677

Racism and bigotry are cultural stances. Full stop. Cultural relativism, to the degree it still exists, is bunk; some cultures ARE superior to others and liberal anti-racist culture is decisively superior to racist culture.

You know what my statement above describes? A conflict of cultures. A dispute between competing cultural points of view. A struggle of cultural values. Perhaps there is a more succinct term we could use…

Scott, it appears that you are using the term “culture war” in a pejorative way to mean a bad thing that can only be applied to bad people.

OK, fine. Let’s use a broader term: “cultural conflict” or one of the synonyms I listed above. Without any doubt, the US has been in a cultural conflict for decades, with competing cultural points of view contesting both culturally and politically. It’s necessary to be aware of that to have a full understanding of our current situation.

Specifically, we liberals consider our cultural views on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation and a number of other areas to be superior to conservative cultural views on those topics and we have been working vigorously to enshrine those view in law, to extend rights to people in those groups, and to prevent discrimination and oppression by conservatives, for decades. That’s a cultural conflict which has extended deeply into the legal and political arena.

I agree with the liberal stance in this struggle and I strongly feel our cultural values are superior and need to be protected / enforced by law. I’m not necessarily looking to change the belief of cultural conservatives in an interior sense but certainly am looking to curtail their ability to discriminate against, attack or otherwise oppress various groups in both individual and systemic ways.

And that IS a cultural conflict. We need to be aware of what kind of struggle we are engaged in. The conservative side DOES see what I just described an attack. They do react vigorously, emotionally and defensively. Understanding that is key to doing better, in the event we have a chance to do better.

13678

My sense is that this is what Scott means by “culture war” which is not the general definition I would use. Since I don’t want the discussion to get derailed by a definitional disagreement, I’m going to try to remember to use “cultural conflict” to connote the broader definition I’m using.

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So you don’t actually want to inspire hate or fear towards any actual evangelical christians themselves? Just the abstract notion of those ideas?

13680

I’m not sure why my point is so difficult to get across.

If I want to extend the franchise to all people regardless of gender and race, you could say that I am launching a cultural war on those who would deny the franchise on that basis, or you could say I’m just trying to protect the rights of all people. I would say the latter, not the former.

Similarly, if I wanted to use fear of election fraud to restrict the ability of some people to vote based on creating hurdles that it would be hard for them to overcome, and by directing election support funding away from the places those people live, and this had a disproportionate effect on e.g. POC, you could say that I was trying to protect election integrity, or you could say that I was launching a cultural war against the voting rights of POC. I would say the latter, not the former.

I don’t think Democrats are trying to have a war over culture. I think they’re trying to ensure the equal protection of the law for everyone.

13681

OK, so you view the term “culture war” as a pejorative that can only apply to the “bad side”. Fine. That’s your definition.

Let’s just use “cultural conflict” then. It’s crystal clear one is going on in the US and that the conservative side does see liberal cultural stances as an attack on them and threat against them, regardless of whether we intend that or not. That in no way justifies the right wing position, but understanding that does help us understand both the vehemence of the counter-response, and also the foolishness and worthlessness of trying to “triangulate” with the right wing.

13682

If it’s helpful, by way of analogy, I would similarly say that, while there is a race war going on in the US, it is not the case that both sides are fomenting a race war. And if you asked me who was trying to fight a race war, I would not say ‘Democrats’.

It’s certainly true that some people see the effort to extend the protection of the law to POC as an assault on their own culture, but we don’t actually have to credit that insane view.

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Jefferson said he expected another revolution. The founders would probably be disappointed we still use the Constitution with so few amendments.

@Timex what I mean is the negative values inherent in prosperity theology/white evangelicalism, such as the racial hierarchy, misogyny (the bigot’s wife and daughter work here, both of them believe genuinely that their opinions don’t matter, because women are required by God to serve men, which is a shame because both of them are nice and I don’t think they’d be bigots- that said, the wife is Norwegian so this sort of rot can infect anyone!), transphobia.

We need to make sure as few kids as possible want anything to do with their evangelical parents, as this is a generational effort.

The Cold War was in many wars a culture war as well.

As for the Southern Baptist Convention, they’re on the verge of splitting, a lot of the Trumpies have left the group already.

The difference between Mine and Scott’s points, and why I ruffle feathers, is that I tend to be a lot more blunt about what I think needs to be done, and I don’t really care for the norms anymore. The norms keep things stable, but stability right now is a path to eventual loss, and that loss could literally kill me.

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Does this fit here? Fuck this guy, and fuck him for hiding behind the courts for so long.

13685

Is this going to let him off the hook for the money he owes to victims that beat him in court?

13686

You keep talking about the prosperity gospel as if it’s a core tenet of evangelicalism. It’s really not a thing in the vast majority of that community and most evangelicals would likely flat out reject it. I think the actual followers of prosperity gospel ideas have had outsized visibility because of how well it meshes with TV grifters. Who doesn’t love One Simple Trick to Get Rich Fast(and go to heaven in the process)!

What I think is more of a core idea in evangelicalism that is tied to a lot of the things you talk about is the idea that the United States is uniquely blessed/chosen by God. In that regard, the prosperity of the US is directly tied to God’s favor. From there they quickly fall into a believe(conscious or not) that the country is at risk of losing God’s favor if it’s citizens take any action that would be seen as turning away from God. Basically they’ve turned the US into the Old Testament Israel with the same underlying threat of God punishing his people for misbehaving.

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Depends on the details of the bankruptcy and on how Jones was holding his assets. Most likely this will shield Jones partially but not fully.

13688

Jimmy Carter is an evangelical. Just remember that when reaching for that broad brush.

13689

I think it is inherently a core tenet from what I’ve seen, maybe not explicitly, but given how they respond to the poor in general , it definitely is implicitly and effectively.

I definitely agree with you on the last bit, it’s something white Evangelicalism shares with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

13690

The prosperity gospel is definitely not a core tenet of evagelicalism. It’s a specific grifty sub group.

Mainstream evangelicalism has consistently opposed prosperity theology as heretical[37] and prosperity ministries have frequently come into conflict with other Christian groups, including those within the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.[39] Critics, such as Evangelical pastor Michael Catt, have argued that prosperity theology has little in common with traditional Christian theology.[83] Prominent evangelical leaders, such as Rick Warren,[9] Ben Witherington III,[9] and Jerry Falwell,[84] have harshly criticized the movement, sometimes denouncing it as heretical.[9] Warren proposes that prosperity theology promotes the idolatry of money, and others argue that Jesus’ teachings indicate a disdain for material wealth.[9] In Mark: Jesus, Servant and Savior , R. Kent Hughes notes that some 1st-century rabbis portrayed material blessings as a sign of God’s favor. He cites Jesus’ statement in Mark 10:25 that “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (KJV) as evidence to oppose such thinking.[85]