“Politics is downstream from culture”
Commenter “Frederick” asked an interesting question:
[Breitbart said] “Politics is downstream from culture.”
Was he right about this? Take CRT for example. How did people who hold CRT views accumulate so much political power when they are such a tiny minority? They didn’t take over the culture, win elections, and THEN impose CRT when everyone agreed with them. Same with some of these other issues like men competing in women’s sports. Only a very tiny minority of the culture has this huge and outsized political influence. How is this happening if it’s like Breitbart said?
I think it is as Breitbart said, except that it depends what is meant by “culture.” I don’t think culture necessarily means majority culture. It can mean culture within a certain institution. For example, take CRT, which began as an academic formulation. Academia is a subgroup that is very atypical, where quite some time ago the left got a large toehold and then kept expanding until it dominated the culture of academia. Once that happened – combined with a technique of threats, which I’ll get to in a minute – it became a powerful group able to impose its will on the others and eager to impose its will on the others, and then to spread outward into society – into the larger culture.
The spread was accomplished through education rather than persuasion of the population as a whole. Once believers in the value of CRT and its corollaries began to dominate education schools, school boards in many localities, and trainings for businesses and government, they could reach a lot of people. The way this was all accomplished was through a simple threat: the threat of calling those who disagreed racists and bigots.
And that’s where the larger culture was important. Beginning some time in the 60s, by my estimation, being called a racist began to be just about the most dreaded epithet in the world, something people would bend over backwards to avoid. Obama used the threat in fairly subtle but nevertheless powerful ways during his campaign (see this). The false charge was used to torpedo the Tea Party movement. It’s used against the GOP as a whole. It’s in the false Charlottesville narrative against Trump, and that narrative is what Biden led with when he began his campaign.
I could go on and on with examples, but I doubt I have to convince you of the power of accusing people of bigotry. And it is that that became an integral part of the culture and of politics: the idea that bigots were everywhere in the US and that America continues to be a highly racist country. Many people and institutions would do almost anything to deflect that charge. It gave the accusers tremendous power over the culture – at least, until now.
The second example Frederick gave – men who identify as trans women competing in women’s sports – is only slightly different, because it rests on the same foundation: the accusation that those who oppose it are bigots.
I believe that there are signs that the left has taken this about as far as they can, and that people have seen the “racist” and “bigot” accusations used so often and in such absurd ways that the epithets have lost some of their power and people are willing to defy those who would label them that way. In turn, I see this change affecting certain political areas – the Virginia governor race, for example, and later the school board elections in San Francisco. Whether this is the start of a trend that will spread I don’t know, but I think it began with another cultural change: race card fatigue on the part of the public.
neo,
You nailed it. Very well explained.
Think of youth culture and what the typical, young person imagines a “Republican” is.
Look at the jokes comedians, SNL, late night talk shows… told about Donald Trump and his kids. Has there been a politician’s child more messed up than Hunter Biden? Most Americans couldn’t have named Joe Biden’s children prior to the election. But it was widely known that DJT’s kids were greedy, gun-toting Neanderthals.
I find a fair amount of young people accept that Joe Biden, Kamala, the Democrat party… are not sincere, nor worth supporting. But I rarely find one who would even consider voting Republican. Even people who are aware of Democrat mendacity cannot consider supporting a Republican candidate.
Culture.
Neo’s post is spot in. The greatest tactical victory for the left was convincing all respectable society that ‘racism’ is the most vile, evil, reprehensible state of being AND THEN, continuously redefining ‘racism’ to suit the left’s agenda.
Unless and until conservatives (along with the few genuine liberals/libertarians still out there) confront this reality head on, and push back against it, the left will continue to run wild. There are now signs of just such a confrontation and push back, which is encouraging, but thus far, it is still too restrained.
Here’s the level of pushback I think is needed:
‘Racism’ as pretty much universally defined (outside of the faculty lounge) until recently, as ‘Belief in the superiority of one race over another’, is immoral and dehumanizing.
But even ‘racism’ under this definition is NOT the greatest of all evils. Actions and behavior matter more than beliefs. Immoral beliefs can lead to heinous actions; indeed the are more likely to do so, but they do not necessarily do so.
Put another way, society and humanity are harmed far less by genuine racists who nevertheless are entirely peaceful in advocating their opinions than by genuine believers in human equality, who have little hesitation to use coercion, violence and destruction to achieve that lofty goal.
That’s exactly right.
It starts with “all of you are bigots” except “us”.
And you deserve everything that you get.
You have no right to defend yourself. None. We can attack you, of course—we are justified in doing so….but you have no right of self-defense, since YOU are the oppressor. Since YOU are white (or whatever group du jour must next be destroyed).
And if you DARE defend yourself against destruction…well then, we’ll just have to destroy you…
Moreover, nationalism = nazism (except “certain” kinds of “acceptable” nationalism—which are labeled “anti-colonialist” or “anti-racist” or “anti-zionist”, or “anti-oppressor”, or anti-capitalist, etc.)
And so…using such salient principles as “Human Rights” and “Justice” to demolish your opponents. Heh… (Nothing new, since it’s the Communist playbook, but it seems to be a powerful strategy. Powerful medicine. Powerful mojo. Since it leaves the victim, hypnotized with inaction, as though injected with a paralyzing toxin….)
And yes, people will wake up to the scam; and yes, it will reach a dead end at some point (but when exactly?)…though when that happen there will likely be a blood bath.
File under: Palestinian rules! (Adopted wholesale by the Democratic Party…)
Related:
Compare and contrast….
“Hungary and the Future of Europe”—
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/hungary-and-the-future-of-europe/
H/T Powerline blog.
(From the Spring of 2019—a remarkable article on Orban, Hungary and the EU (especially after the recent election there)—including some commentary on Soros—by Christopher Caldwell)
“Suppressing pro-Israel views at the University of Chicago;
“…The University’s newspaper removed an op-ed challenging a noxious boycott request by anti-Israel SJP radicals….”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/325275
+ (hopeful) bonus:
“John Durham, Michael Sussmann, and the Broader Clinton Conspiracy;
“Texts from Sussmann prove his lies”—
https://technofog.substack.com/p/john-durham-michael-sussmann-and?s=r
And now, Palm Springs decides to give $900/month to any transgender person regardless of income level to fight the endemic transphobia. I don’t see how this could ever stand a court challenge, but it is California.
“Regime change”? You decide….
“Hunter Biden sought to cash in with oligarchs during first Russian war on Ukraine, records show”—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/hunter-biden-sought-cash-oligarchs-during-first-russian
H/T Instapundit.
https://instapundit.com/513417/
Might this then raise the question: What might Vladimir Putin know about Joe Biden? And what might Joe Biden know that Vladimir Putin might know about Joe Biden?) And—assuming the above is within the realm of accuracy (though it’s not been corroborated officially, of course, at least not yet), why might Vladimir Putin be sitting on such—possible—knowledge?
Regime change?…
(Now we know, certainly that neither Hunter nor his father have done anything illegal—they’ve told us so themselves—So IF this thing gets any worse, “Biden” is going to have to have Trump impeached…and all Trump’s supporters—well, let’s call it “neutralized”….)
This, by Christopher Chantrill, was interesting and related to our topic here.
A friend of mine who had read the New Yorker religiously (apparently, the publishers have gone too far even for him in recent years), used to tell me about some activist that the NY’er had done a hagiography on. He’d say, “Isn’t that so impressive, that this person spent their whole life on this crusade and it’s paying off.”
Well, no it isn’t. Why is their predilection so much more important or valuable than mine? And BTW, if this thing of theirs has become such an all consuming obsession, is that the type of roll model that others should be following?
I guess only time will tell if those are indicators of the beginnings of a trend or just anomalies.
One of the latest battle in the culture war is raging in Florida, oestensibly between DeSantis and Disney, it certainly seems we’re finally seeing more and more pushback against some of the more extreme and deranged indoctrination efforts of the left. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.
And now Elon Musk is evidently going to attempt to fix Twitter. I wish him the best, but I have my doubts.
I think that for some (the laptoppers) the internet, where these notions thrive (albeit in an abstract and positive presentation for the most part) IS “the culture.” For a lot of other people, it’s “the cancel culture.” Hence the great disconnect/polarization.
physicsguy, there may yet be a flicker of hope for California . . .
https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/california-law-requiring-diversity-on-corporate-boards-struck-down/
Squeaky wheel gets the grease, coupled with relentless application of Alinsky rules.
Note–Alinsky summarized what public relations folk already knew.
I hope he’s right but I think the arc of history goes against his argument–most people don’t pay attention or care and then BOOM–it’s a reality. I’m not a religious guy but what’s that line, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”, seems to be at play. I’m trying to be optimistic.
Neo I to think your spot on. To see what’s coming and where it’s from read Race Marxism by James Lindsay. CRT and it’s other relation Intersectionaly is being driven into schools from early grades to universities.
I forget where I saw it, but some say it takes only 3% of a population to force change as long as that 3% is totally fanatical and unyielding. You know, the kind of people who search for people to dox and who shout down everybody they think doesn’t totally agree with them. This is what we’re seeing.
The most dangerous people are those who would create paradise on Earth. They will stop at nothing because, after all, their goal is PARADISE! How can you impede that, unless you are a demon from Hell. And we know what good people do to demons from Hell.
So in very good conscience they will deprive you of liberty and a job and finally, of life. They will burn you at the stake to further their goal of paradise on Earth.
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings will laugh uproarously.
Frank–
That 3% figure comes from the Nassim Nicholas Taleb article referenced by TommyJay above. The full Taleb article, titled “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority,” can be read here:
https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15#.z5ry4bucq
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, normalizes color blocs (e.g. “people of color”), color quotas (e.g. Jew privilege), and affirmative discrimination (e.g. Asian-American) is a dogmatic belief of the nominally “secular” Pro-Choice “ethical” (i.e. relativistic) religion (i.e. behavioral protocol) subscribed to by the Progressive Corporation, Clinic, Agency, Church, Synagogue, etc. Principles matter. Principals matter. #HateLovesAbortion… the wicked solution to a purportedly hard problem.
california-law-requiring-diversity-on-corporate-boards-struck-down
There was also recently court recognition of people of yellow… people of Asia… Asian-Americans… Americans in court that affirmative discrimination is unconstitutional, where diversity [dogma] is neither black letter nor implied.
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one.
Thanks for that PA Cat. I knew of Taleb, but not about this work and link. I just thought there were a couple smart and pithy comments (one was Taleb’s) about the few swaying the many. I only got part way through the long chapter so far, but I’m impressed.
I sort of assumed that “intransigent” was synonymous with “aggressive” for the purposes of the argument. For example, leaders for PETA or BLM. But no, Taleb really means intransigent.
If “Politics is downstream from culture” and arguably it is, then of what is culture downstream of…
Clearly, an idea(s) whose time has come.
Unfortunately, it is often not just good ideas whose time has come.
Whatever the circumstances from which they arise, it’s ideas that appeal to those who embrace them. They then proselytize those ideas to society and if they answer a significant need within the larger society, they spread.
Originally, CRT appealed to black ‘intellectualls’ who refused to accept that black americans could bear any responsibility for their group’s poor socioeconomic success.
Whites who accept CRT do so out of misplaced guilt and a fear of being accused of the racism that CRT proclaims to be systemic.
Barry Meislin,
“It starts with “all of you are bigots” except “us”.
And you deserve everything that you get.
You have no right to defend yourself. None. We can attack you, of course—we are justified in doing so….but you have no right of self-defense, since YOU are the oppressor.
And if you DARE defend yourself against destruction…well then, we’ll just have to destroy you…”
Well, if you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t… then they intended to destroy you all along.
To those of good will, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the morally correct path.
But when it’s a virtual certainty that they intend to do you grievous harm, be prepared to do unto them, as they intend to do unto you.
Anything less invites, at the least enslavement and at the worst, becoming fertilizer.
Bill Serra,
“the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”
I’ve always loved that line. But just now, it occured to me that is only the second greatest trick the devil ever pulled.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing much of the world that God doesn’t exist. Because “If there is no God, then everything (and anything) is permissible.”
Why? Because if only mankind’s inherently flawed morality exists, then either might makes right or the consensus of the mob decides what is permissable. But what one ruler or what one consensus of men may impose, a later ruler or consensus of men may rescind.
Inalienable rights cannot exist absent an entity whose understanding of truth transcends mankind’s inherently flawed grasp of reality.
Result: Abortion up to birth and even legal infanticide.
Whites who accept CRT do so out of misplaced guilt and a fear of being accused of the racism that CRT proclaims to be systemic.
And leverage to be wielded against competing interests.
Inalienable rights cannot exist absent an entity
Morality in a universal frame of reference. Ethics its relativistic sibling. Law is politically congruent cousin.
Addendum to: “Inalienable rights cannot exist absent an entity whose understanding of truth transcends mankind’s inherently flawed grasp of reality.”
As a matter of pragmatism, it doesn’t matter whether we can know whether God actually exists.
What matters is that for a society to retain generational decency, the great majority must embrace the belief that a beneficent and just God exists, one that will hold everyone accountable for their actions in this life.
Absent the societal embrace of that belief, devolution into tyranny is inescapable.
Whites who accept CRT do so out of misplaced guilt and a fear of being accused of the racism that CRT proclaims to be systemic.
No, it’s largely a vicious self-aggrandizing exercise.
Completely OT, but watch Tucker’s monologue from tonight. Incredible video of Biden being totally ignored. Biden has always been corrupt, dumb etc. However, I could not watch the clip without feeling sympathy for this lost old man being mentally abused by Democrats and his family. Very sad to watch and brings to great focus the evil of these people.
Neo,
Excellent post!
I am waiting for you to comment on Biden’s sweeping statement related to transgender transition for children. It is shocking:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-administration-transgender-agenda-youth-sex-change-hormone-therapy
He is so uninformed of the reality of what he comes out of his mouth.
I think that most people are “racist” or racialist to a greater or lesser extent. In the USA, white people are the only group which is not allowed to have racial pride. (Many) white people are the only people I know of who think it is good to disdain their own race.
A few whet-your-appetite bits from:
The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority
(Chapter from Skin in the Game)
It occurs to me that these ideas may apply to the battle our society and politicians recently waged over getting nearly everyone vaccinated. Why was this such an imperative, when the vaccine really didn’t do much to halt transmission? (I’m sure Pfizer corp. appreciated the continual government pitch that these vaccines were functionally just like some of the great vaccines of modern human history, even though that wasn’t true. I do think there is a Pfizer cabal of some sort.)
Many have said that “they” just love cramming these authoritarian measures down our throats. Some probably do feel this way, but it seems like a weak motive to me.
But what if “they” are pursuing a broader authoritarian or influencing framework? It is the intransigence of the covid-19 anti-vaxxers that cannot be tolerated. They were peaceful, usually silent, and because the vaccine wasn’t fully functional, not harming anyone else. But their numbers were much greater than 3%, and the powers that be decided that society would not accommodate them, they must accommodate society or lose their job.
Same with some of these other issues like men competing in women’s sports. Only a very tiny minority of the culture has this huge and outsized political influence. — Frederick
Unfortunately I don’t recall any of the details for search purposes, but did anyone see the recent news item about an international sports competition where all of the female competitors refused to compete against the transgender athlete? The organizing body had no choice and pulled the transgender athlete so the competition could proceed. Just like the suggestion of one of the commenters here many days ago. Intransigence, again.
I’ve been beating the drum on Breitbart’s quote for some time now. Frederick was questioning Breitbart’s claim in response to a comment of mine. It is a claim, not an axiom, and worth questioning.
However, under examination I think it holds up well as an indication of how things work, not as an absolute rule. Culture is not a monolithic set of ironclad values, but something large and shifting, composed of smaller subcultures down to individuals, who are changing as well.
Politics has its rules and history, which are clearly important, but politics occurs within the social reality of culture, from which politics emerges. In that sense politics is downstream from culture.
I bring up Breitbart because it seems to me conservatives are often fixated on politics, as though it were the only important consideration. So if the political reality is bad, we’re in big trouble if we don’t control the White House and Congress.
However, I say, with Breitbart, that politics is not the only game. If the culture changes, then the politics will change downstream.
I say that liberals, the left and the hippies changed American culture. Our current challenges are downstream from that change.
I further say that large numbers of Americans today understand that change and are rejecting it.
Hence, the culture is changing. Hence, my optimism.
Which is not to say the struggle is over and we need not attend to politics.
I was raised by Beatnik parents. I became liberal, hippie and left, in roughly that order. My mother had a Beatnik-alcoholic conversion to Catholicism, which is how I ended up in Catholic school, should anyone wonder.
So in the 70s and 80s, not surprisingly I became a leftist activist. A guy with a clipboard at a table on weekends and part of affinity group actions during protests.
My point is I was in a small minority of people then. I knew it. We all knew it. We talked big about changing the world, but deep down we considered it a remote possibility.
We were the Good Guys Tilting at Windmills. Well, why not? It gives life savor and meaning.
You conservatives have no idea who flabbergasted I am that my old comrades took over American culture and are now running the show.
What if the dog chasing the bus caught it? Oh My.
Politics is downstream from culture.
huxley,
I started Catholic high school in the late 60’s. I was mostly bemused, and a little surprised that the clergy went out of their way to make their religious activities hip. My friends and I were listening to rude rock-n-roll, and a lot of good and great music too, and later smoked some weed. But I don’t think any of us thought that the hippy culture that we were exposed to was anything terribly profound. It was fun.
But we had cool masses, and hip religious instruction. It struck me as an act of desperation or an attempt to stay relevant. My point is that as Mr. Chantrill suggests, the power structure of society has to tolerate or even promote these shifts.
If I recall correctly from Robert Bork’s “Slouching Towards Gomorrah,” he was pissed that when all the student turmoil hit the Yale campus, the administrators laid down for it.
Increasingly, I think we are in the critical stages of a cold revolutionary war. I don’t think the John Podesta’s and David Plouffe’s of the current power structure are going to make the same mistakes that our parent’s generation made.
I do admire your optimism. Keep it up.
TommyJay:
Yeah, the folk masses didn’t play for me either.
________________________
Sons of God, hear His Holy Word
Gather ’round the Table of the Lord
Eat His Body,
Drink His Blood,
And we’ll sing a song of love,
Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia.
________________________
That cringey attempt of the Straight to be cool didn’t play. However, the onslaught of the Cool to outcool the Straights won, hands down.
Essentially the New Left saw their chance to ride Cool into power and doubled down on the Culture War along with their romantic notions of Revolution with Che and Mao.
Well, the Revolution failed, but the Culture War worked. That became their power base. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn launched Obama’s political career from their living room and the rest is history.
But the left is not the only side which can change culture or take advantage of it.
TL;DR:
Conservatives lost to Cool.
Recall that Senator Tim Scott gave the Republican response to Biden’s speech to Congress on 4/28/21 and declared “America is not a racist country!” While some of the leftist media criticized his assertion, I am surprised the bulk of Republicans thereafter did not take the opportunity to continually and loudly repeat that assertion to counter CRT, the intersectionality culture, etc. But mostly GOPe silence; no message or narrative coordination or discipline; nothing! Stupid Party, indeed, and in this case, in deed.
This impacted me strongly because it happens that 3 days earlier I had already thought to myself “America is not racist … [not really and no longer] and we ought to declare that forcefully; while pointing out 1) the improvements from at least 1954 onward and 2) the existence of a selfish vocal rapacious racialist industry focused on stirring division and discord, racial or otherwise; and accruing wealth and benefits thereby.” [or words to that effect].
R2L:
Perhaps I’m cutting the GOPe too much slack, but I really don’t see having a bunch of Republicans, loud and proud, declare “America is not a racist country!” is the solution.
We’re fighting the Cool Kids. It ain’t right and it ain’t fair, but as things stand, the Cool Kids have got it framed so “That’s exactly what a racist would say!” is the winning response.
The more indignant we get, the more racist we look.
I think it’s more a matter of picking one’s battles while keeping one’s head down for the less winnable.
Like Jan. 6 and Election Night. Most here know that was complicated and something Very Wrong went down, but it’s too complicated to explain and argue, so most of us have backed off for the time being — while not forgetting.
Thanks PA+Cat for the proper reference.
It’s important to understand that culture is a many faceted thing. People have brought up the concept of “cool” and one of the problems is that America now has a generation of 50 and 60somethings who are not only desperate to be cool but desperate to be cool as it is defined by 20somethings.
Just look at Hollywood. It is one of the most brutally capitalist businesses in the world where the established institutions have almost all the power and legions of wannabes anxious for any opportunity. Yet the people in charge are running around terrified of talentless Millennials who have no accomplishments of any note.
Mike
“We’re fighting the Cool Kids.“
Except they’re not actually cool. We’re really fighting the drama club geeks and the model UN nerds.
Mike
Politics is downstream of culture.
Culture is downstream of education.
Faffling about with “It’s a weird culture in academia” completely misses what went on. It completely misses why the Left fought so hard and so silently to take over the institutions of education, and why they scream bloody murder when you pull the curtain back and show what’s going on in the schools.
If you get kids in their formative years and tell them that race matters and capitalism is evil and life is an eternal struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed, and those lessons will sink in. Even if the kids grow up, they’ll be carrying those ideas into adulthood, and those ideas will be the first principles they use to evaluate the world.
Americans at large looked at the universities from the 80’s clear into the 2010s, saw how crazy the professors were, and shrugged it off. “The kids will grow out of it once they hit the workforce.”
Well. The kids didn’t grow out of it.
You have education and the media pumping out a constant stream of “Men can be women, white oppresses black, and the future is socialism.” Tell yourself that we’re winning the culture war if you like, but until the old institutions are defunded and new institutions that promote good principles are established, the Left is winning by one turn of the ratchet after another.
What’s really going on is that the GOP is headed by people radically out of touch with its members. No one gives a rat’s ass who is or is not a racist. It is a “sin” on about the same level as picking your nose in public. However, the GOP establishment are wealthy white collar wimps who are terrified of confrontation, and just a random word like “racist” is enough to make them sell out their alleged principles.
In the past this was somewhat representative of the GOP base, back when it was a party of upper middle class suburban cowards who had fled the city for being too tough. However, the party is now a largely blue collar group who are pissed off and want freedom NOW, whether we get it through ballots or bullets.
There WILL be a backlash.
There always is.
The question is what form it will take.
If the US is lucky— that is, if the Democratic Machine will NOT be able to once again manipulate (AKA steal) the vote and/or otherwise—somehow—ENFORCE obedience and acquiescence to its having usurped the government—that form will be a ballot box backlash, hopeful signs of which we have already seen in states like Virginia and Florida.
To be sure, Virginia was a miracle of timing (bad timing for the Democrats, that is, since if any of those gruesome—and eye-opening—scandals regarding the Virginia school system and the ensuing coverups had hit the fan several weeks LATER than they actually did, then those—not-yet-exposed—scandals would NOT have affected the elections and I don’t believe Youngkin would have won).
It goes without saying that Youngkin and especially DeSantis appear prominently in the crosshairs of the Democratic Party Nomenklatura and their corrupt media apparatchiks, along with bizarrely perverted corporations that hew their wood and carry their water.
On the educational level, it would be wonderful if the parents, students and social leadership would DEMAND accountability, talent and professionalism. And would be successful in so doing. This, of course, would be a sea change…
It could be that—it would be nice if—the voting public has grown wise to the depths of media depravity; but one can NEVER underestimate the power of the media (especially one so unfortunately depraved and corrupt as America’s…and so shameless about exploiting its partisan power).
However, the backlash could also take a violent turn, as “Biden”, perhaps because increasingly desperate—increasingly overreaches. It stands to reason that the upcoming months will see “Biden” take aim at gun owners using confiscations and/or limiting gun sales and/or—especially—limiting the availability of ammunition on the market.
Added to this I wonder if they will try to ram through legislation demanding that a citizen will ONLY be able to vote if they make a pledge of patriotism, i.e., something along the lines of having to declare belief in the fairness and honesty of the 2020 elections or, alternately, having to declare that they regard DJT as an illegitimate criminal, a renegade anti-American….
(After all, if “Trumpists” can limit the number of potential Democratic voters by tightening laws to REDUCE ELECTORAL FRAUD then why(!) can’t Democrats “likewise” limit the number of potential GOP voters? This would merely be “symmetry”, Democratic Party style, similar to the “Biden” strategy—once “he” realized that the court could not be packed, at least not any time soon—of effectively neutralizing SCOTUS by nominating an unrepentant ideologue of simply “unassailable” race and gender as Justice…the Kamala Harris of the Supreme Court.)
Were this strategy (of taking this—to be sure, perverted—“pledge of allegiance”) somehow succeed, one would hope that “Biden” opponents would face the grim realization that they would have to tell a lie in order to get to vote even if telling such a lie would counter their sense of personal integrity.
Hoping that this will not have to come to pass, one must remain confident that somehow a peaceful backlash will push from power the current crop of illegitimate scoundrels, rascals, perverts, ideologues, charlatans and criminals from power.
If that doesn’t happen, it may, unfortunately, take the “great reset” of a war to expose the riff-raff for what and who they truly are and expunge them from their ill-gained, unholy perches.
And wouldn’t you know it…right on cue:
“Biden Admin Quietly Pushing Anti-Charter Policies, School Choice Advocates Warn”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-admin-quietly-pushing-anti-charter-policies-school-choice-advocates-warn
…further demonstrating the absolute need of Absolutists to indoctrinate…and shut down ANY AND ALL OTHER ALTERNATIVES to their indoctrination.
One hopes that “Biden” will only succeed in getting all those parents more and more riled up.
More from the “Culture-Politics-War” nexus:
Matt Taibbi’s on Laura Kipnis and
“America’s Sexual Red Scare”—
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/americas-sexual-red-scare?s=r
All you have to do is cry “victim” so as to justify battling and battering anyone—and anything—you believe must be destroyed…
So many great comments. Let me just add a footnote to “Haldeman’s” point about the Left indoctrinating our youth while too many of us thought —wrongly— that “the kids will grow out of it.” As the sapling is bent, so it will grow. See also Lenin’s boast that, if he were given four years to teach the young, the seed he had planted would never be uprooted. And so it proved to be: the system he helped engender is now a century old and continues to metastasize.
> “Politics is downstream from culture”
And politics is downstream from religion. CRT’s success so far is the result of ceding the education of children and young adults to the evangelists of Leftism.
Christian culture served as something of an antibody against Leftist notions. Even a lowly cold can kill where there is a weak immune system. CRT is logically preposterous, but it provides the leftist pagans with a purpose.
Today, Christian culture is all but dead and our government helped kill it.
The surprise in all of this is the spread of the left culture to major corporations and eventually all businesses. Starting about 10 years ago CEO’s ceded any discussion about corporate culture to HR and the result is the same as academia. Any dissent from the HR approved culture is punished. Promotions are withheld, employees eventually terminated because dissent means one is not a team player. The solution won’t come until a major recession illuminates how useless most HR functions have become and economics forces elimination of the function as a policy setting part of the business.
I think these extraordinarily revealing clips say it all about Biden’s rapidly fading importance as President, the real power behind the throne, and the increasing likelihood that Biden is soon going to be removed from the helm (if he ever actually had his hands on the wheel) of the Ship of State.
See https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/proof_has_emerged_from_the_white_house_that_bidens_presidency_is_over.html
I think these extraordinarily revealing clips
The article is an acre of embroidery on a pinhead of fact. And no clue why you fancy Jill Biden, Klain, Sullivan, Blinken et al are taking orders from Obama.
But why exactly should “Biden” remove Joe Biden?
The image is most useful.
Think of the image of “Big Brother”.
The Wizard of Oz.
The doddering avuncular wraith, complete with fake smile and false charm, exuding faux confidence to try, alas unsuccessfully, to mask the incontinent stench of failures past….
All those simply awful Republicans “pouncing” on that poowa man…who’s doing a far better job (with one hand tied behind his back and—let’s admit—a brick or two short of a load) than that orange-haired demon ever could.
He’s useful. So is his laughable side-kick.
He’d only prove himself even MORE useful (she, too) if the Democrats can set up—let’s call it a “kinetic event”—with him the target (and her for a twofer—a real problem-solving twofer, mind you) while making it look like the Republicans—without a shred of a shaving of a glimmer of a doubt—done it…(you know—kinda like that Jan. 6 “masterpiece”…or the Whitmer “kidnapping”, or Russiagate, or…any of those other achievements of note).
Now THAT would be useful….
(Alas I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of that “Entrapment ‘R Us” outfit that likes to call itself, at least at times, the FBI…)
I’m neither as learned nor sophisticated as many of the responders, and am in agreement with most of the comments. My question is that the educational system of the Soviet Union was the same as being reviled here and yet that country eventually fell (albeit ~80 years later). So how was that accomplished?
An example of how “politics [may well be] downstream from culture”…that is, until culture hits some heavily churning white-water rapids…(AKA until the SHTF, AKA until Reality bites)?
“MIT Reinstates the SAT After Its ‘Archrival’ Admits More Asians”—
https://redstate.com/alexparker/2022/04/05/mit-reinstates-the-sat-after-its-archrival-admits-more-asians-n546110
File under: This “Age of Rage” is seriously unserious.
Since there’s no up/like buttons, rather than bore you all I just want to say…everything huxley said. Without the exact same personal experiences. But similar. Significantly minus the beatnik parents thing.
“So how was that accomplished?”
Good question.
It’s a bit complicated, but fairly simple(!)
1. The USSR was a culture of lies built up over 70 years to become a “Dream Palace of Prevarication” (to recycle and slightly alter the phrase of Arabist Fouad Ajami) that couldn’t sustain itself, built as it was on subterfuge, subversion, corruption and terror against its own citizenry. In short it was a police state, ruling by fear and intimidation, while proclaiming itself a true (and truthful) paradise on earth….
2. It was broke: Reagan, that admirable actor, bluffed the Soviets into believing that the Star Wars program was not only an actual “thing” but was also a rip-roaring success!…which resulted in the USSR bankrupting itself trying to catch up. (Shoulda won an Oscar for that!)
3. Afghanistan; which didn’t do wonders for either the Soviet economy, military or society, as the veterans who returned home disillusioned, depressed, angry and, all too often, addicted.
4. Gorbachev “lost his nerve” (IOW stared reality squarely in the face, couldn’t bluff any more, was momentarily shell-shocked,…Other?).
5. Confusion. Soldiers throughout the Iron Curtain countries waited for orders to put down protests, orders that never came. (Just another “deus ex machina”?) By the time those orders did arrive (if they did), the protests were massive and it was just too late. (IOW, how does one machine gun masses of humanity especially when those at the top of the power pyramid have lost their will? OTOH, I’m sure there’s a way, but still….)
6. The Sovietologists and other experts…who were most certainly, absolutely, undoubtedly certain that the USSR was NOT about to fall any time soon. (Of course, their jobs often depended on the USSR’s continued existence…which might serve as a cautionary tale WRT to “experts”, at least in some cases.)… So, “Thank you, experts!”
7. Divine justice(?)
8. The stars? (I.e., the unusual confluence and coincidence of events AKA sheer luck?)
To sum up, the USSR as an ideological mirage with illusions of global dominance, wrapped in a colonialist power whose mission was to “justify the ways of Marx and Engels to men”, wrapped in a grim, murderous totalitarian reality…really did not work, could not work…broke down under the sheer weight of its internal contradictions (and corruption); yet the question remains, why could it not have continued lurching along like a vodka-soaked caricature of itself…?
And so…complicated and simple….
(YMMV….)
The accusation of “racist” is the worst possible defamation in our current culture. The legal system needs to adapt to this reality. Certain slanders are viewed as so ugly that proof of damages isn’t necessary. These slander per se categories:
— person was involved in criminal activity
— person had a “loathsome,” contagious or infectious disease
— person was unchaste or engaged in sexual misconduct
— person was involved in behavior incompatible with the proper conduct of his business, trade or profession
We need to add a category for false claims of racist, white supremacist, nazi, fascist, etc. I.e. claims that someone is an extreme hater.
Politics? Culture?
Heh, actually, it’s all just thuggery (which the Democrats and their supporters have been honing now for quite a while):
“MSNBC analyst reveals ‘dark’ strategy to cut ‘brutal’ midterm losses: ‘scare the crap out of’ Democrats’ base;
“Heilemann said the Democrats predict a ‘brutal’ picture ahead for the midterms”—
https://www.foxnews.com/media/msnbc-analyst-reveals-dark-strategy-cut-midterm-losses-scare-democrat-base
Looks like we’ll just have to file this one (once again) in the “Unity” folder.
Actually, this “unity” thing is really catching on!
“Chicago-area church announces it is ‘fasting from whiteness’ during Lent”—
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/chicago-area-church-fasting-from-whiteness-during-lent/
But wait (before you get too disheartened)!
Key graf:
“For Lent, it is our prayer that in our spiritual disciplines we may grow as Christians, united in the body of Christ with people of all ages, nations, races, and origins,”
Coincidentally, I just read a substack essay by Darel Paul on Breitbart’s famous formulation about culture, politics, and rivers. Paul is a political science professor at Williams College. Even so, the essay is surprisingly straightforward.
Paul’s essay is entitled “Woke Capital in the Twenty-First Century: From Woke Disney to a Theory of Woke Capital, Or, Why Politics is Not Downstream of Culture.” Despite the subtitle, Paul’s analysis isn’t at all inconsistent with Neo’s briefer blog post.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing, here’s a link: https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/woke-capital-in-the-twenty-first?s=r
And here’s a sample:
“While we are accustomed to seeing culture war issues as an ideological struggle, the rise of woke capital suggests a better framing of our predicament. We are deeply mired in a class struggle. One could even compare this exercise of distant elite power to colonialism. To put it in the starkest of terms: globalized professionals and managers are on one side; regional elites and the middle classes are on the other. The stakes are high, impinging on democratic self-government and the power to define reality itself.”
So who is really running things at the WH and our government?
Ron Klein, WH Chief of Staff?
Obama at long distance?
“Dr.” Jill?
???
It’s essentially a Politburo, Democratic Party-style.
(Kind of a “Murder on the Orient Express” kind of affair…with America as the victim.)
– – – – – – –
In other news, here’s some “culture war” pushback:
“The Left Is the Culture War Aggressor”—-
https://www.jewishworldreview.com/0422/shapiro040622.php
H/T Powerline blog.
Refreshing to see some truths amongst all the garbage being spouted and mud being slung…
Last night Sarah Hoyt linked this neo topic to Instapundit paired with the Dylan quote I’ve also used multiple times here.
_______________________________________________
SURE. BUT THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING: “Politics is downstream from culture”.
… After all, if they had managed any penetration in the population, they wouldn’t have needed to cheat in front of everybody, at the last minute in 2020.
https://instapundit.com/513574/
_______________________________________________
At times I’ve found Hoyt too apocalyptical when it came to near-term scares. However, overall she sees the changes too and is sure of victory, albeit she is concerned how messy it gets in the meantime. From her blog:
_____________________________
[The leftist plan] won’t work. It won’t work particularly when they’re running on a philosophy so discredited only fools and academics — and children — believe in it.
I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, they are attempting to build the iron curtain as the Berlin wall is falling.
They can obscure reality for a while, as long as they control the media — which they still do in most of the world — but their ability is faltering, their powers failing.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/04/06/the-shadows-and-the-light/
I suppose this ought to be a startling, jarring phrase, inducing a deep pause in order to reexamine these ubiquitous premises.
However (given its ease of production) it would appear not to be so.
Thus we encounter our time, equipped by one absurdity piled upon another. Such glories!
Might be just me, but when Hoyt surveys the situation; I and possibly we are beginning to see liberal voters with active contempt. Either they know what they are doing, in which case contempt is justified, or they do not and actively resist learning, and ditto.
Active dislike follows….
When I say we are winning the culture war, I don’t know mean we’ve won and I don’t mean it’s all over but the mopping up.
I mean that we are winning more than we are losing and visa-versa for our opponents. In the long run, this mean We Win.
It seems clear that the Democrat/Tech/Media Complex peaked last summer, Since then, nothing is working for them — polls, inflation, the Biden/Harris problems, passing key legislation.
I don’t see any good news on the horizon nor Men on White Horses approaching. Democrats are looking at big losses in the midterm elections, followed by further erosion of power, possibly losing both houses.
Sometimes conservatives strike me as people who won’t take yes for an answer.
I disagree with Ackler’s comment, “‘Racism’ as pretty much universally defined (outside of the faculty lounge) until recently, as ‘Belief in the superiority of one race over another’….”
“Racism” was never clearly defined in the first place. It is a fallacy of ambiguity looking for a place to happen, and it always has been. Likewise, “superiority” needs to be defined. Superior at what? Swedes are taller on average than Pygmies. Does that make them “superior”? West Africans on average do better than Caucasians at track and field events, but Caucasians on average do better at swimming.
What “racism” meant seemed a lot clearer when there were segregated water fountains, but nowadays, that’s just incomprehensible to normal people. What were those people thinking? But even then, “racism” was never clearly defined.
But it is a class war, huxley. And such meaningful commitment! So proud and righteous — their glory unto thee! The Virtue Signaling is, so…blessed!
It’s all cant and modish charades. Where’s our Jonathan Swift to charge up the mockery of these lost mopes?
Last night I listed to this interview with 63 year old lefty Julie Birchall in the UK, an outspoken no-holds barred rhetorical brawler. Who doesn’t apologise for wishing everything nationalised. (So, a never say “Thatcher” type, I suppose?)
New Culture Forum interview – “Why I Loathe The Woke: Puritanical Joyless Snobs Who Despise the Working Class — Julie Burchill“
Her new book is entitled “Welcome to the Woke Trials: How #Identity Killed Progressive Politics”.
Something Douglas Murray and she can agree on. The PC injunction “stay in your own [identity] lane!” is in fact “the death of creativity.”
“Politics is downstream of culture”…true, but there is also a feedback loop going back the other way: politics most certainly *influences* culture. The changing incentives created by the ‘Great Society’ programs would be one example.
there is also a feedback loop going back the other way: politics most certainly *influences* culture.
david foster:
True. I see the Breitbart quote as an appeal for whole systems thinking, which involves the complex interactions including feedback between different levels/parts of society.
It’s not that culture is primary and politics secondary. It’s all interconnected. Which can sound like woo and often is. But it is a bedrock truth. Reality is complex and interconnected.
The left has been thinking this way for a long time, and the right, IMO, not so much.
Charles Reich’s bestseller, “The Greening of America” (1970), is an excellent case in point. Here’s the big pull quote emblazoned on the paperback cover:
______________________________
There is a revolution under way–not like revolutions of the past. This is the revolution of the new generation. It has originated with the individual & with culture, & if it succeeds it will change the political structure only as its final act.
______________________________
Reich was ridiculed for this kind of talk. It’s true the 60s generation did not reach Reich’s goal of utopian societal transformation, but much did change growing out of 60s cultural work, not GOTV drives, including much we find destructive today.
BTW, Reich was a serious fellow: JD from Yale, clerked under Hugo Black, worked for top law firms and was a Yale professor for 14 years.
I agree with David Foster. A civil rights activist turned sociologist named Thomas F. Pettigrew wrote some papers about how there used to be white supremecist social norms in the South, and that these were put down by force. See “Normative Theory in Intergroup Relations: Explaining Both Harmony and Conflict,” Psychology and Developing Societies, vol. 3 (1), 1991, 3-16).
See also “Advancing Racial Justice: Past Lessons for Future Use,” Ch. 9, pp. 165-178, Knopke, Norrell and Rogers (eds), Opening Doors: Perspectives on Race Relations in Contemporary America. U of Alabama Press, 1991. One of these lessons is “Behavioral change typically leads to attitude change more than the other way around.” The government can force behavioral change.
Neo, you may be right that Breitbart’s quotation can be defended by saying that the relevant culture is that of some minority, i.e. within academic institutions that the majority doesn’t control. But doesn’t this interpretation make Breitbart’s quotation pretty much irrelevant?
Peter A. Taylor:
I do appreciate well-cited comments. Thanks. However…
These days I have no particular respect for sociologists nor for former civil rights activists.
The unreflective bigotry of American academics towards Southern whites is no mystery to me. Likewise, though somewhat more understandable, that of civil rights activists towards Southern whites. Neither are impartial judges, but stakeholders as opponents.
My youth and young adult years from 1960-1978, except for one crazy year in California, were spent in Florida, Dallas and New Orleans. I don’t claim to be a Southerner or an authority on them, but I came to like and respect Southerners.
To be sure, hard-core organized white supremacy was broken by legal force and lawsuits. I knew two people in the Klan and followed that story. But I call it a lie that that’s what fixed racism in the South.
I say Southerners are basically normal and decent human beings. They came to realize they were wrong. They were ashamed and became better people.
It can happen.
Related (…backlash….)?
“Kenosha County Just Went Red For The First Time In DECADES After BLM Riots And Kyle Rittenhouse Case”—
https://notthebee.com/article/kenosha-wisconsin-just-went-red-for-the-first-time-in-decades-after-blm-riots-and-kyle-rittenhouse-case
H/T Instapundit
…which makes one wonder…if “politics is downstream from culture” then are cultural (and political) correctives downstream from cultural (and political) excesses and abuses…
…at least as long as the nation is still a nation of laws—enabling a lawful backlash to take place—as opposed to a nation of coercion and authoritarian impulses, which would work to subdue the “wrong” form of backlash.
“… But I call it a lie that that’s what fixed racism in the South…”
It may even have been counterproductive (though we’ll never know)…
…In the spirit of which there’s a profound convergence between Harper Lee’s poignant (and I would add, surprising) second novel, “Go Set a Watchman”, and this extremely thoughtful and fascinating post on Faulkner (to which I linked several days ago):
“William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision;
“In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.”—
https://www.city-journal.org/william-faulkners-tragic-vision
H/T Powerline blog.
Did Southerners shift their views because
(1) Federal coercion made antiracists the new winners and racists the new losers in terms of power and status,
(2) they were rationalizing behavior changes that were forced upon them,
(3) they were genuinely persuaded by MLK’s Christian moral exhortation, or
(4) the intellectual fashion industry (AKA “The Cathedral”) told them that antiracism was high status and racism low status?
Based on the quality of the arguments that have been presented for gay marriage, and the speed with which Christian churches have embraced it, (3) strikes me as the least likely answer.
@ TommyJay > “Unfortunately I don’t recall any of the details for search purposes, but did anyone see the recent news item about an international sports competition where all of the female competitors refused to compete against the transgender athlete? The organizing body had no choice and pulled the transgender athlete so the competition could proceed.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/transgender-cyclist-booted-from-womens-championship-after-female-competitors-threaten-boycott