The Culture Wars Mega Thread

[MungoMan]

Stick all your culture wars stuff in here. In the meantime here is a rough Wiki definition:

The term "culture war" has different meanings depending on the time and place where it is used, as it relates to conflicts relevant to a specific area and era. Originally, it refers to the conflict between traditionalist, classical liberal, or conservative values and social democratic, progressive or social liberal values in the Western world, as well as other countries. Culture wars have influenced the debate over history, science and other curricula in all societies around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_war

You are a public servant in the broader sense of the term.

[Sensible Stephen]

Steven Crowder is a moron. Change my mind.

[BokJock]

Imagine the long and insightful conversations Seneca and Santa are going to have on this thread

[flaggETERNAL]

The new Ariel movie will see an African American lass play Ariel. The meltdown from snowflakes on both sides will be a thing of beauty.

[J Man]

We need a Woke table update.

[Yer Man]

Thought this was an Iain M Banks thread...

I am disappointed

[J Man]

Sometimes I yell out racist things in my car when an Asian driver does something stupid.

[sockwithaticket]

The new Ariel movie will see an African American lass play Ariel. The meltdown from snowflakes on both sides will be a thing of beauty.

I did see someone jokingly suggest that Disney are on a concerted campaign against redheads what with MJ in spider-man also being replaced with an African American girl whose hair was clearly not even slightly red. I guess we'll know for sure when we get the inevitable live action re-make of Brave...

The only one of these casting choices that's annoyed me is making Domino African American in Deadpool because that character's skin has always been literally white (like a piece of paper rather than caucasian). There was no reason Zazie Beetz couldn't have played her while maintaining that aspect. If we can make someone blue (Mystique) we can make 'em white.

[Nolanator]

Saw thread title and immediately knew who the OP was.

I'm sure this conversation will be fascinating.

Thought this was an Iain M Banks thread...

I am disappointed

Time to start listing ship names to derail it.
Paging A5...

Limiting Factor.

[MungoMan]

Saw thread title and immediately knew who the OP was.

Snicker is doing it because he was requested to to do so.

What have you done for your fellow boredies lately?

[Santa]

Imagine the long and insightful conversations Seneca and Santa are going to have on this thread

Luckily you won't have to imagine.

[unseenwork]

Northern Ireland post GFA, now that's a real culture war.

[eldanielfire]

This is the most important Culture War of all:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... urn-profit

The rest is as the Chinese say just Baizuo.

[unseenwork]

This is the most important Culture War of all:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... urn-profit

The rest is as the Chinese say just Baizuo.

Came for Maoist fun, went away disappointed.

[New guy]

The new Ariel movie will see an African American lass play Ariel. The meltdown from snowflakes on both sides will be a thing of beauty.

Its pretty sad how the movie industry is incapable of coming up with anything new or original.

Are Disney just doing remakes of every film they ever produced now?

[Newsome]

[Ted.]

Where's Gwenno?

He gets my vote for well thought out opinionist and All Round Sensible bugger of the day.

[sockwithaticket]

The new Ariel movie will see an African American lass play Ariel. The meltdown from snowflakes on both sides will be a thing of beauty.

Its pretty sad how the movie industry is incapable of coming up with anything new or original.

Are Disney just doing remakes of every film they ever produced now?

Come on, you're better than that lazy cliche, it's been broken out in every single decade of film making. Original films come out constantly, go down this list, there's plenty in there https://www.imdb.com/calendar/?region=gb, but they generally don't do as well as something based on existing properties. It's the movie business, the aim is both to entertain and make money, if audiences were more inclined to reward the forays into the original we'd see even more of it.

The last few Disney live action re-makes of animated films have been very profitable, they'll stop doing them when that stops being the case.

[Taranaki Snapper]

Drink a cup of cement and harden the fuck up?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... proud-boys

[Sandstorm]

Should throw a chocolate milkshake at that lot.

[Dobbin]

It's the worst American import since the management consultant.

[Santa]

Drink a cup of cement and harden the fuck up?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... proud-boys

Ah. The ol' Andy Ngo didn't deserve it but he had it coming.

[rett]

Cultural Marxism! Cultural Marxism!

Still don’t know what that means.

[BokJock]

Merry Christmas

[PCPhil]

Only one worth getting excited about.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiran% ... ulture_War

[Sandstorm]

Merry Christmas

Edgy

[fonzeee]

I don’t see the need for this thread as I’ve been assured by other posters that there is, in fact, no culture war and it’s actually just a few kooks on Twitter going back and forth.

[troglodiet]

The new Ariel movie will see an African American lass play Ariel

A mermaid that can't swim?

[ukjim]

Cultural Marxism! Cultural Marxism!

Still don’t know what that means.

its dog whistle for an age old anti-semitic trope.

nsfw nazi shite

[Santa]

Cultural Marxism! Cultural Marxism!

Still don’t know what that means.

its dog whistle for an age old anti-semitic trope.

nsfw nazi shite

There we go. Page 1. If you critique critical theory then you are anti-Semitic. That's the argument.

[hermes-trismegistus]

Cultural Marxism! Cultural Marxism!

Still don’t know what that means.

its dog whistle for an age old anti-semitic trope.

nsfw nazi shite

There we go. Page 1. If you critique critical theory then you are anti-Semitic. That's the argument.

Que? When did that happen? Is this area of thought officially ex-criticism now?

[hermes-trismegistus]

There we go. Page 1. If you critique critical theory then you are anti-Semitic. That's the argument.

Que? When did that happen? Is this area of thought officially ex-criticism now?

Rational Wiki has declared that the term 'cultural marxism' is an 'anti-semitic conspiracy theory'.

As Santa points out, you can go down to Foyles on Tottenham Court Road, and there will be literally shelves of books in a section marked 'Critical Theory' but to use the term 'Cultural Marxism' to describe them all of a sudden imbues them with some sinister semitic plot to take over the world. The best thing is not to notice that this (quite large) section in the bookstore, and the many university departments teaching this stuff all around the western world, exist at all.

So what shorthand label is currently permitted to describe the notion that the arts, academia, etc tend to have invested much more in the political outlook of the left than the right? Or do we now have to use a gobful of carefully selected qualifiers anytime we actually, you know, notice this?

[Lemoentjie]

Isn't cultural marxism the idea that all cultures are equal (objectively)?

[Lemoentjie]

How much of the Frankfurt school stuff relates to the protocols of the elders of zion things?

[ukjim]

I do apologise for muddying the waters here.

[hermes-trismegistus]

As far as I'm aware there is no term allowable to notice this. I've just remembered this story:

A leading Jewish group has criticised a Conservative former minister for using the term “cultural Marxism” in a speech, a reference to a conspiracy theory often associated with the far right and antisemitism.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Suella Braverman should clarify what she meant, and pledge to not use the phrase again.

The Labour MP Wes Streeting said Braverman should apologise for using an “ugly and reprehensible term with antisemitic connotations”. He added: “Members of parliament should know better and she should apologise immediately or the whip should be removed.”

Hope Not Hate, which monitors far-right groups, said it was “deeply disturbing” to see an MP use such language.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/m ... al-marxism

Personally I've never used the term myself, as it's a bit simplistic, but it's quite easy to understand what it means, particularly if you remember that Marxist Economics was actually taken reasonably seriously right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall (incredible in hindsight). When no one on the left could sensibly defend the smoking ruins that were Eastern Bloc economies, that line of attack fell away, and the battleground shifted to the humanities.

The thing that I can't quite wrap my head around is this:

Cultural Marxism centres around a conspiracy theory that Marxist scholars of the Frankfurt school in inter-war Germany devised a manipulative programme of progressive politics intended to undermine Western democracies.

Here's a discussion between Brian Magee and Herbert Marcuse on the Frankfurt School from 1977 which explains exactly what they were trying to do. And did do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqC1lTAJx4

But apparently it's a conspiracy theory!!!

Missed that incident. Extraordinary how quickly the language battle evolves. I'm not so keen on the phrase either. Too broad a brush. Strictly for those who aren't interested in the granular. Even so, you'd imagine most people would be able to spot it for the innocuous shorthand it is. The context is normally as clear as day.

There is no question that there's been a huge shift leftward in the academy in particular over the last few decades. And it's no secret that plenty of people were keen on actively promoting it. What are we to call them? What are we to call that shift? The-entirely-random-left-leaning-politics-popping-up-over-here-mystery-occurrence?

Sounds to me like the usual motive is in play here. Make it as difficult as possible for those who aren't steeped enough in academic literature to avoid the elephant traps to talk publicly about any of this stuff without risking the stocks and a career ending bucket of rotten veg.

[Santa]

As far as I'm aware there is no term allowable to notice this. I've just remembered this story:

A leading Jewish group has criticised a Conservative former minister for using the term “cultural Marxism” in a speech, a reference to a conspiracy theory often associated with the far right and antisemitism.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Suella Braverman should clarify what she meant, and pledge to not use the phrase again.

The Labour MP Wes Streeting said Braverman should apologise for using an “ugly and reprehensible term with antisemitic connotations”. He added: “Members of parliament should know better and she should apologise immediately or the whip should be removed.”

Hope Not Hate, which monitors far-right groups, said it was “deeply disturbing” to see an MP use such language.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/m ... al-marxism

Personally I've never used the term myself, as it's a bit simplistic, but it's quite easy to understand what it means, particularly if you remember that Marxist Economics was actually taken reasonably seriously right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall (incredible in hindsight). When no one on the left could sensibly defend the smoking ruins that were Eastern Bloc economies, that line of attack fell away, and the battleground shifted to the humanities.

The thing that I can't quite wrap my head around is this:

Cultural Marxism centres around a conspiracy theory that Marxist scholars of the Frankfurt school in inter-war Germany devised a manipulative programme of progressive politics intended to undermine Western democracies.

Here's a discussion between Brian Magee and Herbert Marcuse on the Frankfurt School from 1977 which explains exactly what they were trying to do. And did do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqC1lTAJx4

But apparently it's a conspiracy theory!!!

Missed that incident. Extraordinary how quickly the language battle evolves. I'm not so keen on the phrase either. Too broad a brush. Strictly for those who aren't interested in the granular. Even so, you'd imagine most people would be able to spot it for the innocuous shorthand it is. The context is normally as clear as day.

There is no question that there's been a huge shift leftward in the academy in particular over the last few decades. And it's no secret that plenty of people were keen on actively promoting it. What are we to call them? What are we to call that shift? The-entirely-random-left-leaning-politics-popping-up-over-here-mystery-occurrence?

Sounds to me like the usual motive is in play here. Make it as difficult as possible for those who aren't steeped enough in academic literature to avoid the elephant traps to talk publicly about any of this stuff without risking the stocks and a career ending bucket of rotten veg.

My hatred of academia is almost exclusively driven my Franco-Salonophobia. Therefore I can't be anti-Semitic.

[hermes-trismegistus]

The funniest of the actual conspiracy theories out of this is the idea that Theordore Adorno wrote the works of the Beatles, as a means of undermining western societies. I'm not sure this theory is not an epic troll, but it is quite elaborate. Adorno was actually a hater of modern music but I believe the thinking is that he used his incredible knowledge of music theory to devise these ultra ruinous cultural bombs designed to destroy traditional society.

https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/10/13/theod ... -possibly/

Incidentally Marcuse in that interview says that Adorno was a genius and every sentence he spoke was in a form ready for publishing.

I've a counter theory from the arts. Rather better backed up these days than it used to be. Namely, the CIA took an active role in promoting the abstract expressionism of the likes of Rothko and Pollock so as to offer an expressive free-rolling foil to the rigid social realism of the Soviets. Kind of ironic that the artists whose work was deployed as a weapon were themselves not unsympathetic to communism. Also ironic that they've ended up now as hedges against inflation with much of their work sitting in bonded warehouses in Switzerland in service to the great winners of capitalism. But then, it always turns out peculiar when art is pushed for political ends.

[hermes-trismegistus]

My hatred of academia is almost exclusively driven my Franco-Salonophobia. Therefore I can't be anti-Semitic.

Don't bet on it.

Salonophobia. Very nice.

[hermes-trismegistus]

The funniest of the actual conspiracy theories out of this is the idea that Theordore Adorno wrote the works of the Beatles, as a means of undermining western societies. I'm not sure this theory is not an epic troll, but it is quite elaborate. Adorno was actually a hater of modern music but I believe the thinking is that he used his incredible knowledge of music theory to devise these ultra ruinous cultural bombs designed to destroy traditional society.

https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/10/13/theod ... -possibly/

Incidentally Marcuse in that interview says that Adorno was a genius and every sentence he spoke was in a form ready for publishing.

I've a counter theory from the arts. Rather better backed up these days than it used to be. Namely, the CIA took an active role in promoting the abstract expressionism of the likes of Rothko and Pollock so as to offer an expressive free-rolling foil to the rigid social realism of the Soviets. Kind of ironic that the artists whose work was deployed as a weapon were themselves not unsympathetic to communism. Also ironic that they've ended up now as hedges against inflation with much of their work sitting in bonded warehouses in Switzerland in service to the great winners of capitalism. But then, it always turns out peculiar when art is pushed for political ends.

How much of the modern art sold in auction for super high prices just sits in warehouses and not on walls?

Impossible to quantify exactly. But . . . the Geneva Free Port is rumoured to hold the largest art collection in the world. A recent audit conducted by Swiss officials to check that the place wasn’t a screen for illegal activities (at least, not too many of them) revealed there were 1.2 million artworks housed there. The Nahmad family, for example, have 300 Picassos sitting on ice there. They pull no punches about the motivations behind what they do: ‘Monet and Picasso are like Microsoft and Coca Cola.’ Powerful brands that offer a safe investment.

The Free Port also has viewing rooms, etc. The super rich come together, do deals, exchange money and art, and not a penny or a fleck of paint leaves the premises for a jurisdiction where the authorities can get a cut. It's remarkable. And it explains in large part the outright insanity of much of the art market where dross is valued at colossal levels provided the art advisers, the investment advisers, the gallery wonks, etc have done their job and bigged up the relevant reputation enough.

Great place to park money in the range of 500,000 to 50 million if you want it safe and sound against little shocks and well away from the taxman.

No one hangs a picture at home of course. That's for the Arabs.