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This thread from yesterday was about, among other things, the US culture war. I'll add to it: not only is the culture war pursued by both sides, it forecloses progress by both sides, where "progress" means anything that would cause real wealth to be spent on problems https://twitter.com/RichPuchalsky/status/1334353599359578117
It's common for people to attack liberal culture warriors for hating or feeling superior to people from flyover country. It's also common for people to attack conservative culture warriors for hating or feeling superior to non-cishet, nonwhite etc. people. Both of these are true
If you look back at American history during the time when the left existed as such, you see two main drivers of actual accomplishments and important events:
1) continuation of conflicts from slavery
2) liberal/conservative influence from the left
1) continuation of conflicts from slavery
2) liberal/conservative influence from the left
Who is the most accomplished liberal US President? FDR, New Deal, etc. The main triumphs of liberalism were pitched as class conflict in a leftist mode. (Of course, since it was liberalism, it displaced the actual left.)
What were the main accomplishments of US conservatism? Well who knows really, but mostly they seem to have been against the left as such: actual victories against Marxism-Leninism.
If we take the culture war as really having begun with the Reagan reaction (I'm open to earlier starts), then it coincides with the beginning of an era of non-accomplishment for the US. "But the USSR collapsed" someone might say: it was an internal collapse
It's no longer possible to imagine something like Eisenhower's push for the Interstate Highway System. The US no longer takes on large projects designed to change social conditions. The Internet snuck in as ideologically not state based
That is why the culture war and neoliberalism go together and reinforce each other. "But who can really do anything?" both say. "But who can really do anything with wealthy people's wealth, which they will continue to control" is what they actually say
What are the modes of victory dreamt of in our society? They are all pretty pathetic, but I might as well list them:
1. convince everyone your side of the culture war is right
2. nudge everyone into compliance
3. legally sabotage everything
1. convince everyone your side of the culture war is right
2. nudge everyone into compliance
3. legally sabotage everything
We have now reached the stage where both actual and imagined problems are subsumed into culture war positions. A not real problem like who gets to use which bathroom has culture war sides, so does global warming or Covid response
There is an important difference between these. A problem like "bathrooms" can be won in the sense that once minor social mores change around bathrooms everyone will wonder what the big deal was. A problem like "global warming" can't. It requires spending.
