Where does the culture war come from?

[sufi]

Perhaps this is a pointless thread @Leo - you're probably right - but i have been quite puzzled about it the last few months. How and why the online narratives have suddenly become obsessed with an anti-trans viewpoint when it was barely even a point of discussion a couple of years back.

Where does it all come from and where does the co-ordination arise from, that's what I'm trying to get my head around I guess. Right wing pundits holding similar viewpoints is a given but these new attack models are effectively generating a moving consensus

This is an example from last year

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex: How Botnets Pushed a Hashtag to Westminster

A Logically investigation has found that the Gender Critical hashtag #KeepPrisonsSingleSex was amplified by botnet in coordinated inauthentic behavior.

www.logically.ai

Where do the decisions to push these ideas come from is i guess what i am asking

@Leo said something on the media sadism thread "if it bleeds it leads"
And yeah ok the media and more recently the algos pander to the worst, to tastes for extremes and for sex and violence,
But that's like a psychotic person having intrusive thoughts,
Like everyone knows this hateful media is doing our heads in, promoting atrocities and fear, but somehow Everyone throws their hands in the air and acts like they are powerless to stop

 

[Leo]

DeSantis’ Culture Warrior: ‘We Are Now Over the Walls’

In Chris Rufo, the Florida governor has found a useful weapon for the multi-front culture war he hopes will launch his presidential run.

www.politico.com

I'm sure there are plenty more like this guy.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think this is an odd response but perhaps i am not making myself clear- the culture war is largely a right-wing construct generated in order to further political opinion, no? So the cause de jour is a real thing, and seemingly generated to further the agenda. You have co-ordinated attack lines throughout media channels (social and tradiitional) to generate support for a cause. I am asking why and how it happens

It is quite clearly a mass-synchronised effort

ah yes that was unclear, I completely misunderstand. I thought you were complaining about seeing it in your newsfeed. I hear stuff like that a lot, out in the world, and it's pretty insufferable. my bad.

obviously this I do agree with. it isn't recent - the culture war has been manufactured for decades. @sufi is certainly right that there's always been an organic profit-driven motive, as well as an ideological agenda that if not necessarily "conspiratorial" is centrally decided/driven, i.e. by political strategists. the "why" isn't hard to answer - because its architects think, and have usually been correct, that it will be successful. presumably they base their strategies on research as well as intuition and experience.

as far as "how", it would be very interesting if someone did a Jane Mayer-style delineation of the actual mechanisms and networks by which the message is created, and everyone gets and stays on message, but you can probably guess at the outlines. the traditional side isn't hard - again presumably right-wing strategists/consultants have typical professional networks, as well as conferences like CPAC or whatever. the shadier side of bots, disinformation - I'm guessing they just pay hackers with the technical ability to plan and carry out the strategy. many states have offensive cyberwarfare units that do that kind of thing, I'd guess there are plenty of mercenaries as well.

 

[shakahislop]

massive question isn't it, to try to outline the dynamics of how this stuff works

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

DeSantis’ Culture Warrior: ‘We Are Now Over the Walls’

In Chris Rufo, the Florida governor has found a useful weapon for the multi-front culture war he hopes will launch his presidential run.

www.politico.com

I'm sure there are plenty more like this guy.

there are a million of these would be Carlsons angling for a greater drip from the right-wing media money spout

their spiritual forebear is someone like Lee Atwater

tho one difference is that now a strategist can be a big deal in their own right, rather than just operating behind the scenes like Atwater and Rove

which is probably a big factor driving ever more extreme positions, the need to draw eyeballs to grow your own profile, rather than just to win an election

 

[shakahislop]

the principal medium of communications has changed. and it's more or less changed in the last ten years or so. which means that everyone is still trying to understand and manipulate the dynamics. in terms of what people are thinking and believing, what's going on online is the main driver now. everyone knows it and anyone with any interest in changing what people believe and how they behave is engaged in trying to figure out how to use the tool

 

[sufi]

massive question isn't it, to try to outline the dynamics of how this stuff works

I dont think so,
I think it's the natural result of succession of short termist regimes, desperate to distract from their own shortcomings with a pile of dead cats

 

[shakahislop]

personally speaking, 'culture wars' is a term that i hardly even understand. but of course it is in itself a term generated from online discussion.

 

[shakahislop]

I dont think so,
I think it's the natural result of succession of short termist regimes, desperate to distract from their own shortcomings with a pile of dead cats

well maybe not for your massive sufi-brain

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

personally speaking, 'culture wars' is a term that i hardly even understand. but of course it is in itself a term generated from online discussion.

it predates online discussion, actually. was firmly ensconced as a term in the 90s, long before social media or even Web 2.0.

 

[shakahislop]

it predates online discussion, actually. was firmly ensconced as a term in the 90s, long before social media or even Web 2.0.

i did not know that. i don't think that's the case for the UK, i never heard anyone use it there until recently

 

[shakahislop]

but that actually brings up something i've been thinking about a lot recently. how exposed to the US discourse the UK is and how much better off we'd be with our own concepts and terminology

 

[sufi]

personally speaking, 'culture wars' is a term that i hardly even understand. but of course it is in itself a term generated from online discussion.

I suppose it's the idea that there are irreconcilable ideological differences that are rooted somewhere deeper than politics,

It's the same fake metaphor that is cited in Northern Ireland, israelpalestine, etcetc,
Its an excuse for power to not bother to engage with political real life

 

[Leo]

first time I heard culture wars was when newt Gingrich was speaker of the house, late 90s.

 

[wild greens]

massive question isn't it, to try to outline the dynamics of how this stuff works

It's probably quite optimistic on my part to assume that this can be broken down in any sense but there must be pockets of information dotted around that can help decipher how the narrative is generated

Lads like this Chris Rufo are clearly pushing individual agendas alongside the grand narrative but it all works in mysterious unison doesn't it

I'm not sure there are any clear answers but i would like a clearer understanding of who is trying to shovel shit down the internet at me

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I'm curious about what happens when the CW entirely separates from technocratic politics and takes to the wing of it's own accord like an enormous shitbird

that's essentially the story of American politics - and globally, to the degree that both geopolitics and the domestic politics of other countries follow American politics - over the last 15 years

it began with Fox News, astroturfing the Tea Party, etc - conscious, directed, ideological efforts which eventually spun out of the control of the people who'd launched them. I.e. Fox News begat OAN, Newsmax, etc, as well as a million bloggers all trying to scream louder than the next. the Tea Party begat Trump, MJT, Josh Hawley, DeSantis, etc.

and here we are

 

[sufi]

but that actually brings up something i've been thinking about a lot recently. how exposed to the US discourse the UK is and how much better off we'd be with our own concepts and terminology

It's interesting to compare the trajectories of the recent trans hate in UK and US,
It has been made an issue in UK for the last 3 or so years, radfems getting beaten at speakers corner, jkr Running off her mouth about it,
Seems in US that it's more connected to party politics?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but that actually brings up something i've been thinking about a lot recently. how exposed to the US discourse the UK is and how much better off we'd be with our own concepts and terminology

I certainly agree with that. unlikely to change at this point, tho.

 

[sufi]

that's essentially the story of American politics - and globally, to the degree that both geopolitics and the domestic politics of other countries follow American politics - over the last 15 years

it began with Fox News, astroturfing the Tea Party, etc - conscious, directed, ideological efforts which eventually spun out of the control of the people who'd launched them. I.e. Fox News begat OAN, Newsmax, etc, as well as a million bloggers all trying to scream louder than the next. the Tea Party begat Trump, MJT, Josh Hawley, DeSantis, etc.

and here we are

Its populism basically, like politics played for fun rather than governance

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

It's interesting to compare the trajectories of the recent trans hate in UK and US,
It has been made an issue in UK for the last 3 or so years, radfems getting beaten at speakers corner, jkr Running off her mouth about it,
Seems in US that it's more connected to party politics?

I'd agree with that. TERFs have basically zero public visibility here outside of academia. the trans hate here is a lot more religious - what a surprise - and unlike the UK has to little to no pretense that it's about protecting biological women.