Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I saw your thread title a day or two ago. I did not come into the thread, and I have read no other posts on here because I didn't want my thoughts to be tainted by what someone else may have said. I've actually been thinking about your question (only the question in the title) since I saw it.
I don't think it's a left/right thing that started it. I don't think it's a political thing that started it. Those have enhanced it, but I don't believe that's how it started.
Your question was: "Where did or who started the current culture war?"
I don't believe the answer is a "where" nor is it a "who". I think the answer is a "what".
The less that people actually talk to each other, face to face, the easier it is to be divided. It's really easy not to care about words or pixels on a screen. The more that we consume certain aspects of technology - not that technology is bad - the less we build real relationships with other people.
As I said, it's not that technology is bad, it's how we've come to almost worship technology - the way we have chosen to allow it to consume US is what is bad. And this has been building for decades.
It started out with people getting online. And then we had cell phones (that the masses would use). Then we had text. Then we had apps. We can contact anyone in the country without incurring any charges because unlimited texting is free. A lot of apps are free. We see each other digitally either in text, images, or video. That's how we communicate now. Sure, we meet a lot of other people that we might not have otherwise, but the relationships are often very superficial.
How many "friends" does someone have on social media that aren't actually friends? How many followers does someone have, and how does that affect how people feel validated? How many "likes", reps, comments can someone get. The more attention they receive, the more they feel that they are worth something - and yet we have a lot of people who have completely lost, or maybe never had, the ability to communicate/socialize with people standing right in front of them.
We used to comment when we saw people sitting at the same table, everyone on their phones. We used to comment when we saw a group of people walking together, like a group of teens, and none of them were talking to each other because they were talking to other people on their phones. Look around you whenever you go anywhere - someone has their face in their phone choosing not to interact with anyone around them - the comments have become less, people have accepted it more as the norm, and have even joined those who they once commented on.
Because of this, people have been allowed to create their own little bubble - their own little world - a world that is extremely superficial. Everyone in that bubble agrees with them. Everyone talks like them. Everyone thinks like them. Their conversations are never long - they are abbreviated, to the point that we don't even say things as simple as "that was so funny", it's now just "lol". People don't have long, deep conversations anymore. Even people on this forum complain about long posts - I know my posts can get long, but I also know that others can write long posts, on the regular, as well - and no one wants to take the time to read them.
We are only comfortable with 1 or 2 lines of text, then it's too much. We don't want to have to think that hard. We don't want to have actual conversations - that's "too much work".
As we become more consumed by technology, the bigger the divide grows.
To this day I wish I would have bookmarked a video that I saw several years ago - it was short, to the point, and illustrated what connections we would have in the future, how fast it was all growing, and how those connections would actually make us disconnected from each other. It was over a decade ago that I saw that video. And it was exactly right. I've looked for it for years since, and because I don't remember the name of it, I have been unable to find it...but if I could, and was able to link it, I think you would fully understand.
We can't blame it on one person or one "side" or one culture or one event. It's been a steady malignant cancer that has been growing...
Kind of like when Simon and Garfunkle wrote: "People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening" and people praying to their neon gods that they created. Those lyrics actually hold more truth today than they did back then.
I'm not going to say that I either agree or disagree... I just think yours is an interesting perspective.
T... If you slam all such poor people as lazy or unmotivated, then you're at least soft-core classist.)
Soft-core classist here. For me, it's less about pecuniary wherewithal (income, assets, etc.) than about certain cultural attributes. Yale philosophy graduates living threadbare life as shelf-stackers at Walmart are on one side. An Appalachian (or Southern, or Midwestern, or whatever) fellow who barely finished high-school, took over his dad's landscaping business, and now owns 500 acres of hunting-land, a speed boat, a hunting lodge and an apartment-house (as source of rental income) in the local town, is on the other side.
In politically laden terms, on the one side are traditionally the professional classes, or to be even more glib, the intelligentsia. On the other side are the Proles. Many Proles live in materially strained circumstances. Many are middle class. Some are billionaires.
Well then, my classism is a belief that a society where proles have outsized influence, is a society in decline. Such a society may remain culturally rich, but its central ethos becomes prole, and thus stymies innovation or general efflorescence.
The great anomaly of American society is the outsized influence of prole culture and prole values. For bevy of factors, it has been possible for proles to rise economically, while still remaining prole. In most societies, that didn't happen... Either the proles remained in disadvantaged circumstances, or they gradually gentrified. What we've seen over the past 40 years or so, is an attenuation of the quintessentially American conditions, enabling prole rise. America is becoming more like pre-war (pre-WW2) Europe. For some time, this didn't much affect voting patterns. In 2016, it did.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow
I don't believe the answer is a "where" nor is it a "who". I think the answer is a "what".
The less that people actually talk to each other, face to face, the easier it is to be divided. ...
As we become more consumed by technology, the bigger the divide grows.
This is eminently true. Technology can promote disconnection and stymie the natural connections that enable people to find common ground. Technology is a powerful tool, that in unfortunate confluence of circumstances can be stark divider. But to your point about "where", "who", or "what", I would opine that technology only exacerbates trends that were already festering.
Arguably, America itself was founded on a heap of contradictions... secular vs. religious, agrarian vs. urban, outward-looking vs. insular. Those contradictions were already present in 1787. They're apparent in out Constitution. But for decades after 1787, or even over a century, the notion of truly democratic government was an exaggeration, if not an outright fable. It really was a government of, by and for aristocrats - aristocrats without formal titles, but aristocrats nonetheless. Things liberalized gradually, but the real watershed was WW2. It unleashed sentiments and persuasions that were always there, but which were contained by traditional shackles. We then had the "culture wars" of the 60s - from which we never recovered, and which in prickly soundbites are still being fought today (guns, abortion, religion, "patriotism",...).
Technology has taken the strife and vitriol of the 1960s online. By making it impersonal and remote, we can be more callous, more cruel... becoming more bitter. So, yes, technology has made things vastly worse. But those "things" are contradictions that have been festering for 230 years.
This is eminently true. Technology can promote disconnection and stymie the natural connections that enable people to find common ground. Technology is a powerful tool, that in unfortunate confluence of circumstances can be stark divider. But to your point about "where", "who", or "what", I would opine that technology only exacerbates trends that were already festering.
Arguably, America itself was founded on a heap of contradictions... secular vs. religious, agrarian vs. urban, outward-looking vs. insular. Those contradictions were already present in 1787. They're apparent in out Constitution. But for decades after 1787, or even over a century, the notion of truly democratic government was an exaggeration, if not an outright fable. It really was a government of, by and for aristocrats - aristocrats without formal titles, but aristocrats nonetheless. Things liberalized gradually, but the real watershed was WW2. It unleashed sentiments and persuasions that were always there, but which were contained by traditional shackles. We then had the "culture wars" of the 60s - from which we never recovered, and which in prickly soundbites are still being fought today (guns, abortion, religion, "patriotism",...).
Technology has taken the strife and vitriol of the 1960s online. By making it impersonal and remote, we can be more callous, more cruel... becoming more bitter. So, yes, technology has made things vastly worse. But those "things" are contradictions that have been festering for 230 years.
That's actually a very good point. Thanks for taking the time not only to read my long post, but for providing a well thought out response. THIS is the kind of "debate" or discussion that I love to have.
It is true that what exploded in the 60s is still showing up today, and it's often that I look at what people say and think that they would have fit in well in the 60s - because they are saying the same things as the people were back then.
However, it seems that we had a small point in time where it wasn't as bad - we still had people who had their sentiments and persuasions, as you said, and we had threat of nuclear war, we had the cold war - but overall, despite all of that, it felt like people got along better than they do now.
It's definitely been growing, and while we may have had that short respite (and keep in mind, I'm not old enough to remember how things "really were" in the 80s - I was a young kid so it's possible I saw the 80s through rose colored glasses - although I still feel that while the other stuff was going on, somehow we were more connected - even with many western European countries - or maybe they always trashed on us, I don't know), it does seem like technology has made it possible for us to simply stop caring about the people around us. I don't mean family and friends, I mean just people in general.
Before, if people wanted to "debate" anything, it was done face to face. Most people....not all....are going to be at least somewhat mannered when talking to someone face to face. Technology has allowed people to reveal exactly who they really are - which honestly, I've said it numerous times - I prefer people be very honest. I don't like people who hide things and then I find out later the hard way - I despise it. If you believe in something, say it. Nonetheless, people lost the manners somewhere along the way. No one wants to talk anymore. They want to say their 1-2 line sound bytes and then run off - and if you disagree with them, more often than not, instead of debating with you ("debate" does not have to be a negative thing), they would rather block you or report you.
And with that ability to block and/or report what you don't like, we are going further down the slope into people wanting full on totalitarianism - because blocking and reporting are encouraged instead of debate. Technology is consuming common sense, common decency, or even any type of acceptance to a different voice at all.
Yes, there was strife and vitriol, always has been, but with technology allowing people to act in ways they would not act face to face, it has created a monster that was not there before.
I saw your thread title a day or two ago. I did not come into the thread, and I have read no other posts on here because I didn't want my thoughts to be tainted by what someone else may have said. I've actually been thinking about your question (only the question in the title) since I saw it.
I don't think it's a left/right thing that started it. I don't think it's a political thing that started it. Those have enhanced it, but I don't believe that's how it started.
Your question was: "Where did or who started the current culture war?"
I don't believe the answer is a "where" nor is it a "who". I think the answer is a "what".
The less that people actually talk to each other, face to face, the easier it is to be divided. It's really easy not to care about words or pixels on a screen. The more that we consume certain aspects of technology - not that technology is bad - the less we build real relationships with other people.
As I said, it's not that technology is bad, it's how we've come to almost worship technology - the way we have chosen to allow it to consume US is what is bad. And this has been building for decades.
It started out with people getting online. And then we had cell phones (that the masses would use). Then we had text. Then we had apps. We can contact anyone in the country without incurring any charges because unlimited texting is free. A lot of apps are free. We see each other digitally either in text, images, or video. That's how we communicate now. Sure, we meet a lot of other people that we might not have otherwise, but the relationships are often very superficial.
How many "friends" does someone have on social media that aren't actually friends? How many followers does someone have, and how does that affect how people feel validated? How many "likes", reps, comments can someone get. The more attention they receive, the more they feel that they are worth something - and yet we have a lot of people who have completely lost, or maybe never had, the ability to communicate/socialize with people standing right in front of them.
We used to comment when we saw people sitting at the same table, everyone on their phones. We used to comment when we saw a group of people walking together, like a group of teens, and none of them were talking to each other because they were talking to other people on their phones. Look around you whenever you go anywhere - someone has their face in their phone choosing not to interact with anyone around them - the comments have become less, people have accepted it more as the norm, and have even joined those who they once commented on.
Because of this, people have been allowed to create their own little bubble - their own little world - a world that is extremely superficial. Everyone in that bubble agrees with them. Everyone talks like them. Everyone thinks like them. Their conversations are never long - they are abbreviated, to the point that we don't even say things as simple as "that was so funny", it's now just "lol". People don't have long, deep conversations anymore. Even people on this forum complain about long posts - I know my posts can get long, but I also know that others can write long posts, on the regular, as well - and no one wants to take the time to read them.
We are only comfortable with 1 or 2 lines of text, then it's too much. We don't want to have to think that hard. We don't want to have actual conversations - that's "too much work".
As we become more consumed by technology, the bigger the divide grows.
To this day I wish I would have bookmarked a video that I saw several years ago - it was short, to the point, and illustrated what connections we would have in the future, how fast it was all growing, and how those connections would actually make us disconnected from each other. It was over a decade ago that I saw that video. And it was exactly right. I've looked for it for years since, and because I don't remember the name of it, I have been unable to find it...but if I could, and was able to link it, I think you would fully understand.
We can't blame it on one person or one "side" or one culture or one event. It's been a steady malignant cancer that has been growing...
Kind of like when Simon and Garfunkle wrote: "People talking without speaking. People hearing without listening" and people praying to their neon gods that they created. Those lyrics actually hold more truth today than they did back then.
Remember that woman that tweeted that she is going to Africa and that she wont catch aids. When her plane landed in South Africa, he tweet was shared over a million times, and a huge outrage mob wanted to come after her. Her employer fired her too. I do agree with the online stuff. Justine Sacco. It was just a joke, but those on both the left and the right attacked her for it.
Soft-core classist here. For me, it's less about pecuniary wherewithal (income, assets, etc.) than about certain cultural attributes. Yale philosophy graduates living threadbare life as shelf-stackers at Walmart are on one side. An Appalachian (or Southern, or Midwestern, or whatever) fellow who barely finished high-school, took over his dad's landscaping business, and now owns 500 acres of hunting-land, a speed boat, a hunting lodge and an apartment-house (as source of rental income) in the local town, is on the other side.
In politically laden terms, on the one side are traditionally the professional classes, or to be even more glib, the intelligentsia. On the other side are the Proles. Many Proles live in materially strained circumstances. Many are middle class. Some are billionaires.
Well then, my classism is a belief that a society where proles have outsized influence, is a society in decline. Such a society may remain culturally rich, but its central ethos becomes prole, and thus stymies innovation or general efflorescence.
The great anomaly of American society is the outsized influence of prole culture and prole values. For bevy of factors, it has been possible for proles to rise economically, while still remaining prole. In most societies, that didn't happen... Either the proles remained in disadvantaged circumstances, or they gradually gentrified. What we've seen over the past 40 years or so, is an attenuation of the quintessentially American conditions, enabling prole rise. America is becoming more like pre-war (pre-WW2) Europe. For some time, this didn't much affect voting patterns. In 2016, it did.
This is eminently true. Technology can promote disconnection and stymie the natural connections that enable people to find common ground. Technology is a powerful tool, that in unfortunate confluence of circumstances can be stark divider. But to your point about "where", "who", or "what", I would opine that technology only exacerbates trends that were already festering.
Arguably, America itself was founded on a heap of contradictions... secular vs. religious, agrarian vs. urban, outward-looking vs. insular. Those contradictions were already present in 1787. They're apparent in out Constitution. But for decades after 1787, or even over a century, the notion of truly democratic government was an exaggeration, if not an outright fable. It really was a government of, by and for aristocrats - aristocrats without formal titles, but aristocrats nonetheless. Things liberalized gradually, but the real watershed was WW2. It unleashed sentiments and persuasions that were always there, but which were contained by traditional shackles. We then had the "culture wars" of the 60s - from which we never recovered, and which in prickly soundbites are still being fought today (guns, abortion, religion, "patriotism",...).
Technology has taken the strife and vitriol of the 1960s online. By making it impersonal and remote, we can be more callous, more cruel... becoming more bitter. So, yes, technology has made things vastly worse. But those "things" are contradictions that have been festering for 230 years.
To the bold. Amazon prime video had a documentary that s poke about such topic. I do agree that the more we connect with the world, the more we will begin to disconnect from it, and will put ourselves in certain echochambers, safespaces, and outlets.
The current culture war is just another sphere of marxist revolution.
Now they call it "progressivism" or "democratic socialism"
You have the marxist dupes, the people opposed to marxism, and the legions of apathetic people who have no clue what is going on.
If we sent progressives and intersectionalist who tend to be intolerant to states past and present who share same levels of authorerianism example Nazi Germany, soviet union, North Korea and Baathist Iraq. All of such people will be locked up in a prison camp. Same could also be said for alt-right too.
Status:
"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,600,682 times
Reputation: 5697
Quote:
Originally Posted by crone
Huh?
The religious right do not care for Jimmy Carter. They never did.
What Barry Goldwater grand strategy? I am not aware of it. It certainly would have nothing to do with brazenly religious people
Agreed, crone. I was only in the 3rd grade in 1976, but even then, I could tell that it was the prospect of voting a Southerner in the white house (the first from a "real southern" state since the Civil War) that really got the voters in my area excited (although my parents and grandparents* did vote for Ford). The "Southern Democrat" tradition was also still alive and well, although even that was starting to change a little bit. Maybe the "good Christian" part did motivate the religious crowd, but after four years, it was obvious Carter was not the kind of Christian they wanted.
BTW, the current polarized "few southern whites vote republican" didn't really complete itself until the early 90s. Even in the 70s and 80s, the south still had a lot of "white moderate" democrats.
*Grandpa was an early southern convert to the Republicans. He told me the last democrat he voted for for president was FDR.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
