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The cause of culture war, as with all wars, is at bottom boredom, and the cure is to find intrinsically motivating pursuits that engage you so much that you loo
by porpoise 6y ago
The cause of culture war, as with all wars, is at bottom boredom, and the cure is to find intrinsically motivating pursuits that engage you so much that you look upon the culture warrior the same way you look upon those who spend all day playing videos games.
- colordrops 6y agoIf there wasn't massive inequality and poverty to be tapped, bored energy wouldn't be so easily redirected to the culture war.
- refurb 6y agoOh please. You think it's the poor who is spending hours on Twitter arguing with each other? Or watching CNN for hours a day? They don't have the time nor is it of any consequence to their lives. They're too busy trying to pay this month's rent. It's all middle and upper-middle class Americans who have the luxury and time to spend time on social media (often at work).
- Loughla 6y agoI mean, even poor folks have smart phones with data plans now. You'd be surprised how full facebook is with Twitter screenshots and right-wing "news" orgs in the very poor, rural area that I live. So, no, it's not just middle- and upper-middle class Americans on social media.
- refurb 6y agoNo doubt the cleaning lady I see in my building working 12 hour days trying to house and feed her two kids is prioritizing getting her political thoughts out on Twitter.
- diomedes 6y agoAs someone who lives in Latin America and sometimes interacts/works remotely with North Americans I get this same impression. For better or for worse, America always seemed like the a place with issues, but with a people which could quickly gather and get shit done. Nowadays it seems you folks worry too much about semantics & ideology (on both sides) and will keep electing the next populist in hopes it'll fix all problems, just like Latin America lol. Your opponent nowadays is a very pragmatic autocratic regime, with it's own issues, but this corona-crisis at least showed they can keep their mandate of heaven. Four more years in this culture war and you won't be able to get consensus on anything.
- DarkWiiPlayer 6y agoI spend the whole day playing video games and still look down on culture warriors.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mywittyname 6y agoI see the cause as social inequality. If people felt like they were treated fairly, they wouldn't want to risk marching on the streets. We don't see protests when the internet goes down; we see them with people are killed by the police.
- standyro 6y agoI'm not sure about that. In Los Angeles (where I live) the people out in the streets in July during the pandemic protesting and burning cop cars were almost all unemployed young people, a veritable cross-section of all ethnicities in the city. It's not just about risk. Most protestors had little or nothing to lose or risk anything to be out there. Clearly, the fact that young people don't have dignified jobs and nothing to do but sit on social media all day and watch viral videos about obscene police violence is the fuel to the fire in this situation. I'm not saying police reform doesn't deserve a reckoning in the US, but there's definitely a correlation in internet use and protests.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> In Los Angeles (where I live) the people out in the streets in July during the pandemic protesting and burning cop cars were almost all unemployed young people [citation needed] And even if that was established, “unemployed” is often an axis of social inequity, too. Funny that you think the problem is the internet.