Starving Artist's "good old days"... talked to an expert

[Marley23]

@RaleighRally

The previous immigration act’s sought to keep an ethnic status quo in the US, favoring immigrants from Northwestern Europe by quotas. When those quotas were removed, the US became steadily more multicultural and therefore (according to Putnam’s research) unhappier, more violent, less productive, and so on.

We’re getting off topic here. The original subject was civility, not race and immigration.

[David42]

@E-Sabbath

I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved/Man I was mean but I’m changing my scene/And I’m doing the best that I can.

You’ve got to admit it’s getting better.

All the time!

[gonzomax]

@Marley23

We’re getting off topic here. The original subject was civility, not race and immigration.

Racial suppression was not civil. How can taking the rights from people because of their color not be abusive and not be uncivil. It was a horrible example and on topic. It characterized the time like apartheid.

[David42]

@Zoe

As for those laws I didn’t cite: By law, women could not attend the United States Military Academies and obtain the excellent educations available at West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy, etc. On the entrance exam I outscored others who were admitted. (I didn’t really mind.)

When the persian gulf war looked likely I decided to join the army. (I confess to thinking I was naive back then. I wouldn’t now.) Everything went wonderfully until the recruiter didn’t show up to take me to the airport to fly to MEPS. I called him and asked why he didn’t show.

He told me I could not join the army because I had an unpaid parking ticket. No arrangements could be made to take the fine out of my first paycheck. I was broke and couldn’t join the army.

After a few weeks of thinking this over, I didn’t mind either.

[David42]

@BrainGlutton

This thread actually could be continued fruitfully for another six pages. Provided there is no more discussion of music lyrics in it. Can all agree?

“We can work it out, We can work it ou-out…”

[BrainGlutton]

@RaleighRally

Until the 1950s, the American people were in charge of their own country.
From the 1960s and onwards, the cultural Marxist media was in charge of the USA.

:dubious: You’re a foreigner, so I’ll make allowances and assume this is nothing worse than ignorance. FTR:

1. The American media was never in charge of the country the way you’re saying, not before the 1960s and not after.

2. The American media was never Marxist or “cultural Marxist” the way you’re saying, not before the 1960s and not after.

@RaleighRally

The Immigration Act of 1965, for example, was not in the interest of the American people. The previous immigration act’s sought to keep an ethnic status quo in the US, favoring immigrants from Northwestern Europe by quotas. When those quotas were removed, the US became steadily more multicultural and therefore (according to Putnam’s research) unhappier, more violent, less productive, and so on.

This, however, is a lot worse than ignorance.

[Starving_Artist]

@BrainGlutton

This thread actually could be continued fruitfully for another six pages. Provided there is no more discussion of music lyrics in it. Can all agree?

But…but…how can we show that the sixties were misogynistic without obscure lyrics that mention jealousy killings by blues singers nobody ever heard of?

@gonzomax

Racial suppression was not civil. How can taking the rights from people because of their color not be abusive and not be uncivil.

Apples and oranges. Civility can occur anytime and anyplace people choose to be civil. A person can’t pluck this or that wrongdoing that happens to occur simultaneously and then declare that disproves civil comportment. Women and children and blacks and gays are beaten and tortured and killed every day even now. Yet we never hear you decrying the evil society that exists today, do we? And we never hear you bemoaning the number of black lives that have been lost and or ruined by the culture that has sprung up in the wake of the sixties, do we? How many black parents have had to endure the worst thing that can happen to a person - the loss of a child’s life - because of drug/thug/gang/street life. It seems that people like you are all too happy to trade an infinite number of lost and ruined lives as long as no one else has to sit in the back of the bus. You remind me of the other poster I mentioned who happily admits she doesn’t give a shit about all those lost lives caused by today’s permissive society because she can open her own checking account now. Do you people have no sense of proportionality? Cognition of consequence? Why in the mind of people like you does one step forward always justify ten other steps backward?

[RaleighRally]

@BrainGlutton

1. The American media was never in charge of the country the way you’re saying, not before the 1960s and not after.

Before the advent of TV and cinemas, the American media did not have as much power, but it still had some influence.

The concept of the Fourth Estate (or fourth estate) is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. It now most commonly refers to the news media; especially print journalism.

Fourth Estate - Wikipedia

@BrainGlutton

2. The American media was never Marxist or “cultural Marxist” the way you’re saying, not before the 1960s and not after.

Pat Buchanan says: “Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatize social heresy as the Inquisition punished religious heresy. Its trademark is intolerance.”
All this stigmatizing in the media started in the 1960s and the politicians had to obey to avoid it.

@BrainGlutton

This, however, is a lot worse than ignorance.

Oh yeah, I was referring to the research of Robert Putnam (uncle of the OP) and tried to use it to answer the questions put by the OP. I should have understood that political correctness is much more important than research. Especially at a debate forum in a country that once valued truth and the freedom of speech.

[tomndebb]

@RaleighRally

Pat Buchanan says:

This is pretty much a guarantee that all the nonsense about “cultural Marxism” is nonsense. Pat Buchanan is an authority on nothing and his xenophobic rantings have no basis in reality.

[David42]

@tomndebb

This is pretty much a guarantee that all the nonsense about “cultural Marxism” is nonsense. Pat Buchanan is an authority on nothing and his xenophobic rantings have no basis in reality.

It may still have anecdotal value which is seldom anything more than not much value. However, regardless of who says something, if the reasoning makes sense there is no reason a thinking person cannot adopt it. I don’t much admire Pat Buchanan either or consider him an authority on anything, but that doesn’t mean any particular thing he said is necessarily wrong due to that fact.

I’m not a fan of political correctness either, and Pat’s statement appears to address what I do not like about political correctness, so I find value in the anecdote. Others may not find any value. That’s ok, that’s the nature of an anecdote.

[Acsenray]

“Political correctness” as a cultural movement of any kind in the United States is a phantom. Complaining about political correctness, on the other hand, is a prime shibboleth for racism.

[Chen019]

@Marley23

We’re getting off topic here. The original subject was civility, not race and immigration.

Not sure it’s entirely off topic (I suspect television has had a major impact myself).

1. The topic was civility and changes over the past 50 years.

2. Putman’s research is on civility.

3. Putman’s research identifies diversity as having negative impacts on social capital.

4. The US has become more diverse over the past 50 years.

[tomndebb]

@David42

It may still have anecdotal value which is seldom anything more than not much value. However, regardless of who says something, if the reasoning makes sense there is no reason a thinking person cannot adopt it. I don’t much admire Pat Buchanan either or consider him an authority on anything, but that doesn’t mean any particular thing he said is necessarily wrong due to that fact.

I’m not a fan of political correctness either, and Pat’s statement appears to address what I do not like about political correctness, so I find value in the anecdote. Others may not find any value. That’s ok, that’s the nature of an anecdote.

There is no “anecdote.” There was a single bit of bloviating by Buchanan that one poster, who happens to be fixated on the non-existent “cultural Marxism” theme, threw out because Buchanan also employed the phrase “cultural Marxism.”

Both the Left and the Right employ the same tactics to stigmatize the things they do not like, (look at Buchanan’s 40+ year history of attacking those on the Left with wild, personal attacks), and “political correctness” is nothing more than the Right’s buzzword to pretend that the Left has an “agenda” to demonize the Right–as if the Right was not engaged in the same behavior toward the Left. If there actually was such a thing as “cultural Marxism,” (that differed in any significant way from the behavior of the most shrill advocates of the Right), citing someone like Buchanan who has spent his entire adult life saying and publishing stuff that looks like “political correctness” aimed at the other side hardly provides any evidence that it exists.

[BrainGlutton]

@RaleighRally

Pat Buchanan says: “Political Correctness is Cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent and to stigmatize social heresy as the Inquisition punished religious heresy. Its trademark is intolerance.”

Even foreigners should be able to spot Pat Buchanan for a liar.

[Chen019]

@BrainGlutton

Even foreigners should be able to spot Pat Buchanan for a liar.

Whether he is, or isn’t, cultural marxism isn’t the worst description for the various new leftist intellectual movements described here.

Cultural Marxism is a generic term referring to a loosely associated group of Marxists who have sought to apply critical theory to matters of family composition, gender, race, and cultural identity within Western society.

Also this is a useful essay on the subject:

Many 20th century Marxian theorists ranging from Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, and T.W. Adorno to Fredric Jameson and Terry Eagleton employed the Marxian theory to analyze cultural forms in relation to their production, their imbrications with society and history, and their impact and influences on audiences and social life. Traditions of cultural Marxism are thus important to the trajectory of cultural studies and to understanding its various types and forms in the present age.

culturalmarxism.pdf

[David42]

@tomndebb

There is no “anecdote.” There was a single bit of bloviating by Buchanan that one poster, who happens to be fixated on the non-existent “cultural Marxism” theme, threw out because Buchanan also employed the phrase “cultural Marxism.”

Both the Left and the Right employ the same tactics to stigmatize the things they do not like, (look at Buchanan’s 40+ year history of attacking those on the Left with wild, personal attacks), and “political correctness” is nothing more than the Right’s buzzword to pretend that the Left has an “agenda” to demonize the Right–as if the Right was not engaged in the same behavior toward the Left. If there actually was such a thing as “cultural Marxism,” (that differed in any significant way from the behavior of the most shrill advocates of the Right), citing someone like Buchanan who has spent his entire adult life saying and publishing stuff that looks like “political correctness” aimed at the other side hardly provides any evidence that it exists.

Well I can’t argue against that too much…

However, I was kinda troubled by the reference to cultural marxism. That’s not quite something I’d have said at the very least for the fact that it sounds redundant. I can’t think of Marxism that isn’t cultural. Anyways, Buchanan’s statement, despite my dislike of Buchanan, other than his references to “cultural Marxism” closely matches my concerns about political correctness.

Other than that, it seems to be poisoning the well a bit to bring up Pat’s ugly past.

[David42]

@Acsenray

“Political correctness” as a cultural movement of any kind in the United States is a phantom. Complaining about political correctness, on the other hand, is a prime shibboleth for racism.

Horsepoo. Racists may hide under the cover of resistance to political correctness, but that does not make all such resistance racist. I have never made such an attachment to racism over the issue.

I’m not going for the Orwellian newspeak, thank you very much.

[Chen019]

@David42

Well I can’t argue against that too much…

However, I was kinda troubled by the reference to cultural marxism. That’s not quite something I’d have said at the very least for the fact that it sounds redundant. I can’t think of Marxism that isn’t cultural.

Yes, but these individuals brought that analysis explicitly into cultural analysis. As I said, there is an excellent essay explaining it here.

Many later cultural Marxists would develop these ideas, although they tended to ascribe more autonomy and import to culture than in classical Marxism. While Marx’s writings abound with literary reference and figures, he never developed sustained models of cultural analysis. Instead, Marx focused his intellectual and political energies on analyzing the capitalist mode of production, current economic developments and political struggles, and vicissitudes of the world market and modern societies now theorized as “globalization” and “modernity.”

The second generation of classical Marxists ranging from German Social
Democrats and radicals to Russian Marxists focused even more narrowly on economics
and politics. Marxism became the official doctrine of many European working class
movements and was thus tied to requirements of the political struggles of the day from
Marx’s death in 1883 and into the twentieth century.

A generation of Marxists, however, began turning concentrated attention to
cultural phenomena in the 1920s. Perry Anderson (1976) interprets the turn from
economic and political analysis to cultural theory as a symptom of the defeat of Western
Marxism after the crushing of the European revolutionary movements of the 1920s and
the rise of fascism. In addition, theorists like Lukacs, Benjamin, and Adorno, who
instituted a mode of Marxist cultural analysis, were intellectuals who had deep and
abiding interest in cultural phenomena…

Cultural Marxism was highly influential throughout Europe and the Western
world, especially in the 1960s when Marxian thought was at its most prestigious and
procreative. Theorists like Roland Barthes and the Tel Quel group in France, Galvano
Della Volpe, Lucio Colletti, and others in Italy, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton, and
cohort of 1960s cultural radicals in the English-speaking world, and a large number of
theorists throughout the globe used cultural Marxism to develop modes of cultural studies
that analyzed the production, interpretation, and reception of cultural artifacts within
concrete socio-historical conditions that had contested political and ideological effects
and uses. One of the most famous and influential forms of cultural studies, initially under
the influence of cultural Marxism, emerged within the Centre for contemporary cultural
studies in Birmingham, England within a group often referred to as the Birmingham
School.

culturalmarxism.pdf

[BrainGlutton]

@Chen019

Whether he is, or isn’t, cultural marxism isn’t the worst description for the various new leftist intellectual movements described here.

It is the worst description for anything having to do with the American media, or anything else of influence here outside a few English departments.

[BrainGlutton]

@David42

Horsepoo. Racists may hide under the cover of resistance to political correctness, but that does not make all such resistance racist. I have never made such an attachment to racism over the issue.

Take that away and what’s left?!