What Passes for Argument in the Culture War

Those who speak of the "marketplace of ideas" so indispensable to democratic discourse envision that discourse as, above all, rational. Those who desire that society take a particular course put a rational argument before the public, the public endeavors to judge the argument rationally, and, for all the imperfections of individual and collective rationality of which cruel-souled zealots of pessimism make so much, ideas winning out or losing out over the longer run in line with how persuasive they seem from a rational standpoint.

What we call "the culture wars" has not corresponded very well to that image, which is no surprise. Those wars, after all, are rooted in "status politics"--which begin exactly where reason ends. As Richard Hofstadter made clear, status politics is a thing apart from interest politics and its concern for practical redress of problems, but rather the politics of group bitterness, paranoia and vindictiveness-- what one gets when they cannot think of rational ways to deal with their problem, and for which they cannot make rational arguments. (A rational argument for why others have to endure vindictiveness toward them by a group that suffered marginalization in the past that would be persuasive to those expected to bear said vindictiveness is likely to be elusive.) And of course, it does not help that status politics has become married to a postmodernist outlook that despises objectivity and exalts subjectivity, dismisses reason as such, and has a very dim view of the ability of language to express ideas--rather than holding the irrationality of status politics in check, giving it a free pass, validating it, encouraging it, as it makes matters worse still by furnishing the aggrieved with obscure and obscurantist arguments that many of them have weaponized to create a more confused and confusing discourse rather than a clearer one, perhaps not always innocently. (Why speak frankly of women's resentment of male heterosexuality that will sound like exactly what it is and be rejected as such when they can speak of an "objectification" that will take others aback because they're just not sure what the hell it is they're talking about?)

They also display little concern for trying to make it clearer. One of the most striking aspects of such discourse, after all, is how very little interest the participants in it display in actually trying to convince those who disagree with them of the rightness of their positions--or, evaluate their own arguments for where they may come up short and try to improve upon them, and, should they find some aspect of their argument truly unsatisfactory, set it aside and assume new positions. Instead they have their dogma. They scream it in others' faces. If this does not work--and it rarely does--they repeat themselves at a higher decibel level, or more stridently, or perhaps more disdainfully, and maybe all three, again and again, or engage in some variation of this tactic that can only aggravate, not persuade.

It all underlines how they don't respect reason--which frustrates them because it offers no avenue to what they really want, and indeed tells them that they would be better off wanting something else. (Angry about your group's socioeconomic disadvantage? Maybe you should be worrying about inequality broadly rather than "evening the score" with that group you keep snarling at for its "privilege." Maybe even work with them to that end?) Equally they don't respect their opponents. Respecting them as rational beings to whose rationality they can appeal is mooted by their disrespect for reason generally, but there is, too, the fact that the others are to them Others who are the objects of that bitterness, paranoia, vindictiveness whom in line with all of the above they simply try to bully into submission--with the loudness of their voice, the stridency of their insistence, the contempt they can bring to bear (as they shake their heads and say the Other party just doesn't get it in that way that says there CAN ONLY BE ONE valid opinion here, rather than try and explain what They Are Not Getting--not necessarily in bad faith because they don't bother to consider that their irrefutable opinion is irrefutable in the sense that you can't "refute" a feeling).

Considering the irrationalism, anti-rationalism and sheer ill will here it seems to me I would not do justice to the injustice of this manner of arguing without acknowledging just how much this "style" of argument is argument for the stupid and intellectually lazy--as to set about things in this manner one does not need knowledge, or the ability to think, only scream like an agitated simian. There are very few people who can't do that, all as a great many rather enjoy doing so, especially in the faces of people they despise--a factor that should probably not be overlooked when we try to understand, alongside how the promoters of culture war have consistently failed to make the whole public forget about everything else, they have nevertheless had significant success in reducing the time given to everything else in what passes for discourse today.