Conservatives, The Language of ‘Culture War,’ and the Lessons of Counterinsurgency Theory

Birch Smith

Birch studied philosophy and history at Hillsdale College before working as a teacher of history, government and economics. He is now embarking on graduate study at George Mason University, pursuing a Master of Arts in International Security. His non-academic interests include cooking, hiking, football ( or ‘soccer’ for those uninitiated in the beautiful game), and apparently changing cities as often as possible. Black coffee or a peaty scotch, always. You can find him on Twitter

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63 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    I think that one of the things that will (inadvertently) help conservatives in the Culture War is that Social Media is helping accelerate things so very, very quickly.

    There is no longer time to argue “nobody is arguing for the strawman you’re portraying” before somebody starts arguing for the position that is now no longer a strawman.

    Very few people can pivot from “NOBODY IS ARGUING X!” to “would X be so bad, really?” to “It’s not like we haven’t been Xing since the Carter administration” to “why are you defending people who are opposed to X?” gracefully… and the period of time between positions shorter and shorter will make the difficulty of doing it gracefully greater and greater.

    On top of that, there’s this thing where if you miss a few cycles, you’re completely out of the loop… and there are a *TON* of people who aren’t engaging with the cycles *AT ALL*.

    So they’re waking up and finding out that their schools are discussing eliminating advanced math tracks and the people in charge of Applied Fairness are used to talking to people who haven’t done the required reading and so they’re stuck fumbling with their “why are you defending people opposed to X?” arguments against parents who aren’t even to the “NOBODY IS ARGUING X!” part of the conversation.

    It’ll snap back. Heck, all the conservatives have to do is not look even crazier.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Jaybird says:

      The problem with pointing out that nobody can pivot gracefully is that people will stop bothering to pivot, and will be angry at you for suggesting that they ought to have.Report

      • Chip Daniels in reply to DensityDuck says:

        Isn’t “pivoting” just “changing my opinion”?

        The context here makes it sound like some sort of criticism.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

          Not exactly.

          In an iterated game, “NOBODY IS ARGUING X!” eventually ceases to be an assertion about whether someone is arguing X but a deflection tactic against people who are arguing against X.

          And so on and so forth until it becomes apparent that these are waypoints down the slippery slope rather than arguments against a particular proposition.

          That is: If the changes happen in a short enough timespan, it becomes apparent that they are not opinions. They are, instead, tactics that mimic opinions.

          Note: This is something that becomes apparent with frequency. When this happens once a decade or so, there’s no problem. Hell, it probably is a legitimate pivot and evolution of a legit position.

          When it happens weekly? Not so much.Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

            OK, yeah argumentative tactics are frustrating, as anyone who has argued online can attest. And yes, social media leaves a long trail of who said what.

            Not sure why this is of a help to either side though. We’ve seen plenty of people “producing receipts” on any number of pundits in any given discussion.

            Maybe what the dynamic does is show how once-radical ideas become normed and moved from fringe to center.Report

            • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

              Not sure why this is of a help to either side though.

              It makes apparent the dynamic that “oh, we aren’t having a discussion where we are arguing propositions, they are using deflection techniques to avoid arguing against my position while the school board members actually change the curriculum” (or whatever).

              Knowing the terrain is usually much more useful than thinking it’s entirely different terrain.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                OK, but how does this help conservatives in the culture war?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                As more individuals notice that they keep following the same patterns and keep losing, it becomes possible to notice the patterns.

                Where the “help” comes in is in the ability to see the pattern and then change.

                Sort of a “if you keep doing the things you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the things you’ve always gotten”.

                Maybe they won’t win… but they’ll change.

                And maybe that’ll help.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                What “patterns”?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Stuff like going from “NOBODY IS ARGUING X!” to “would X be so bad, really?” to “It’s not like we haven’t been Xing since the Carter administration” to “why are you defending people who are opposed to X?”

                That sort of thing.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

                Play this out.

                Let’s say that an individual has a habit of sliding down a slippery slope. If he realizes it, then he’s arguing disingenuously and he isn’t persuadable. If he doesn’t realize it, maybe he is reachable. For me arguing against him, whether he realizes he’s doing this or not, I have the benefit of being able to score some points.

                Consider arguing against a movement that has a habit of sliding down the slope. At no time is any individual arguing in bad faith, though. Can any individual be reached with an accusation of slopeness? He can look inside and see no change in his positions. He’ll shut down upon being accused. And for my part, if I start treating each individual as a member of a slopeish movement, I lose my ability to interact with any of them other than to score points.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Would noticing this argumentative pattern also help liberals?

                Or do you think motte and baily slippery slope stuff only happens on one side of the aisle?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Yes, notice the patterns! Notice when someone isn’t using arguments as much as deflections that merely mimic arguments.

                Ask probing arguments. See whether their positions are based on sentiment or on conclusions from the evidence that they’ve seen so far.

                Do they get visibly agitated when their sentiments are challenged?

                When presented with evidence, do they look at it or work hard to give excuses for why they aren’t going to look at it?

                In any given argument, do they take the side of the little guy? Do they find reasons to explain why institutional power is in the right?

                Notice patterns!Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Notice when someone isn’t using arguments as much as deflections that merely mimic arguments.

                Good advice, well taken.Report

  2. Chip Daniels says:

    Modern conservatives aren’t fighting a cultural counterinsurgency, though.
    They ARE the cultural insurgency, and will tell you that themselves.

    They have never come to terms with what caused them to lose the struggle for cultural dominance, and instead just become ever more zealous and extreme. For anyone who is not white male Christian and straight, its difficult to imagine where one might fit in in the world they promote.

    Or rather, it is easily imaginable, but not desirable.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      They don’t understand that they are the Palestinians and we are Israel.Report

      • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird says:

        As Tonto told the Lone Ranger when they were surrounded by hostile Indians: “What do you mean ‘we,’ paleface?”Report

        • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci says:

          Your use of Native American imagery is also pretty appropriate for the dynamic.

          They lost. We won.Report

          • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird says:

            To repeat the question, who is “We”?Report

            • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci says:

              Well, let’s look at what Chip said:

              Modern conservatives aren’t fighting a cultural counterinsurgency, though.
              They ARE the cultural insurgency, and will tell you that themselves.

              They have never come to terms with what caused them to lose the struggle for cultural dominance, and instead just become ever more zealous and extreme. For anyone who is not white male Christian and straight, its difficult to imagine where one might fit in in the world they promote.

              Or rather, it is easily imaginable, but not desirable.

              (emphasis added)

              “We” are the people who are winning. We are the people who the conservatives are insurgent against. We are the people who they fight.

              We are those who are not white male Christian and straight.Report

              • North in reply to Jaybird says:

                I’ll happily disagree with Chip. Modern liberal discourse has no animus against people who’re white, straight, cis or of any faith or none. Nor should it. Most crt style ideologies are about uplifting other groups but they don’t and shouldn’t be about denigrating anyone and, inasmuch as they do, they should be rejected for the racist bigoted tripe they are.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Because white and nonwhite people can’t be on the same side?Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird says:

                That may be what Chip said. What do you say?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci says:

                I was running with what he said.

                And making comparisons from there.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                You didn’t “run with” what I said.

                I said nonwhite people have a hard time seeing themselves in the world envisioned by conservatives, and you did some Simone Biles spectacular backward somersault leap of illogic to land with:

                “[nonwhite people] are winning.”

                Do you see why there isn’t any logic connecting those two things?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                I guess I didn’t understand what you meant when you said:

                Modern conservatives aren’t fighting a cultural counterinsurgency, though.
                They ARE the cultural insurgency, and will tell you that themselves.

                I assumed that when you said that they weren’t a counter-insurgency but, instead, an insurgency that they were fighting against an established order, rather than fighting against people who were trying to change the established order.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Where is the logic that ties that together with “[nonwhite people] are winning.”?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                It has to deal with the nature of “insurgency”.

                Here, this is from Wikipedia:

                An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents (lawful combatants).

                I was expecting that you were using the word similarly… that is, that you meant that modern conservatives were fighting against authority.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Yes…and?

                Lay out a logic that connects this to “[nonwhite people] are winning.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                The authority, I assume, are non-white, or non-male, non-Christian, or non-straight.

                So it’s not necessarily that everyone is not white.

                Some of them might merely be Unitarian.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                Why would you assume that?

                Where are these nonwhite authority centers that conservatives are fighting against?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                Chip, please understand, I was arguing against the position that said the following:

                Modern conservatives aren’t fighting a cultural counterinsurgency, though.
                They ARE the cultural insurgency, and will tell you that themselves.

                They have never come to terms with what caused them to lose the struggle for cultural dominance, and instead just become ever more zealous and extreme. For anyone who is not white male Christian and straight, its difficult to imagine where one might fit in in the world they promote.

                Or rather, it is easily imaginable, but not desirable.

                Now, if you want to say that no reasonable person could be imagined to say such an asinine thing, I guess I’d agree. When one reads it, one is tempted to call it a strawman being made to discredit the left.Report

              • Chip Daniels in reply to Jaybird says:

                You seem to have abandoned any argument at all.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                What else is new?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Chip Daniels says:

                P THEN Q
                Q THEN R

                R is absurd.

                NOT PReport

              • Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird says:

                Without looking at any of the actual arguments, I learned a long time ago not to attempt proof by contradiction with people who didn’t have enough hard math background.

                And for FSM’s sake, never try mathematical induction.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Michael Cain says:

                “enough”

                Enough used to be less.Report

    • Greginak in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      There was never as much cultural dominance by anyone as people suggest. That is mostly an artifact of media from the the 30s to the 70s.it was almost all white straight people. But the there was always ethnics who spoke the language of the old country and held a variety of values. Blacks, native Americans etc always had very different views. You know this. Wasp cultural dominance was a product of what we saw on the limited media options and Wasps not caring what others thought. Loss of that dominance is just everybody having a seat at the table.Report

  3. 0.Find a leader who isn’t Donald Trump

    would be a start.Report

  4. Pinky says:

    The author seems to think that conservatives are primarily political and confrontational. I’d say that conservatives tend to avoid politics, and would prefer to have a conversation about culture. Andrew Breitbart often said that politics is downstream from culture, while it’s the left that says that the personal is political. As for being confrontational, I think that varies by temperament. The right isn’t as confrontational as the left in general. So all in all I think this article has some decent ideas bit is a little misaimed. I’d also like to see a greater fleshing out of what the author thinks a conservative counter-insurgency would look like.Report

  5. Brandon Berg says:

    The tern “culture war” is a calque of the German Kulturkampf. “Culture struggle” would be a more accurate translation and a more apt term, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.Report

  6. Greginak says:

    I hate the CW rhetoric. It’s toxic. Cultures can’t be won or lost. It’s an entirely inapt metaphor. Cultures are the product of everybody and change constantly in a way no one can foresee or control. We have always had people with differing values and beliefs living around each other. We still even do with partisan sorting.

    The concept of the narcissism of small differences applies to a lot of culture war issues. Some people will harp on some people watch basketball and others watch football. And omg some folks drive trucks and others cars. Which is funny when they are both driving Toyotas or fords. Many of our differences are minor at most and wouldn’t be noticed if it didn’t drive attention and hate. The Sohrabs of the world just want power and control.Report

  7. Brent F says:

    One of the issues with taking one of Clauswitz’s maxims at face value is that his work posits multiple somewhat contridcitory statements about war to help lead the reader towards a synthesis. So war in “On War” is both politics by other means but also an elemental wrestling match respecting no rules but its own.

    Both views are somewhat true but incomplete and the synthesis comes from keeping both in mind. So this is the issue with quoting Clauswitz out of context because the individual quotes are never intended to be a complete view of something so complex as warfare. So if you don’t entirely agree with one of them, good. That’s exactly the point.Report