Post #3521685

What is the story that we want to tell? What does a pluralist society with both political and economic democracy look like? How do we avoid demanding conformity of each other, even when our differences appear fundamental and irreconcilable? What is the fundamental promise of the left, rooted not in "immortal science" or other slogans, but in care and love of humanity and the world? The basic premise of pluralism is that in-group and out-group distinctions are important and precious on a personal and social level but toxic on the political level. This means that subcultural signaling must take secondary precedence to some kind of universally meaningful story—but there is no such thing as a story that's universally meaningful, at least not with the same meaning. Sometimes to win a war you have to change the rules of engagement. I think that the Culture War is one of those situations: reject the notion that it's a culture war at all, reconfigure the framing.¹ Why have we failed so far to do this? God, I feel like I'm just talking nonsense but I feel that this is so important. ¹) and no, it's not a class war, at least not in the Marxist meaning of class. That's been lost already, the hypotheses have been updated