The society should be left to evolve on its own, in a natural way. If we don't want to replace small disasters with big disasters.
There is no such thing as natural society. Society is constructed by humans.
The philosophy of the cultural liberals is to remove restrictions that inhibit people from living the social lives they want.
The cultural socialists want to use the power of institutions to distribute a culture across the population. They believe their culture is societally optimal so reducing liberties to propagate it is morally justified.
I’m sure most peoples beliefs lie somewhere in between the two. But the cultural socialism maximalists in the west have been getting louder and louder and it’s beginning to terrify me.
I predict in the next 5 years, womens’ voting rights will be an actual political topic. It will start with “ironic” jokes and “rational” thinking but will get increasingly normalized in discourse.
We are already at the "ironic" jokes and "rational" thinking phase. Terrifying.
Being transgressive is definitely cool for disaffected trust fund kids who didn’t get into Deloitte, but I think there are darker undercurrents like you are implying.
The real irony in all of this is the post-modern and Marxist influences of the movement. Which is hilarious due to the Red Scare level of hysteria reactionaries have about those ideologies.
I really don't like the "cultural socialism" phrase. There are too many connotations in it and it's probably too vague for everyone. The way I see it there are really three extremes you can take on any political issue: One is an authoritarian preservation (or restoration) of culture, another is the authoritarian deconstruction (or liberation) of culture, and one is the libertarian position (which is almost moderate by definition; the individual communities are left to figure out what they want.)
The socialists/communists/bolsheviks (and in a more moderate sense, progressives) or in other words "The Left" are near the "authoritarian deconstruction" extreme. Examples of these might be the American progressives trying to take control of children's sexuality away from parents or the people writing laws against the cast system in India.
The Fascists, monarchists, religious fundamentalists, and in a moderate sense conservatives, or in other words "The Right" are near the "authoritarian preservation" extreme. Examples of these include the Taliban, America First etc.
The libertarians/liberals/anarchists are what we already know. Something I don't think people appreciate about them though is that they allow for consensus in some situations where none is achievable. People often confuse them for the Right because of the US's tradition of liberty and because of the freedom of association thing. They confuse them for the left because of how destructive anarchy is.
None of these extremes are ideal. All degenerate into something horrible if you lean hard into any one. It's much easier to understand your own position on any topic along with someone else's because they become a vector of sorts made up of these.
I think you've grouped the two authoritarian extremes under "cultural socialists" and are confused because they're different phenomena (often reactions to each other.)
Edit responding to your edit: I 100% agree that any extreme is bad. A society with no restrictions would be anarchy (note mores and peer pressure are means of restriction). But in a democratic society, anti-democratic ideas must be resisted. Once the structures of power are changed, it’s almost impossible to reverse. Therefore, I believe it is imperative to call out these ideas for what they are.
Also I disagree that progressives fall in the same bucket as leftists. All leftists are authoritarian leaning but progressives can be liberal or authoritarian.
I don’t think it’s usefully either to endlessly categorize political movements. If you are partial to post-modern thought, you could say categorizing things is a way of exerting power of them. This has clearly been the runbook historically of dismantling the left in America. This is mostly self afflicted due to the tendency of the left to over intellectualize things, but there has been a conscious effort by provocateurs to infiltrate left wing groups and cause discord.
I sympathize with the critique of democracy. However the failure of more authoritarian systems of governing is and always has been the lack of transparency and trust. In a democratic style of government there’s at least an attempt of oversight. Good luck making a FOIA request to a king or private corporation. Autocrats abuse this flaw to amass power and wealth for themselves at the expense of the population.
Democracy is also inextricably tied to civil liberties. Disenfranchised citizens have less recourse when their civil liberties are attacked
No, you didn't. HN will sometimes hide the "reply" link, but you can always reply by clicking the "ago" link.
jk, thx for the info
Are you sure you desire democracy? Because democracy literally means "will of the people" not "will of the elites".
Democracy is another extreme you don't want. Many people have written about how destructive it can be and should definitely be balanced with something slower (in the past this was an aristocracy/monarchy, in the US and Canada you have the Senate.) I really don't think maximizing democracy should be an objective.
To respond to your edit: This categorization is a pretty old one that comes from the french revolution. I think it makes empathy easier which makes political ideas much easier to communicate and reason about. Precise definitions and catagories (as long as they're consistent) are not oppression, they're necessary for communication.
What isn't helpful at all, on the contrary, is thinking about new words how to call disabled people.
A big challenge with rigid social expectations is identifying the beneficial ones and removing the harmful ones. In practice, there tends to be little introspection about which traditional expectations help and which ones hurt. Instead, people appeal to tradition itself as evidence that an expectation is helpful. If we could more effectively iterate on these social expectations then we'd be able to more effectively optimize. But efforts to do this (e.g., discussion of topics like "toxic masculinity") are by-and-large rejected out of hand by traditionalists.
Another challenge is that social expectations may help on average but they may completely fail in individual cases. For example, having both parents raise a child will, on average, lead to improved outcomes. But if we codify this as a rigid rule, then people are unable to escape abusive relationships where the presence of both parents is a negative. Social expectations are necessarily generalizations and people need the freedom to identify when they are not helpful for their particular situation and adjust accordingly.