Feel free to have a read through the religion & science thread, for example.

So, for example, I'm co-author of a paper on religious deconversion. We did a content analysis of narratives people posted to an online forum, describing their deconversion processes.

One of the most interesting things, to me, was seeing how all these different aspects -- emotional, social, intellectual -- intertwined in people's accounts. People definitely do talk about beliefs, and doubts. Some spend a lot of time trying to understand history, or to evaluate specific claims of religious texts, to persuade themselves that their doubts are legitimate. But it seemed that the hardest part of deconverting was not usually resolving the intellectual questions, but dissolving social ties, and coping with family and community members. What keeps people affiliated is as much social pressure as belief.

I agree with all of this, and to be sure, my criticism towards religion is intended to be directed as you described, although I am usually remiss in fully qualifying it and have a habit of just using "religion" as a shortcut for those things.

I feel like this statement applies to most (all?) social institutions and norms.

I tried to use this logic to argue to some of the more ideologically dedicated members of this forum that they probably would have been very enthusiastic Nazis had they been born in Germany in the early 20th century. In case you were wondering, it was not a particularly persuasive argument, although I do think there is some truth there nonetheless.

Yes! Probably so. Durkheim approves.

kelhus, idk if you missed this or you're ignoring it, but I'm not playing that game where you ignore me and then expect me to acknowledge or respond to other things you post

Probably a little bit of A and a little bit of B. I admit in a vacuum I don't have a clue where you are even going with those questions. Give me a minute to figure out in context how to answer.

Well, it seems those are all differing viewpoints/norms that have been resolved without a violent overthrow of the ruling class. Marxism is intractable in its absolutism there can be no resolution without such a revolution.

The author in that article seems to be arguing that the Marxist-like philosophies of the current progressive movement are similarly intractable.

The philosophical mantra of the current movement seems to be something along the lines of, "We must always revolt against oppressive whiteness, but short of overthrow of Western Civilization it is a battle that will never be resolved."

ok, so you're just talking about imaginary people again

it's a good thing feudalism and slavery were ended without violence

why can't we end capitalism in the same non-violent ways?

Well, here is something Derrick Bell (A Harvard professor who is considered one of the most influential thinkers in Critical Race Theory) wrote:

Probably my best known story is The Space Traders,29 which I wrote to convince a resisting class that the patterns of sacrificing black rights to further white interests, so present in American history, pose a continuing threat. In the story, as at least some of you know, aliens from outer space visit this country on New Year’s Day in the year 2000. They promise wealth in the form of gold, environmental-cleansing material, and a substitute for fossil fuels. If accepted, their gold and space-age technology will guarantee another century of prosperity for the nation. In return for these wares, the space traders want to take back to their home star all black people. Given two weeks to *903 decide, Americans in a variety of settings debate the trade offer. Finally, in a referendum vote, they opt for the trade by a seventy to thirty percentage. The story ends:
The last Martin Luther King holiday the nation would ever observe dawned on an extraordinary sight. In the night, the Space Traders had drawn their strange ships right up to the beaches and discharged their cargoes of gold, minerals, and machinery, leaving vast empty holds. Crowded on the beaches were the inductees, some twenty million silent black men, women, and children, including babes in arms. As the sun rose, the Space Traders directed them, first, to strip off all but a single undergarment; then, to line up; and finally, to enter those holds which yawned in the morning light like Milton’s “darkness visible.” The inductees looked fearfully behind them. But, on the dunes above the beaches, guns at the ready, stood U.S. guards. There was no escape, no alternative. Heads bowed, arms now linked by slender chains, black people left the New World as their forbears [sic] had arrived.30

--Not a particularly optimistic outlook. I have read some stuff from him and others and I don't really recall anyone arguing that it is actually possible to resolve the tension between discriminatory white society and actual equality short of a complete revolution.

It seems embedded in the intellectual ethos of this movement that the struggle between the liberal white ruling class and the intersectional movement is intractable.

I was watching a Ken Burns documentary on country and I learned that for a brief time Billboard called the country charts the Hillbilly Charts.

We should bring that back.

Speaking of hillbillies, my hometown made it into Inside Higher Ed.

well named

Storm coming

I definitely have a different perspective on some things than this author, but it was still an interesting read in the WAAF genre.

I'm not necessarily that concerned with gaming out specific scenarios and trying to figure out what is likely. This was interesting to me though:

I think this might have the causality somewhat backwards (although surely there's a vicious circle). The deterioration of shared identity and social solidarity leads to increasing polarization, which in turn leads to people viewing their opponents and their agendas as wholly illegitimate, which is the justification for escalating the winner-takes-all political power moves and the "vanishing ability to lose an election."

I'm sure my perspective is biased and partial, but I feel like my entire adult life I've watched the right ratchet up the rhetoric around the illegitimacy of the political left, often based in various moral causes of importance to religious conservatives. Or I always think of Sarah Palin's "real Americans." Those culture war issues surely contributed to the escalation of norm-breaking by conservatives in congress. We're just now getting to the point where Democrats are thinking seriously about a tit-for-tat strategy.

You should check out the history with regards to the war on judges, it really started during the Reagan admin, and has continued to present day. The 67% confirmation rate of Bush II's judges (when Clinton had about an 88% confirmation rate, although the Senate Democrats were pissed about delays from Republicans, but the Democrats have had a strategy of blocking conservative justices for several decades now) that's led to some of the behavior Obama received from the Senate.

I find it ridiculous that you don't think the Democrats have broken Senate norms for political expediency...

I'm sure that Democrats have bent norms at times too, and equally sure that I don't have a complete history. But confirmation rates going from 88 -> 67% doesn't sound like egregious obstructionism to me, offhand, even assuming that there was no relevant change in the profile of the average nominee (which is a generous assumption, I imagine).

(and the article you linked is illustrative of a process of escalation that Republicans very much precipitated, IMO. Which isn't to say that the end result is good. I agree with the author that the end result has been bad. But it's not clear to me what strategy is available to congressional Democrats in that scenario besides tit-for-tat)

Moved a slew of posts to the SCOTUS thread, if you are here trying to find your posts. Deleted a few of the gems along the way.

What happened?

edit: nevermind, I see.

Meth is a hell of a drug.

Last night I was reading a book recommended to me a while ago and I realized I had seen this sentence before:

It is a great turn of phrase.