Your argument is that talking about any culture (presumably other than one's own?) is racist by default?

And it’s not just a code-whistle, the association of culture and race was proliferated explicitly during segregation. It’s one of the main whistles. Controlling narratives about culture is very important to supremacists.

You said that not me, so nope not my argument. I’m haven’t even been arguing. Just talking about about culture.

I'm just trying to get a feel for what your position is. Do you think WN should lock this thread or do you think we would ever be able to have an educational discussion here?

It’s a position in reaction to gun violence I have seen as well. Gun users citing culture as if it’s someone else’s culture. Are they really talking about culture when they are acting like they aren’t in it too?

None of my business. I think talking about how culture is used in politics is probably good for society, and for culture.

Buckley was a mainstream conservative; him using "culture" as a dogwhistle in exactly the way I claimed conservatives do in my first post seems kind of relevant. But the real head-scratcher here is why this upset you so much that it sent you on a spree of ad-homenim "you need to get out more!" posts. The idea that a ****ing segregationist used coded language to advance white supremacy isn't an especially controversial take! It's an odd thing to get angry about!

That **** went out of style in like the mid-2000s. I'm feeling like maybe you aren't the expert in urban youth culture that you claim to be.

Anybody whose first thought is "culture = racism" does need to get out more. It's a tell.
And I'm not angry about Buckley but he was CIA.

It's still in style, the jeans are just too small now instead of too big

Clearly not what I said. Calm down, re-read it.

Seems irrelevant, but okay? I thought you agreed that the establishment uses racism to divide people?

Yeah, it's good to know that I was not the only one stuck in a style from 17 years ago. The urban youth still dress that way here.

It’s a tell that you had no clue that the word culture has a peculiar and specific reference of use in society and politics, one which you dismiss by speculating about people’s first thoughts.

Not everyone takes race-baiting as performance art the way folks here do*. I'm fine if that's my own reverse tell.
*Race-baiting culture

I think there is a distinct difference in the way culture is used politically and societally. Politics is the art of manipulation so yes, culture is used in manipulative ways through rhetoric on the political level. Society at large isn't using culture to frame racism. Just because the lowest common denominator is willing to do that doesn't mean any representation of the majority is willing to do so.

Seems like what you said
Yeah. They do. And we could talk about that. It has been discussed. Does culture still exist though or is it just a dogwhistle? I'm going with it exists.

Seems like we ought to be able to agree that when CIA lizard people like Buckley talk about the need to defend "American culture" they are making a coded appeal to white supremacy and aren't actually talking about jazz and baseball. And yet here we are.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you don't really know how to engage honestly in a discussion.
What is the purpose of this thread? Is it to define what culture is or it to just argue repeatedly that any discussion of culture is racist?
This is just like in the Islam thread with the anti-intellectualism that took over that thread for the first 50% of its history.

I'm happy to agree to this statement fwiw: "when people like Buckley talk about the need to defend 'American culture' they are making a coded appeal to white supremacy and aren't actually talking about jazz and baseball."

It's certainly true with Buckley specifically, from everything I've ever read of his.

From the other direction though, in relation to some of the posts I quoted, I think it's worth pointing out that when we worry about the influence of racist ideas in American society (whether overt or in more subtle forms) we're also concerned about culture. Hence the term "culture wars," for example. Hence the idea that concerns about cultural racism can't be addressed by simply making culture a synonym for race, or denying the existence of culture, or limiting our understanding of culture to art.

I'm sure the disconnect in this thread is mostly just that the OP is too long.

I think you meant though for us to be discussing Boas, Mead, and Lévi-Strauss, but instead we're talking about Buckley. It won't get us anywhere to answering the op but it's the only bell some people are playing.
It is possible to force them to acknowledge culture is real?
People literally denying anthropology as a field does sort of tilt me a little.

Boas, Mead, and Lévi-Strauss Geertz. I never got through Tristes Tropiques :P

I think you're making a mistake here to write off those behaviors as not cultural. The whole concept of "self-worth" even is a cultural idea and attitudes about wealth and conformity are also no doubt highly influenced by cultural pressures/ideas that extend beyond the neighborhood level.

In my opinion, you're being too charitable. The first "culture=dogwhistling" post was posted by Trolly, and he didn't even attempt to read the OP. Your OP was almost literally irrelevant from the get-go because it was deep and nuanced, two qualities totally rejected by knee-jerk partisans

The confederate flag is emblematic of a problematic subculture, but so is females being mothers in ads, to some.

Yeah? So you’ll deny stuff about the use of the word culture that anyone can go see for themselves in order to conform to the sharing of the stereotype of “race-baiting” supremacists have performed for you?

Are you a culture-baiter? Do you wait until someone describes how people use the word culture and then jump in to deny it?