There are conformist subcultures and individualist subcultures. Conformist subcultures are found in sparsely populated rural areas, where people need to come togeather to get big stuff done (especially in history). Individualist subcultures are found in cities and suburbs.
If you ask these people to describe themselves, conformist people often tell you many characteristics that describe their relation to people around them. Individualist people usually have only few or none.
This can be seen globally in various things and in how people think. Especially in the value of individuality. For some people it is a virtue to think the same way as others and it’s a good thing that dissidents are “reeducated”. They are “broken” and need to be “mended”.
Western way of thinking in average is very individualistic. Russian and Asian thinking is more conformist. What changed in the recent decades is that internet and social media amplified the voice of western conformists subcultures. Changeing the average. They are no longer “hidden in the countryside” with their small local print media.
Social science stuff over.
It is my own observation that people from conformist subcultures tend to like more authoritarian leaders. Doesn’t really matter if it’s left or right. That is determined more by local culture and history.
However, conformists wan’t to vote the same way as others. Throw a big enough wrench in there and shift can be sudden.
If you let them stay in their bubble and just yell profanities at them, you’ll just make sure that nothing changes.
I always feel like we’re off to a weird place when someone categorizes things as “western”. There are countries with radically different approaches to life and government being lumped into this weird, dated catch-all.
I found your post above really interesting, and well thought out. This said, I don’t agree that everything boils down to individualistic and conformist subcultures. I think it really does boil down, more often than not, to media consumption and skepticality.
I have members of my family that are hard-right Trump supporters. They all came from one of the largest cities in California, and now have an irrational hate for their home. I’ve spoken with them about political topics, and they aren’t capable of defending their viewpoints at all. They always seem to indicate that everyone who disagrees with them is perversely ignorant.
If anything, the cities are the conformist cultures. People who live close to others are forced to often hear viewpoints that may force them to challenge their own world views. This is often surrounding accepting others, and understanding and calling out bad behavior. In this way, there is a very real forced conformism taking place. If you’re going to live in a big city, you need to be tolerant.
And that right there… US Conservatives hate it. They don’t want to change, not even when it means shedding a cruel trait they learned from a backwards person. On the other end, the far-left can often get carried away and conflate ignorance with cruelty (e.g. An old dude calling a trans woman by the wrong pronoun by mistake.)
It’s become a vexing culture war where everyone seems to want to destroy the opposition. And it’s being stoked by foreign influences like Russia to no end, too.
Your dead on about your analysis of the “bubbles”, though. If people can’t recognize the other side is the same as them in more ways than it’s different, then this division will only grow nastier and nastier until it destroys and/or destabilizes life as we know it.
It goes deeper than that.
There are conformist subcultures and individualist subcultures. Conformist subcultures are found in sparsely populated rural areas, where people need to come togeather to get big stuff done (especially in history). Individualist subcultures are found in cities and suburbs.
If you ask these people to describe themselves, conformist people often tell you many characteristics that describe their relation to people around them. Individualist people usually have only few or none.
This can be seen globally in various things and in how people think. Especially in the value of individuality. For some people it is a virtue to think the same way as others and it’s a good thing that dissidents are “reeducated”. They are “broken” and need to be “mended”.
Western way of thinking in average is very individualistic. Russian and Asian thinking is more conformist. What changed in the recent decades is that internet and social media amplified the voice of western conformists subcultures. Changeing the average. They are no longer “hidden in the countryside” with their small local print media.
Social science stuff over.
It is my own observation that people from conformist subcultures tend to like more authoritarian leaders. Doesn’t really matter if it’s left or right. That is determined more by local culture and history.
However, conformists wan’t to vote the same way as others. Throw a big enough wrench in there and shift can be sudden.
If you let them stay in their bubble and just yell profanities at them, you’ll just make sure that nothing changes.
I always feel like we’re off to a weird place when someone categorizes things as “western”. There are countries with radically different approaches to life and government being lumped into this weird, dated catch-all.
I found your post above really interesting, and well thought out. This said, I don’t agree that everything boils down to individualistic and conformist subcultures. I think it really does boil down, more often than not, to media consumption and skepticality.
I have members of my family that are hard-right Trump supporters. They all came from one of the largest cities in California, and now have an irrational hate for their home. I’ve spoken with them about political topics, and they aren’t capable of defending their viewpoints at all. They always seem to indicate that everyone who disagrees with them is perversely ignorant.
If anything, the cities are the conformist cultures. People who live close to others are forced to often hear viewpoints that may force them to challenge their own world views. This is often surrounding accepting others, and understanding and calling out bad behavior. In this way, there is a very real forced conformism taking place. If you’re going to live in a big city, you need to be tolerant.
And that right there… US Conservatives hate it. They don’t want to change, not even when it means shedding a cruel trait they learned from a backwards person. On the other end, the far-left can often get carried away and conflate ignorance with cruelty (e.g. An old dude calling a trans woman by the wrong pronoun by mistake.)
It’s become a vexing culture war where everyone seems to want to destroy the opposition. And it’s being stoked by foreign influences like Russia to no end, too.
Your dead on about your analysis of the “bubbles”, though. If people can’t recognize the other side is the same as them in more ways than it’s different, then this division will only grow nastier and nastier until it destroys and/or destabilizes life as we know it.