Comment by TheOtherHobbes
5 days ago
That's not a joke. This piece is so ridiculously tone deaf precisely because it lacks any hint of self-awareness that exactly the same performative priggishness is normal for the right - with the difference that it's aggressively economically self-serving, often irrational and sometimes anti-scientific, rather than simply annoying.
IMO the priggishness is baked into American culture, which is descended from cranky puritans and literally defined itself as the most moral (police) force in the world after genociding the original inhabitants of the continent and setting up a culture for billionaires that leaves even qualified and talented workers increasingly insecure about housing and health care.
In reality "woke" has been a hugely convenient way for the US establishment to confine the Left to a ghetto of minority interests, especially about sexuality. Because if the Left rediscovered economic justice as a cause it would cross political boundaries and become a raging wildfire. (See also - Luigi.)
So now we have anti-woke for the wannabe intellectuals, and Q for the useful idiots.
Meanwhile Graham is more outraged - outraged I say - by how annoying feminism etc are than by election interference, raw milk drinkers, and the spread of lunatic propaganda about vaccinations and climate science.
A side note, but I had no idea raw milk was a right political signaling in the US. Coming from a Swedish perspective, raw milk is a question about how tight the health control is in the dairy industry. I have always find it an "interesting" approach that in Sweden we have a very much scorched earth approach to dealing with any case where farm animals has any human-transmittable problems. If a test fail you kill all the cows in that farm, possible his neighbors farm stock too if they are too close, and the farmers get "just enough" money to restart the farm. Raw milk does still carry a bit higher risk for young children, women during pregnancy, and the elderly, so there is a recommendation against drinking it for those groups. Sellers also need to register in a special registry if they sell raw milk, and they get extra attention from inspectors.
For those not in the high risk groups, it just an choice based on personal taste. It seems a bit funny that the reason why it is allowed to be sold is directly related to the heavy regulation that enforces such high amount of testing (and strict consequences), so that the product is generally safe regardless of added pasteurization.
> A side note, but I had no idea raw milk was a right political signaling in the US
Remember a lot of people who are “proudly white” always mention lactose tolerance. They also carry tiki torches.
I looked into the studies regarding the health benefits and the consensus I found was a big amount of shrug. It is true that heating the milk do break down nutrients and enzymes, but the significance of it from pasteurization is an decrease in the realm of 7-10%. The kind of feed the cow eats has a much bigger significance, so comparing raw milk with pasteurized milk is comparing a small number that is hidden in a large number of noisy data.
In term of lactose tolerance, the consensus seems to be that raw milk is slight worse for people with that problem, but again only with a very small margin. It is most likely related to that 7-10% number above.
1 reply →
[flagged]
Not so sure about this…raw milk was absolutely a thing in the community I grew up in (ultra conservative, ultra religious, anti-vax, anti-regulation).
I don’t think most people were aware of this until it made the rounds on social media, but even if some people are joking, it’s a real thing.
2 replies →
While I personally think the sale of raw milk is fine as long as adequate monitoring, audits and warning labels are in place, this was very much a serious political phenomenon and I’m not sure how you missed it
> (The Iowa vote broke almost perfectly along party lines with nearly all Republicans in favor and only a handful of Democrats defecting to their side.) And it’s not just in Iowa. Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, Georgia and Wyoming all have passed laws (or changed regulations) since 2020 legalizing the sale of raw milk on farms or in stores.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/10/the-alt-ri...
> the same performative priggishness is normal for the right
Priggishness means self-righteous, performative morality. Can you give an example of this that is normal for US right-wingers? They certainly have plenty of daft ideas (e.g. anti-vax), but I haven't seen right-wingers being priggish about them. Priggish would be positioning themselves as superior people for living in an unvaccinated neighborhood or working for an anti-vax employer, or proclaiming that they will not date a vaccinated person, or vaccinating their baby in secret while posting the opposite on social media, or cancelling a public figure who gets outed as vaccinated, etc.
> Priggishness means self-righteous, performative morality. Can you give an example of this that is normal for US right-wingers?
The first that sprung to mind:
> An update by the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom recently released preliminary data stating, "between January 1 and August 31, 2023, OIF reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles - a 20% increase from the same reporting period in 2022." Many of the book titles targeted were BIPOC and LGBT groups. The book bans are largely the result of laws passed in Republican-led states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_banning_in_the_United_S...
You could argue that nationalism and traditionalist conservativism are predominantly performative within right-wing politics in the US - if this is not immediately evident then compare these ideas against the character and actions of those who get voted by the electorate.
Can't excessive anti wokeness be a form of priggishness.
What if someone says "that was sexist" and let's assume it was. Then, complaining that s/he who said it, is too woke, can itself be priggishness? The morally right thing, in that community, might be to be anti woke.
> Because if the Left rediscovered economic justice as a cause it would cross political boundaries and become a raging wildfire. (See also - Luigi.)
There is a definitely a new discourse gaining traction post-Luigi that the polarization between left and right has been used as a distraction to the ever widening disparity in wealth, and the receding quality of life in the West.
> Meanwhile Graham is more outraged - outraged I say - by how annoying feminism etc are than by election interference
I've no insights into the specific nature of PG's outrage, but I imagine some in the SV entrepreneurial bubble might be concerned with how effective activists can be at ruining financial ledgers using boycotts and the like. Such power wielded by the plebs can be concerning, especially when businesses need to stay solvent, so it is indeed best to keep a lid on it.
There’s also the perception the Trump administration will be a pay-to-play game and anyone who doesn’t show signs of alignment will be prevented from participating in decision-making, industry incentives, government contracts and so on.
I don’t think there is any sensible person on the planet that hasn’t noticed that.
> anyone who doesn’t show signs of alignment will be prevented from participating in decision-making, industry incentives, government contracts
Is that why Tesla, the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles wasn't allowed to attend the electric vehicle summit?
1 reply →