There were things in the past that two sides chose to oppose each other on. There are opposing sides on today’s hot topics. There will be opposing sides in the future. All Culture War topics are not created equal and like gematria dumbing it down to a manageable level for the critical thinking challenged, some things explode way out of proportion to their actual relevance.
Returning to one of my old favorites, Scientology - the product being sold is a complete sham. You did not actually have the souls of angry dead aliens that needed expensive classes to be removed. The indoctrination happens slowly over time. You never hear the infamous Xenu story until you’ve been exposed to some slightly more lucid topics. Maybe you got some benefit from their anti-drug program. Maybe you dislike psychiatrists and fell for that selling point. Maybe you fell for the celebrity endorsements and thought your acting career would take off. Hey, it worked for Cruise, Travolta and Alley, why not me?
Those with a logic and evidence based outlook often do the eye roll thing when a Culture War topic takes off and develops a life of its own beyond its true significance. Like it is some hill you choose to die on significance. Arguably, something consistently proven to be a harmful long term sham like Scientology deserves to be boycotted if governments behave ineffectually. Still arguably, but less arguably is what happens when people get fired up over things like beer and toys.
The Barbie movie is the current big issue, and don’t let your inner Dunning Kruger get in the way of thinking it doesn’t have an impact on people other than yourself. If conservatives get their way Barbie will be banned in all forms except a monogamous housewife spending all her time in the Barbie custom kitchen and the Talking Barbie pull cord only espouses traditional Christian values. At least from the way they talk about it. In reality, it’s just another arbitrary scapegoat. Barbies, when I worked for Toys R Us, were not the money marker. It was the custom kitchen, clothes, the car and the fringe things in the Barbie World that were the real profit producers. Putting a GI Joe in a pink car was something that just wasn’t meant to be done. No real Barbie lover would dare do that and at least admit it in public.
They start the kiddies off young with the Purity fallacy, appealing to the purity dichotomy of boys doing boy things and girls doing girl things. Mark did his thing, Shania did her thing and never the Twain shall meet. After growing up, and moving beyond toys, now as a voting age person instead of an appeal to nostalgia to market selling tickets to a movie it’s the end of the world since no true Republican would have anything to do with Barbie. The funny thing is, if you dig around in history pretty much every toy has been advertised in some way that can be deemed as offensive. The slow witted just fall for the rhetoric that’s being pushed by the top of the food chain. The only real solution is no toys at all.
This all or nothing except when I expose my hypocrisy mentality is more emphatic with the Bud Light culture war boycott. Hopefully you don’t give your children beer since they aren’t allowed to play with toys any more. No voting age types have put a hit on Bud Light, successfully knocking it off the number one spot on best selling beer list. Funny thing is Modelo is the new number one. And everywhere outside the United States is owned by Anheuser-Busch who also owns Bud Light. If you don’t mind that obvious hypocrisy, if you dig deep enough you can find advertisers try to be inclusive to as much different culture as possible and have at one time or another done something that could set off the boycott brigades. The only real solution is to not drink any beer at all if you really think Bud Light is so bad. But the beer situation gets worse. Now there’s a frivolous lawsuit by a presidential candidate because his state’s pension funds took a hit because his side got his idiots fired up about Bud Light and they lost money. No true Republican would not sue for creating a problem by making a mountain out of a molehill.
Let’s not forget that you can’t have a culture war without an opposing side. The liberal response invariably overcompensates by endless talking about these trivial issues, like a big cloud of no true Democrat would ever… arguments to attempt to counter the gung ho attitude of the other side. Giving the pointless argument fuel and oxygen. The endless psychological pressure of choosing one side or another by the example of how you spend your money. The only real winners are the grifters who keep bringing up both sides, going with the flow of what is getting the most engagement.
The real solution is an understanding of building blocks and how the whole is sum of its parts, and not good or bad based on one individual component. So, I return to my vaccine analogy. The gematria crowd affiliated themselves with the anti-science crowd. When Covid hit, the first significant pandemic in quite awhile they climbed on to the Covid is a Hoax bandwagon. Giving oxygen and fuel to the social media discourse that still doesn’t just linger but like an unruly child screams out for attention, interrupting the adult after dinner talk. Every single vaccine that ever was, ever is and ever will be is made of chemicals. No individual element is good or bad, it’s how they are combined that makes a difference. If your argument is based on boycotting chemicals you don’t like, the only real solution you have, just like not ever drinking beer again, not ever playing with toys again, is to boycott ever eating again. Of course there’s “bad” chemicals in your everyday stuff. Have you ever heard of 💩?
Good luck with that not eating thing.
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