December 24, 2015

Message auto-removed

December 21, 2015

Cultural Bundling

I read about a thought in an LA Times Opinion piece using a term called Cultural Bundling and how it gets in the way of meaningful discussions about controversial issues in American society.

The opinion piece was about the gun debate, but please I don't bring this up to talk about guns here. I want to discuss the concept of Cultural Bundling. The author posits how when we discuss controversial issues it tends to devolve down to an attack on an entire cultural point of view. I think there is a lot of merit in the concept and it explains why we can't come together -- even with a difference of opinion in one specific subject -- and talk about the issue at hand without disrespecting each other's culture. Even with differences in cultural norms, we still share 80% (pulling number out of my ass) of our goals for the future and our country.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1213-white-productive-gun-debate-20151213-story.html

The author put it this way in the gun debate and how to move forward with a meaningful discussion:

First, we could stop culture-bundling. We culture-bundle when we use one political issue as shorthand for a big group of cultural and social values. Our unproductive talk about guns is rife with this. Gun control advocates don't just attack support for guns; they attack conservative, Republican, rural and religious values. Second Amendment advocates don't just attack gun control advocates; they attack liberal, Democratic, urban and secular values. The gun control argument gets portrayed as the struggle against Bible-thumping, gay-bashing, NASCAR-watching hicks, and the gun rights argument gets portrayed as a struggle against godless, elitist, kale-chewing socialists.

Again, please no gun talk. I really like the "Cultural Bundling" concept though and would like to talk through that idea. Do we saddle our Blue State / Red State divide with all this extraneous baggage and that's why we can no longer have a civil discourse in America today?