[bendbro]

> What principles of morality excuse and justify...

That a system is hypocritical or irrational is not criticism of it existing, only criticism that it should exist. The culture very obviously exists, otherwise there wouldn't be a heteronormative, patriarchal, workaholic, individualist, capitalist, suburban culture for far-left types to fight.

> Your presumption is false. Not all people follow your faith or the narrow view you have of the faithful...

You are attacking a strawman. Obviously not all faithful hold traditional views, but a large group of faithful obviously do hold traditional views.

> Among the colonists were Quakers, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Baptists, Anglicans and many others.

All of whom were Judeo-Christian and grossly compatible with the traditional culture I described above.

The core point of the article linked and the grand-parent comment is that the US used to have a single, "traditional" base culture. We now have two, competing cultures. I don't think your comment addresses that point, rather it only addresses the inconsistencies within the traditional culture. Debating first-level politics doesn't ascend to the level of something that is "interesting to hackers," which is why political debates are softly banned on hackernews.

[omegaworks]

>The core point of the article linked and the grand-parent comment is that the US used to have a single, "traditional" base culture

Article author and grandparent are conflating political participation/power with demographics and trying to map complex multi-dimensional political realities onto a two-dimensional liberal/conservative line (author himself admits flaws in that analysis). We used to have three television broadcast channels back in the days of Eisenhower!

You are doing the same by collapsing varied faiths into "judeo-christian" a term now widely recognized as serving christofascist historical revisionism[1,2]. What you describe as "base culture" is actually hegemony, a dominant culture. Other cultures (far more than two!) have always existed.

It's easy to conflate culture and political party, but they are very different things[3]. The fact that we only have two parties is likely due to structural issues FPTP imposes on our democracy[4].

Technology in many ways has enabled various factions to find their voices and be represented. A topic of incredible interest to hackers!

1. https://twitter.com/JewishWorker/status/1212229310041460737

2. https://newrepublic.com/article/155735/rights-judeo-christia...

3. https://www.gq.com/story/aoc-biden-not-the-same-party

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[bendbro]

Ah I had forgotten about the term "hegemony", thanks for reminding me! I will use "hegemony" in the future instead of "base culture". At a surface level it seems to be a term that accurately conveys what I meant by "base culture", but will have much wider recognition than some term I invented.

And rereading your original comment in the context of this comment, I think I understand your point better. When one uses the term "judeo-christian culture" they imply multiple things, some of which are incorrect:

1. That the collective systems of the US operated under a single shared system of beliefs. I would have referred to that as "culture", but perhaps the better term is "hegemony".

2. That most individuals in the collective "liked", or rather "personally subscribed", or rather had a culture compatible with that single hegemony.

You are arguing that point 2 is incorrect. There have always been many cultures present in the US, but due to Judeo-Christian hegemony, those other cultures expression was suppressed and the "Judeo-Christian" hegemony was all that presented. Users of the term "Judeo-Christian culture" are not recognizing that many members of the "Judeo-Christian" hegemony were only participating in the hegemony because they _had to_, not because they _wanted to_.

On your other point:

> Article author and grandparent are conflating political participation/power with demographics and trying to map complex multi-dimensional political realities onto a two-dimensional liberal/conservative lime

I think you are mostly right about this; however I think that within the right wing, demographics, culture, and politics are largely intertwined. I think those demographics, culture, and politics are largely the ones that were traditionally present under Judeo-christian hegemony.

So, refactoring my points under my new understanding, I think:

1. We both agree that the US had a Judeo-christian hegemony (perhaps there is a better name needed).

2. We both agree that the right wing is descended from that Judeo-christian hegemony.

3. We disagree to the degree that various Americans' cultures across history were compatible with the hegemony or were suppressed by the hegemony.

4. We likely disagree on whether a [edit: replaced "the" with "a" here] hegemony is good or bad.

On 4), I get the sense that argument will be rather boring. On 3), I would love to get some references to material that studies this. I do not particularly care if the material has a left or right bias, as learning those perspectives would be interesting itself.

[omegaworks]

> I think those demographics, culture, and politics are largely the ones that were traditionally present under Judeo-christian hegemony.

And this is where we disagree. It is useful for branding purposes to put forward the notion that what you believe has always been the belief, but that by itself doesn't provide inherent justification for that belief. As the article[1] I posted elucidates, the construct of "Judeo-Christian" is a relatively recent political tool. This tool has been used to erase Judaism's unique cultural impact (which directly contradicts the presumption put forward by the thread starter[2]) and the abrahamic roots of Islam in order to exclude and justify violence.

For the purposes of defining what America is, the topic that began the thread, we must recognize the difference between handwavey rhetoric and what is grounded in the historical record. There's also much to be said about how relevant what America was should be to what America can be, which is why I tried to expand the scope by elucidating that what America is also includes how America has changed since its foundation from a marginal, slaveholding, collection of thirteen disparate colonies into a world power.

1. https://newrepublic.com/article/155735/rights-judeo-christia...

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12309928