All aboard the Lioness Line

[CEB]

I know a fair few people are saying "LOL this is great cos all the usual suspects will be REALLY mad about this" - and it seems some of them are - but come on, some of these names are really cringe.

I understand the rationale for making the lines more individually identifiable as they cover a wide area and being lumped together as the orange line wasn't always particularly helpful but just go with stuff that says where they go to/through/from.

Some of the people saying “love these names!!! Lol gammons will go mad!” are people who think that only the right wing are enthusiastically fighting a culture war

Is this really enthusiastically fighting a culture war?

If your response to a news story that announces recognition of progressive causes and developments in a positive way, naming commonly used services after them, is to think about how it upsets your political opponents and to revel in that fact, then “enthusiastically fighting a culture war” is demonstrably an apt description.

[Beradogs]

CEB is right. It would also be the reason Khan has done it in the first place. Well done Sadiq. You win.

[Hoover Attack]

If they'd called the lines something like 'Trans London' or 'Grand Greta' I could understand all you right-wingers having a moan up but f*cking hell, how does some textile manufacturing and a hospital get your goat?

[CEB]

did you read? I didn’t say it should get anyone’s goat. I personally think the sentiment is admirable but the naming a little bit on the cringe side.
I said that if your reaction to celebrating suffrage, women’s sports, immigration in train line names (beats royal family naming imo) is to immediately be gleeful about who it upsets, rather than happy about who it celebrates, then you’re enthusiastically fighting a culture war. And that’s fine too - they’re IMO on the “right side” of the culture war. But it’s baffling and disingenuous when doing so to pretend that any culture war is solely being conducted by right wing agitators to trigger the lefties

[OyinbO]

did you read? I didn’t say it should get anyone’s goat. I personally think the sentiment is admirable but the naming a little bit on the cringe side.
I said that if your reaction to celebrating suffrage, women’s sports, immigration in train line names (beats royal family naming imo) is to immediately be gleeful about who it upsets, rather than happy about who it celebrates, then you’re enthusiastically fighting a culture war. And that’s fine too - they’re IMO on the “right side” of the culture war. But it’s baffling and disingenuous when doing so to pretend that any culture war is solely being conducted by right wing agitators to trigger the lefties

I took HAs comment to be addressed to the post immediately above (from Beradogs)

[Hoover Attack]

Oh FFS, he's pulling me in.

Ok, to clarify - I don't think Khan and the other evil lefties within TfL or the London Mayoralty or whoever has given a nod to to the world cup winning England womens team, a hospital, the Windrush generation, some textile manufacturers are waging a culture war with this. It's pretty tame if that's their objective.

I haven't seen anyone on here gleefully happy about who it winds up, all I've seen is some mild eye-rolling from those who are slightly perturbed and moaning from those who are deeply angered by this.

[Hoover Attack]

did you read? I didn’t say it should get anyone’s goat. I personally think the sentiment is admirable but the naming a little bit on the cringe side.
I said that if your reaction to celebrating suffrage, women’s sports, immigration in train line names (beats royal family naming imo) is to immediately be gleeful about who it upsets, rather than happy about who it celebrates, then you’re enthusiastically fighting a culture war. And that’s fine too - they’re IMO on the “right side” of the culture war. But it’s baffling and disingenuous when doing so to pretend that any culture war is solely being conducted by right wing agitators to trigger the lefties

I took HAs comment to be addressed to the post immediately above (from Beradogs)

Yes.

Although he's clearly on the move, I'm not classifying CEB as a fully fledged rightie just yet.

[CEB]

Oh FFS, he's pulling me in.

Ok, to clarify - I don't think Khan and the other evil lefties within TfL or the London Mayoralty or whoever has given a nod to to the world cup winning England womens team, a hospital, the Windrush generation, some textile manufacturers are waging a culture war with this. It's pretty tame if that's their objective.

I haven't seen anyone on here gleefully happy about who it winds up, all I've seen is some mild eye-rolling from those who are slightly perturbed and moaning from those who are deeply angered by this.

Right - but my point is a bit more nuanced than that.

Nobody thinks they’re waging a cultural war. Things like increased visibility or recognition of some aspects of history or of representation feel like neutral acts to those who support them and advocate for them (though it’s fair to assume that the choices of what to advocate for are not made in a vacuum, and in the knowledge of likely pushback from political opponents): in that context, “culture war” is a neutral description of pushing for public representation, or shifting the way something cultural is depicted, framed etc.

So both the right and left wing are fighting a culture war. There’s not a loaded meaning attached: the idea of a “culture war” just reflects how there’s a very visible divide about all this stuff, whether it’s names of train stations, women with lightsabers in Star Wars, pronouns on badges of M&S staff, whatever - they’re all battlegrounds fought enthusiastically by both sides.
Which is not to say “they’re as bad as each other”; it’s to say that the left often dismiss the need to even engage on any of it on the grounds that it’s “culture war nonsense”.

I think PJ and I maybe both saw some posts on other social media that you haven’t. Members of the worlds most literal folk punk band have all been getting themselves rather giddy about how upset the gammons will be

[CEB]

I find it interesting because there are many areas where the left’s framing of some meaningful discourse as “culture war bullshit” provides a space for left wing grifters to insulate themselves from scrutiny from their tribe.

Obvs the biggie for me on that measure is the trans debate stuff, but look at Jack Monroe for example - 18 months ago anyone criticising Jack Monroe’s vacuous bullshit was dismissed as attacking a queer lesbian just cos she’s trying to help people, but the reality was that she’s a grifting liar who knew exactly how to navigate the culture wars in order to position herself as a “goodie”, simply because all this stuff really does in practice is allow for quick and easy positioning of oneself wherever it suits them to be perceived as being, politically

[Hoover Attack]

Nobody thinks they’re waging a cultural war.

Fully agreed, other than this bit - some players are very aware.

[CEB]

Fair point. Adjust it to “most people who are fighting the culture war would see themselves as simply pursuing self evidently good outcomes - it’s the ones that we disagree with that is the war”

And yes, there are some people actively stoking it, knowing that they’re doing so and doing so for the sake of it rather than because they care

[Long slender neck]

I reckon most people couldnt give a toss what the lines are called.

[Dunners]

Khan is a bottler, if you ask me. He should have gone full tilt and named one the Shamima Begum line. Now that would have been worth the spectacle.

[Hoover Attack]

I reckon most people couldnt give a toss what the lines are called.

I only use the colours on the tube anyway.

[CEB]

I think what I’m getting at is that if you look at the
“Lol can’t wait to see the gammons!!!” takes, the point is that they are literally seeing the culture as the stakes, not just the battleground for them. They “win” because a train line is named the “windrush line” rather than the “Tommy Robinson line” like the gammons would like. But the question it raises for me is whether “upsetting the gammons” gets us closer to or further away from consensus on the wider discussion of co-existing in a diverse society. is there a benefit to gammons being pissed off that’s more useful than just how fun it is to see the pissed off gammons being pissed off?

[CEB]

Continuing to think aloud, apologies.

What I mean is that “culture war” is a phrase that when used by the left, seeks to trivialise a point of discourse, in the basis that the right answer is self evident but the whole thing is too boring to be bothered with.

The issue with that is that the left aren’t always correct and their points are not always self evidently correct, but an additional issue is that the left indulges in the culture war aspect enthusiastically too, when it suits

[Hoover Attack]

I think what I’m getting at is that if you look at the
“Lol can’t wait to see the gammons!!!” takes, the point is that they are literally seeing the culture as the stakes, not just the battleground for them. They “win” because a train line is named the “windrush line” rather than the “Tommy Robinson line” like the gammons would like. But the question it raises for me is whether “upsetting the gammons” gets us closer to or further away from consensus on the wider discussion of co-existing in a diverse society. is there a benefit to gammons being pissed off that’s more useful than just how fun it is to see the pissed off gammons being pissed off?

This works both ways.

[CEB]

Well yes, of course it does.

[Proposition Joe]

I reckon most people couldnt give a toss what the lines are called.

I only use the colours on the tube anyway.

The correct answer is "I don't see colour", you big ol' racist.

[Proposition Joe]

Khan is a bottler, if you ask me. He should have gone full tilt and named one the Shamima Begum line. Now that would have been worth the spectacle.

Only goes one way and you can't get back from your end destination though.

[Hoover Attack]

Well yes, of course it does.

But there's no diatribe against those on the right?

[CEB]

Because I don’t agree with the right, so my focus is on criticising the right wing ideas, not their insistence that there is not a cultural war happening in which they are engaging - my belief is that there *is* a culture war, and it does matter. My issue with the left is the insistence there isn’t one, despite engaging in it when it suits and when they can point at red faced gammons, imagined or real, and my issue with the right is most of what they argue for in the culture war

[Hoover Attack]

Because I don’t agree with the right,

Somewhere in dark and dingy scotch boozer, Max chokes on his morning pint.

[CEB]

Guess how hard I’ve had to work on my little ADHD brain for *this* to be my reply, rather than a ten paragraph (not spaced properly) articulation of how my views on that are all consistent with a left wing political analysis?

[oxo]

I'm generally pretty enthusiastically in favour of being 'woke', but I don't like some of these for the extremely trivial reason that they don't feel like tube line names. Windrush and Mildmay work alright, maybe because they're exclusively used as proper nouns, but having a 'Lioness Line' just feels so on the nose that I'd be embarrassed to say it out loud.