site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don’t believe we’ve modded anyone for the reverse sentiment, though it’s possible I missed something.

It wasn't with the opposite valence but rather in a goofy thread about bats vs knives about a month ago. The use of the word "retard" probably didn't help, but the part about not being able to vote was also quoted by the mod giving the person a warning.

And I'd say that probably should be a warnable or banable thing to say. Saying a group of people is so stupid that their right to vote should be taken away is a textbook case of "boo outgroup".

I'm going to add "too stupid to be allowed to vote" to my list of mod-approved ways to characterize people I disagree with.

I'm sure there's no post on the site where someone was modded for the literal string "people who don't support Ukraine are too stupid to be allowed to vote", but I think the appropriate comparison is to look at other posts where people were modded for "boo outgroup" and compare the aggressiveness of the boos. Like, if "Canada seems to be doing its damnedest to ski down that slope right off that cliff" is worthy of getting modded, then I would think that "too stupid to be allowed to vote" is also in mod territory.

(I'm aware that FarNearEverywhere's post history was an aggravating factor here, but presumably if the linked comment itself didn't cross some absolute threshold then it wouldn't have attracted mod attention in the first place regardless of her post history.)