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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
As a long time lurker/reader of this place for years, I am accustomed to the regular hand-wringing about the evaporative cooling of the community, as positions become more entrenched and the ideological capture of institutions is displayed time and time again as placards from the culture war. The combative nature of debate here is a boon, not something to be despised. However, the value of this place as an open space for discussion grows less and less if so many people here share similar opinions. Maybe this is one of the many malaises academia caught and proliferated across the rest of the body politic, where over time they just self-selected, intentionally or otherwise, for people who suited them and their worldview.
Because I’ve observed what this place does to people who aren’t in that worldview. They flame out, or become embittered, even while the avowed purpose of this place in arriving at a stronger truth through open discussion and truth-seeking is in no way compromised!
I have stated a couple of times before that this place is not right-wing, it has not ever been. It has its origins in the Grey tribe and is a place for heretics, witches, and people who want to discuss verboten. The fact that this pattern matches to a place where right-wing people can openly discuss things naturally says a lot about the current political leanings of the Cathedral and the dominant modes of thought (“There’s no difference between good and bad things, you imbecile, you fucking moron”) outside this place. However, if the goal is to accommodate a more diverse array of viewpoints, why are reactionaries, “-ists” of every stripe, and salivating over people getting what they deserve good and hard so common here? Upvotes and downvotes are an unfortunate Reddit holdover, but it’s a quick way to see where the motte-hivemind is trending.
Much hay has been made of the motte-and-bailied line “diversity is our strength”, but doesn’t the defense consider viewpoint diversity as a strength? Isn’t this why academia is pilloried today for being majority female and nearly all writing, voting, and having opinions indistinguishable from a neutered LLM ordered to repeat DNC voting points?
I’m sympathetic to these claims, even though I believe quite strongly that if the Cathedral trended the other way, the heretics, witches and verboten-enjoyers would be actual lynch-everyone-with-glasses Communists. I consider it important to know what different sides think, what the normies think, even if it’s become increasingly clear that one side can model their enemies fine (after all, they are surrounded) and the other is tilting at cartoonish caricatures. It is important to have ideologically opposed people who can argue from first principles, who can defend their positions properly, and provide evidence for their claims, if you believe in the free market of open ideas at all. If you don’t, well…
That’s why it’s super frustrating to see posts like yours. Is this the best you can do? Is this rehashed, warmed-over bigot word salad genuinely the best you can do? This isn’t even an argument. It weakens the entire point of having a place to discuss ideas; you’re not interested in discussion, you’re here to be smug and own the autists. Why are you even here? You’re not providing argument for or against Lapthorn-Smith’s position, other than the fact that it’s dated, and he at least had the temerity to attach his name to his work. Have you addressed his points, disputed his argument, provided evidence for and against it? It’s from 1904; have you satisfied the counter-argument with the last hundred and twenty-one years to prove him wrong? His question is right the fuck there: is education being carried on at present to such a degree as to at all affect the bodily or physical health of women? There’s much more recent research on this topic, and there’s probably a conversation worth having there about how modern life ill suits both sexes, and how the human mind and body is not designed to be overworked, overstimulated, overeducated in the way that we are now vs the way we have been operating in societies for centuries.
How am I supposed to decry the lack of viewpoint diversity here when posts like yours are indicative of the quality of discussion I can expect? This isn’t even a strawman, it is a cutout made from paper tissue. There have been several of these; sneering smug self-assured American leftists here to gawk at the deplorables, like they’re on safari or something. Here to get evidence so they can parade the evil of the enemy in front of their peers, “look how much like Voldemort they sound, they’re discussing human bio-diversity again!” It’s made me so cynical of these feeble attempts that my default assumption is trolls or sockpuppets.
I don’t like the fact that there is something approaching a general consensus here: that the time for discussion and dialogue is over and the normies can be led around by the nose to believe and fight for whatever makes them feel good. I’m already frustrated over what seems like a decreased ability to discuss things in common language; not two screens but two voices, and if two why not ten, fifteen, a thousand. So please, for the love of civilization, if you’re not a troll or a sockpuppet, think about what you’re doing. Think about why you’re doing it, and if “owning the chuds”, as if posting something written by someone you think is disgusting is "owning", is a productive use of your time. For your sake, if not anyone else’s.
I'm coming to this post from the AAQCs thread. This is farcically wrong. This site absolutely tilts right pretty far. That's not to say it's exclusively right-wing, but the following are all true:
No.
More options
Context Copy link
A sentiment completely detached from reality, stemming from left leaning posters being too used to Reddit.
...who isn't banned.
What's nebulous about this? He confidently asserted something as fact, was shown that he was wrong, and then got hostile about it. Do you think this is good behavior? Why are you even claiming his political point has anything to do with why people think he was bad?
Darwin was banned for a long time at some point. Is he unbanned now? I thought it was a permaban, but maybe I'm misremembering.
I've never seen an example of him getting hostile despite asking people multiple times for examples of his worst posts. I've only seen people getting hostile towards him.
Still no.
More options
Context Copy link
He was banned for a year back on Reddit. He got a clean slate after we moved here, and never got a long term ban after that. And you know that. It was explained to you by Amadan.
It's the very conversation you linked.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Intellectual consensus isn’t the same thing as ideological conformity. What separates one from the other is whether or not there’s a forum for open debate and airing out disagreements. Sure I’ve noticed some of the latter here when certain topics come to the fore but on the whole, TM is absolutely ‘nothing’ like Reddit and thankfully so. You can still feel when you can’t discuss a certain issue because it grates against the preferences of people here. Most noticeably as well the phenomenon of downvoting someone’s comments while offering no comment response to you that disagree with anything you’ve said. Disapproval still exists. LW was considered for a long time to be a very “cold” and unwelcoming place by others. But it was a forum for very serious discussion. A lot of the topics there demanded a level of engagement I wasn’t willing to invest in. KF and PCM were communities I felt much more at home in when I felt like checking them out because they allowed much greater latitude in letting off and occasionally being a smart ass. Not all environments are equal. TM is very unfit for my usual style of argumentation which is to incorporate irony and sarcasm amid intellectual replies, but I’ve learned how to deal with it.
In a way you can’t avoid convergence of belief in certain domains. Especially where there are clear cut right and wrong answers waiting to be discovered. The rest is just open exploration. Evidence is found to be of the Bayesians, precisely that kind of evidence you only ever expect to find on one side an argument. Otherwise what are you expecting people to say? “Here’s a knockdown objection I haven’t accepted yet?” If you were capable of saying that then there’s clearly a problem with you. The best I can do is present you with
strawman argumentsall sorts of weak objections. And to that end, being “closed minded” isn’t a criticism because the same argument can be made the other way. It’s very easy. Whenever you’re faced with something you really don’t want to believe you simply say “… but how can I really know this? Isn’t science supposed to consider all the answers?…” and if that’s as far as you can bring yourself to a conclusion, where you can’t close your mind any further, then that’s the same thing as having made up your mind isn’t it? If you refuse to close it. “The point of having an open mind like having an open mouth is that it occasionally closes on something solid.”More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link