site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 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.

giving puppy-dog eyes and saying this is just a paperwork crime and no one was hurt won't buy you a cup of coffee before you get absolutely reamed in all the least fun ways

Not to be melodramatic, but I am once again reminded of Solzhenitsyn:

If you are arrested, can anything else remain unshattered by this cataclysm?

But the darkened mind is incapable of embracing these dis placements in our universe, and both· the most sophisticated and the veriest simpleton among us, drawing on all life's experience, can gasp out only: "Me? What for?"

And this is a question which, though repeated millions and millions of times before, has yet to receive an answer.

Arrest is an instantaneous, shattering thrust, expulsion, somer sault from one state into another.

We have been happily borne-or perhaps have unhappily dragged our weary way-down the long and crooked streets of our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood, rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given a'thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to pene trate them with our vision or our understanding. But there is where the Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away from us. In addition, we have failed to notice an enormous num ber of closely fitted, well-disguised doors and gates in these fences. All those gates were prepared for us, every last one! And all of a sudden the fateful gate swings quickly open, and four white male hands, unaccustomed to physical labor but none theless strong and tenacious, grab us by the leg, arm, collar, cap, ear, and drag us in like a sack, and the gate behind us, the gate to our past life, is slammed shut once and for all.

That's all there is to it! You are arrested!

And you'll find nothing better to respond with than a lamblike bleat: "Me? What for?"

That's what arrest is: it's a blinding flash and a blow which shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into omnipotent actuality. That's all. And neither for the first hour nor for the first day will you be able to grasp anything else.

Except that in your desperation the fake circus moon will blink at you: "It's a mistake! They'll set things right!"

When you're hauled in front of "Judge" Darkeh who articulates her spitting contempt for the American Constitution, the rational expectation would be that you're about to receive justice in a pretty similar fashion to what those victims of the Soviets received, but few of us ever learn that lesson, instead clinging to the hope that eventually there will be someone that sets things right.

When you're hauled in front of "Judge" Darkeh who articulates her spitting contempt for the American Constitution, the rational expectation would be that you're about to receive justice in a pretty similar fashion to what those victims of the Soviets received, but few of us ever learn that lesson, instead clinging to the hope that eventually there will be someone that sets things right.

And if that hope is dashed, one does not blame the system, but instead accepts that you did indeed receive justice. Because to assume you screwed up (even to the point of being executed) is tolerable; to assume the institutions are malevolent juggernauts who would punish an innocent man is not.

At least, that's what someone on the right does. The left always blames the system. Thus when the left has taken the system, the right has no way of defeating it.

Cute narrative, but demonstrably false.

[Taylor’s lawyer] Varghese continued: “Remember, these are all political appointees, and I don’t see a judge granting him bail pending appeal. So we may try, we may try and pray, but it’s highly unlikely.”

I think you’ll have a very hard time finding right-wingers happy to bend over and take it. What’s more universal than blaming the people in charge?

Hard time?! Can you name even one right-winger not bending over and taking a hard woke tool in his ass?! There is no escape!!!

  • -14

Rittenhouse.

He will be dead before the next inauguration.

  • -24

predictions are one of the best ways available to debug one's own cognition. In this case, it seems very unlikely to me that Rittenhouse will, in fact, be dead before the next inauguration.

I'll even do you one better: not only will he be alive on inauguration day, but no attempts on his life will have been observed.

And we can go even further. Not only will he be alive, and not only will there be no attempts on his life, but he will not be prosecuted or persecuted to any extent greater than the default blue-tribe discrimination in employment. None of the self-defense cases from the Floyd Riots were killed by left-wingers; Gardner was harassed into suicide, and others were successfully prosecuted, but none of them were actually murdered, and they've already taken their shot at Rittenhouse from a legal perspective. If you want to solve a problem, it helps to not catastrophize that problem out of all proportion. The situation is bad enough without needlessly embracing despair.

I largely agree, but he is currently facing a wrongful death lawsuit by Anthony Huber's father. I imagine he's going to be hounded by very well-funded civil suits for a long time as revenge for getting off. Still, this is a far shot from state prosecution or murder.

Paul Prediger, nee Gauge Grosskruetz, aka bye-ceps, has also filed a civil suit. But yes, I genuinely expected feds to go after him, and it hasn't happened, and that surprised me and does show some limits.

More comments