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 -
Culture War nexuses
This isn't exactly some thought-out post, more just a culture war observation. Every now and then there happens an event that feels like a CW "nexus" where it is the intersection of like five different hot topics in one moment. I had this thought while walking yesterday and wondered if someone else had any other examples. Here's two of mine:
A couple of weeks ago in Toronto a group of Indian immigrants, presumably in a gang of some sort, robbed a government-owned liquor store. They pulled a knife on an off-duty cop there. When they left, they were pursued by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and regional cops. In a rented van the thieves went the wrong way down the 401, the busiest highway in the world; the OPP stopped pursuit and told the regional cops to do the same, but they continued to follow. The getaway van hit a car going the opposite way. The other car's inhabitants was also a family of Indian immigrants: new parents, a baby, and their newly-arrived grandparents (via family reunification presumably). The getaway driver, the grandparents, and the baby were killed. The getaway driver was out on bail on weapon's charges, had a suspended license, and was under court order not to drive.
If you've been paying attention to any political issues in Canada you can see how this neatly ties together a bunch of hot topics into one incident. I have another:
In late 2022 a cement mixer in Berlin hit a female cyclist. The driver got out of his truck to check on the cyclist and was stabbed by a mentally ill homeless refugee. An ambulance arrived to transport the critically injured woman to the hospital, but on the way was stopped by climate protestors who had glued themselves to the road. The cyclist died but the truck driver survived.
I sort of remember when the Berlin incident was discussed here. It seems that it was not going to be culture war fodder at all without the climate protestors added to the mix. I can imagine the local rightist opposition, to the meagre extent it even exists, would have still tried to turn it into a scandal, but which leftist is going to question the victim status of an almost murdered trucker who wanted to assist a female cyclist (so presumably a leftist voter/sympathizer) after accidentally running her over, warm feelings toward both the homeless and refugees notwithstanding?
To the extent that the flames of the culture war were being fanned in this case, I reckon 95% of it was due to the climate protestors doubling down in characteristic fashion, and explaining, with their usual mix of complete cynicism and complete idealism, that of course public protests entail negative consequences stemming from the disruption of traffic, dumbass!
That's a great way of putting it. My least favorite arguments I've had with the woke are the ones in which my opponent argues in this way as an attempt to excuse their worst aspects, like "every movement bends the truth, it doesn't make social justice bad just because we lie, too" or "so what if the woke encourages nosy busybodies and wokescolds? The conservatives do it, too". I've never known how to argue back other than just insisting that they should be better than stooping to low techniques then making excuses.
It's like when Greta Thunberg appeared in the media.
A [Quasi-normie leftist activist climate warrior soyboy]: OMG LOOK AT THIS STUNNING AND BRAVE YOUNG LADY! SO FIERCE! SHE'S NOT AFRAID TO STAND IN FRONT OF THE MIC AND MAKE HERSELF HEARD! YOU GO GRRL! STICK IT TO THE SYSTEM!
B [Average normie NPC griller]: "But dude, wait, it says in this article here that some handler wrote the speech for her, it was all pre-planned, rehearsed beforehand..."
A: WELL DUH, DUMBASS! WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?! IT'S COMPLETELY NORMAL FOR A PUBLIC FIGURE TO HAVE HER STAFF PREPARE SPEECHES FOR HER, AND REHEARSE THEM AND CAREFULLY PREPARE FOR THEM! IT'S ALL ABOUT YOUR IMAGE AND MAKING AN IMPRESSION! EVERYBODY DOES IT LIKE THIS! THAT'S HOW IT GOES EVERYWHERE!
More options
Context Copy link
This looks similar to arguments I've had with myself as someone who used to be "woke" before the term was popularized ("social justice warrior" was the common term back then), and hashing out the argument was one of the many factors that got me to abandon the ideology.
On lies, it took very little thinking to recognize that lying is a habit that one can get into that's very difficult to turn on and off at will, especially since it's often difficult even to recognize when one is lying. This goes even more for lies that one tells oneself, which is by far the most common kind of lie and the most difficult lie to avoid telling even under the best circumstances and with the purest of intentions. It's also difficult to recognize which ideology is better than others if your beliefs are based on lies; as such, if I want what's best for the world rather than merely my team winning, then that means choosing the best ideology on the basis of an honest assessment of the facts and truth. But if I make it a habit to lie to others for the sake of convenience, then it'd be easy for me to unintentionally lie to myself for the sake of convenience, e.g. I could lie to myself that this ideology that happens to be popular among my peers and happens to give me social status for overtly supporting also happens to be the best or most correct ideology - what a convenient universe for me this is, that these characteristics happen to coincide in this one ideology! It also raises questions about how I was won over to the ideology, and whether those were based on lies that other follower of the ideology decided was convenient to tell to me for the sake of recruiting another follower - questions that can only be answered by taking a brutally honest look at the actual underlying reality, and that brutal honesty only comes about by making honesty a habit, which obviously includes doing so towards one's ideological opponents.
Unfortunately, I don't see this as being possible when a third party is involved, because the ideology is so hardened against external (and internal as well) scrutiny that only scrutiny that comes from an internal desire to get things right can survive long enough to actually have any effect. I think there are right wing parallels, such as some Christians dismissing some arguments as literally satanic, or Islam allowing for dishonesty towards non-Muslims as a way to win them over, but these are explicitly faith-based religions where the followers openly acknowledge that the reason they chose their team is faith. This is contrast to modern progressive idpol, whose followers claim to genuinely believe that they figured out the correct (or, at least more correct than the others) ideology through non-faith-based means. Genuinely believing this while also intentionally corrupting one's ability to discern lies from truth - and more generally abiding by the intentional corrupting of this ability in the followers of this ideology - seems like cognitive dissonance. Which, again, just doesn't seem possible to penetrate as a third party. Without the genuine will to actually figure out what the best ideology is for the world, most people will be happy enough to lie to themselves that the ideology they like also happens to be the one that is the best one for the world. Again, not lying to oneself that way is hard enough even under the best circumstances and with the purest of intentions.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link