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 -
The sentence structure and grammar of that email is incredibly weird, though it's good she's aware of that. It's genuinely hard to make out what she's trying to say in parts of it. This makes me seriously wonder what this person's background is.
It's also just incredibly bizarre to randomly send an email to a historical society complaining? I guess? about someone's unrelated family on the basis of an unrelated history. It's also weird to send such an email in which the main argumentative thrust is "you family is horrible and I bet you're haunted by ghosts" while apologizing for her writing style and thanking you for your time. It's hate mail written in a polite tone, which is simply strange.
Also, who the heck "begins their morning" looking to purchase land in a random state and by the evening has decided a family she doesn't know is haunted by ghosts with enough confidence to want to send an email?
This is the sort of thing that just leaves me scratching my head, like those weird pseudo-Catholic cultists who think the third secret of Fatima is that Marcionism is true and the psalms are chants to an evil God.
Interesting because I totally interpreted the ghost thing as a rhetorical flourish rather than a literal statement about fear of being actually haunted, though I'm well aware those people exist, and those are after all the kind of people I would expect to send unsolicited emails.... wait...
I joke but I do think "rhetorical flourish" still has like a 40% chance of being the case vs 60% crazy, so with these odds charity means I select rhetorical flourish from a well-meaning person as the default unless demonstrated otherwise.
More options
Context Copy link
I ran it through ChatGPT to anonymize it. After I was done with that I also asked ChatGPT how it would rewrite the email if the original sender had asked. That email actually didn't seem unfriendly. So yeah maybe they weren't actually that hostile, their signoff doesn't imply hostility. Just the whole pondering how the country might have been better without my ancestors existing. I originally interpreted it as "english as a second language" but I looked up the lady who sent it (she gladly attached her name to the email), and she did seem to be born in the US. But yeah, hate mail written in a polite tone is strange.
More options
Context Copy link
Just to psychoanalyze from afar, she (for some reason, the writing seems very feminine, and I'd bet good money that the writer is female--a male wouldn't bother writing this email, and if he did it would be written more as a string of curses without any attempt at politeness) is a not-particularly well-educated but generally well-meaning individual from a bad background who has probably done things mostly right (at least within her context) but nevertheless has accrued a lot of damage over her life and isn't particularly successful. The letter is half an outpouring of frustration at where she's ended up, and half an attempt at some kind of connection. What kind, it doesn't matter--the response could be an angry condemnation back, and it could be self-flagellation from the recipient. Doesn't matter. She just feels very lonely and isolated and desperately wants some kind of reassurance that she's seen. She makes her pain obvious by lashing out in the hopes that it will create some kind of response.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link