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 -
I can't help but disagree here. Lots of 21-year-olds like kinky sex. Not to mention with a celebrity! WhT a bonus! Where's the immorality?
It seems pretty clear from the fact that this is coming up at all that she didn't like it. It is not, at all, difficult to imagine a boss pressuring his 21 year old domestic servant girl into sexual activities she didn't really want to do. This is not an uncommon scenario, and our prior for twenty one year old nannies having sex with their married bosses is that the poor girl probably didn't want to do it.
Look, he's not fucking groupies off IG and then ghosting- that's deplorable behavior, but the girl shouldn't have gone along with it. This is a case where it was simply not a realistic expectation that she could have held out under pressure, and that comes with extra ability to judge him for misbehavior. Like the comment below, he's clearly a cad in that he's not doing anything illegal, or at least not seriously illegal(if he makes a habit of this as it seems like he has been then he's almost certainly given alcohol to a twenty year old) but it's clear that he's doing things that are dickish.
I agree that we should bring back "cad" as a condemnatory term.
This whole case makes me see nothing but bad faith on all sides. Lefties want women to be able to retroactively retract consent for sex that days, months, or years later they decided they didn't like. Righties don't want men to be held responsible ever for wanting to get their dicks wet, not even to the degree that we might say "Tut tut" and socially shun him. Or I guess we can do that but if and only if we also agree that women are property.
( * Not all lefties, not all righties. Just the ones who seem to have very strong feelings about whether it's okay to criticize either Neil Gaiman's life choices or his ex-lovers'.)
Taking a "both sides wrong" stance here, as usual, supports the side that is actually more wrong. Which is to say the ones accusing Neil Gaiman of misconduct because they regretted the relationship long after the fact. Neil Gaiman need only be "held responsible" if what he did is wrong, and he's only wrong by a conservative view that no one involved held.
Using your pure conflict theory approach, only one side can ever be wrong and the other side must be 0% wrong. Which is both morally and logically wrong.
"Both sides wrong" doesn't mean both sides equally wrong. I have seen no allegations that make me think Neil Gaiman should be arrested, and I'm not in favor of "cancelling." But saying he's a skeevy perv you probably wouldn't want your 21-year-old daughter going to work for as a nanny? Yes, heavens forbid we so much as waggle a disapproving finger in a way that might grant some tiny bit of support to your political enemies.
As soon as you waggle that disapproving finger you are implicitly accepting the justice of anything done to him. Everything else is before the "but".
No, that is not how it works. I don't even believe that you don't actually believe Neil Gaiman did anything wrong. You have just identified his accusers as being your enemies, and fuck your enemies, therefore we must not admit Neil Gaiman might have done something wrong.
It is indeed.
I find old famous guys screwing starstruck pretty young things kinda gross, but then, I haven't written any best-sellers. But I find said women crying rape over it to be orders of magnitude worse, and to respond to their accusations by focusing on Gaiman's offenses is to validate the accusations.
There's a difference between focusing on his "offenses" and saying "If you weren't a skeev then you wouldn't inevitably catch accusations like this."
I'm very comfortable saying I feel little sympathy for these women's accusations, and I feel little sympathy for Gaiman being accused. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, FAFO, he fucked the leopards... Pick your meme.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link