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 -
They do in fact have magical properties, though. They aren't just words, they are taboo in the most primitive sense possible, and there is no reason to believe this will change in the forseeable future. You might adhere strongly to the "words are just words" ideology, but the norms that ideology built lasted a bare handful of decades, and now they are gone. "they're just words" is, perhaps, minimally true, but "they will mess your life up if you use them" is maximally true and in a very immediate, concrete way.
If it is the case that such words really do have magical properties, then using them in front of impressionable children will demonstrate the magic - i.e. someone will mess your life up for using them - and children would notice that and learn of those magical properties. If using them doesn't result in such messing up happening, then it would demonstrate that, No, those words don't have magical properties, and there are contexts when they can be used without people messing you up. Impressionable children wouldn't necessarily pick up on those contexts, but I posit that (1) information about taboos around slurs is so plentiful anyway that watching/reading some adult use them has minimal impact and (2) children get much more leeway in breaking such taboos due to their natural lack of experience and maturity and learning the right contexts when to use such terms through experience and experimentation is part of growing up.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link