site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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.

24
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You're missing a key component though: getting away with it. What really outrages people is when they think someone is getting away with murder. No amount of 'well, it's very rare' will mollify a person angry about that.

No amount of 'well, it's very rare' will mollify a person angry about that.

True, I suppose, but if cops get away with murdering black people less often than black people get away with murdering black people, it at least allows you to point out the skewed priorities (where 'get away with' includes the perpetrators never being identified because the witnesses all refuse to cooperate with the police).

No I really don't think it's a skewed priority, because of course police are held to a higher standard because they're on the public payroll and protected by additional legal tools. There's a difference in how people react to a betrayal of trust vs an hostile act by someone they already regard as a lowlife.

In general, yes, but I would have thought that the stereotypical BLM supporter (or at least the average black BLM supporter) would already regard the police as the lowlifes, or at least, would place approximately zero trust in them, and ... while it might be too much to say that they hold black criminals to be figure of trust exactly, the group's behaviour certainly seems to reflect what one would expect if one believed that black criminals were more worthy of honor and protection than their victims.