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 -
White Dudes for Harris
It should be remembered that it was the Democrat party that broke the ice on invoking White Identity Politics directly to muster political support. The Republican party has only ever used proxy rhetoric like "they have to come legally" or "tough on crime", but looking at the recent Convention it's clear the Republican strategy is to go for the Big Tent rather than directly appeal to white voters. It's the Harris campaign that makes the direct appeal to white men, and you would not see an event like this hosted within the Republican party.
This is another indication that we're probably over the hill of Peak Woke that a white identity is acknowledged in a non-critical context:
That's a huge shift in messaging from just a few years ago in the midst of the Floyd riots.
Hlynka can't stop taking W's, it seems.
This strikes me as a bizarre decision by the Harris campaign. Who knows, maybe I'm the brainlet here, but as a white dude, after 10 years of being shat on, this feels like pretty transparent opportunistic pandering. I'm actually very curious what our resident progressives think about this maneuver. Is Kamala fixing your race- and sex-segregated problems appealing to you?
I mean, I'm progressive and I acknowledge the nuance in gender and race issues in our country. Race isn't a monolith. Gender is not a monolith. I would reject any fellow progressive's premise that every white person is inherently racist and that every man is anti-feminist, simply because there is a non-zero amount of white people who aren't racist and a non-zero amount of men who are anti-feminist. There are white people on the right who aren't racist, there are Black people on the left who are racist. There are conservative feminist men and liberal misogynist men. There are non-straight conservative black men, and straight, liberal white men.
The list goes on. People don't ever fit neatly into specific boxes. The whole point of progressivism, to me, is to allow for intersectionality so we can have collective conversations about how to make our country better.
The gender equivalent to racism would be sexism, not anti-feminism. Equating being against an ideology that preaches it is okay to hate and abuse people because of their gender with sexism is an interesting way of "acknowledging the nuance in gender issues".
Not everyone makes any such distinction. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure whether it's the claim that anti-feminism isn't necessarily sexism or the claim that anti-feminism is necessarily sexism which is more dependent on definitional games for veracity.
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