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 -
This assumption probably won’t count as anything new, but it seems to me that the overall leftist strategy in the current culture war over (in essence) MtF transsexual boxers in the Olympic games hinges entirely on the following unstated assumptions: a) TV viewers generally aren’t that interested in women’s sports in the first place b) the sort of sports where these particular MtF athletes seem to predominantly want to excel at are generally seen as low-status in the eyes of suburban middle-class Blue Tribe normies c) the relative number of cissexual women genuinely interested in such sports is insignificantly low.
Imane Khalid is not trans. There’s a reasonable- but not ironclad- argument that she has an intersex condition which should preclude her from competing in the women’s division, but she just objectively isn’t trans.
Something just finally clicked for me.
For years, and years and years and years, the bailey of trans was defended with the motte of intersex. Arguments about how it occurs in nature played loose and fast with definitions of trans or intersex. Arguments about how it's genetic or something you were born with involved similar free association between trans or intersex. For 10 years the steelman for trans acceptance and "the science" involved quoting studies about intersex people.
And now, suddenly, when the wrong people are conflating the two in a bad way "Woah woah woah, she's not trans, she's intersex! There is a huge fucking difference, can't you tell? idiot."
And I almost fell for it. It's so easy to get caught up in current year and that tepid thread of logic from all of only a few years ago that brought us to this point get's washed away.
I don't necessarily agree that the intersex argument for trans acceptance is a motte and bailey, any more than the "dolphins have hairs" argument for dolphins not being fish is a motte and bailey (under a morphology-based taxonomy scheme of animals.) Trans activists who bring up intersex people are using them to point to a weakness in people's unreflective definitions of sex, and then adopting a "lumper" position that trans people should be included under their identified sex because of that ambiguity.
There's a few possible places that argument could go wrong:
For my own part, I do think the existence of intersex people is a good argument for "sex" being messier than commonly believed (the same way that I think ring species and occasionally fertile hybrids point to the concept of "species" being messier than commonly believed), but I don't really use that as my argument for trans people. Instead, I have something closer to a socio-legal "adoptive sex" model, where a society can create fictive "sex" categories the same way that adoption can create fictive "parent-child" relationships. Each society or subculture gets to decide what the package of rights and privileges associated with "adoptive sex" are, and so might chose any variety of constructions surrounding bathroom inclusivity, prison inclusivity, and sports inclusivity. For my own part, I'm really only a partisan for there being some sort of protections for employment, housing and financial services, since I tend to think those are the most impactful domains, and I'm okay with less important private businesses denying services or discriminating in most other domains, since I tend to think the market will work itself out in the long run.
Whatever else you may say about capitalism, it does tend to erode discrimination under certain conditions. Black people needed a Green Book from the 1930's to the 1960's, but today every gas station wants the public's money enough that the the only color they care about is your green cash. I doubt McDonald's will ever start denying service to trans people, gay people, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link