site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35310 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm committing a major faux-pas by posting a second consecutive top-level comment, but it's been 12 hours and people need to post more. (Seriously, post a top level comment. Do it now.)

What's something that you were wrong about?

I'll start. I was wrong about marijuana legalization. It was a bad idea and we never should have done it. Marijuana is, contra urban legend, actually pretty addictive. And it makes productive people into unproductive people. The benefits, such as they are, are best enjoyed in moderation. But legalization has resulted in a whole new class of junkies that wouldn't have existed otherwise. Also, weed culture is gross.

Scott, as always, says it best:

My views evolved in something like the way Steve implicitly points at here: decriminalizing marijuana seemed to go okay, it seemed hypocritical and dumb for the law to be “marijuana is illegal but we won’t punish you for it in any way wink wink”, so (I thought) why not go all the way and legalize it? And the answer turns out to be: if it’s illegal but tolerated, then it’s supplied by random criminals; if it’s legal, it’s supplied by big corporations. And big corporations are good at advertising and tend to get what they want.

In any case, what were you wrong about?

  • I once believed that political solutions to problems are viable, and now I believe that they are not, and that you need cultural solutions first in order to meaningfully affect the political

  • I once believed literature mattered, but upon inspecting the type of people who are into literature versus who are not, I no longer believe it is valuable. “Literature” is surprisingly new to civilization anyway.

  • I love dogs, but dog culture should be ended, and anthropomorphism should be banned from kids entertainment. Kids should be learning to understand humans and their variegated expressions, so that they can understand themselves and adapt to the social world in front of them. They should not be bonding with animals to a significant degree.

  • I once thought IQ was the be-all-end-all but now I think there are other qualities which are as important but less easy to measure.

I love dogs, but dog culture should be ended, and anthropomorphism should be banned from kids entertainment. Kids should be learning to understand humans and their variegated expressions, so that they can understand themselves and adapt to the social world in front of them. They should not be bonding with animals to a significant degree.

As one of those "people who are into literature":

'I'll explain to you, then,' said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, 'why you wouldn't paper a room with representations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality—in fact? Do you?'

Yes, sir!' from one half. 'No, sir!' from the other.

'Of course no,' said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong half. 'Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don't have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another name for Fact.' Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

'This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,' said the gentleman. 'Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?'

There being a general conviction by this time that 'No, sir!' was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe.

'Girl number twenty,' said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.

Sissy blushed, and stood up.

'So you would carpet your room—or your husband's room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband—with representations of flowers, would you?' said the gentleman. 'Why would you?'

'If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,' returned the girl.

'And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?'

'It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy—'

'Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy,' cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. 'That's it! You are never to fancy.'

'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, 'to do anything of that kind.'

'Fact, fact, fact!' said the gentleman. And 'Fact, fact, fact!' repeated Thomas Gradgrind.

When I was younger, both I and my elder brother wanted to be writers, but we disagreed strongly on what made good writing. Probably the simplest way to describe it was that he liked art and I liked entertainment. We've never really resolved the disagreement, but I've spent a long time contemplating why I enjoy what I enjoy, and most of it seems to come down to one of two things; either the piece encapsulates a feeling, or it encapsulates an idea. Either way, these encapsulations are valuable in that they give one significant control over one's own mental state, and that is both pleasurable and useful in many ways.

I think a lot of my own bogglement with the general category of "literature" is that so much of the time, there doesn't seem to be anything useful being encapsulated. I can imagine that the encapsulations are in some incompatible format, but the general impression left is still...

Imagine that you encounter a signal. It is structured, and dense with information. It meets all the criteria of an intelligent transmission. Evolution and experience offer a variety of paths to follow, branch-points in the flowcharts that handle such input. Sometimes these signals come from conspecifics who have useful information to share, whose lives you'll defend according to the rules of kin selection. Sometimes they come from competitors or predators or other inimical entities that must be avoided or destroyed; in those cases, the information may prove of significant tactical value. Some signals may even arise from entities which, while not kin, can still serve as allies or symbionts in mutually beneficial pursuits. You can derive appropriate responses for any of these eventualities, and many others.

You decode the signals, and stumble:

I had a great time. I really enjoyed him. Even if he cost twice as much as any other hooker in the dome—

To fully appreciate Kesey's Quartet—

They hate us for our freedom—

Pay attention, now—

Understand.

There are no meaningful translations for these terms. They are needlessly recursive. They contain no usable intelligence, yet they are structured intelligently; there is no chance they could have arisen by chance.

The only explanation is that something has coded nonsense in a way that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. The signal is a virus.

Viruses do not arise from kin, symbionts, or other allies.

The signal is an attack.

And it's coming from right about there.

I think a lot of my own bogglement with the general category of "literature" is that so much of the time, there doesn't seem to be anything useful being encapsulated.

What are some specific examples of literary works which you consider to contain nothing but “useless” content? And do you believe that such content is not useful to anyone? Or merely not to you?

What are some specific examples of literary works which you consider to contain nothing but “useless” content?

Douglas Coupland. I love his prose, it goes down your throat like a perfect dessert, he would be a perfect dinner guest, but there's no message, just /r/til/top.

I'm not overflowing with examples because I actively avoid most of the stuff, but I can offer a few, direct and indirect.

Bless Me Ultima, a babbies first lit book assigned in an institution of higher learning.

Indirectly, Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy. A friend was enthusiastic about the book, and neither they, the wikipedia article, nor reading a few passages myself revealed why.

Bonus: the poetry of Sylvia Plath.

Theoretically, these texts fit the particular shapes of some particular population's mind, sure. But when I try to engage with the people actually claiming to find value on what value they find, I am left mystified or alienated.

All of "literature" ostensibly states it's trying to find "deeper truths to the human condition" or something. I think, at its best, literature is a kind of compliment to moral philosophy. It wrestles with the Big Questions - Why are we here? What does it mean?

The reality is that 80% of literature is just aesthetic mood affiliation and fashion. Over at Scott's Blog, they just had some millenial (!) post a review of David Foster Wallace's last book. David Foster Wallace was probably a genius, and he used that genius to write thousands of pages of Gen-X nonsense .... and Gen-x (and I guess millienials now) love him for it. He was very, very, very cool.

Charles Bukowski wasn't very cool when he was alive (except in Germany for some reason). At the end of his life and after he died, he became cool in (another) post-ironic "dirtbags are cool" way. He started popping up in literature classes at Bard and Oberlin. That was a real shame. The hipsters turn him into this "poet of the streets" when, in reality, Charles Bukowski wrote about real truth in life - a lot of it is desperate, gross, weak characters mutually exploiting one another to get through the day. Forget the intellectual goofyness of "making the profane divine" ... Sometimes life is just cheap whiskey and run down whores in East L.A.

I don't think literature is important because I don't think there's enough of it that can be generalized. Use my DFW example - there are people who love him dearly. I appreciate their love for him, but I never will. "Well, you don't have to love him, but can't you learn something from him?" No. No I can't. It's all too personal, too mood affiliation, too "what's your aesthetic?"

I'll quibble with DFW's work being nonsense.

It's dizzying, which is not the same thing. It's trying to capture the feeling of the modern world in all of its immense alienating complexity down to the mundane.

If you wanted to explain the feeling of living in our era to someone from 100 years ago, Infinite Jest would be more helpful than a history book in the same way that reading Burroughs is more helpful to understand the feeling of living 100 years ago.

There's lots of people you can accuse of being rote postmodernists with no ideas but the butchering of what is, they run most of entertainment right now. David Foster Wallace is not one of them.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats