site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   31840 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 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.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Spoilers for Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) ahead

Time for some low-stakes culture war. The sequel to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie is out. The first movie was essentially a remake of Scorsese's Taxi Driver with a little bit of supervillain flavour that resulted in a moral panic about how its empathetic portrayal of a mentally ill loner might spark an incel shooting. In the end, no shooting happened and the movie made bank.

The sequel now takes a different approach and turned out to be a musical featuring gay icon Lady Gaga. A bold choice that critics describe as

Moviegoers, particularly the comic-book inclined, loved “Joker,” although I do wonder what they’ll make of the sequel, which seems to extend a middle finger to anyone who reveled in the title character’s anarchy the first time around.

The Critical Drinker, a, uh, heterodox critic went a step further and had the following to say

[The protagonist] reverted to the same weak, timid Arthur that he was at the start of the first movie. And I can't shake the feeling that there is something almost mean-spirited in that kind of deconstruction. As if they're taking a swipe at the audience themselves for liking someone they weren't supposed to.

Internet randos floated memes to the same effect. First, a plot summary:

joker kisses a dude, gets raped in the ass by the cops and then he gets stabbed and dies at the end of the movie. not even a joke.

And now for some red hot culture war schizophrenia:

JOKER 2 is a humiliation ritual. You reacted to the first movie WRONG, and they're punishing you for that. You weren't supposed to sympathize with him. He was supposed to be a WHITE INCEL LOSER. Hence this 2hr snuff film. They thought doing this to Joel Miller, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Willow, Picard, and John Connor was enough for you to GET THE MESSAGE.

And while I think the above conspiracy theory gets the motivations and machinations of the ominous they hilariously wrong, there is something to be said about a Zeitgeist that sees anything enjoyed by (white) men as something in dire need of female supervision.

A small kink in that explanation: The second movie was written and directed by the same people. So, what happened?

Parsimonious explanation, the first Joker was supposed to be a middle finger, but it was too balanced and hit at the right time and people liked it. So they went back to the drawing board and made a musical.

Reminds me of something i read, i think it was by Ernst Junger, about how it is hard to make a truly honest anti-war film because any honest depiction of war will inevitably include a hint of what men love about it.

Interestingly I’ve heard the same thing from the other direction, that honest portrayals, the best portrayals, are inherently anti-war.

Probably both are true. As Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it."

I listened to an interview with I think a psychologist a few years back who argued what we diagnose as PTSD in soldiers is often really the loss of the close relationships and the intense bonds that develop. The feeling of having someone’s life in your hands and willingly putting yours in theirs.

Returning to the world involves a grieving process, he argued.

Returning to the world involves a grieving process, he argued.

That's something Bret Deveraux touched upon in his blog. Why didn't premodern soldiers have PTSD? While my take is that premodern warfare was more immediate and cathartic, he thinks it's three things:

  • ubiquity of experience: everyone would've had some experience with war back then, so you wouldn't lament the lost of military camaraderie
  • celebration of warfare: not "you shot ten Iraqis? You did what you had to", but "you speared ten fleeing Persians in the back? Fucking rad"
  • purification rituals: instead of praying to Jesus alone to find inner peace you had a legible ritual: if you walk into this temple as a warrior, make this offering, do this ritual, say these words, then you walk out as a farmer again and your life of warfare is washed clean and wrapped in the same bundle of oiled rags as your arms and armor.

He thinks that while bringing the first two back would be a regression, bringing back the third one might be a sensible option. Maybe he's right? Beatify some American soldier, build a shrine to him in the Black Hills, establish a pilgrimage to the shrine.

see https://acoup.blog/2020/04/24/fireside-friday-april-24-2020/ starting from

was there post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the ancient (or medieval) world? And I’m going to tilt at that particular question here in a fireside in part because the absence of evidence doesn’t quite make for a riveting collections post and arguments from silence must always be cautious.

This maybe isn't too surprising: the process of turning an average joe into a soldier is often a psychologically-grueling process that we don't give much attention to undoing when that person's time as a soldier is done. Soldiers often have trouble readjusting to civilian life, and often find solace in civilian organizations run by fellow veterans.

Parsimonious explanation, the first Joker was supposed to be a middle finger, but it was too balanced and hit at the right time and people liked it. So they went back to the drawing board and made a musical.

That would work except that I don't think it fits the first movie. The villain protagonist received too much empathy and the ending was too triumphant for that.

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