site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33499 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 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.

23
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

a pile of rich, privileged white twits cosplaying Injun

The other fascinating thing is that they're all women who do this. Dolezal and the fifty other disgraced fake-AmerIndian academics... all women. Naively I'd assume men tend to be more aggressive and more likely to work every sordid angle in self promotion, but this particular con seems to be just for the ladies.

Men seem to be willing to self-identify as women when it comes to prison, but yeah, otherwise it does seem more women -- I wonder if groups of men to to control that more aggressively than women?

There have been a couple of guys who have tried this, ranging from the well-meaning if deluded fantasists, Grey Owl, to the deliberately making a career out of being the Token Indian in academia, Ward Churchill.

I'd push back just a bit on that, as I think we've seen a few men as well. Can't think of it offhand and I'm off to work, but I don't think it's exclusively female. Does seem to be predominantly female, but that might just be Academia + gender political skew.

One related but not direct example of a man doing something like this would be Shaun King in the USA.

That's who I was thinking of! He did the same thing as Turpel here and claimed his mother had an affair as a way of explaining why his birth certificate says he's white.

Definitely a thing among male (and otherwise white) academics in Canada, especially because they're the ones most vulnerable on identity grounds.

Ward Churchill is the only example of a male fake-Indian academic I recall, though if we're going for race-fakery more generally, there's fake-black activist Shaun King, aka Talcum X.

Though yes, the pattern does seem to be more common among women.

Maybe it doesn't work so much for men because we have more memetic antibodies for huckster men? I suspect people like C.V. Woods are fewer and far-between these days. Plus, also, the stereotype of the used-car salesman.

It's probably easier to tack on additional oppression points than to get the first one and move from full blown oppressor to a little bit also victim. Women already have one layer of protective shield making it rude to question their motives.

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