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 -
So I read 89 books last year (details can be found in the wellness Wednesday thread). Many people here and more so in real life seem to pretty surprised, and impressed. I'm not sure if this is me being a time (or hobby) snob, but I'm a little dissapointed in this kind of reaction. In the real world this makes some sense: TV and scrolling are much more appealing than a book after a long day at work, but I was hoping to see more serious readers in a place that's as text and argument heavy as the motte.
Reading a lot of books isn't as hard as it seems. The average american spends something like 4+ hours on the internet+TV. If you take 1 of those hours and convert them into reading every day you get 365 hours a year. At 50 pages/hour, that's 15k pages a year, or about 50 300-page books. I read slightly faster and slightly more, but also a significant amount in Spanish, which is slower. So probably 2 hrs/day at an average of 50 pages/hour. That's about 30k pages. If I look at my goodreads, I read 33,885 pages total. I keep more detailed stats for Spanish. Looks like I read for a total of 227 hours for a total of 11k pages, which is about 45 pages/hour. Of course these numbers vary from person to person, and book to book. All very do-able for the average Mottzian. It just means largely giving up other forms of entertaininment, like video games or TV, and perhaps more importantly, not being a workaholic.
So are my expectations for this place off? Am I overestimating the importance of books to the average Mottzian (and in self-cultivation in general)? Underestimating people's daily time commitments?
I managed 6 full books last year, and about 200 'chapters' of works I've read in the past and saw fit to revisit, and maybe 1500+ pages of articles or journals or guides. I realized my lack of completing books cover to cover mirrors my lack of completing TV shows season to season or even video games: I'm old(ish).
Not that age makes me incapable of enjoying the new. More that age makes me have a larger corpus of works to compare new consumed media against, and if a new work fails to hook me I immediately tune out and go for a Greatest Hits run to tickle the nostalgia dopamine of reading that work the first time. New works failing to capture that for me largely stinks of just old age cantankerousness, and the threshold of excitement to breach is not worth the gnawing knowledge that i've read BETTER and this work just doesn't' cut it.
The sole exception is reading new books for my kids. Little shits that they are, they hold no interest for Journey To The West or Water Margin, but for them I can power through my irritation at the archaic prose and tired tropes. Maybe one day I will finally be able to read King Lear without falling asleep, just for their sake.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link