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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 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.

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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:

Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

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.

Well, whatever, the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

Remarkably absent from both your post and the replies are the fact that Republicans control the Virginian house of delegates and the governorship, so this has about as much chance of passing as the Illinois bounty law. Even if Democrats had slim majorities in both houses and the governorship, I'd be shocked if something like this could pass. The far end of trans rights is generally a losing issue for democrats and, by extension, taking children out of their parents control makes the majority of people in both parties uncomfortable.

The cause is the Tribes, Blue and Red, and their manifestly incompatible values. Blues/Reds do not Like Reds/Blues. Contrary to arguments presented here for years, we do not share values, moral intuitions, a workable understanding of The Good. The Culture War is not about mistakes, and people are not going to come to their senses any minute now and realize all this was just a whole heap of silly goosery. The Culture War is a conflict. We cannot all get along, because we have lost the fundamental capacity to agree on what "getting along" consists of.

The virtuous cycle of Conflict theory:

Step 1: Find blue person doing bad thing

Step 2: Equate blue person with entire Blue tribe

Step 3: Claim entire Blue tribe wants to hurt me and mine

Step 4a: Spend a lot of time on the internet talking about igloos <- You are here

Step 4b: Hurt blue tribe

It may be difficult to believe, but some people genuinely care about the wellbeing of Trans kids and think they're happier living as their chosen gender. I would be absolutely shocked to find that Guzman is so monstrous that she's primarily motivated by a desire to cause you suffering, and even if she were, the idea that the broader Trans movement was conjured up to harm you both beggars belief and smacks of hubris. Your attraction to Conflict Theory isn't for the truth value, rather you need it to justify your own behavior and hatred:

We're saying that we consider the people so labeled, the officials supporting them, and the section of the public providing their ideology to be a direct, serious and immediate threat to our children.

You'll reject any arguments I make to the contrary that Blue tribe is Out To Get You while ignoring or defending any Red tribe transgression. You've surrounded yourself by yes-men who will trip over themselves to fellate you regardless of what you write, and be outraged that my reply is anything other than happy seal noises.

According to your model, half of your fellow citizens represent a serious and immediate threat to your children. So, what comes next? No more AEO excuses for hinting darkly rather than speaking clearly.

Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

I did not make sweeping generalizations about a group I dislike. I made a generalization about all Americans. I think it is necessary to talk about society as a whole, and when one talks about society as a whole generalizations are necessary. I made some effort to be as precise as possible.

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.

I am neither engaging in "boo outgroup", or asking "can you believe what Those People did this week", and I think I did, in fact, go to considerable effort to contextualize and steel-man the relevant viewpoint. A major politician attempting, within their sphere of influence, to criminalize the way half the country raises their kids is not someone saying something wacky on twitter.

Remarkably absent from both your post and the replies are the fact that Republicans control the Virginian house of delegates and the governorship, so this has about as much chance of passing as the Illinois bounty law.

I appreciate that you do not like the argument I'm making, but I think you should actually attempt to engage with it, at least enough to follow the thread. When I say:

This proposed law doesn't matter. It doesn't matter even a little bit, and not just because it hasn't passed yet. It's very clearly a violation of religious freedom so it should be flatly unconstitutional, but of course the Constitution doesn't matter either. None of the surrounding legal, procedural, or policy questions matter. None of it matters. Not even a little bit. These things aren't the engine. They aren't the steering wheel. They're the bumper stickers, and they're the exhaust. They are the effect, not the cause. If this law is struck down, another will replace it. If this law passes, the core issue will not be resolved. The Constitution should prevent this, but it won't, nor would amendments help.

...I am explicitly arguing that Law does not operate the way you assume it does. Why would you respond to a claim that it doesn't matter if the law is passed or not by pointing out that the law probably won't pass?

Rather than hammer out another twenty-k increasingly frustrated characters, can I ask that you do me a favor? Just for the sake of wild speculation, imagine for a moment that I am not actually attempting to radicalize other Reds, incite violence, or generally hate-jacking it over the idea of large-scale death and misery with my fellow rage-monsters. Imagine that I'm actually trying, very imperfectly, to convince you specifically that you're wrong about something really, really important: that some of the core assumptions you and people like you rely on for your political and social reasoning actually have a really big and very hazardous blind spot in them. Assume that I suck to an unbelievable degree at this, and that probably says woeful things about my character, but it's just barely possible that there's some valuable signal buried in the above shit-heap of noise. Then read it again, and if you're up to it, give me a short summary of the argument you think I'm trying to make.

...If it helps, here's a couple short statements to try to highlight some of the thought process.

  • Politicians propose measures they think will be popular with their base.

  • What we are voting on is vastly more important than how we vote

  • What people want has a vast impact on both what laws are proposed, what laws are passed, and how those laws are implemented.

  • Americans generally are converging on a belief that the biggest political problem they have is that the other Tribe is bad.

  • Assessments of social badness and punishments for that badness are inevitable and necessary for society to function; they cannot be eliminated.

  • Politics exists in large part to assess and punish social badness.

  • Social badness is a values judgement

  • Americans generally strongly disagree over even very basic values judgements.

The far end of trans rights is generally a losing issue for democrats and, by extension, taking children out of their parents control makes the majority of people in both parties uncomfortable.

Okay. If a law like this actually passes and starts getting enforced, will you reconsider the relevance of the above post?

It may be difficult to believe, but some people genuinely care about the wellbeing of Trans kids and think they're happier living as their chosen gender.

I am well aware that such people exist. I do not think such people existing actually explains why a state-level politician is proposing the criminalization of non-affirmation. I do not think you can demonstrate that the standard Trans activist line is sufficiently well-evidenced and documented to make a law like this a remotely reasonable proposal. Tribal animosity of exactly the sort that exists and is endemic throughout the culture can in fact explain it quite easily.

I would be absolutely shocked to find that Guzman is so monstrous that she's primarily motivated by a desire to cause you suffering, and even if she were, the idea that the broader Trans movement was conjured up to harm you both beggars belief and smacks of hubris.

Guzman is motivated by some combination of political ambition and desire to be a Good Person. For her, "good person" is defined by her tribe, which is Blue. Blue Tribe holds that Red anti-LGBT bigotry causes vast harm and suffering, and that preventing and/or punishing this bigotry helps make a better world, that the world will be a better place when Red hostility to LGBT culture has been eliminated, and that actively working to achieve that elimination is a good thing. If you are under the impression that this is an exaggeration or somehow unfair, please say so, and I and likely many others will happily bury your concerns under a mountain of probative examples.

She literally believes my community is built on endemic child abuse. The fact that this idea would have been an absurdly uncharitable caricature less than a decade ago demonstrates that she and her community rapidly self-modified to believe this. If you think they did this based on the calm, reasoned assessment of all available evidence, culminating in a cool-headed, dispassionate weighing of the policies available to them, please, by all means say so. I think they did it because of a runaway spiral of tribal signaling, the same spiral that has resulted in a very long list of other absurd and disastrous mistakes. I think I can describe exactly how that spiral has operated, and even show you the specific milestones of its advancement.

But yes, to sum up, I think an overwhelming majority of the current LGBT issues are, in fact, about picking fights with Reds, not about finding a reasonable level of accommodation where we can live together. LGBT activists in this very community have laid out how and why picking such fights is their explicit plan, and how they have no intention of coexisting with Red values at all, ever. If that's not good enough for you, please tell me what level of evidence you're willing to consider sufficient.

You'll reject any arguments I make to the contrary that Blue tribe is Out To Get You while ignoring or defending any Red tribe transgression.

You are responding to a comment where a senior state-level politician flat-out states that yes, she is absolutely out to get me, because she thinks saying so will be popular with her base and help her win further offices. Your argument for why this should not be taken seriously is that she probably won't get the law passed, because her party doesn't dominate the particular state in question.

Okay. So what happens when they do dominate? Do you think this is all just posturing, and they'd never really do it because that would be crazy? What happens if they decide that no, actually, they're gonna try it?

Your attraction to Conflict Theory isn't for the truth value, rather you need it to justify your own behavior and hatred:

You could not possibly be more wrong. I endeavor to behave in a fashion that requires no justification, and to the extent I fail there is no excuse. My hatred is unjustifiable, flatly evil, and something I am actively attempting to get a rein on.

I don't care if you disagree with me. One of us is very badly wrong. I think it's you. One version of the dream is that one of us realizes the error of our ways, and all these arguments resolve in an instant into a joyful, shared communion in the truth, and in this version it genuinely does not matter to me who was wrong and who was right. The other version of the dream is that I scream "I told you so, you stupid motherfuckers" at all of you in the last ten minutes before the lights go out. That last part, admittedly, is not terribly mature, but after much consideration it seems better than a lot of the other options.

According to your model, half of your fellow citizens represent a serious and immediate threat to your children. So, what comes next? No more AEO excuses for hinting darkly rather than speaking clearly.

Avoid the problem by declining to live in Blue areas or exposing my kids to blue organizations. Coordinate political power along explicitly tribal interests so that we can secure a livable future free of Blue oppression. Attempt to get enough resources to successfully bypass doom if that coordination fails. Hope for a miracle, get on with living life in the meantime.

2/2

You could not possibly be more wrong. I endeavor to behave in a fashion that requires no justification, and to the extent I fail there is no excuse. My hatred is unjustifiable, flatly evil, and something I am actively attempting to get a rein on.

I wish you the best, and while it's ludicrous and perhaps a failure of imagination on my part, I fundamentally believe this is the attraction of Conflict Theory.

One of us is very badly wrong.

Unlikely. The world is more complex than "Everything is 100% explainable by conflict theory" and "my country(wo)men are saintly altruists who take no selfish acts," and the truth is likely in the middle. The US isn't headed towards glorious fully automated luxury gay space communism, nor is it headed towards apocalyptic prepper wasteland where we fight over bottlecaps, it'll shamble along a good while longer.

Avoid the problem by declining to live in Blue areas or exposing my kids to blue organizations. Coordinate political power along explicitly tribal interests so that we can secure a livable future free of Blue oppression. Attempt to get enough resources to successfully bypass doom if that coordination fails. Hope for a miracle, get on with living life in the meantime.

Well, segregation is your right as a private citizen I suppose. This country only works insofar as we put in the work to have hard discussions across the chasm of differing worldviews, and I'd encourage you to not give up on trying to communicate or understand or empathize, but I suppose it's better than most of the alternatives.

1/2

Apologies upfront, but this will probably be my only reply in this thread. Not because I don't care, but because I don't have the time to exchange essays and frankly given the timestamps of your replies it's probably best for the both of us.

Assume that I suck to an unbelievable degree at this, and that probably says woeful things about my character, but it's just barely possible that there's some valuable signal buried in the above shit-heap of noise. Then read it again, and if you're up to it, give me a short summary of the argument you think I'm trying to make.

Alright, I read it again. I'm still incensed. I'll expand on why in a moment, but we can go piece by piece.

I did not make sweeping generalizations about a group I dislike.

You did.

This law isn't being proposed because it solves a problem. It's being proposed because Blues hate Reds and want to harm them. That tribal hatred, by no means unique in its character and very much reciprocated by Reds, wants to Do Something About The Bad People.

From the Blue perspective, legally redefining Red Tribe parenting as child abuse is certainly a pretty good way to hurt the outgroup, and options for retaliation are limited and costly. The algorithm is working! And for those who might have concerns, never fear: Guzman's got you covered. '

when people like me use the term "groomer", we are not saying "I really don't like this person." We're saying that we consider the people so labeled, the officials supporting them, and the section of the public providing their ideology to be a direct, serious and immediate threat to our children.

You don't get to open with an angry rant about a law being proposed by a Virginian democrat, pepper it with mentions about blues hating reds and wanting to harm them, wrap it up with 'actually, these people are groomers and I consider them an immediate and serious threat to my children', stuff the same argument you've been making for as long as I've been around in the middle, and claim that you aren't waging the culture war. Out of all the replies to your post, how many were interested in an academic discussion about the finer points of the law being downstream of cultural values versus people wanting to bitch about Thing Blue Person Did This Week? I'd count one for the former, almost everyone else in the latter. While I'm sure my reading comprehension skills are subpar for the local community, everyone is responding to the 'hatejacking,' not just me. You just don't care because the other contrarian, totally-independent critical thinkers agree with your take.

I think I did, in fact, go to considerable effort to contextualize and steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

Your steel-man:

A major politician attempting, within their sphere of influence, to criminalize the way half the country raises their kids is not someone saying something wacky on twitter.

Wow, really? So your half of the country uses pronouns given at birth, which this law would criminalize, and the other half of the country calls their children ze/zir? Literally the entirety of blue tribe has trans children, and the parenting style of >99% of red tribe families with cis children will be criminalized? That's your steel-man?

But whatever. Like I said, the rules don't matter, and even if they did, nobody would care what I think.

My best summary of your argument, parts of which I agree with and have made myself:

Laws are irrelevant, what matters are the upstream values of the people writing them, the people voting for the people writing them, the people enforcing them and the people willing to obey them. A group of people with no shared values who hate each other and defect constantly who adopt the United States constitution and system will not become the United States; conversely, if we memory-holed the constitution and judicial system overnight, people in respectable communities here would still put back their shopping carts, mow their lawns, send their kids to school and so on and so forth. There's plenty of happy little enclaves throughout history who lived your Good Life without our laws, and plenty of shithole countries that imitate our system with poor results.

Our values have diverged so far that we can no longer have productive debates, discussions or peaceful coexistence. Life is now a zero-sum game dictated by how best to harm the outgroup. In short, Conflict Theory.

You've made this argument repeatedly with a different event du jour tacked on, usually a bad thing that you cite as evidence to support your worldview. Usually, if you'll forgive the armchair psychology and repeated assumptions about your state of mind, something you're personally incensed by.

Why would you respond to a claim that it doesn't matter if the law is passed or not by pointing out that the law probably won't pass?

Because literally everyone responding to you is hyperventilating about the government criminalizing the parenting of the entire Red Tribe. Because someone needs to pump the brakes, because someone needs to at least culture war in the opposite direction if we have to be waging the culture war in the first place.

Just for the sake of wild speculation, imagine for a moment that I am not actually attempting to radicalize other Reds, incite violence, or generally hate-jacking it over the idea of large-scale death and misery with my fellow rage-monsters. Imagine that I'm actually trying, very imperfectly, to convince you specifically that you're wrong about something really, really important: that some of the core assumptions you and people like you rely on for your political and social reasoning actually have a really big and very hazardous blind spot in them.

I reject what you're saying both because 1) I disagree, and believe in the decency and character of the vast majority of my fellow citizens, including you and your fellow rage-monsters and 2) even if you were right, I'm not going to accept it, shrug and go back to scrolling on reddit while my country burns. I'm going to rage against the dying of the light even as you laugh and say 'told you so stupid motherfucker' the same way I'm raging at you now, I'm going to enlist in the armed forces, run for office, start a goddamn substack, argue on the internet, have a family of 6 or whatever it takes to make the world a better place because we are not just passive bystanders, we are what makes this country what it is. There's always going to be freeloaders, cynics and rage-monsters. Spreading cynicism and conflict theory begets more cynicism and conflict; regardless of the truth value of your statements I believe that you're making the problem worse.

Do you remember what you said years ago when I asked why you still bother to post around here? Perhaps I'm insufferable, naive, self-righteous and overzealous but I prefer my answer to what I remember yours was, which amounted to 'it helps pass the time.' If only I could find it.

If a law like this actually passes and starts getting enforced, will you reconsider the relevance of the above post?

Hardly, and the inverse law already exists in Texas. I can fairly easily mentally model a steel-man where both Texan politicians and Guzman are doing what they think is best for the children. Also, the law doesn't matter, remember?

It would take some truly titanic event to turn me as cynical as you. Like concentration camps, civil war, a real coup or living in Russia.

Guzman is motivated by some combination of political ambition and desire to be a Good Person. For her, "good person" is defined by her tribe, which is Blue. Blue Tribe holds that Red anti-LGBT bigotry causes vast harm and suffering, and that preventing and/or punishing this bigotry helps make a better world, that the world will be a better place when Red hostility to LGBT culture has been eliminated, and that actively working to achieve that elimination is a good thing.

You flip between Guzman and Blue tribe as a whole depending on which is more convenient, and project the former onto the latter to justify you writing off half the country. You're rehashing this conversation. Again, you ignore the majority of values that we do share and catastrophize over the marginal cases of trans children with deeply conservative children. In a country of over 300 million, I have no doubt there are a few hundred cases of miserable trans children and angry parents that you could make a probative mountain to bury me under. I suspect you're less interested in the mountain 300 million people tall where this isn't the case.

Not to say I don't take your concerns seriously, or minimize the suffering of those people, or argue that they should be charged with a felony and thrown in jail. But I'm not about to lose my faith in western civilization or this nation because we don't have a great solution for this problem.

Okay. So what happens when they do dominate? Do you think this is all just posturing, and they'd never really do it because that would be crazy? What happens if they decide that no, actually, they're gonna try it?

I think there's a world where trans people face more acceptance than they do now, that surgery and medicine improve their ability to transition more seamlessly, and where people come around not because blue politicians rammed it down their throat but because they don't feel threatened by it anymore. If there are indeed people attracted to being trans for persecution complex reasons, the total number of trans people goes down. And this is congruent with what I think you were saying above; if trans people aren't viewed as a threat anymore values will change organically and a law like this will have broader majority support.

You'll reject any arguments I make to the contrary that Blue tribe is Out To Get You while ignoring or defending any Red tribe transgression.

I want to preface this by noting that I hit you with all these questions because I respect you, and I'm genuinely interested in your take.

Do you have any suggestions for comparable Red Tribe transgressions? From my perspective, Reds just look less invested in this part of the game, possibly from having a smaller "standing army", as it were, of professional partisans who spend all day thinking up culture war offensives to enact. But this could easily be a blind spot.

Do you have any suggestions for comparable Red Tribe transgressions? From my perspective, Reds just look less invested in this part of the game, possibly from having a smaller "standing army", as it were, of professional partisans who spend all day thinking up culture war offensives to enact.

Either you already know the answer to this question, you'll say my response is categorically different (politics vs. social engineering) or that my response is just wrong, no? I doubt there's any huge culture war development I'm aware of that you remain ignorant of.

  1. False election claims, often knowingly false claims made by Trump et al to undermine faith in the election system for personal benefit. Recently elected Republican election official harassed by his own party for saying he hasn't found any evidence of fraud. Cyber ninjas debacle. etc, etc, etc. Explicit, unabashed gerrymandering. Power plays like this one.

  2. Roe v. Wade, Texas bounty hunter law, decades of unconstitutional abortion laws in southern states, assassination of doctors providing abortions, armed men screaming abuse at women walking into planned parenthood and a concerted effort to trick them into 'pregnancy crisis centers' instead.

  3. Nobody cares anymore, but southern states still push creation science and religion. Children are indoctrinated by whatever religious sect their parents choose for them. Children are inundated with things like the pledge of allegiance, armed forces propaganda and media glorifying the US military to an extent that you won't even recognize as weird if you haven't lived abroad.

  4. How about don't say gay laws? Or other anti-trans legislation? Laws banning discussion of [equity]9https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/heres-the-long-list-of-topics-republicans-want-banned-from-the-classroom/2022/02)? What about book bans? There's a lot of focus on lawn boy and it's ilk, but look at some of the shit people are using that as cover to ban. Oh no, a child might see a muslim person portrayed as anything other than a terrorist! The horror! The handmaid's tale is banned by a dozen states.

I'm sure if you cared more about the culture war you could make hay out of a dozen crazy bills proposed by some state legislators in the south.

Either you already know the answer to this question, you'll say my response is categorically different (politics vs. social engineering) or that my response is just wrong, no? I doubt there's any huge culture war development I'm aware of that you remain ignorant of.

There's a lot of states that pass or consider a lot of bills that might get attention in media environments I don't frequent. And in fairness, a lot of these examples are not quite what I'm thinking of, but some are. The abortion bounty-hunter thing is a good example. I'm not sure what the "trick" entails, but yes, fooling women who want abortions into visiting a clinic that is dedicated to convincing them to keep the baby is a reasonable fit. Religion in schools is potentially fertile ground, but I don't just mean parents teaching kids their own religion, I mean something more like "Kansas passes a law to have CPS target parents who refuse to let their kids take Creationism classes." Or refusing to certify graduation science requirements for atheists. Similarly, all those "anti-trans" bills are about biological males participating in women's sports teams - has anyone finagled some clever scheme to ban trans students from all extracurriculars purely as a Fuck You wedge to punish the outgroup?

Similarly, all those "anti-trans" bills are about biological males participating in women's sports teams - has anyone finagled some clever scheme to ban trans students from all extracurriculars purely as a Fuck You wedge to punish the outgroup?

This is false.

The latest directive comes in the form of a letter issued in late February to DFPS directing the agency to classify medical treatments for transgender adolescents—such as puberty blockers and hormone injections—as “child abuse” under existing state law. The letter calls for DFPS to investigate parents who help their children access such treatments, as well as licensed facilities that administer them. The letter also imposes penalties on any “mandatory reporters” like doctors, nurses, and teachers who don’t report instances of treatment to the agency, as well as on members of the general public.

The letter is the follow-up to a legal opinion Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a few days prior, defining such procedures as child abuse and labeling gender-reassignment surgeries as “forced sterilization,” among other claims.

The Florida 'Democrats are pedophiles' law attempts to conflate discussions about the existence of gay or transgender people with exposing them to sexually explicit material:

—No Federal

funds may be made available to develop, implement, facilitate, or fund any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10, including hosting

or promoting any program, event, or literature involving

sexually-oriented material, or any program, event, or literature that exposes children under the age of 10 to nude

adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious

dancing.

Okay, I'm on board.

—The

term ‘‘sexually-oriented material’’ means any depiction, description, or simulation of sexual activity,

any lewd or lascivious depiction or description of

human genitals, or any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects.

Ohhh, I see the trojan horse now. So, for example, showing a story with a gay couple would be a discussion about sexual orientation, wouldn't it? Or a discussion about why boys have to wear pants while girls can wear dresses would be skirting (heh) dangerously close to verboten language. Essentially, you're claiming that talking about the existence of gay or trans people is 'sexually-oriented' material in a way that discussing heterosexual relationships is not. Republicans want to pass something like this nationally.

If we gave voice to the central majority rather than the extremists on either margin, there's probably a course to be charted. I think most people are uncomfortable with letting 6 year olds opt for irreversible surgery, and virtually all with CPS agents dragging away your child because you questioned their pronouns. Conversely, I also think most people are uncomfortable with a China-like security apparatus trying to memory-hole the existence of gay people.

This is false.

So the prior article did seem to be about sports stuff at a quick glance, but this one

The latest directive comes in the form of a letter issued in late February to DFPS directing the agency to classify medical treatments for transgender adolescents—such as puberty blockers and hormone injections—as “child abuse” under existing state law.

is a good example of exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Not just restricting it, or putting more onerous requirements, but straight up classifying it as child abuse is the kind of "Fuck you" offensive maneuver I was thinking about.

Essentially, you're claiming that talking about the existence of gay or trans people is 'sexually-oriented' material in a way that discussing heterosexual relationships is not.

I honestly don't think that discussing heterosexual relationships is something that schools like doing in the first place. There are too many kids for whom that's a sore spot. On a personal level, I spent a couple of years reaching out to teachers to ask them to be cautious around the topic of "moms", and I was repeatedly reassured that it wasn't likely to be an issue, I was far from the only parent whose kids had a family related emotional disturbance, and teachers were all trained to be sensitive about that stuff. Even when they do a Mother's Day activity, it's quickly glossed over as "pick a special lady in your life, a mom, grandma, aunt, family friend". Grandparent's Day is Special Person's Day, etc. Instead, they just use groups of racially and gender diverse kids as the cast in all the short reading pieces, maybe with a teacher or generic adult. In that context, throwing in some examples of gay families where "Daddy and Daddy still love each other!" leaves a bit of a different impression.

interested in your take.

Do you have any suggestions for comparable Red Tribe transgressions? From my perspective, Reds just look less

The Texas Abortion Bounty law seems analogous, for a starting place.

The Texas law saying that gender-affirming care can be investigated as child abuse would seem to be an even more direct mirror. Same issue, same threat to remove children from their parents.

Just so.

I think that this is a valuable post and what's more, you're correct in your assessment.

But I can see how a conflict theorist would map "caring about Trans kids" onto some more sinister. This entire issue of trans children sprung, seemingly out of nowhere, in the last few years. To someone not deeply embedded in modern, blue tribe culture its hard to believe that all of a sudden the incidence of trans identity just naturally explodes by 1000%. So the conspiratorial mind finds other explanations.

I think an analog would be the Satanic panics of earlier generations where day care operators and others were bizarrely charged with harming kids in the name of Satan. Surely nothing could be so ridiculous? But I think the promulgators of the Satanic panics were pushing a genuine quasi-religious belief. They really believed that Satanic cults existed. They weren't just looking for people to hurt.

Likewise, today's blue tribe feels genuine strong passions that transgender identity is important. Some would even say, or at least imply, that it is better than CIS identity. This belief would be considered quite ridiculous to almost any society other than the current one in which we live. Surely they can't actually believe that, the right-winger thinks. And so they must be doing it to own the right.

the broader Trans movement was conjured up to harm you both beggars belief and smacks of hubris

That depends on what you call "the broader Trans movement". It's the classical motte-and-bailey situation. If we talk about people that claim trans persons should not be persecuted for their behavior, and should be allowed to modify their bodies as they want, if they feel like it - that's one thing. That's self-ownership which any adult is entitled to. If we talk about social norm that requires promoting and celebrating such modifications, and in fact encouraging people to do them and praising them for the fact they did the surgery as an ultimate act of courage and accomplishment - that's different thing. If we talk about the norm where anybody declaring that they might feel like doing such modifications sometime in the future, or feel like they already did such modifications even if they didn't, or don't want to do them but want everybody to pretend they did, should immediately be treated by everybody as if their perception were the reality, not only since they declared it, but always in the past - that's another different thing. If we talk about social norm where it is not acceptable to even question and discuss whether a norms like above is a good thing, and whether forcing people into accepting these norms is the only accepted social behavior - that's another different thing. If we talk about perception of being trans being so important that any child, no matter how minor, once expressing any feeling that may reasonably be considered as "feeling trans" by any observer, immediately and forever declared "trans" and any effort not actively leading him to hormonal and surgical modification is considered abuse and deserves complete exclusion of any parental involvement - that's another different thing.

And yes, promoting some of these goals would harm me. Both as a person and as a member of the social culture. And yes, I think some of this things - not all of them, not at all, but some - are conjured to destroy (or at least modify in a way that would make it as good as destroyed) current societal culture. These things can not be reasonably reconciled with freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of association, parental responsibility, freedom of scientific research, etc. - and the experience shows us that their proponents make no attempt to reconcile them, but instead act to destroy those cultural and societal institutions that stand in their way. This feature, of course, is not unique to "the broader Trans movement" but is common to many Leftist movements in general, which is no wonder since they are parts of the same movement.

I agree with the first paragraph! I don't have time to do this justice, but I hope you'll accept this placeholder and I'll get you a real response in the not-too-distant future.

The thing about you and @FCfromSSC is that you have both earned respect as representatives of polar opposites of the political spectrum, and that being the case, watching the two of you go at it is kind of like watching a prizefighter match.

That said, there is still no fighting in the war room, gentlemen. IOW, there are rules.

You'll reject any arguments I make to the contrary that Blue tribe is Out To Get You while ignoring or defending any Red tribe transgression. You've surrounded yourself by yes-men who will trip over themselves to fellate you regardless of what you write, and be outraged that my reply is anything other than happy seal noises.

This is over the line. I mean, you're not wrong! Write a long red-hot accelerationist post and watch the upvotes climb, and yup, you definitely got a bunch of outraged reports for arguing with him. But calling everyone who agrees with him "yes-men who will trip over themselves to fellate you" is just culture warring right back. "Everyone who agrees with you sucks" (literally) is not exactly keeping the antagonism in check.

According to your model, half of your fellow citizens represent a serious and immediate threat to your children. So, what comes next? No more AEO excuses for hinting darkly rather than speaking clearly.

"What comes next?" isn't an unfair question, but posed the way you pose it, it reads less like an attempt to genuinely understand a point of view than an invitation to fedpost. "Go on, tell me you want to kill me, I dare you!"

Less of this, please.

accelerationist

Are you describing FC's post as accelerationist?

It's a fair cop, based on previous conversations.

Thanks for the reminder. I promise upfront not to argue with you, but if you're willing to indulge a question I'd appreciate it.

IOW, there are rules.

From my perspective, I hold my tongue on a lot of snarky one and two line posts that strike me as culture warring. 1 2 3 4 5.

Not to complain or cry that they should get warnings and/or bans, but my impression was that we were thunderdoming it. Are you willing to comment on whether from your perspective the mod philosophy is the same as in the Old Place or if there was a deliberate change early on to retain users?

From my perspective, we have not really changed our mod philosophy. We might be modding a little more lightly, but that doesn't mean it's the Thunderdome, and being antagonistic and unnecessarily inflammatory is still frowned on. And just like in the Old Place, "you modded this comment but you didn't mod that comment" does not necessarily mean that comment was A-OK.

Thanks.