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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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What you and /u/FCfromSSC both dance around here ...

The only person dancing around anything here is you.

Should the law require have required my teacher to tell this parent that his son was gay, thus subjecting the kid to homelessness?

Too fucking right it should. It's not the teacher's place to manipulate families based on her own personal values. Schoolteachers are public employees and ultimately answerable to parents. Concealing material information from parents is pedagogical malpractice.

Laws saying teachers don't have to disclose aren't there so that teachers can keep secrets to groom children. They're there so that teachers can use discretion and judgement to figure out what the right course of action is.

That's not a level of discretion government employees get to have over families, not in any sane system. If a child is being physically abused, malnourished, etc. then the law might get involved, and it's tragic and messy but sometimes understandable. If a child is confused about sex or sexuality, that is not the government's business to decide how to address that. By making it the government's business, Democrats are actively grooming children.

If you think it's "abuse" to tell a child that they don't get to date or have sex or wear inappropriate clothing, like, we just have a clear values disagreement. I do think many "transgendered" children are actually victims of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is enough like sexual abuse that I might be persuaded that child protective services should also be allowed to intervene in such cases... but even then, absent any other concerns I'm reluctant to get the government involved. I don't know--do you think I should be more willing to get the government involved in such cases?

Show me what's objectionable in these books, and tell me what age you think you should be in order to access this material, and why.

I mean, for starters. Children's libraries are no place for these materials. Making such materials available to children is textbook grooming. Do you honestly advocate for distributing such things to children? If so, you're a groomer, too, by every definition offered in the thread thus far.

Concealing material information from parents is pedagogical malpractice.

... If a child is confused about sex or sexuality, that is not the government's business to decide how to address that. By making it the government's business, Democrats are actively grooming children.

Don't be ridiculous. You're seriously trying to say that it's "grooming" if someone believes that a teacher doesn't have to tell a kid's homophobic parents that their kid is gay? You want to call keeping a secret from someone who will hurt their kid if they know the same as deliberately trying to make it easier for someone to sexually abuse a kid? That is absurd.

You're seriously trying to say

No, I'm saying only what I'm saying--not trying to say other things.

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of hitting children for receiving school discipline should conceal the administration of school discipline?

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of requiring children to be vegan should be permitted to secretly provide the child with meat?

Children who confide in teachers are placing themselves in an exploitable position. Often it is merely political indoctrination to which those children have unwittingly exposed themselves. Sometimes it is abuse. Parents are the legal and moral guardians of their children. Temporary custodians (like teachers) who withhold material information about those children from parents, on grounds that the custodian doesn't like the things the parent has said about a particular subject (like homosexuality and the likely consequences of coming out), are not helping children. They are imposing their own outsider judgments on the operations of a family they have no business manipulating.

The government is not "deliberately trying to make it easier for someone to sexually abuse" kids. The government is deliberately abusing kids (in the form of exposing them to inappropriate materials), and deliberately doing things that make it easier for someone to abuse kids (like requiring teachers to conceal material information from parents). It's an easy conflation to make, but I encourage you to engage more closely with the facts about what is being said or done, without (twice in one comment) making misleading loaded claims about what I or others are "trying" to do.

I was not intending to mislead. Inaccurate paraphrases by me are the result of genuine confusion on my part as to exactly whom you are attempting to accuse of knowingly aiding and abetting child abuse and for what. You said that it was "grooming children" for the government to be involved in choosing whether to tell homophobic parents about their child's sexuality in the same paragraph in which you referred to teachers as "government employees." As a result, I read you as accusing any teacher who chooses not to tell a child's homophobic parents that their child is gay of grooming children.

Your response suggests to me that this reading was not accurate. I am glad to hear this. Even by the standards of "groomer" discourse, that would be unusually absurd.

Now, since you've also asked me some direct questions, I'll answer them.

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of hitting children for receiving school discipline should conceal the administration of school discipline?

I don't think they should be required to conceal it, but I wouldn't outlaw such mercy.

Do you think teachers who suspect parents of requiring children to be vegan should be permitted to secretly provide the child with meat?

Happens all the time. Seriously, do you know how hard it is to get a slice of the vegetarian pizza when there's just one in the whole classroom and the meat-eating kids think nothing of taking a slice of it while you're still figuring out which one it is?

Now, deliberately trying to make the vegan kid eat meat, or going out of your way to provide it specifically, would indeed be anti-social behaviour. On the other hand, if the kid deliberately chooses to eat meat of their own accord and you don't tell their parents, well, that's less of an issue. I don't think teachers are required to rat kids out to their parents for every little thing the parents might not like.

What externalities have I avoided engaging on?

This wasn't a discussion about externalities, but a discussion about direct costs. By moving to hypothetical "externalities" you simply sidestepped the conversation altogether.

Do parents have an absolute right to know 100% of their teenagers mental contents at all times?

Nobody said anything like that. Your strawmen have no power here.

Should you read your daughter's diary entries?

If you think there is cause for concern, damn straight you should read your daughter's diary entries. Monitor her internet use, too. Kids don't generally need to live in a panopticon but sometimes it makes sense to take that approach. I'd rather my children be upset about an occasional "invasion of privacy" than be confident in the sanctity of their phones or diaries and run off with an internet boyfriend, and that's not a hypothetical example. I had a neighbor whose 12-year-old daughter snuck away with a 23-year-old "boyfriend" she met online. That sort of thing is terrifying. Privacy is just not a very important thing for children to get from their parents.

You want to turn teachers into a Stasi.

Not at all. To the contrary--you want to turn teachers into parents. I want teachers to share material information with parents, because they work for the parents, literally on the parents' dime. If that information does result in abuse, there are legal protections in place for that sort of thing. If a teacher merely believes that information will result in abuse, that's in many cases just the teacher being bigoted, which is also material information a teacher should share. "I hate your kind so much that I will actively undermine your parenting" is the kind of warning teachers really ought to give to parents, so parents can make an informed choice about where to send their children to be educated. (Wishful thinking, I know.)

your current position is that the state shouldn't punish parents who deprive their children of healthcare

I don't think that at all. "Gender-affirming" treatments are not healthcare any more than a nose job is. We do clearly have a straight values disagreement here--you think that mutilating people is "health care," and I don't.

I don't really give a shit if they're in a high school though, because kids find worse on the internet.

Yeah, see above I guess. "The internet is worse, so it's fine if my kid's library peddles porn" is certainly a take, I'll give you that.

Very funny. You're a child molestor. There are gay and trans children out there, and you think they should be molested* by their teachers. You even suggested their parents should be molested* by the state for allowing their child to access gender affirming care.

Well, this is the values disagreement though, isn't it? It boils down to you thinking it's healthy for teachers to talk to kids about sex and sexuality without their parents' knowledge, because some parents might do objectionable things as a result, and I think it's not healthy for teachers to talk to kids about sex and sexuality without their parents' knowledge, because some teachers might do objectionable things as a result. You want teachers to make judgment calls at the expense of the parent-child relationship, and I want parents to be the ones making maximally-informed judgment calls, both because parents are generally in a better position to make those calls, and because I think parents have some right to make those calls. Or in other words:

government employees exist to serve the societal good at large, not your personal whims.

I think this is perhaps the real site of our disagreement. You don't think schools exist to help parents, except accidentally. You think they exist "to serve the societal good at large." But if that's the case, sending children to public school is a horrible choice and no parent should make it. They're just sending raw materials to the collective culture-factory, which will do with those children as it sees fit. I'm sure most public educators would want to walk you back, a lot. Your reference to "personal whims" is of course pure rhetorical bullshit: every school my children have ever attended has been explicit, nay anxious, about ensuring good school-parent partnerships, finding ways for teachers and parents to cooperate, collaborate, and coordinate. Open sharing of concerns and information is central to the proper functioning of a school. Getting lost in value conflicts about the sexuality of children is not only kinda creepy (yes, even in high school), it's detrimental to the whole damn enterprise. It allows identity politics to interfere with what is actually best for the child: well-supported parenting.

you've just dropped essentially every single one of those argumentative threads with no reply

I skipped all the parts where you put words in my mouth; I don't see much use in responding to outrageous strawmen and maximally-uncharitable takes where you impose an invented narrative on me and then castigate me for it. Attributing to me views I do not hold, and conclusions I have not endorsed, is not helpful and clarifies nothing.

Just to furnish one ready example, I have absolutely never called Democrats "pedophiles," nor ever implied that you were yourself one; I never even used that word. Please CTRL-F if you don't believe me! Coming back with "well you obviously meant the word groomer to imply--" No. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. I rather specifically distinguished accomplice-groomers from groomers-who-go-on-to-abuse; if you missed that explanation, all I can do is ask you to read it again and try to think with nuance instead of rage. I am sorry that this was upsetting to you, but it was your own bad reading that appears to have upset you--not the words I actually wrote.

Since I am apparently not a party to the conversation happening in your head, I will also now excuse myself from the conversation happening here.

If I tell my ten year old daughter she's a fat retard every day and I wish she was never born, should the state intervene or leave me alone?

Granting the premise that this comparison is reasonable, the state should not intervene, no. Cultures, religions, and ideologies propogate themselves through childhood discipline. State intervention presupposes that certain psychologically abusive treatment is valid because it instills favored values. (For example, children who cannot stay in their desk and be quiet during class are subjected to quite frightful forced isolation and verbal abuse until they conform to expected standards.) The Amish and Orthodox Jews subject their children to a rather crippling upbringing and it is understood that the government cannot intercede because freedom of religion. The situation with hypothical "fat retard calling" parent is much the same.

Once children become adults they are obviously entitled to judge their parents' instilled culture by themselves and accept or reject it.

Very good, when you publish this research it may inform future education policies. Until such a time, it's unclear to my why I should privilege your opinion is on how transgender children should be treated and insist that it be enforced in education policy.

The current policies and proposed policies are based on politics, not disinterested research, if such even exists for this topic. In any case, public schools are funded by and serve the parents.

Also, that sarcasm is beneath you. "You are not a PhD in this subject so be quiet", as if arguments you see online, in media, or politics are informed by one.

Certainly the red-tribe plan of abusing them out of it has been unsuccessful thus far. [...] where do you believe transgender adults come from? My claim is that prior to reaching age 18, they are first age 17. And before that, they are invariably age 16. And before that...

The "red tribe plan", such as it is, is to ignore trans children to the extent they exist and let them figure it out as adults. This plan worked for most of human history. High teen suicide, whether the cause be misgendering or borderline personality, is a modern phenomenon so I don't think you can lay that on conservatives.

How did you come to this conclusion? What flaws do you see in the studies that inform current medical practice? [...] Fair point, but I feel there should be some burden on those arguing against a vast amount of establishment consensus to show otherwise

A few years ago LGBT activist organizations campaigned against John Hopkins publishing transphobic research results. John Hopkins ultimately retracted. An open letter from 'the faculty'. (Scroll to the bottom to see which departments have names represented, and which don't.)

As faculty at Johns Hopkins, we are committed to serving the health needs of the LGBTQ community in a manner that is informed by the best available science — a manner that is respectful and inclusive and supports the rights of LGBTQ people to live full and open lives without fear of discrimination or bias based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. [...]

Because of the report, the Human Rights Campaign has warned Johns Hopkins that it is reviewing, and may remove from the institution, its high ranking in the HRC Healthcare Equality Index. The national benchmarking tool evaluates health care facilities' policies and practices related to equity and inclusion of their LGBTQ patients, visitors and employees.

In situations where institutions can have their proto-DEI score docked for producing certain results, and where such results prompt a buzzword-filled moral struggle session from the parts of the faculty that study "human rights" and "reproductive health", the consensus of academia is meaningless to me. Academia has been scared into mumbling about other topics. Why not this one?