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 -
Finally we're seeing the extent of the damage of the Kanye controversy
In the span of a month, Kanye West has destroyed his empire
yup..YeezyGap.com redirects to gap.com
What I don't understand is, how is his wealth being calculated here? Wouldn't Kanye's wealth be a roughly monotonically increasing function , that being his income from his endorsement deals? Losing said deals would not mean he has to forfeit accumulated wealth, just that he stops making any new wealth? So either he was never worth $2 billion or this decline is somehow based on some extrapolation?
From the Forbes link, it looks like an extrapolation : https://www.forbes.com/profile/kanye-west/?sh=515edd0c56f1
That seems misleading to say someone is worth something but it's not actually realized
To add, it shows how the mere accusation of racism or antisemitism is the left's superpower. It forces the accused to go on the defense and presumes some guilt. Any nuance or misunderstanding on the accused goes out the window. You can destroy someone's reputation this way even if it was a mistake. As popular as anti-woke sentiment is on twitter ,like Rogan and Musk, it does not matter if the people who hold the levers of power are still, by in large, woke , and and you have to literally be a self-made millionaire to survive said accusations without being completely destroyed career-wise or reputationally. Someone can argue "what Kanye said was really egregious" but people have been cancelled, banned for less and it does not change the automatic presumption of guilt.
One thing I've been thinking about: how will this affect Kanye's acclaim as a music artist? It's already a bit hard to remember all this, but according to acclaimedmusic.net - a website that collects "greatest albums" style lists from various sources and compares them using an algorithm to create a comprehensive greatest artist/album list purportedly showing the critical consensus - Kanye is actually the thirteenth-most appraised popular music artist (or band) of all time, almost as appraised as Elvis, more appraised than, for instance, The Who, Nirvana or U2. Of course one might quibble with this based on their personal preferences, but I for one wouldn't quibble with it too much, clearly Kanye is one of the last artists that has managed to combine formidable album sales in tens of millions with equally formidable critical appraisal, and even though I'm not much into rap music myself, Kanye is one of the few rappers to make albums I've genuinely liked.
...I mean, obviously it will affect it negatively! But how much? Will he be completely struck from greatest artist lists? Will he just get a downgrade - the Pitchforks and Rolling Stones of the world still including My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in their top 100 albums of the 2010s lists, but around the 70s-80s and with a profuse apology about the problematic latter status of the artist? Will it all just be eventually excused as a phase, an (admittedly long) stretch of mental illness? Maybe everyone will just stop caring about music anyway? It sometimes feels that way, though of course that might just mean I'm getting old and finding more to life than obsessing about pop music.
Rolling Stones being third makes me wonder if they would have been first or even second, had they not bedded underage groupies or if this fact isn't taken into account when their music is rated.
But perhaps such indiscretions are expected of '60s and '70s rock stars and aren't held against them.
These lists change as generations of critics do, and today’s critics would surely ding them for this, but their reputations were made prior to this stuff being a significant concern.
Bowie’s fascist-sympathizing period has not really dinged his rep. He was on heroin, then, don’t you know, and besides, he explored gender fluidity and took MTV to task for not featuring black artists.
I'm assuming thats probably in large part because it doesn't really get mentioned much.
Yeah, that's news to me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link