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 -
No. Claiming that one is "diminishing the qualifications of an attorney" implies something very different from claiming that one is "criticizing her legal qualifications." The former brings to mind her quality as an attorney; the latter brings to mind actual legal qualifications.
Of course, there's barely enough plausible deniability there that someone who is sufficiently motivated could believe that the 2 phrases are similar enough that it's just an innocuous rephrasing. And that's what makes it so slimy, because (intentionally or not) they're relying on that plausible deniability.
No. NYT's sentence here was in response to what the spokeswoman Espinoza said. Espinoza claimed something about what Politico wrote - it might be true, it might be false, it might be misleading, but what she claimed is what she claimed - and NYT commented on a different but related thing that Politico could have done (an didn't do). This muddles things - either they're misleading the reader by changing the topic without notifying them or they're misleading themselves by believing that they can read minds and figure out that when Espinoza claimed that Politico "diminish[ed her] qualifications" what she really meant was that Politico "criticized her legal qualifications." Either way, it's bad journalism and slimy.
If the writer wanted to contradict Espinoza in an open and honest way, he could have asked her for clarification and/or examples and then analyzed Politico's statements on those grounds. Or just stuck to the original meaning of what Espinoza claimed.
More options
Context Copy link