site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 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.

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.

24
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

That does nothing to dispute the claim that supporting pro life policies are costing republican votes. Ditto for basically everyone in the parent comment tree. I don't understand how so many motteposters are conflating "There's lots of pro-life people" (true) with "Being pro-life will make it easier to win elections" (do you believe this?)

"Being pro-life will make it easier to win elections"

Not what I said. I said Silver is acting as if Redd is unaware that women are pro-abortion, which is going to cost his side votes. I'm pointing out that you can't say 100% of women are pro-abortion, and the pro-life women are likelier to be on Redd's side of the fence, not Bleu's side.

I wasn't trying to dispute that claim, I was adding to FarNearEverywhere's point that Nate Redd fails the ideological turing test pretty hard.

None of my friends male or female have ever expressed anything like the thought you quoted from Redd. For most of us, it's horrifying enough that they've only expressed opinions along the line of preferring to die on that hill and lose election after reflection than compromise to expand the electoral tent.

Then you've missed the point of the article entirely? It's an election prediction site. Trying to put forward a case for a Republican electoral victory. It would be very odd and partisan to portray Redd as an anti-strategist that doesn't care about the outcome and "prefers to die on that hill and lose election".