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 -
I have a friend who fits this description, at least the obnoxious, mediocre, self-obsessed part. She's the kind of person who will ask a question and interrupt your response to ask another question. She watches Real Housewives. If the people she's with are having a conversation she isn't interested in she'll interrupt to say she doesn't care about that and change the topic. She speaks loudly and has an irritating voice. She complained that someone put a sign near her townhome development that pointed the direction to another, less-prestigious townhome development because she was concerned people would think she lived in that one (for the record, no one outside the immediate vicinity has ever heard of wither of these developments, let alone their relative prestige levels). She regularly professes ignorance of basic concepts that one would assume all educated adults are aware of.
The twist is that she's also a trump supporter. We watched the election returns together and, not knowing my political opinions, she referred to Team Red as "we". I had to explain to her how the electoral college worked. She referred to electoral votes as "points". She works in some kind of low-level management position with the customer service department of the IRS; if there are more expendable positions in the US government, I can't think of any. She's constantly complaining about how stupid and entitled the people who work under her are. I have no reason to doubt her on this, considering the kind of people that become supervisor. I don't exactly want her to lose her job, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't take a small amount of pleasure seeing her hoisted by her own petard.
You know, admittedly, I got sucked into @jeroboam's framing below commenting on the political swing of Northern Virginia, that this is somehow a Democrat problem. But I don't think I mentioned Democrats at all in my post, and I don't think it's a Democrat problem at all. It's the fact that the federal government takes midwits or worse, and massively subsidizes their status. Gives them a stipend they don't come close to earning, and lets them feel good about themselves with real or imagined authority they don't have the maturity, intelligence, or ethic to wield non-destructively. Virtually nothing is asked from them, they get a fun gamified career path, and they get to live better than most of their peers nationwide. It goes to their head in ways that are unpredictable in their specifics, but absolutely predictable in the general trend of making them worse human beings.
I think something like that would cause brain rot in almost anyone doing it for a living. It’s a system of pretended power where the entire system revolves around not being the person making the decisions. And so most of the job is Kafaybe— you pretend to be powerful and push any actual work to others while claiming credit and ducking responsibility. Nobody cares if they’re wrong, they certainly don’t because as long as they tick off the boxes, the results don’t matter.
"Kayfabe" is a great way to describe the whole bureaucratic rot; it applies to a good deal of corporate jobs as well.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link