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 think a lot of that is actually fair criticism, the last decade and a half has been sort of bland. Heck, we went from three hour church (!) to two, for example. Apart from one issue - the church was pretty big on its Family Proclamation which is not quite scripture but close, so that limits in a pretty practical way how far left it can drift, especially socially. That one can’t really be walked back. Plus, probably the next prophet is going to be Oaks, who is among the more conservative members, though he was a lawyer and judge by trade, so he’s also pretty careful with his wording.
To be precise my actual hope is that in my lifetime one of the leaders of the church busts out yet another book of translated ancient scripture, or something equally and delightfully abnormal. Failing that, another possible route I’d love to see is for us to become more aggressively focused on helping the poor or something similar. We are already slightly out of step as somewhat anti-Trump and pro-immigration, but the church is still pretty apolitical overall, so it’s hard to say how many waves we will make. The church is in a bit of a weird spot where you’d expect based on the demographics and educational levels for us to be more liberal than we are, but neither do we make perfect bedfellows with the more ebullient evangelicals, where no such increased rapport has occurred like with the Catholics.
More options
Context Copy link