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 -
Haven't seen a thread yet on the gay bar shooting last weekend so I figured I would start it.
Sticking to facts in this post, opinion will go in reply.
The shooter killed 5 and injured 25
The shooter is a 22 year old, Anderson Lee Aldrich
The shooter previously was charged after he threatened his mother with homemade explosives and kidnapped her, but the charges were dropped
The shooter is the grandson of a prominent local Republican
The shooter was stopped by a drag queen combat veteran, who used his high heels to stomp him
As part of the reputationally and financially ruinous lawsuits against the Boy Scouts, many examples of flagged behavior from their private archives were made public. One example in my area was a scout leader in the mid-80s who was banned from the organization after giving a half dozen teenaged boys access to beer and porn on a camping trip. There is no indication that he singled one out to try to rape. If we want to be charitable, it sounds like something The Onion's VP Joe Biden would do, "Hey boys, here's some Bud and a Playboy, then I'll show you how to do donuts in the 'Vette!" That guy was still banned from the organization, decades before anyone got serious about youth protection, because that behavior is such an obvious red flag that you don't need to wait around for a kid to get raped.
Actively trying to prevent and shut down that sort of behavior is so thoroughly not enough that the organization responsible was dealt reputational and financial ruin by the courts. So, by that standard, how should we think of, e.g. librarians who fight tooth and nail to ensure child pornography is kept in elementary schools? "Oh, it's not grooming, it's just being wildly sketchier and more cavalier with children than the organization that just had the shit kicked out of it for insufficient zealousness in protecting kids." It should not be a tall ask to have the "what I wish I'd had growing up" to be restricted to normal standards for age appropriateness.
One, two and three, found by glancing through the last week of Libs of Tik Tok posts. I don't want relevant terms in my search history, so I'll just try to remember to link you one of the compilations of images next time I see one posted on PCM or someplace.
To be clear, I don't think that sort of thing ought to be in an elementary or middle school library, and I don't think it's obviously wrong for parents to not want it in a high school library either (same for straight stuff like IT). I also don't think the books should be criminalized. But actively trying to get kids to read that sort of thing is suspicious. If a teacher brought one in on their own volition and gave it to a student, that should flag mandatory reporter laws.
Wait, that somehow passes for porn? I've seen beginner DeviantArt and Wattpad pages have more... stimulating... writing and artwork than that- even AI can do better these days. And if that's the absolute spiciest thing LibsOfTikTok can come up with (does it get spicier, or is that just to stay within Twitter rules?)...
The reason they want to get kids to read it is because, first and foremost, it's "oppression pornography". You know, the kind of porn straight educated women really like; and it's fig-leaf deniable in the "actually,
it's about ethics in gaming journalismthe loli vampire is really 7000 years old" way. And since it's porn women like (and women really like heteronormative gay porn; they self-insert as the tortured bottom that the dashing top comes to 'save'), and female sexuality isn't inherently threatening, they get far more leeway (remember the headlines when 50 shades of grey came out?). However, when it comes to the question of 'is it sexual', though, it might be intended to be but in practice it's not going to "groom" anyone because it's garbage lol.So while sure, you can point out the object-level, society's cover to women is going to be too strong for anyone to really do anything about it. (Humorously, it's also why their examples of "pornography" never depict any straight women or girls in similar circumstances- you'd expect that it'd be far more prevalent if the model the stereotypical "male pedo trying to seduce young girl" example that people who say "groomer" are intentionally trying to provoke was correct, but it's pretty blatantly not- and "male pedo x young boy" doesn't wash either because even gay men don't actually respond to oppression porn.)
And sure, it might still be "female pedo x young boy"... but you're not going to find anyone's in any hurry to deal with that, either. Double standards gonna double standard, and complaining about that only really works for women anyway.
And I strongly encourage parents to keep their tweens off Wattpad for exactly that reason.
Did you listen to the readings? One is about a girl crying and saying "no", and being ignored and shut up with a cock in her mouth.
In the real world, women do consistently go to jail for raping their male students, even if they get lesser sentences than their male peers.
So the absolute spiciest part of the book they could find was... pretty lame, minimal, and not particularly played in a dramatized, titillating, or positive way. As such, I'm not concerned. (Maximum charity says "book left over from a time the school had way more of a grade range".) I find it interesting that it's about as spicy as another book I was forced to read in school (in pre-woke times, no less), and while it was pretty clearly intended to establish the morality-pet and villain status of 2 of the characters it was also similarly not played up (it took... 3? sentences to describe, I believe). Even 1984 was spicier than that.
Of course, my contrast is that one other book I got shown by a classmate around that time which took about 5 pages to describe in precise detail... a teenage boy masturbating in a pool and dying gruesomely (I cannot find the name of the book that was in, something something pearl diving). Granted, I'm pretty sure that one wasn't in the school library.
But then again, I believe there is a qualitative difference between "matter-of-fact description [in text]", "a full page of describing organs coming out his ass [in text]", and "basically Emergence/'177013' [graphic in the novel sense])"... and I suspect you do, too.
Specifically, there's no distaff heterosexual counterpart for "Flamer" (and any of the picture books like it). If there was, it would be the (maximally inflammatory) example instead; absence of evidence is evidence of absence in this case.
Sure it wasn't "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk?
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
More options
Context Copy link