site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30407 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

One worrying trend I've been seeing in the modern world is the social outlawing of any form of permissible contact between older people and children. It seems that with the obsession modern western society has on children's sexuality, all of the sudden the default position when an adult interacts with a child that isn't related to them by blood, is that the adult is a sexual predator.

Especially on the motte there have been a lot of recent concerns about 'grooming,' which as a thread below mentions is an extremely muddy and useless term. In my opinion it should be tabooed from these discussions.

This issue becomes especially salient when you look at the rise of internet addiction issues, and the mental health/suicide problems that come along with it. Many kids go to internet forums like this because they don't have role models or guides they respect in life. They end up forming parasocial relationships with internet celebrities that are probably more likely to be predatory and harmful to the child, as if the habit of going on the internet all day isn't bad enough.

We as a society are losing vast amounts of illegible knowledge every day as older people die, exit the workforce, or suffer cognitive decline. There are many areas where 'book smarts' can't teach you everything, especially when it comes to emotional issues or social issues. The rise of inceldom, trans, and other social movements primarily focused on social issues of young people are a prime example.

My question is: How are adults supposed to offer guidance to children in the modern world, especially adult men? There are numerous stories of a child's father having the police called on them because people think the father might be a sexual predator, in this environment why would any man risk the reputational and legal risk of mentoring a kid?

Is it worth losing any realistic relationship between the young and old because of vague fears of sexual predation? Does the current hysteria even help sexual predation, or does preventing children from having good role models make them more insecure and vulnerable to bad actors?

There's a lot of talk in online dissident right about how terrible public schools are, and how they are all gonna home school their children. (Usually tradcath types, too). They talk all the time about how daycare is awful and the wives all talk about how she and her friends love being stay at home moms and how they have way higher happiness levels than single in-debt professional women.

A common theme they point out seems to be the opposite of what you are pointing out, in a way. Whereas you mention that there are few role models for children nowadays, the trad-right-winger always bangs the drum saying that the centralized public schooling pipeline is a faux-family, the government trying to raise your children. That is, he is saying that children are being taught to follow the wrong role models.

This is not a new idea; I've seen people say all sorts of things like, "family is the most important bond, so any authoritarian institution needs to break it, something something communism." The idea of school, for example, brainwashing "educating children to be tolerant in order to function in an inclusive democratic society" is something I've read actual educators write and I cringed a little reading it.

Who benefits from children being deprived of traditional role models, as you mention, as illegible knowledge is being removed from the pool? If children today are primarily learning from school, maybe they do? It's very tinfoil hat, but if "the long march through the institutions" is real, I wouldn't discard the theory that the role model crisis is an intentional plan.

This is not a new idea

True. Taylor Caldwell said this in Devil's Advocate, all the way back in 1952.

if "the long march through the institutions" is real, I wouldn't discard the theory that the role model crisis is an intentional plan.

Destruction of the nuclear family is an explicit goal of Marxism. Also, the self-proclaimed "Marxist trained" activists at the head of BLM caused a stir a few years ago by advocating for the destruction of the nuclear family. So there are some successful activists saying out loud they want to destroy the nuclear family, presumably due to their Marxist philosophy which they presumably learned in academia.

Does "end nuclear family" mean "end family" or "RETVRN to having elder relatives living with you?" I suppose someone could capitalize on the ambiguity if they had an agenda.

I think they were peddling some "it takes village" approach. In any case, I'm down with bringing back extended families, but why the hell would that be the job of BLM?

the centralized public schooling pipeline is a faux-family, the government trying to raise your children. That is, he is saying that children are being taught to follow the wrong role models.

I mean, I absolutely agree with this. Seems like a harder problem to have. At a certain point we bottom out to 'destroying the nuclear family was probably a bad idea.' Not sure where we go from there.

Who benefits from children being deprived of traditional role models, as you mention, as illegible knowledge is being removed from the pool?

I don't know that anyone benefits from it? I highly doubt this is some sort of organized conspiracy from the left to gain power. Seems more like Moloch just taking us out with the benefit of modern tech.

“Seeing like a state,” presumably.

Compulsory public education gives the state a guarantee, in theory, that any given citizen will have certain skills. Literacy, basic science, ability to pay taxes...that’s the goal. Illegible things are more likely to be undervalued by the state.

Ah so that's why my schooling taught me how to do taxes and my peers don't complain at all about that!

Sorry I just had to :)

I don't know that anyone benefits from it?

People become still more reliant on the State/Cathedral for support and guidance when it's the only game in town. "Nobody" benefits in the sense that there's no shadowy cabal that is somehow turning this phenomenon into dollars, but in a very broad sense, the Cathedral and all its members benefit because their serf class has been made yet more pliant and helpless. And it is indeed Molochian in that there are no people (well, very few people) who are actively trying to undermine the family -- it's simply part of a positive feedback loop in the Cathedral's ideology.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats