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 -
Regarding Europe, I spent a period of time living in Munich once during which the perpetual Berlin-versus-Munich debate of German city preferences got fuel for several months by an incident where a woman was, if I remember correctly, actually raped on a subway train in the presence of other riders who decided to not involve themselves with the affair in any capacity. At the time the tenor of the anti-Munich crowd was that this sort of sociopathy would never have been observed in Berlin, and who knows (in my time in the latter, I did observe one fistfight between two guys that was broken apart by the other passengers, who subsequently called the police... leading to the fistfighters overcoming their differences and making an escape together), but this does tell me that a lot of people must have a strong "this is none of my business, most likely nothing out of the usual is happening, and what if I interceded and it actually turned out that they agree that I am being the pest" prior that is active in public situations, and perhaps in hindsight turns into a full-blown memory filter.
That being said, none of those stories actually turned any women I knew off of using public transport, and this didn't change with the influx of refugees (who I'm sure in your theory would be a source of ample things to Notice) that happened since then either. At this point I should also point out that while I never really lived there, I was a frequent visitor and prolific user of the public transport system (including both the subway and the substantially grimier bus system) of NYC for a while, and (capital or lowercase) upon review of my memories notice very little of the patterns you are pointing out there. I therefore think that your belief that it is impossible to use public transport without capital-n Noticing might be an inaccurate generalisation from personal experience - if the things to Notice already weigh heavy on your mind most of the time, then, yes, further exposure will probably have a great emotional impact on you, much like a dyed-in-the-wool feminist can't watch TV or read ads for 10 minutes without being induced to Rorschach-style ranting about the sexualisation and objectification of women that permeates it, but most people read magazines and skip over the slim underwear model without a thought, and most people ride transit and ignore the noisy group of black youths with a portable radio.
More options
Context Copy link