site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

All this guilt has to me a definite, Old World flavor: Christianity.

This is confusing to me. Americans seem, and this seems to have been true from the beginning, to be an especially religious group of people. Protestants may be on the back foot in America, but European Christians would love to have something so well organised at the grassroots level (the Catholic Church is obviously well organised, but their moral authority in daily life or at the governmental policy level has all but collapsed). To give an example, in Ireland's referendum on abortion in 2018 the pro-life campaign depended greatly on donations from pro-life Americans.

It's utterly baffling to me. Why should I feel guilty for anything as a newly-minted American? What part did I take in any of the violence that happened centuries ago? In the same vein, why should the majority of contemporary Americans, whose families immigrated here hundreds of years after these sad events took place, feel any guilt?

As someone who takes great inspiration from American ideals I'll try to steelman this and say that the origin of your country cannot be disentangled from its present state because the norms, laws and values of today are merely developments on those of the past. If people who honestly believed in the values of the American revolution sanctioned genocide, then, insofar as there is continuity between the society of the present and the past, that should worry you, as it shows that the values of the American revolution are no guarantee that your society won't sanction genocide.

To stereotype, it's like the German's authoritarian streak, or the Russian society's susceptibility to tyrants, it's not going to go away just by ignoring it, and even attempts to have a deep reckoning (like the Germans' relationship to their authoritarianism) often miss the mark. To give another example of how problems persist through the centuries, I don't think sectarianism has gone away in Ireland just because people no longer go to church, and I fear that because of this a united Ireland might end being used as a means of crude cultural victory rather than of coexistence.

What's the Anglo version of this (to lump you in with that other North American colony)? What ugly trait is likely to resurface eventually if it is not rooted out? I'll have a go (this is far easier with the Germans): Willful blindness when the time calls for it.