site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   44920 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 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.

105
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've written an article in which I discuss a somewhat common idea regarding the idea of trans people "existing" [1]. Some trans rights activists (TRAs) refer to denying the statement "transwomen are women" as denying the existence of trans people. Another manifestation of this is when people argue that denying that transwomen are women is threatening to transwomen's existence. The same applies to transmen of course. I argue that these arguments rely on ambiguity in language about "existence." Denying the existence of transwomen seems very silly because that is an unusual way to describe rejecting that a transwoman actually is a woman. Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide. I think this is another case of language being used in an unusual way that is misleading, although perhaps not intentionally. This description of "anti-trans" attitudes should be avoided as it is not accurate and morally charged in a misleading way.

[1] https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/do-transgender-people-exist

The Mistake Theorist in me says that we need a -cide word for culture, then. If genocide is essentially attempting to keep a population or demographic from being able to replicate itself into the future, then we need a word for when it happens to a culture that could include anyone of different backgrounds. Now, I don't imagine people would actually use "culturocide" (or whatever word would roll off the tongue better) instead of going to the genocide argument, but still.

I think the woke theorists call it erasure.

It'd be useful, and it's definitely part of the debate (and not one specific to trans- or LGBT-stuff!).

But I think there's also a few other concepts included and that are in many ways more primary parts of the discussion:

  • "Exist" as in being possible to recognize or know about, even under assumptions that they don't need to replicate themselves into the future. This is more overt for transmen, which were probably vastly undercounted in every statistical analysis for a decade, but the flip side of 'LGBT culture is trying to glom onto every crossdresser' is that Eddie Izzard has come out as genderfluid -- a lot of people who were part of the 'not-labeled' set demonstrably do want to go with these deeper categorizations when they become aware of them, some of which were not previously things that even had names.

  • "Exist" as in be able to go through society in a viable manner. The classical example here is the older WPATH SoC that required six months of lived experience before hormone therapy or hair removal: this wasn't physically impossible, but at best involved a bunch of really bad decisions and never being able to use a public restroom.

  • "Exist" as in being visible to other people. This is the other side to the 'you can be trans as long as you pass and I never have to hear about it anywhere'; not only are some people just never going to pass well enough to meet every critic's standards, but there's going to be at least some people who don't want to pass in every metric, either because their desired presentation isn't going to 'fit' (eg, transwoman who wants pants with pockets), or because they've grown to like things like Pride parades or obnoxious amounts of lipstick.

  • "Exist" as in be discussed in specific places where (they believe) other matters of similar level of complexity are discussed. This is the other side of the conversation about whether gender nonconformity is appropriate for middle-school age groups.

  • "Exist" as in live. This is somewhat based around overestimates of not-transitioned suicide rates and of transitioning and post-transition reductions in suicide rates (and sometimes overestimates of bias crimes), but you can still end up getting a giant pile of bodies with even more skeptical estimates.

deleted

Memocide?

...That could work, yeah.

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