site banner
ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45471 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.

106
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm curious where you got the term "heroines journey" from; this meaning doesn't match either of the ones listed on Wikipedia.

Edit: I think it's pretty easy to reframe almost any path/arc as being either "self-discovery" or "self-improvement". So I don't think this is a meaningful pattern.

One could easily say that Christianity is about discovering that you were created to love God all along and rejecting the sinful influences of society and the World, that Gnostics believe that people are born blind and need secret knowledge from outside the world to redeem their Demiurge-tainted birth, or that Captain Marvel is about a militaristic people-pleaser learning basic compassion and redeeming herself.

I'm pretty sure that this is a continuation of an earlier discussion in this thread on Friday. The "heroine's journey" is used here as a neologism.

/u/orthoxerox conflates the Campbell monomyth with the originally Aristotle-inspired idea of a flawed character arc (particularly for tragedies, cf. hamartia).

There is something of a "Heroine's Journey" per Murdock (one of Campbell's students) which mainly differs in the emphasis of returning balance and harmony rather than manichean domination. Leaving that aside, the myths Campbell cites in Hero with a Thousand Faces are, well, the myths: Osiris, the Gautama Buddha, Jesus, etc. The Aztec's Tezcatlipoca, Prince Kamar al-Zaman, Jason, Herakles, and so on. The hero is heroic, if they even have flaws they are not particularly relevant to the plot. Similarly, Campbell-inspired fiction hardly has the character flaw as a central pivot. Luke Skywalker doesn't have any plot-relevant character flaws -- he's a bit whiny and grows up, but he doesn't suffer because of his immaturity. It's only until later in the series that an added dimension about overcoming cyclic revenge is thrown in.

The idea that compelling protagonists absolutely must overcome a personal flaw to succeed in their larger struggle (i.e. have a 'character arc') is a more modern thing. It is particularly ironic to criticise contemporary media for having insufficiently flawed protagonists compared to monomythic heroes, accordingly. Overpowered, morally simple protagonists are hardly a new invention. Stuff like the "hero must have a tragic backstory" is not monomythic or Campbellian.

With that out of the way, it's not clear to me that many of the new female-led disney/pixar princess fare (e.g. Frozen, Inside Out) lacks this typical character arc:

  • Frozen has a strong character arc for Anna, whose childish infatuations sets up the nation for betrayal. Elsa's 'let it go' moment isn't emancipatory an exhibition of selfishness, and her abdication damns her nation to endless winter. The resolution of the plot is tied to overcoming these flaws.

  • In Inside Out, Riley isn't the protagonist. Joy is, and she's an insecure control freak whose insistence that everything reflects her preferences precipitates the slide into depression.

But even if they lack plot-relevant flaws, then that doesn't necessarily mean they are narratively not worthwhile. Moana is much more of a Campbell hero because she isn't really that flawed. Would the Lord of the Rings be better if Frodo's struggle with the influence of the ring was intertwined with being bullied or something, and his narrative success was dependent on reconciling himself with that?

Possibly in response to this thread?

I'm going to reiterate my normal complaints about Campbellian (or Jungian) analysis; this can be kinda funny, but it's so broad and vague it makes astrology look well-founded.

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