site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34966 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 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.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

"Ancient Apocalypse" on Netflix has been a break out hit. Some of the reactions have been... interesting.

The Guardian declared it the most dangerous show on Netflix.

Boingboing says Archaeologists reveal the white supremacist nonsense behind Netflix's "Ancient Apocalypse"

So what's behind this?

Hitler famously cherry picked some ideas from archeology / anthropology to push his agenda. Post WW2 academics found that it was easy to push out rivals by claiming their ideas could result in a new Hitler.

As a result anthropology is filled with people who think that they have a vital role as guardians of society.

This mostly results in making historical narratives more dishonest and less cool. The Bell Beaker culture is often referred to as the Corded Ware culture. They claim it was spread as a peaceful diffusion of culture. Genetic testing that showed that as the culture expanded neighbouring Y-DNA haplogroups disappeared. This is dismissed as one of those great mysteries.

When a body is found carrying a spear and multiple hand axes, they are ceremonial trade goods instead of weapons. The arrows in the back of the body were presumably his change from the trading. That joke was stolen from an academic I can't track down.

Ancient Apocalypse is really just fun and harmless, but the reactions point to a deeper problem.

So...what’s supposed to be the problem with AApoc? White supremacy is pretty nonspecific. Is Hitler involved, or is that just a segue?

Also, wiki tells me Bell Beakers were “contemporary with and preceded by” Corded Ware-iors. I didn’t see any claims that it was peaceful, and the “renewed emphasis on migration” section is headed with a bow. A nice touch.

I’d be interested in reading more on the drama of this field, if you have any articles.

From what I gather the issue is that the show notes that a lot of cultures have stories about wise men from the sea coming and bringing them things like agricultures and laws. eg Quetzalcoatl, Osiris. Graham theorizes that these may be memories of real events.

They are calling the implication that these societies didn't learn these things on their own racist.

The "white supremacist" charge seems like a real stretch because there's not even a hint that anyone involved was white.

I'm heard about the bias towards pacifism in "Before the Dawn" by Nicholas Wade. It's a great book, but it came out in 2007 so it might be dated about the state of the field. Also his 2014 book "A Troublesome Inheritance".

Articles like this made me think there's still some of it around: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/science/iberia-prehistory-dna.html

But skeletal DNA from that period is striking and puzzling. Over all, Bronze Age Iberians traced 40 percent of their ancestry to the newcomers.

DNA from the men, however, all traced back to the steppes. The Y chromosomes from the male farmers disappeared from the gene pool.

To archaeologists, the shift is a puzzle.

“I cannot say what it is,” said Roberto Risch, an archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who was not involved in the new studies. But he ruled out wars or massacres as the cause. “It’s not a particularly violent time,” he said.

Instead, Dr. Risch suspects “a political process” is the explanation. In their archaeological digs, Dr. Risch and his colleagues have found that Iberian farmers originally lived in egalitarian societies, storing their wealth together and burying their dead in group graves.

Oh and I got the names mixed up. The claim I read was that "Battle-Axe Culture" name used to be more common than "Corded Ware culture". Looks like it's still used in some cases.

deleted

And further, "we see a lot of dead people buried together" doesn't strike me as a sign of egalitarianism, but rather of this. And mass graves are not signs of peace and egalitarianism, but lots of people dying at once, often due to violence.

"Buried together" is insufficiently defined to be properly analyzed by any of us. Certainly, it could mean a mass grave. Alternatively, it could mean something like this. I think you'll agree both have vastly different connotations.

And further, "we see a lot of dead people buried together" doesn't strike me as a sign of egalitarianism, but rather of this. And mass graves are not signs of peace and egalitarianism, but lots of people dying at once, often due to violence.

Presumably it can be determined how the people buried there died, i.e., whether it was violence or natural causes, and if they were buried simultaneously or over a longer period of time.

That "it is a mystery" line has to be subtle mockery from the NYT, surely, right? It's positioned and worded so perfectly...

Or this like the reactionary version of stoned people thinking everyone on TV is high? Do I just want to believe that everyone's walking around laughing at this stuff and only pretending to take it seriously so they don't get purged?

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