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 -
The woman in the article is 25. She's at no risk of imminent infertility. And it's not like she's trying to conceive to avoid being childless, she's trying not to conceive using a less-effective, lower-class method due to conspiratorial ideology.
...aaand the penny drops. That's what this is actually about isn't it? Class. You see the sexually liberated, zero responcibilty, girlbosses as exemplified by Gossip Girls and Sex and the City as aspirational and high class, and it's bothering you that others disagree.
It's a funny barber-pole-of-status-signaling thing. I have never encountered someone on the internet who is actually upper-class for whom "lower-classness" is an object of vitriol rather than of disinterested study (for a motte example, I don't know Cim's background but she's acculturated into a desirable rung of the London class ladder very well).
For another instance, Richard Hanania is from Oak Lawn, a Chicago suburb which would provide plenty of experience in the dysfunction of the underclass (about 2-3 miles from Chicago's PvP zones) but zero opportunity to mingle with the kids of the tony 'burbs up North.
More options
Context Copy link
Not really - the point is that if you don't want to have children, unless you are actually a practicing and believing Catholic (o/e) there is no reason at all to use 'natural' family planning. It is currently low-status, but it's also worse than the alternatives - not that those two are necessarily connected, but they are both true. Using your 'conceptional' decisions as a means of reacting against the aesthetics of the modern world is very silly indeed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Oh the horror! A twenty-five year old woman who is not a maiden and who is married, having a baby! Why, the entire fabric of society will collapse!
When should she have a child, or at what age? Thirty? Forty? It is entirely possible to get pregnant when you're forty or more, and to have a normal child, but the later you leave it, the higher the risks go. Having your first child at the tender infant age of merely being twenty-five years old is not as horrifying a notion as you seem to think.
The term elderly primagravida refers to "a woman having her first child at the age of thirty-five or older" since waiting till that age to become pregnant was unusual. Now we've made it that waiting till you're sixty to get pregnant will be supported by technology (as long as you can afford to pay for it).
More options
Context Copy link
What exactly was the
that led her to natural family planning and away from hormonal contraceptives?
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, but I was answering your question. As a father the question of whether my kids will have kids unnerves me much more than the prospect of natural family planning.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link