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 -
When a statistic isn't just a statistic
Like many, I was saddened by the news of the Texas flooding and the girls who were in the path of the engorged river. Natural disasters happen, but they don't always victimize school aged girls at a summer retreat. Yet I mentally filed the disaster in the way I do most disasters: the optimal quantity of flooding deaths is not zero, the odds of something bad happening to somebody somewhere is quite high, children need to do things in the outdoors even if there is some risk. And this framing, while dispassionate, isn't incorrect.
Yesterday, one of the bodies was discovered and identified. She wasn't some no-name in a far-flung state. Her family lives three streets over from mine. Her brother and my oldest daughter were in the same class last year. These are neighbors, and in our close-knit community, something akin to extended family. Suddenly, this feels personal.
A number of years ago, I was teaching my oldest to ride a bike. She was a natural, balancing and peddling within minutes of first riding. Within an hour she was shifting gears, accelerating and decelerating, making turns with adroitness. After several hours of practice in a parking lot I decided she was ready for the hilly streets near our house. Unfortunately, there was one thing I had forgotten to teach her in the flat safety of the parking lot: how to brake. She went down the hill outside our house, increasing in speed and with no ability to stop herself. Finally, she hit the curb and somersaulted into the grass of a yard. Despite the relatively soft landing she was scraped and bleeding over most of her body.
So many things could have gone wrong. She could have hit a car. She could have landed in the street and been flayed by the asphalt.
Life is fragile and can be snuffed out at any moment. The day she crashed her bike I hugged her as tightly as her scrapes would allow. Not all parents are so lucky.
Ok, cool, but what policy do we implement to fix it? Because there are very much people out there trying to use this tragedy to implement a variety of policies. It's amazing how many anti-gubmint conservatives turn into nanny state liberals when a natural disaster occurs. Which is why it's important not to get too caught up in tragedies, it quickly becomes a con designed to get you to buy into an agenda.
I'm sure the crash was awful for your daughter and you both, but I'm having trouble parsing how you told the story. Are you taking an excessive parental responsibility when you say that you "forgot" to teach her about the brakes? Because it's just hard for me to imagine not going over the brakes before you even get on the bike in a "parts of the bike" kind of way, or a curious kid just asking what x does. I'm kind of assuming you did tell her about the brakes, but didn't drill using them enough that she remembered how to use the brakes quickly under pressure.
But regardless, what policy could prevent such a bike accident? Kids can't ride bikes! Parents can't teach their kids to ride bikes, they have to be enrolled in a Licensed Bicycle School! Kids can only ride bikes with complex and expensive Automatic Emergency Braking systems! The latter two are of course equivalent to "poor/disinterested kids can't ride bikes."
So sure, hug your kid. But keep your priorities straight.
If I am not mistaken that wasn't the kind of post he was making. I would suggest you're responding to post along the lines of "We should figure out how to stop these disasters or bad things from happening to children." That may be a post worth making, but wasn't made by OP.
I'm not sure in this context one is allowed to just say "thing is really bad" and not expect a conversation to ensue about deeper consequences of the policy decisions favored by such attitudes.
Certainly if you said stuff like "Not saying anything about BLM but wasn't (current year death of black person) terrible?" Or "Isn't what's happening to children in Gaza/Ukraine/Africa bad?" Or "It must be really sad being trans" in a post it would meet with much harsher critique.
I get your point, but "admit easily and feel empathy to all the supporting pathos arguments THEN argue about the policy after you've admitted it" is a bad strategy.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link