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 -
Bad comparisons. Religions, for example, have hierarchies of categorization. The modern Western understanding of race does not. Religions, to continue the example, have literal self-imposed structures inherent to their organization (OK, to be fair, at least most do). No inherent bright delineations exist when it comes to ethnicity. One reason I prefer the term "ethnicity" to "race" is that it's more localized/specific - partly due to connotation, but not entirely. Languages... eh, kinda, but still mostly no? Although it's true that languages intermix on a broad scale, and drift as the rule instead of the exception, the mechanism through which languages change and drift is by definition on a group level. Two individuals speaking different languages don't really create their own language. However, every human no matter their race or heritage can interbreed. Their children exist, and ruin the categories.
There isn't a mass political movement to paint race is something that doesn't exist, though? I'm one of the few people saying it, and I'm a strong minority in that sense (no pun intended). It's sort of like the gender-queer debate. "Liberals" (for lack of a better term) can't decide whether gender roles exist, but are bad, or whether gender is a construct, and thus doesn't matter. This indecision leads to a weak foundation. When it comes to race, they are trying to have it both ways, and this also means there's a weak foundation. This contradiction is true even for supposed "academics" in the liberal arts! Insofar as "woke" counts a mass political movement, woke never consistently claimed that race didn't exist, and still doesn't.
My whole comment is pointing out that "race" as currently understood in the West is ahistorical and has accumulated a bunch of recent baggage. The commenter above directly claimed that racism is the default state of humanity, and that's wrong. You quite obviously can't have racism without a conception of race. If the commenter above had said something more general, like "humans always discriminate against outgroups and foreigners" then we might have more of a real conversation based on truth, but they didn't, and I'm calling that out.
More options
Context Copy link