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 -
A couple of months ago we discussed the cultural legacy of the Playboy mag of all things under an effort post by @FiveHourMarathon. I was reminded of this by a recent lame-ass political scandal in Hungary in which a local/district volunteer coordinator of the main opposition party and apparently a single(?) mom was doxxed by some pro-government journos as a former porner / sex worker. Technically I’m supposed to call her a former porn actress, but the actual level of ‘acting’ that is involved in all of this makes me decide against doing so; supposedly she also appeared in a grand total of one casting video only (by Pierre Woodman) so calling her an actress would be a big stretch either way. Pretty much the only factor fueling this whole thing was that the party leader and MEP was pictured shaking hands with the ‘lady’ during some public events.
What does Playboy have anything to do with this, you might ask? Well, said party leader decided it’d be a swell idea to reverse the accusation of sleaziness and would also be some sort of clever gotcha to point out that a 51-year-old woman who’s a government commissioner and a former ‘Secretary of State for Sports’ (if you’re one of the few female politicians in Eastern Europe, it’s the sort of government position of lesser importance you can ever hope to fulfill, I guess) appeared in a photoshoot in the local edition of Playboy ages ago.
Anyway, I’m aware that culture wars are waged with maximal cynicism, dishonesty and opportunism, and this is a case of culture-warring alright; no need to remind me of that. Still, I found myself asking the rhetorical question: who the heck actually believes that posing for a photoshoot in a completely mainstreamed, slick, high-class magazine which eventually shifted to a women's fashion and lifestyle brand is the cultural/moral/social equivalent of anonymously getting your holes stuffed and swallowing cum/urine on camera for a handful of cash?
Why not have literal whores become politicians?
Directional whoring is pretty much the overtly default career of young (and not so young) women in the West. They dress skimpily, date industriously, engage in serial monogamy, and are not at all averse to material benefits resulting from these activities. Many women very aggressively argue that all sexual practices and all sexual conduct that does not harm any one party without their consent is nominally okay, and if you listen closely you'll notice that the valence of such conduct is actually considered very positive. That they sometimes turn around and viciously shame individual women for their promiscuity or sexual practices or material benefits derived from either seems more like pokerfaced opportunism than ideological inconsistency.
At the same time, politicians are widely known to be the scum of the earth. Eternally corrupt, consummate liars, shameless hypocrites, will sell out your country for a handful of cash and will ruin your life's work out of sheer incompetence. At best they're naive idealists who produce policy catastrophe after administration catastrophe, but let's face it, when people think "politician", they think either of morally bankrupt sociopaths looking to line their own pockets or of rabid ideologues aiming to stroke their egoes. Natural selection among politicians selects for the ability to out-smear your opponents, not for any sort of object-level competence or moral stature. Politicians are, by necessity, cheats and liars and if they weren't they wouldn't survive.
So why not have whores becomes politicians? Do we lose anything by this happening?
With a little plausible deniability, a whore can already become Vice President of the United States. The list of male politicians who started their career as a catamite would also be interesting if we knew exactly who was on it.
This seems false to me. PUA's, incels, and feminists with MSM megaphones all agree that young women who are not sex workers are competing harder because they are competing for the attention of a minority of high-quality men (for various values of high-quality), not because they are trying to maximise the financial return on their dating life.
One manifestation of that are online complaints about the "Chopped Man Epidemic". Fascinating stuff from a culture warrior perspective.
For several years I've been suspecting and feeling that the majority of people in the West are ignoring the presence of quite a lot of female chauvinism, and the indoctrination into this position in many schools (often dominated by feminist teachers). Feminism itself and the creation of subtly or not so subtly misandrist attitudes that are passed down from mothers, aunts, grandmothers, are pretty much ignored as problems or excused somehow, because of "the patriarchy" or whatever else. Now it's Her Turn, etc.
I think it should be obviously true that the teaching of "women were oppressed by men throughout most history until recently and society remains male dominated", regardless of whether it's true or not, is going to result in the feelings that women as a group are the victim and deserve vindication, and that men as a group are guilty and should be sanctioned and put in their place in various ways. If you keep hearing that person A abuses person B and got away with it, you're going to be sympathetic to A and antipathic to B, right? And liberals would be very quick to complain if the media didn't obfuscate the race many violent criminals, precisely because they fear the effects on attitude that unfiltered news would have. They're much less worried about whether any sexism against men pops up, or about current dominations by the female gender of places and aspects of Western societies.
Am I onto something or am I talking gobbledygook...
I call this "Men, amirite?" It certainly turns up among the leftists and liberal women I have the unfortunance to interact with.
The attitudes don't get passed down by mothers and grandmothers, though, they get picked up from blogs and influencers and ticktocks and reddit and wherever else it is that women get their programming from.
The most downloaded app, as of today, is the Tea app. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a gossip forum for ‘red flags’ about individual men intended to Help Women Make Better Dating Choices.
The existence of this, and of the "Are we dating the same guy" Facebook groups, is further perfect proof that the 80/20 rule is true.
No, it’s proof of fearmongering campaigns succeeding at generalizing thé behavior of the bottom 20% of men.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link