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 Sidney Sweeney commercial.
AKA, why nutpicking is not a valid defense. And probably hasn't been in a while.
The Sidney Sweeny "Good Jeans" commercial has gone viral as many here probably know. Of course, with a commercial featuring a conventionally attractive white woman making a double entendre about how she is hot and wears cool pants was sure to be. But, perhaps more than the merits of the original commercial, the backlash to the commercial has vaulted it into an even higher tier of virility than even the most optimistic American Eagle marketers could have projected.
Of course, it is being called fascist, eugenicist, white supremacist, dog-whistling, etc. So, just about everything normally happening on the internet. Right? Well, sure there is your token tic tok users making such accusations. The usual suspects like Salon.com immediately seized upon this narrative, along with someone who is apparently famous called Doja Cat. And MSNBC to complete the set of entities that pick up anything they can regarding online outrage.
But it doesn't stop there, what one would call mainstream, respectable, left of center publications went with it. The Times, Post, and ABC all threw their hats in the outrage ring. ABC especially went deep with Good Morning America bringing on an "expert" to rail against the ad as "Nazi Propaganda" (the host's words), "The American Eugenics Movement" and "White Supremacism" (the expert's words).
Where does this leave us? For me its another data point that the accusation of "nutpicking" whenever one of these woke controversies emerges is kinda a bad faith argument to make. People who see these things aren't nutpicking, they are being presented with a lot of nuts, often in prominent positions or positions of power. This particular controversy had me feeling sympathetic cringe on behalf of the reasonable center-leftists. But then I fisk that feeling and have to ask when they are actually going to police their crazies the way the right's mainstream does. Candace Owens employment status at the Daily Wire is terminated. Tucker Carlson's status at Fox is terminated. The guys who got fired at NPR and the NYT? For NPR its the guy who was saying they were too biased towards the left. For the Times, its the guys who let a Senator write a fairly bland Op-Ed about how to police riots.
As for the politicians, most have seemingly stayed away. I doubt many will answer any questions on this directly (Democrats I mean, obviously many Republicans have already made hay with yet another unforced error by the left's activist class). The reason is clear, they know the right answer, particularly for most general elections, is to laugh at the activists and "nuts" on things like this. But they cannot actually seem to bring themselves to actually express that in public. The nuts are their staffers and their boots on the ground and so it seems keeping them happy is more important than being able to say, "sometimes its just a cute girl making a pun". I don't know what the math on this actually is, but there it is. You are what you do, and this is no longer nutpicking, its mainstream. I dont know if nutpicking was ever valid, but I don't think it can reasonably be said to still be so for this category of things.
I'll note that I haven't watched every single video or read every tweet. But, it's weird to me that few of the reactions seem to be seeing it as the obvious homage to the Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ad campaign*. Calvin Klein was the peak of designer jeans at the time, and Brooke Shields was one of the sexiest stars on the planet, and they had this long advertisement of her slinking into her jeans while talking about the genetic science of evolution and mating. It's a direct homage
The whole thing seems so odd to me, so telling on yourself, to complain about the ad, rather than demand a parallel ad with a genetically blessed black girl, and so on and so forth. In a completely non-racial way, Sydney Sweeney has great genes. In the same way that Saquon Barkley has great genes, that Barack Obama has great genes, that Fedor has great genes, that Lucy Liu has great genes. Great genetics aren't inherently a racial question.
*To be fair, I'm only aware of this because my wife wanted to watch that documentary that weekend, so I wouldn't have gotten it either last week.
But plenty of people will argue that, racial or not, it is a eugenic position, a Nazi position.
The main example that comes to my mind is a guy who used to comment over on Marginal Revolution under various handles (prior_approval, clockwork_prior, etc.). Any time Tyler Cowen would mention CRISPR or gene therapy, he'd show up to make snide comments calling Cowen a Nazi. He'd invoke his coming from Virginia — home of many of the first eugenics laws — and current residence in Germany — no need to elaborate — as to his personal authority on the matter of the inevitable horrors of any attempt at "genetic improvement", and frequently mention the Grundgesetz, and the guarantee of inviolable human dignity in its unalterable first Article, as to why "Nazis" like Cowen would be stopped, and eventually get what they deserve.
He'd only ever give fragments of an argument amidst the snide denunciations and grand invocations of the Grundgesetz, but if you read enough of his comments (as I did), his argument did come together. It mostly came down to a belief in "eugenics" being a singular entity which must be condemned or approved of as a whole, and there are no lines to be drawn within it (so you must either approve of "genetic improvement" — including the Holocaust — or reject it — including CRISPR-style gene therapies); and that whether or not someone is a "Nazi" comes down to their view on "the Nazi idea." Not a Nazi idea, the Nazi idea; the singular view from which all the other terrible elements follow.
And that idea? The very phrase used in the pun: "good genes." The Nazi idea is that of genetic superiority — that a person's genes can be "better" or "worse" than another's, which follows, logically, from the belief that a gene can be "good" or "bad." The inviolable human dignity guaranteed forever by the Grundgesetz requires the unwavering belief that everyone's genes are equal, and thus every gene is equal. No allele is ever "good" or "bad," ever "better" or "worse" than another.
And why would you ever go through the trouble and effort of modifying human genes, of replacing one allele with another, unless you think the new allele is somehow "better" than the old one? And if you believe that, you're a Nazi, and you'll be dealt with like every other Nazi.
Prior is my primary example because he's the one whose comments I read the most of, back when I read MR occasionally. But I've seen similar views (even less well-argued) from others whenever the topic of genetic modification — or genetic "quality" in general — comes up. Sydney Sweeney, Saquon Barkley, Barack Obama, Fedor, Lucy Liu; their genes are all no better than anyone else's — and anyone who disagrees is a Nazi eugenicist, who must be stopped before they inevitably cause another Holocaust.
If no genes are good or bad then they ought to have no objection to an embryo being edited to have the "bad" genes that produce congenital disorders of one type or another.
The aversion to judging negatively fails when it results in the reluctance to provide any judgements at all. It's an overcorrection. Failure to exercise judgement can be equally as bad as eagerness (thisisfine.jpg).
The objection is that the procedure to edit such an embryo is neither risk-free nor costless. So why, then, would you pursue a costly, risky procedure, unless you think there's something to be gained from it? Putting an embryo at risk of complications for absolutely no reason whatsoever is something that probably should be forbidden, no?
If you truly believe that all genes are equal, then you'd believe that there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to ever even bother replacing one human gene with another, and thus, no reason whatsoever to spend even the slightest time and effort developing the technology to do so.
This was a key thrust of Prior's whole mass of arguments, and why he chimed in with them any time CRISPR or gene editing came up: anyone who supports (or, for that matter, allows to pass unopposed) any form of research whatsoever into human genetic modification is definitionally a Nazi, and must be dealt with accordingly.
I agree. But then, to folks like Prior, that just makes us two more people who clearly and obviously want another six million murdered.
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