site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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.

15
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm genuinely unsure what Taibbi or any of the other TF reporters think was revealed here.

There are two ways to react along the lines above:

(1) I was hoping/expecting/wondering if we would get new information, but there's nothing here we haven't seen before.

(2) Nothing to be seen here, move along please. What is all the big deal the right-wingers were making out of this, we knew they were just trying to spread fake news.

(1) is non-partisan, anyone on any or no side could make this observation - 'no new info'. (2) is partisan, in the 'it's a private company and they can do what they like, it didn't happen but if it did they deserved it, this is not censorship or government interference this is needed crackdown on hate speech' way, and generally yes, it does come from the left side (the right would do it as well when it's their outgroup getting "hey Twitter, Man From The Government Here, why are you letting this stochastic terrorist spread their propaganda" treatment).

To combat (2), more information is better, even if it's "we already knew this" or "nothing new here", because the counter-argument will always be "that was only one source/nobody else is reporting on it/that's a crackpot guy why should we believe what he says?". If you have one guy saying "this happened", it can be challenged. If you have twelve guys saying "this happened", it can still be challenged, but not as easily, and not as easily hidden.