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 -
I'd say that most people feel emotions physically - e.g. you are so anxious before an important event so that you want to throw up. You are so angry that your hands tremble and maybe even contort into fists. You are so ashamed that you feel your face and ears turning red in wave of hotness.
In fact I think there was some post possibly back in reddit TheMotte days, where there was somebody promoting a theory of polytheism being born of these particular physical foci of emotion. I do not remember it that well, but the gist of it was something about the fact why you had god of war or lust and so forth with specific rituals and physicality - down to actual representation of that emotion in vocabulary: like the words heart, bile, spleen, gut, stomach etc being associated with courage, hatred, anger, anxiety, fear etc. The theory was that your actions were driven by that particular emotion associated with that part of you body related to a specific god who had domain over it. In order to be integrated you had to appeal to this multitudes integrated into you being. Monotheistic religions like Christianity integrated all these emotions into one person, putting reason/logos on top of all of it, as the ultimate ruling principle.
But I still think that rational thinking is a reflective stance, there is still a need to control the emotion on a physical level in order to analyze it. But the underlying physicality is still there - how could it not be. Stress or fear reaction are famously related to various levels of hormones with large impacts on physical state. Just because you have more experience controlling them does not mean they do not exist physically.
I even think that a good way of controlling/regulating your immediate emotions is to disassociate yourself from these physical effects - you posit your ego as an observer of physical impact of your emotion as if you are some curious anthropologist of yourself, not fighting or appeasing them directly from within the paradigm.
More options
Context Copy link