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 -
Another holiday, another uncomfortable intrusion of the culture war by psychos into my child's life.
Maybe I was oblivious as a kid. I probably was. But somehow I don't remember children's books being as blatantly propagandized as now. Literally every single book my 3 year old daughter got for Christmas is either packed to the gills with LGBTQ "families" or interracial families mixed to a degree that I'm pretty sure is genetically impossible. Like I don't think White Woman + Latino Man = 1 Asian Child, 1 Black Child and 1 tan baby. We didn't set out for books with overt propaganda. We wanted books about nature, farming, the seasons, the months, learning to read, numbers, etc. And yet here we are.
And like I said, maybe I was oblivious as a kid. But then again, I actually got my daughter a lot of the classics I grew up with, and I still don't see it. Goodnight Moon, Where The Wild Things Are, The Hungry Caterpillar, etc still seem like straightforward children's books to me.
It's just baffling to me that books like that appear to be the default option when you tell family "We want books about X" and they search the internet for "Children's Books about X" and just click Buy on the first 5 results. We got like, 12 pseudo random children's books for Christmas, and not one single family in any of them looks like her, despite us being the majority demographic of our nation. It's one thing to be an adult, seeing the precise opposite of reality being crammed down your throat by our cultural overlords. You can by and large tune it out, thanks to the decades of actual life you've lived standing in opposition to pretend nonsense. There is something profoundly disturbing about watching them attempt to brainwash your child any which way they can into believing the world is the opposite of the way it is.
Ah well, Merry Christmas I guess. She liked the stool I built her, and although she balks at me reading the copy of the Hobbit I slipped in the drawer. Just not old enough for all those words without pictures yet.
Woke propaganda is omnipresent in Western education in this day and age.
I got my degree outside of the West so I wasn't exposed to much of it in college.
But my younger brother studies in Canada, and I often hop on a video call while he studies. Humanities courses are fucked.
E.g., most universities have a first-semester course where they teach how to write an essay and common logical fallacies. I was taught this course very formally, the logical fallacies had latin names and the examples were all examples you come across in your personal life.
In contrast, the course my bro is going through; all the fallacies have revamped English names and alternate meanings. "Appeal to authority" is switched for "appeal to questionable authority". And all the examples are political, by happenstance, the left wing pov is the nonfallacious one. Quite a few fallacies' original meanings were extended.
Posts like yours are just another grain in the heap. The woke have complete institutional capture over education. Every student that passes through a college has to go through such a course.
Appeal to authority has always been flawed IMO. I raised this issue in class back in the day. They were trying to distinguish between good and bad kinds of appeal to authority.
Is it correct to believe the statements of oil companies about oil drilling/pipelines and so on? They're the domain experts after all. Yet they have a clear incentive to be economical with the truth.
Is it correct to believe the statements of doctors about medical treatments? Same issue.
All we were left with is that you shouldn't trust ridiculous nonsense like a Kardashian sponsored toothbrush. They don't know anything about teeth. But nobody would even bother seriously attacking that at a philosophical level. I suspect that what happens in the real world is that people just use appeal to questionable authority against their political enemies (oil companies) and defend it as legitimate for their allies (doctors). I sort of do the same thing against Kardashians unconsciously:
"Well of course the Kardashians don't know anything about teeth, they're airheads (I say despite knowing next to nothing about them, even presuming they probably have very white teeth/general cosmetics knowledge)"
"Well of course the oil companies don't know or care about safety, they only care about money (I say despite knowing nothing about the prevalence and danger of leaks on any kind of statistical basis, comparing cost/harm of oil leaks to the maintenance of industrial civilization)"
I had always understood “appeal to authority” as one of the “softer” fallacies, where it doesn’t sink the argument but you better make sure that it (and the authority) actually checks out.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link