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 -
This sort of thought crosses my mind whenever I see someone call people celebrating Kirk's murder as "mentally unwell" or "insane." Sadly, I think those people are the historical norm, and not because of coincidence, but because of basic human psychology. Society seems to have become better to live in as we built structures and methods to temper this perfectly natural predilection to cheer on the suffering of people we dislike, but the progressive left seems to disagree, and the rest of the left seems too cowed to prevent them from having their way.
It's been fascinating to see this happening in and due to academia, which was ostensibly meant to generate truth in part by enabling and encouraging the sharing of different ideas and perspectives. Even in the mid-2000s when I was attending an ultra progressive liberal arts college, I would have bet that a sizable majority of students - and a higher proportion of leftist students - would support literal swastika-wearing Nazis giving a talk on campus, with counterprotesters being respectful enough to allow the audience to actually listen to the talk they came to hear. This sort of commitment to enlightenment values and open exchange of ideas was one of the ways we smugly considered ourselves superior to the uneducated masses, in fact.
That academia not only became a breeding ground, but a source, for such a blatantly anti-intellectual ideology has made me think that, perhaps groupthink, status seeking, and social shaming are the most powerful forces known to man. Certainly more powerful than truth seeking.
I disagree on that specific point. The left does not promote cheering on the suffering of disliked people. The left promotes cheering on the suffering of evil monsters that all actual people agree must be destroyed. Please keep in mind that they're nazis! They've been dehumanized since the 1930s (actually since the 1910s if you ask me, but that'll take more explaining), and everyone agrees that this is a good thing! American institutions public and private, governments of no matter which party, all American cultural goods, all media, agree and generations of Americans of all stripes have been born, have lived and have died knowing that the nazi is no longer human and killing him is a service to mankind!
That the modern left somewhat further weaponized this license to kill by expanding the category of nazi to include right-wingers that are at most directionally nazis is a shift so subtle that it barely even classifies as sleigh of hand. "Wahret den Anfängen", we Germans were told. "Prevent the beginnings", or "Nip it in the bud". This goes hand-in-hand with "Never Again". Identifying that those beginnings, this budding of fascism, starts not with the literal reincarnation of Adolf Hitler himself but with the promotion of directionally fascist views is, IMO, perfectly legitimate. And with that step taken, you rapidly go through all the others until it's not just OK but actually morally required to kill people like Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump. If anything, it's somewhat embarassing that you have to play dumb with expressions like "punching nazis". Obviously the correct thing to do is to kill them. It's what good Americans have always done.
And nazis aren't people. They're not even human. A century of propaganda to that purpose should have made it evidently obvious. Nazis occupy the moral compass' pole of ultimate and unmitigated evil. They cannot be tolerated, cannot be humanized, and cannot be permitted to exist, lest real people actually suffer.
Not that this is an important point, but I would contend that "genuinely, in good faith, believing that people they dislike are evil monsters that all actual people agree must be destroyed, and propagating that honest belief" is merely describing how they promote the cheering of suffering of people they dislike. People generally don't like to think of themselves as vindictively cruel like that. And yet being vindictively cruel feels really good, and our biology is naturally pushing us towards it. Our brains are too clever for that, though, so we're very good at convincing ourselves that external factors are such that we are being helplessly forced to do what would've made us feel guilty if we consciously voluntarily chose to do them.
In this instance, it seems pretty trivial to convince oneself that anyone one dislikes in a certain way is actually belonging to some sort of subhuman. We've seen this happen pretty commonly throughout history, I think. To the extent that it may very well be non-trivial not to unintentionally, in good faith, repeat that pattern.
Are you aware of any evopsych theories on why this is? It feels true, but why on earth would sadism be an adaptive trait?
Tribal warfare, or even hunting other animals.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
FWIW, I agree. I just want to highlight the degree to which the prerequisite dehumanization has already happened, and has happened over a long time, and happened very thoroughly, and is supported by media and public institutions and prevailing narratives that are shared and promoted even by non-leftists.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link