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 don't condone the celebration of it but is it really so far fetched to accept this as a "Sword of Damocles" situation? Kirk advocated and is directly on record for saying: "the few deaths is worth it for our second amendment rights". Live by the sword and die by the sword. If people want to advocate for positions then they need to personally be willing to pay for the consequences of those positions. Passing the cost onto other people if how we get in this mess. Note this 100% applies to all sorts of lefty positions that elite lefties want to be free of the consequences of.
Now we can't personally ask Kirk if he was willing to die for the second amendment rights but I think the charitable answer is yes. I think all the discussion about killing political opponents is worth having but all the wailing about lefties wanting to kill you rings hollow. They disagree with you and want you to pay for the cost of your beliefs just like you want them to pay the cost of their immigration or "anti-racism" beliefs.
I think Kirk would have disagreed that he ought to be murdered but wouldn’t want his murder to justify restrictions on gun rights.
The optimal number of murders is not zero. The cost of what we would have to do to implement a zero murder society would not be worth it.
I agree with this.
Nobody wants to be murdered. But if you callously state that people being murdered is a worthy cost. Then by the golden rule you need to be ok with it, when you get murdered people consider that a worthy cost. We still punish murderers, because murder is not a stable equilibrium and societies that consider it so don't survive.
Man this is such a foreign concept to me.
Bad things happen, they are bad when they happen, but sometimes they must happen, but they're still bad.
To make this obvious: if a guy heroically runs into a burning building and saves a bunch of children, then dies, we can acknowledge that the society is better because men are encouraged to do things like this, AND we can acknowledge that it is sad that he died, and that he didn't want to die, but that even though he didn't want to die he would still run into the burning building.
It's actually somewhat concerning to me that there are people who can't make this connection.
So Kirk needed to callously advocate for other people to pay the cost for his beliefs and it was bad that that happened but it must happen?
I'm really not sure what your point is here.
Political accountability and taking responsibility for your beliefs is foreign to you? It concerns ME that you think asking for your tribe to not pay the cost of your beliefs but the other tribe should is something that doesn't compute for you. Can you not put yourself into the shoes of the people across the isle from you? See how they view the worlds and how they feel. idk have some empathy for your fellow man.
Is there any other way to advocate for that? Considering that literally every piece of campaigning or lobbying is advocating for other people to pay the cost for one's beliefs, we all have to advocate for that. Advocating it without acknowledging that innocent people will be subject to violence by my preferred policy prescriptions, no matter what they are, is far more callous; and not even understanding that innocent people will be subject to violence is that much even moreso. Compared to those, just plainly stating that there will be extra innocent deaths, and that it's worth the cost, is one of the least callous ways to advocate for basically any policy.
It's true that the way Kirk phrased his comment on the tradeoffs between preventing violence and protecting the rights of citizens to own guns was politically inopportune. But the actual argument he made was indistinguishable from the "the optimal number of murders is not zero" argument.
Thinking that "he phrased it without a dozen hems and haws so he doesn't care about people being murdered, so its ironic he himself was murdered and I don't care about it" is a fair argument is a huge part of what's wrong with democratic politics. No one can talk seriously and frankly about tradeoffs, because anytime you do, you create political hay for your opposition, who jumps on every slightly-inopportune phrasing in your commentary and turns you into a monster. This kind of thing is why politicians are so fake and their lines are so rehearsed.
Part of having empathy for your fellow man, and especially for the opposite tribe, is not to accuse them of murderism or callousness based on a single comment when it's just as easy to think about their words in the context of their entire person and life, and read them charitably and rationally. Empathy ceases to become empathy when it becomes a weapon to use against your enemy, and my biggest problem with the political left is they so often use it in this way.
I don't think most sane forms of this argument are "We should aim for 0 crime" vs. "We should aim for some crime." Rather, it's over whether the current amount of crime is optimal or how much we should be willing to change to aim for some lower number.
I'm sure plenty of left-leaning people didn't think Kirk had literally 0 empathy for dead people, rather that it was on the level of thoughts and prayers. The downsides of policy are not evenly felt by the population, so it was, "Guy who had never suffered the bad effects of his policy tells us that the problems with his policy are tolerable."
Maybe I got too in the weeds, but this is a succinct summary of my stance with an added spice that lefties do it too and as such I have an dislike towards people who advocate for policies they will never have to suffer the effects of.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link