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 -
It is Okay to Think That Charlie Kirk was not Literally Jesus.
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to get shot in the jugular for expressing controversial political opinions. I actually agreed with many of Charlie Kirk's controversial political opinions. The thing about controversial political opinions though, is that lots of people don't like them. If you are a person who does not like Charlie Kirk's political opinions, here are some things that would be perfectly understandable for you to think or feel upon hearing the news that Charlie Kirk was shot and killed:
"Charlie Kirk once said gun rights are worth the cost of a few shooting deaths. Kinda funny now huh? I wonder if he's changed his mind."
"Sucks he died like that, but I'm kinda glad I don't have to see his tiny face spouting talking points anymore."
"Charlie Kirk was a massive hack. I think we should care about the kids shot at that school in Colorado more than him."
"Charlie Kirk wanted me kicked out of the country because of my political opinions. It's hard for me to feel bad for him."
To be clear, all of these are tasteless and (in my opinion) poorly thought-out, but they are well within the bounds of civil discourse. None of these are beyond the pale. None of these should get one fired from one's unrelated job. None of these are even close to inciting or advocating for violence.
I was shocked today when I saw a Republican Congressman announce a woke-era pressure campaign againt people who "belittled" the assasination. Apparently I have a much longer memory than many people. I still remember 2020. I still remember George Floyd. It wasn't just the riots, it wasn't just the demonization of physical policing tactics, it was the Orwellian psycholigical tyranny of not being able to express nuanced or contrary feelings about a tragic event. Never again. In a free society, people should be able to express their thoughts and feelings on major events, even if they aren't entirely thought-out or sanitized.
A set of statements in simple argument form:
Free speech (as a concept, not just under the 1A) is generally good. Certainly preferable to open violence.
Belief in and support of Free speech requires you to allow people to actually speak.
Killing someone who ONLY engaged in speech is very bad. Full stop.
If you support and celebrate killing someone over mere speech, you do not believe in free speech (see 2).
If you do not believe in free speech, you're estopped from complaining if your own speech is curtailed or punished. Stated differently, we are not required to extend the protection of certain moral/ethical rules to people who openly reject them.
Therefore, cancelling someone for speech celebrating murder (see 4.) is easily morally permissible (see 3, we won't kill them, but we can do other things in response).
And a step further, it actually helps protect the concept of free speech to punish those who openly do not believe in or support it.
Therefore, actively identifying and cancelling people who are open about their rejection of free speech... is good.
Which of these do you disagree with, or think fallacious?
The main flaw there for me would be 7. I'm skeptical that such a feedback loop can happen in an impactful way. I'd also contend that 5 is questionable at best. I don't believe that rejecting certain principles automatically means that you no longer get to benefit from them. It's not the principles of the people who reject it that matter, it's the principles of those of us who accept it that matter. If we accept those principles, we shouldn't carve out an exception for people who don't accept those principles; otherwise, we'll just categorize everyone who we dislike as "rejecting this principle," much like how many on the left have decided to categorize everyone they dislike as "intolerant" once they learned the slogan "tolerance doesn't mean tolerating intolerance."
I'd also add 3a, something like "Genuinely, in good faith, conflating speech with violence for the purpose of justifying violence against speech one dislikes is possibly the most seductive thing known to man, as such, any attempt at categorizing speech-making acts as violence must cross an extremely high bar."
I do. Its a simple application of the silver rule. If someone treats YOU in a particular way, then they're basically implying they agree it is fair for them to be treated that way. Unless they're carving out a special exception for themselves, which I would LOVE to hear their justification for.
Happily supporting the death of someone over their speech is not in any way consistent with support for 'free speech' as a concept.
If you do not believe in the concept of private property, and if you take things that others claim as their property, I don't see how you justify then complaining if others take things from you. On what grounds, specifically, can you complain? "I don't like it." Well tough titties, you didn't extend that consideration to the ones you victimized.
Ramp that up to claiming the unilateral entitlement to hurt other people who you dislike.
Oh, and I also want to make clear that I have been vehemently asking Dems/lefties to reduce the temperature For a while now. If that helps explain my frustration. I anticipate these events to continue, maybe get worse.
Tit for tat (with forgiveness) tends to work where repeated entreaties fail.
I see four (4) possibilities for actually lowering the temperature:
Lefties/Dems rein in their own side from revelling in murder, and expel those who can't be reined in.
The Government applies legal rules that rein in everybody, including/especially the lefties. (my preferred outcome)
Righties will take steps to rein in the lefties.
The lefties who revel in murder will exercise restraint based on their own self-interest. (Haha. Hahaahaaaa. Haaaaaahhaaaaaaaa I assign 0% likelihood to this).
If the temperature is not decreased, if these actors are not reined in, then these events will continue.
THAT is not an acceptable or good outcome.
1 is not happening.
2 might not happen.
4 will not happen.
Guess what 3 looks like.
This needs to be a little more nuanced than that.
The problem is that "in a particular way" and "special exemption" is doing a lot of work. What is a special exemption? It can't just be a category that includes someone else but excludes me--that would make all sorts of things special exemptions like killing in self-defense (nobody needs to defend themselves against me), jailing bank robbers (I don't rob banks), and prohibiting 6 year olds from drinking alcohol.
(And you may be tempted to respond "well, if you did rob a bank, the bank robbery rule would apply to you, so that isn't a special exemption." Which doesn't work; compare "well, if you did say something right-wing, a rule about censoring right-wingers would apply to you".)
Nah.
"Self-Defense" is actually quite simple. "I will not use violence against any person... UNLESS they use it against me first." Both defense and offense are 'using violence.' But generally speaking, offense is the one who initiated, and defense is the person responding to it.
A person who uses violence against me 'first' is demonstrating that they are okay with violence being used against them. Else, what entitles them to do it to me? I am absolutely happy to oblige them and have no moral qualms about this. I will, of course, exhaust most other possible remedies first before doing so because violence, as a sheer practical matter, sucks for all involved and still puts me at risk of harm.
Remember. I literally teach this stuff professionally. I also live in a state where the law supports self defense. I practice law. I am vigorously overqualified to argue what is and is not justifiable self-defense.
And I believe EVERY human is entitled to use violence to protect themselves from others who use violence on them.
No special pleading necessary.
I can cover that one by pointing out that you're not really prohibiting six year olds from drinking. Most six year olds don't know what the fuck alcohol 'is'. You're prohibiting people from giving alcohol to six year olds and there are absolutely justifiable reasons for doing that.
But the issue is that you are not allowed to have a "special exemption".
If a "special exemption" is something that includes another person but excludes you, then adding the clause "unless they use it against me first" is adding a special exemption. It gives you permission to use violence against another person, while it excludes other people from being permitted to use violence against you (assuming you don't plan to use it first).
Rephrasing it as "unless defense" doesn't help either, for exactly the same reason. You've said that there are two categories, one of which doesn't apply to you ("people who use violence offensively") and another of which does apply to you ("people who use violence defensively") and allowing only the people in the first category to be valid targets of violence. That's a special exemption that excludes you as a target. It may be a special exemption that you like, but it still is one.
Just because you can otherwise justify self-defense doesn't keep it from being a special exemption under that definition. (And if there's some other definition of "special exemption", I'd like to see it.)
Not really.
I'm not conferring any privilege upon myself that I think they don't have. There is no special 'quality' that I possess that grants me some moral authority over them.
I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, in fact. I do not believe myself entitled to enact violence on others without justification. I assume that other people ALSO believe this... until proven otherwise.
When I think of "Special exemption" I mean something like "I'm white and you're black, therefore I'm allowed to beat you." (see: the history of slavery in the U.S.). "I'm a woman and you're a man, therefore you can't hit me back."
Creating a category that you count yourself in that permits you to do things to people outside that category. And usually this category is 'arbitrary' and doesn't actually suffice to justify special status. "I'm the King and you're a peasant" sort of kind of justifies the king beating the peasant, to the extent the Peasant agrees that the King has been granted divine authority by God to rule.
I'm quite simply not doing anything like that. "I'm defending myself and you're attacking" doesn't rely on the qualities of the people involved. Simply a question of whether one is doing it to the other without 'justification.'
I could admit there's an amount of social construction going on here, but I think reasonable minds can reach a LOT of agreement as to what constitutes 'aggressive' violence, simply based on what you would agree you DON'T want others doing to you.
"I'm the defender and you're the offender. So I'm allowed to hurt you."
"Defender" is literally a category that you count yourself in, that permits you to do things to people outside that category.
Of course. But everyone thinks, or at least can convince themselves that, the categories they are using aren't arbitrary. "I'm not arbitrarily saying that only right-wingers deserve to be shot, I'm saying it because right-wingers are promoting very destructive policies and left-wingers aren't."
Yes, you can fix up the principle by adding "... as long as the categories aren't arbitrary". But once you add that, you no longer have a principle that can be universally applied. You have a principle that can be applied only if you are correct at the object level (about whether the distinction is arbitrary). The whole point of stating it as a principle is that you're trying to apply it to everyone without having to look at the object level.
Also, I am very skeptical of claims of "you are really agreeing to X" about someone who isn't literally agreeing to X. No means no; if their lips say they don't agree, you must treat them as not agreeing, even if they "imply" a yes.
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