site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31059 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Are food allergies another aspect of the culture war? I was reading Reddit and a person was feeding 100 people and someone mentioned to make sure you have all the allergies/food restrictions covered. Being honest I’ve never met anyone with a food restriction I can think of except a lot of brown friends who won’t eat sausage but also have no problem with alcohol.

Ancient religions had a lot of restrictions, now Im borrowing this from elsewhere that the rise of food restrictions is just the same thing as ancients banning certain foods as holy acts. I’ve long argued that the culture wars are less of a culture war and more of a religious war and dietary restrictions are just a modern form of Jews and Muslims banning pork/shellfish etc and Catholics not eating meat on fridays. All religions seem to have focuses on eating and sexual rituals.

I know mental illness has far higher rates amongst lefties. My guess is dietary restrictions and food allergies are much higher in lefties and if your not in that religion it’s something you never think of.

It goes back to the Moral foundations theory and the red / blue split.

Red tribe expresses purity through sexual restrictions. Blue tribe expresses purity through dietary restrictions.

So if you're holding an event with a very blue tribe group like climate change policy you are going to have to deal with a massive matrix of dietary restrictions.

Conservatives doing exotic eating plans is definitely a thing these days, but they generally view it as a pure health issue and don't feel that anyone else should have to accommodate them. So they tend to pack their own lunches if it's an issue.

In my experience the easiest way to deal with the various dietary restrictions is to just offer vegan food. It's not foodproof but it's usually suitable for most.

The replies to this one are interesting. I should probably clarify that this is just my personal choice - I'm not suggesting others do it. Even then, I never said that it's anything beyond my personal choice, and I don't see it as some sort of a huge burden or something where I need to bend over backwards to satisfy unreasonable demands - I know several places where I can get excellent vegan food and can also cook it myself (and frequently do). Not to mention that usually this means I just offer a vegan alternative among ones containing animal products. When we baptized our second child I got only cakes and cookies for the guests after the ceremony and these were vegan, but I didn't hear anyone complaining about the vegan cakes.

Perhaps I should also clarify that my social circles just plain happen to not only include many vegans and vegetarians, but also committed Orthodox people who devoutly observe the fasting calender - which means they spend a lot of the year not eating meat or animal products beyond fish. My family also has people with real and serious food allergies which happen to be of the sort that vegan food is suitable for them.

Not that I'm every likely to deal with it, but I'd offer roast game meat and declare vegan opposition as null and void on account of prey animal control being a necessity in any ecology lacking large apex non-human predators and would they have preferred the meat to rot in a land fill?

I have done this before. Strangely, does not seem to make vegetarians think better of eating meat.

Well, I'm lucky to note that I don't have any vegetarian friends. Well, there's this one girl who liked talking to me in high school and is, but we aren't in contact.

Interested in whether it'd work, I think it should, she's fairly intellectully honest and a catholic, vegetarianism isn't her primary religion.

Yeah but that only helps people with ideological dietary restrictions. It actually is bad for allergy sufferers because legumes are one of the more common allergies. Peanuts and soy being the obvious culprits, but legumes in general being fairly common.

That reminds me of when my old school friend and her hubby were getting caught up in the Trump doomerism back in 2017. But there's a simple solution I told them - Make America Great Again. Then there's nothing to worry about! Naturally they were very grateful.

I have no idea how this comparison is even supposed to work.

It’s that most of the meat eaters find veganism completely toxic the way a trump derangement syndrome person would find becoming pro trump completely toxic.

I don't think the analogy is perfect, but I'll try. In both cases, it goes something like this.

Problem: I am annoyed by people making unreasonable demands.

Solution: Simply satisfy their unreasonable demands, then they won't have any more demands, and you won't be annoyed anymore!

I think the comparison is that vegan food is not a solution that is very suitable or easy to do for most people (also it has to be vegan without bread and pasta a lot of the time). In the same vein that solving the Trump problem by deporting all the illegals and building a 30 foot beautiful wall with gargoyles on it isn't palatable for trump doomers.

I think this is wrong especially if food is a bribe to get people to come. Would be a huge turn off to me. Can work for a brief event with a snack but if I’m expecting a meal I would be starving. Vegan doesn’t make me feel satiate.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats