site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31037 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.

A poster here recommended a book to us all called “Introduction to Christianity”, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who would go on to become Pope Benedict XVI) a few weeks ago. I recently got a copy of it.

I wanted to share with you all the first few paragraphs from the book, because I found them very interesting:

Anyone who tries today to talk about the question of Christian faith in the presence of people who are not thoroughly at home with ecclesiastical language and thought (whether by vocation or by convention) soon comes to sense the alien -and alienating- nature of such an enterprise. He will probably soon have the feeling that his position is only too well summed up in Kierkegaard's famous story of the clown and the burning village, an allegory taken up again recently by Harvey Cox in his book The Secular City. According to this story, a traveling circus in Denmark caught fire. The manager thereupon sent the clown, who was already dressed and made up for the performance, into the neighboring village to fetch help, especially as there was a danger that the fire would spread across the fields of dry stubble and engulf the village itself. The clown hurried into the village and requested the inhabitants to come as quickly as possible to the blazing circus and help to put the fire out. But the villagers took the clown's shouts simply for an excellent piece of advertising, meant to attract as many people as possible to the performance; they applauded the clown and laughed till they cried.

The clown felt more like weeping than laughing; he tried in vain to get people to be serious, to make it clear to them that this was no stunt, that he was not pretending but was in bitter earnest, that there really was a fire. His supplications only increased the laughter; people thought he was playing his part splendidly--until finally the fire did engulf the village; it was too late for help, and both circus and village were burned to the ground.

I’m sure we’ve all felt like that clown at some point or another. Especially with regards to ideas like “just kids on college campuses”.

Here’s a quote, this one from Saint Anthony The Great, one of The Desert Fathers (Early Christian precursors to Christian monks who lived in Egypt in about 300AD).

“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”

Anyway I think the relevance to the culture war is obvious here, and could be taken any of many directions. I just read this today and wanted to share. To pull on one culture war thread (perhaps one of the oldest culture war) it is profoundly depressing to me that these parts of our history, especially the history of The Catholic Church, seem to be suppressed or at the very least ignore in modern western society.

deleted

https://www.themotte.org/post/253/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/48121?context=8#context

I’m on mobile, but can try to explain what I mean.

I have a lot of lefty new age, yoga instructing, Bali visiting, “I’m spiritual but not religious” saying, “Buddhism is more of a philosophy” claiming friends.

These people are hungry for something. The age and mysticism of stuff like their misunderstanding of eastern philosophy, is attractive to them because it seems to carry so much weight.

Meanwhile in almost every single town or neighborhood in America, there is a Catholic Church. The church has 2000 years of philosophy to pull on, as well as the most moving art that humanity has ever produced. People associate “meditation” with eastern philosophy, not knowing that their is an equally old tradition of meditation and mindfulness happening in that goofy building with the cross in it.

Not only is the spirituality, the history, the art, the philosophy, etc all there, but all of that philosophy and tradition is what we used to build the modern world. That Church is welcoming people to come into it ever day, or at least every Sunday, and people just…don’t. They don’t even bother to look.

I’m irritated that we have allowed Catholicism to become primarily associated with goofy people in hats, abusive priests, and ugly boring buildings. Im basically just retreading the frustration people have with Vatican 2.

The second thing is that my heart breaks for Protestants. The people attending these awful mega churches and weird youth group pastor things are being deprived of something I think is truly beautiful, and they’re essentially being taken advantage of by people who have a 500 year old hatred of the church. I think Protestants are more than happy to simply lie about Catholicism to maintain this grudge.

In that sense I do not begrudge the Protestants their complaints at all. Had you posted something along the lines of SSCReader's reply originally, praising Protestantism over Catholicism,

Just to point out I am an atheist, I was more amused by the (from my point of view) lack of introspection to consider how they might criticize the Catholic church, given they were founded specifically because it was felt the Catholic Church was betraying the values of Christianity (from their point of view of course).

My own response as an atheist would be something like:

  1. Protestants are I think correct to say that the Catholic Church as is and as it was would likely be condemned by Jesus as portrayed in the bible. It seems way too interested in its own survival, power and wealth than the humble values Jesus espoused. The Pope of Christ's church should not be living in a palace (though Protestant sects are also often living in glass houses in this respect).

  2. Protestants are I think incorrect to say that belief is the only gateway to God, a plain reading of what Jesus says would I think endorse the idea that good works have to be at least part of your journey to Christ.

  3. Some sects of Protestantism founded in large part because of the financial corruption of the Catholic church reinvented said corruption (Mega-churches and the like) pretty quickly.

  4. You're (edit - as in Catholicism and Protestantism) both (from my point of view) basically arguing which version of a fairy tale is more accurate when even if the fairy tale itself should be believed, the answer appears to be, both are wrong and that Christ espouses a much more personal, humble and pure version of Christianity than either Catholicism or mainline Protestantism actually perform in practice. Maybe the Quakers are close?

  5. But also the fairy tale is not true, so the best option is simply take the moral lessons said tale can impart without actually believing in witches in gingerbread houses or talking wolves or magic mirrors.

  6. But also people are really bad at being able to do that, so it's probably fine to leave them to believe whatever supernatural bits they want since it does seem to help them live their lives whether Catholic or Protestant, simply reeling them in when they try to drag people into wars or whatever (which is to be clear in no way limited to religion, ideologies also should be reeled in at similar points, supernatural or not).

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