site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31060 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.

Just saw the headlines about DeSantis banning an AP African-American Studies course. According to AP news, "Florida education officials did not specify exactly what content the state found objectionable."

I have two questions about this.

  1. What reason would there be to not say what about the content was objectionable? Would it violate copyright, or some kind of NDA?

If the DeSantis administration's objections to the content are reasonable, then sharing the content would make it impossible for intellectually honest people to say that DeSantis doesn't want the history of American slavery to be taught. Because the objections are left ambiguous, a person can fill in the blanks with whatever best fits their priors, and if someone who doesn't have exposure to current year progressive narratives on race, then their priors probably are "those backwards hicks just don't want their kids to learn things that challenge them." If I hadn't updated my priors since the debates on evolution and intelligent design, that's what I'd assume is happening. But because I've been paying some attention to cultural changes this past decade, my prior is now that some version of disparate impact/critical race theory/systemic racism/Ibram X Kendi's personal philosophy is in the course. But like my hypothetical leftist, I'm using my priors to fill in blanks that ideally the government would be filling in for me.

  1. Is there any information anywhere online about what material was in this course?

The government may not be able to tell us, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean the information isn't out there.

This is why the right loses. It finds itself in a hair splitting debate which it eventually loses. Trying to make 'more accurate' African history courses is not answer. The answer is such courses should not exist at all.

Why not? If people are interested, then I think these courses should be offered as electives.

Think you are forgetting the amount of education of a high school grad even one going to an elite school.

Africans just haven’t figured into the big world events that high school kids don’t know. They’ve had zero influence on major ideologies, political systems, communism versus capitalism etc. The course is either going to be about soul food, Tulsa race riots, and rap music or be a crt/Marxist indoctrination.

The former I think high school kids need training in bigger things or the latter is just woke training.

This is rather silly. History education is not just teaching about the 'objectively' most important things in the world, otherwise British schools wildly under-study Asia and over-study British history, or at any rate certainly pre-Industrial revolution British history. Clearly, race and slavery has been enormously significant in American history, being possibly the biggest running issue in American politics for the first half of the nineteenth century, and certainly for a few decades before the Civil War, and of course being the cause of the Civil War itself.

The course is either going to be about soul food, Tulsa race riots, and rap music or be a crt/Marxist indoctrination.

It's so blindingly obvious you have almost no history education. Yeah, soul food and rap music is the sum total of the impact of race and African-Americans in American history.

It would be better for students spending an entire year reading (1) Paine, (2) Declaration, (3) Articles of Confederation, (4) federalist papers, (5) anti-federalist papers, (5) constitution, (6) Jefferson and Adam’s correspondences, and (7) key early cases (eg Marbury, Gibbons). That provides a much more detailed American history background compared to…AA history.

I think this a narrow and parochial view of American history that almost no contemporary scholars would subscribe to. High politics is, of course, very important, but so is economic history and social history. A student who has a detailed knowledge of the federalist papers and related debates in the early republic, or in later periods congressional debates etc. still has a fundamentally incomplete understanding of American history if that's all they know about.

It's an elective. They will be taking this course in addition to a US History survey course, not instead.

Scarcity is a thing. Doing this means doing less of other things including an in depth review of more important American history.

My guess is a lot of the things I list are covered only in a cursory manner. Do high school students read all the federalist papers? Do they know there are anti federalist papers? Do they understand the importance of the constitution in relation to foreign bond holders?

Scarcity is indeed a thing, but no student will ever get a complete and in depth understanding of every period of American history, that's just not realistic. So there are going to have to be some somewhat arbitrary decisions on what to cover and what not to cover, elective classes just means students are choosing what they cover in depth, which is fine.

More comments

You seem to be arguing that the mandatory US History survey course should be two years, which is fine. But that leaves less room in student schedules for all AP classes, not just this one. Do you oppose offering AP Stats or AP Bio for the same reason?

More comments

It would be fascinating to arrange the Federalist and Antifederalist Papers as a Reddit-style discussion tree. I’d definitely read them that way.

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