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 -
Do we want each other dead?
True, I may not want your idea or voice in the world.
I might be happy if it just went away.
If all those like you went away, think what my side could achieve unopposed!
But I would not support what would be needed for you to 'just go away'.
Moreover I know that there are countless other aspects to you (hypothetical asshole) that I might not find as tiresome as your online persona.
No doubt if I met you we could find something to bond over.
If I watched you with people you love, I might warm to you.
Even if I saw you, a stranger, being hurt, I would doubtless hate to see that (let's assume there is no slapstick element; admittedly that might change the equation).
But I can't see any of these things.
All I can see are the asshole-ish parts of you that peek at me through the distancing device that is my laptop.
And if those parts vanished, I might be able to convince myself to forget about all the other putative parts.
And perhaps depending on how my day and life were going, I might be glad of whatever must have happened to make your asshole-ish online parts disappear.
I perceive all this more or less symmetrically.
You'd be happy if my ideas and voice went away too. Be honest.
Your contempt for that which I share with you through our screens is evident.
Or maybe you're a supporter of someone who expresses contempt for me.
Someone who views everything as combat.
If I just went away, he'd be good with it.
You'd be good with it.
Hell, maybe people like me are an obstacle to your goals, and if we all went away, all your dreams would come true.
But still. You're like me.
You wouldn't want anything done to me really.
Actually, if you met me, you'd probably like and respect me.
It's true – even if you say you're done with the concept of empathy.
We'd probably disagree on a lot of things, but we'd make it work.
You'd probably even wince if you happened to see me fall over, unless it was an especially hilarious fall.
Nonetheless, in your weaker moments, you might be glad if something happened and the news reached you that my voice was to be no more.
So I don't think we're so different.
There's nothing more to solve than our respective asshole-ish parts clashing over distant, linked screens.
Sort that little issue out and we can be friends.
The only problem is, it's not just the two of us here.
Um, this is lovely and all, but have you ever actually been in a serious conflict with another person or group of people? Especially with a militant Leftist?
I have, as it happens. I sent an email offering to meet up and find a compromise that worked for us, and got an email back that said, to the best of my recollection, "There is nowhere that we will compromise and discussing things with you would be a waste of time".
People in the real world, actual aggressive self-righteous goal-oriented people, don't compromise because they're nice and they want what's best for everyone. They compromise only if they have to in order to get what they want. (And often not even then, look how the trade unions caused the decline of British industry rather than compromise on ideology).
This is approximately why I'm now ironclad in my belief that I do not want to share a country with anyone left of, say, Bill Clinton. I don't want them dead. I want them to leave. Preferably of their own accord. I don't even mind paying for the tickets, as long as they're one-way and they aren't coming back. And if they won't leave, I want them to generally be as miserable as possible until they wish they had left.
Lefties are just not suited for sharing a country with other citizens who have differing belief systems; they cannot be trusted to cooperate (or 'not defect') on core issues regarding the country's safety and security, and they will generally prefer foreigners over their own neighbors in any dispute, it seems.
Yes the famous 'heat map' study is very flawed, but the point made by said heat map has been confirmed in varying ways by different studies. Lefties try to sympathize with 'everyone' (and often entirely non-human things, or abstract concepts, like "the environment.") and as a result often end up sacrificing those that would 'actually matter' to them.
Lefties also have far, far less diversity of thought within their circles than righties. It is in fact safe to assume that whatever any given lefty says they believe reflects very precisely what all of the other lefties believe. And they'll henpeck their own into line as needed.
This crystalized for me when I watched everyone on the Dem side fall into line behind Kamala Harris as Biden's successor in one day, even ones who had, that very same day, said she was the wrong choice.
Lefties are far more likely to cut off family, friends, and other relationships over 'minor' political squabbles. So you can debate them in good faith, and still find that they come away hating your guts if you don't capitulate, and then cut you off so you have no hope of ever changing their mind. This concept is so absolutely backwards compared to how I try to manage my relationships that TO ME It reads as entirely alien and incomprehensible behavior.
Lefties have no good theory of mind for their political opponents. They believe they know what their opponents believe, but they tend to fail the ideological Turing test badly. So its that much easier for them to demonize opponents for things said opponents do not actually believe. See aforementioned point about intellectual diversity.
Lefties also have that distinct tendency to claim intellectual superiority and scientific backing for their views, but also tend to be completely wrong on some of the most important, core facts about reality. The most egregious one being blank-slatism as it pertains to human beings and their mental development. Their battle against reality on this point has done untold amounts of harm, and its impossible to even have a discussion on the degree of nature vs. nurture in their framework. I don't want to be forced into their framework, I want to have the actual debate. Which probably requires removing the people preventing it.
And of course as we have now seen, it is pretty much incontrovertible that more lefties than righties tend to support, or at least excuse violence as a means of settling political disputes, up to and including murder. Not all of them, but a significant amount, and these members are NOT policed by other lefties so they have an outsize effect. My first encounter with this was back when the Charlie Hebdo murders occurred, and I went on Reddit's /r/anarchism subreddit to find them twisting themselves into pretzels to explain why killing a bunch of cartoonists wasn't exactly the moral abomination it sounds like. You can still find some remnants of their discussion.
In my view, it shouldn't be so hard to say "murdering non-violent people is BAD" regardless of how offensive they are.
I can back up each of the above points with various studies, but I apologize I'm not taking the time to do that at this moment since I don't have them all immediately handy. I'm not trying to just 'boo-outgroup' here, I think that observable, reliable facts of the world are reflected in what I said, and this informs my own belief on why I don't want to be around them. Maybe I'm the one with the twisted morality and worldview.
Ding me for that if you must, mods. I'm not calling out any particular persons on the site with this, I swear.
And while I don't immediately give righties/red tribe a pass, by any means, I could throw together a comprehensive explanation of why I prefer to live around Red Tribers rather than Blue tribers, and maybe will throw that together at some point. Ultimately it comes down to Righties being more 'genuine' in how they comport and portray themselves, and more in touch with baseline 'reality' where it counts.
I consider myself red-tinged Grey tribe, and it has become clear to me that I cannot, over the long term, co-exist with blue tribe, for reasons I have no control over, and I'm leaning a bit more in favor of 'conflict' theory over 'mistake' theory these days.
Note, I am literally only stating my own personal beliefs on the issue, and I still inherently wish to treat any individual person, even if they identify as left-wing, as an individual who has worth and dignity in their own right, even if they're hopelessly compromised by their ideology and will never have their mind changed.
I'm not calling for any particular actions against any persons, and I've already arranged my life so I don't encounter many blue tribers as I go about my daily business, so I'm not going to take any different personal actions.
But if you're asking me to make policy recommendations, I can't very well carve out exceptions for the few that I personally like.
On charlie hebdo, I was a fedora tipping atheist back then and even I found the comics profane. I didn't like islam either, infact I had a burning passion of hatred for it. These days when I see those comics again I think to myself, good, fuck those guys. Should they have been killed? Probably not, but I would have been done for them getting their faces punched in.
Probably? That's how you know your moral compass is malfunctioning. When you ask yourself "how do I feel about brutally murdering a person that said something offensive to me?" and the answer is not "fuck no, not murder!" but "well, maybe no, maybe yes, he was really annoying so kinda murder sounds right but those people around me say murder is bad... so hard to figure this out... should I err on the safe side? Should I hedge more? It's really a tough conundrum!".
And, of course, you should only talk about punching other people's faces in if you're willing to have your own punched in for your opinions. Yes, I know yours doesn't smell. But that's how it works. I wouldn't accept this deal, I'd rather have a deal where nobody's face getting punched in, but maybe some people enjoy their faces being punched in?
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