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 -
I have 2 hypotheticals:
I ask because Sanders appealed very strongly to many Trump voters, doing great in e.g. West Virginia but lacking e.g. black support (which the democratic primaries overfocus on. Besides Wasserman-Schultz et al.'s machinations.) His approach was not based on identity politics etc. I'm curious how people think his "movement" or time in office would have turned out.
I certainly think he could have beaten Trump for the standard reasons. Clinton almost beat him, and I think Sanders would've leached off more populist-type voters from Trump than he would've lost relative to Clinton. The type of Clinton voters who would've been upset enough at Sanders not to vote for him seems likely to be small, particularly Clinton partisans also tended to hate Trump even more, and Sanders's downsides to them were things he shared with Trump, i.e. old white guy. No way to know for sure.
I believe that at least some parts of woke would've carried on mostly the same way, which is everything to do with trans. The writing was on the wall beforehand with parallels being made between trans and gay in terms of being something innate to oneself that one discovers by being true to oneself, versus being something that can be influenced within people, especially impressionable young people in whom certain amounts of hormones are flowing for the first time, with the emotional influences thereof. The situation with Lia Thomas, the MTF college swimmer who's caused controversy for obvious reasons, probably would've happened regardless. I have to wonder, though, if we would have learned about WPATH suppressing research in order not to give political ammo to their critics.
Entertainment media is where I think there might have been a noticeable difference. Living in a blue area, I've yet to see it overstated how much President Donald Trump seemed to have broken an unfortunately significant number of people's brains, and this seemed to have been especially true in Hollywood, which I think probably led to more messaging being prioritized over quality, likely in subconscious ways. I can't remember any in particular now, but I'm pretty sure I've read a number of interview answers by directors, writers, and even video game devs who said their work was inspired by the idea of fighting against the rise of fascism in the USA in the form of Donald Trump. President Sanders probably wouldn't have inspired such works, and maybe execs might have had a slightly higher priority on profit over in-group approval among political peers such that some of, say, Disney/Marvel's downfall due to woke-ifying old franchises could've been slowed down.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link