site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32178 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 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 New Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm surprised you liked the priest so much, since the Shu-Dereth church was such an obvious stand-in for the Roman Catholic Church, and the priest's whole arc is basically about discovering that his church is evil and the fantasy pope is a fraud.

For what it's worth, as a Mormon I didn't see this as anything against Catholicism. Sanderson has quite a few characters that lose their faiths (or otherwise grapple with them), all believing in very different sorts of religions. "Character loses faith in dominant church" is simply the story (out of those) which will be told most often because more characters will be members of the dominant church than any other. There's also something very Catholic about standard fantasy due to its origins in Tolkien's work. Like, the default assumption for fantasy is that it's set in a sort of medieval Europe.

In his latest book, the Stormlight Archive, there are another two characters who grapple with and eventually lose(?) their faith. One believes in a sort of Eastern made-up religion which worships stones, and another must convince the dominant church (called "Vorinism") that their god has literally died.

In Mistborn another character grapples with a sort of "church of churches" which believes in all faiths and strives to remember all of their teachings. He eventually decides that the church is literally false, but that its teachings are both useful and beautiful. If Elantris were his only story of a character losing their faith, I'd perhaps agree with you, but given all the other stories about that that he's written I think it's pretty clearly not supposed to be any sort of point against Catholics.

I don't think Brandon Sanderson or Stephenie Meyer hate Catholics, and I doubt either of them intentionally decided to write Evil Fantasy Catholics into their stories. But it's impossible not to see the allusions. They almost certainly did it unconsciously, the same way anyone else deeply immersed in a particular culture will unintentionally write through that lens.

I'd argue Evil Fantasy Catholic's, because there's a hierarchy, are easier to write into a fantasy story than Evil Fantasy Protestant's.

I haven't read Elantris, but I've read Mistborn, and what makes the religion particularly Catholic? I read big institutional religions as just that, big institutional religions, and I don't know that that would have to necessarily be Roman Catholicism, even if that's the best example. If I remember correctly, Mormonism itself is institution-focused enough to fit in some ways, which would be an obvious influence as well.

And whatever the case may be, in Mistborn, I read the worship as being for political reasons at the head (even if not in the rank and file), which is probably not true of any major group of Christians.

Mistborn didn't feature such an obvious "Catholic" church. It was a lot more explicit in Elantris, which even had monastic orders and a fantasy pope.

To be fair, Dalinar’s arc is much, much better developed than the others. Part of that is experience, part of that is having several times as many words to play with.

I personally found Sazed’s approach to be the weakest despite how much I like where he ends up.

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