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 Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm not quoting Wikipedia on this to claim that they're right, I'm quoting that article to show the disease of language that political partisanship has infested us with, and by "political" I do mean the progressive sexual elements as well.

I would classify that article as cow dung, save that dung is a useful thing. But the attitude on display is the one I want to emphasise, because it's very clearly biased but biased in the way that is acceptable to liberals, not just lefties and tankies. Racists are far-right, homophobes are far-right, and homophobia means not being enthusiastic about everything you are told to be enthusiastic about. If you're not waving the new flags, being an ally, and cheering on the idea of ten year old trans models, then you're a homophobe/transphobe. And that means you're alt-right. And that means you're a Nazi. Even the liberals and lefties who ten years ago would have been unremarkable for going "yeah, I dunno about putting a guy with a working dick in a women's prison" are, by this metric, Nazis because how dare you refuse to acknowledge that this is a real, beautiful, vulnerable, sensitive woman? Who just happens to have very much practically demonstrated functional male biology.

I am a Nazi for not weeping at the horrible injustice done to this poor meth dealer whose hopes and dreams of being a Real Girl were ruthlessly crushed by the brutal incarceral system:

When Lusk detailed some of the instances of abuse she has dealt with, she started to cry. She took a long pause and quickly wiped the tears from her face.

"That's why I want to move to Shakopee. I don't think the women are going to be as aggressive and horrible to me," she said.

Well, that's nice, but what about the women inmates? This person is big as a guy, built like a guy, and apparently still has their guy parts. I don't know if they're on hormones or not. How much of a threat will they be to the cis women there? This is not to say that they should be subject to abuse while in prison, but unless every woman in Shakopee is as big and strong as this person, we're talking about a genuine element of risk that they'll be violent or abusive. It honestly might be a solution to start building units for transgender (male-to-female and female-to-male) prisoners to be segregated from cis offenders; if we can do this for low-security offenders, maybe we can do it for the trans.

Racists are far-right, homophobes are far-right, and homophobia means not being enthusiastic about everything you are told to be enthusiastic about.

I'm sorry, where do you read this in the wikipedia article? Especially the part in bold?

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