site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What’s the murder rate like among, say, the Afro-French, or Turks in Germany?

I remember looking into this a while ago and the short answer is that it's impossible to say because the data cannot properly differentiate between ethnic Germans, naturalised migrants or their children

Luckily the Danes have done this. They've got categories for convicted persons from "Denmark", "Western Countries" and "Non-Western Countries" as well as "Persons of Danish Origin", "Immigrants", and "Descendants" (of migrants).

Ah, they're trying to obscure data. Which tells me it probably points to discrepancies between Germans and at least a few other large groups(that is, not just gypsies that everyone already knows are all criminals, or a few small ethnicities that are common in the mob).

As much as Americans kvetch about their black people, there really is no population over there that's really comparable to Gypsies.

It's an unfair over-generalisation to assume, without any other evidence (habitus, dress, accent, etc) that some individual black American person has a meaningfully higher chance of committing crime. But with Gypsies, man, it's an iron law, there's not even a question. A gypsy president, or for that matter gypsy lawyer or doctor or other middle-class type, is inconceivable.

I know an Irish traveller (not mixed) who has quit the culture and done very well for himself becoming a programmer, but yeah the generalisation is still a very accurate one.

Roma gypsies seem completely set in their ways while Irish traveller ways have changed quite a bit over the decades, the culture may have become even more criminal as a result (though maybe reading John B. Keane plays has given me a mistaken impression of how it was in the 50s), but change opens up the space for a few ambitious people to make it out.

Ah, the import of rap culture?

Nah they're not into rap music, mostly country. Though I am shocked at how much the local Nigerians are affected by UK drill culture, kids I went to school who seemed pretty normal suddenly picking up a London accent and trying to be gangsters before ending up in jail.

I wonder how Gypsies would do if they were all moved onto a planet of their own, with nobody except each other to victimize.

I don't wonder; I'm quite certain they'd all be dead in a decade, or whatever is the longest possible period you can run on predatory cannibalism.

While I have no fondness for gypsies, that kind of comment really doesn’t add anything to the discussion.

A gypsy president, or for that matter gypsy lawyer or doctor or other middle-class type, is inconceivable.

It's conceivable for mixed ancestry people, but you won't consider that person a gypsy. Moreover, that person will overwhelmingly likely not consider themselves a gypsy. Imagine someone from a mixed-race marriage saying, "Black? Fuck this ghetto shit, my mom's white, my dad hates his childhood in the hood, and has no love left for it, so I'm just American. All this racial heritage bullshit is just keeping people like me down."

This sounds like a direct description of Thomas Chatterton Williams (albeit taking a rough tone to his more genteel one), more or less. He describes himself as an "ex-black man", criticizes aspects of "ghetto" black culture, and encourages people to move towards a world beyond self-identification with racial categories.

Kmele Foster isn't from a mixed-race marriage, but he approaches things similarly.

In practice that person would be a professional conservative grifter because in all other circumstances identifying as black(but not actually being) is advantageous and this is recognized by nearly all functional people. Which is even more different from gypsies, aiui.