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.

Remind me again how things like this would never, ever happen. I was told that several years back when part of a discussion about the possible problems in letting self-identified trans women use female-only spaces. No boy or man was going to undertake the social costs of dressing like and identifying as a woman just in order to get access to women's spaces.

How many formerly AMAB sexual crimes trans prisoners does this make now? And of course, if I take the lessons that I am being taught, Isla was always a Real Woman, so she was a Real Women when she raped two women with her feminine penis, and she still has her feminine penis while awaiting gender affirmation surgery while in a women's prison, and if you deadname her then you are inflicting real violence on her and denying her human rights.

Does that sound mean? Well, the liberal side like to pose the "what about the pregnant 12 year old victim of incestuous rape, are you going to force her to have her rapist's baby?" in abortion discussions and as we've seen this is a rare but real problem. The Real Woman trans sex offender is the equivalent for the liberal and progressive side, and a real problem they have to deal with, and decide if they are going to stick with the most extreme loons who declare that you can too be a Real Woman if all you do is grow your hair out and change your name. It would be instructive to count up how many "pregnant 12 year olds" versus "sex offender suddenly decided while in men's prison he was really a woman" cases and see who needs to do some tough decisions.