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 -
Great writeup, thanks for sharing. As I have asked in the past,
This is a very old problem. In Plato's Republic, he speaks occasionally of the lower castes in his ideal system, but the great bulk of the work is an obsessively detailed examination of the proper upbringing of the ruling class. Aristotle calls him out on this, suggesting that Plato's vision fails to adequately capture the breadth of human experience. Today, rather than frankly acknowledge the mental incapacity of the masses, we push free compulsory public education (substantially modeled on Plato's prescription!) as a way of supposedly "leveling the playing field," bringing everyone up to some minimum level of functioning (and insisting despite the evidence that everyone has basically the same potential to achieve and succeed).
Occasionally I meet people who are spending their retirement years caring for dependent adult children. Sometimes that responsibility falls to siblings instead, or even more distant relations. The ability and willingness to be a conservator for an adult of diminished capacity is not the stuff of romantic Hollywood aspiration (Love Actually notwithstanding!). Of course we talk about prisons and mental institutions and the government curtailing of important individual rights--because there's nothing any of us can do to fix the damage that liberal individualism has done to the institution of the family. There are all sorts of reasons why strong tribal ties might be undesirable, particularly in a Western liberal democracy, but as Thomas Sowell says--there are no solutions, only trade offs. The same forces that liberate some of us from the oppression of a tyrannical tribal chieftan also liberate the Hassans of the world from the moderating influence of tribal support.
More options
Context Copy link