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 -
I am neither being ironic, nor am I aggressively misunderstanding you. Thankfully options exist outside your false dichotomy!
Thank you for your honesty. Now, moderator, ban thyself.
Your post was a mix of whataboutism, if it's true that there are nazis on the right it's not their (red tribe) fault, and oh, while I hate nazis they'll treat me better than the woke police. Insofar as 'running cover' implies you have some secret agenda to promote Nazi material, no, I don't think it's true. Insofar as you're sequentially denying, deflecting blame, minimizing (lol Tiki Torch cosplayers) and whatabouting - yes, you're running cover for them.
In reality, you are a flawlessly objective crystal passing judgment from on high. You have principles that you live your life by, and you chide the left and the right equally, god damnit! Anything less would be to descend into partisan hackery.
And Nara, I am (whatever people may think) fundamentally of this place. I believe that we should strive towards objectivity, that it exists, I deeply believe in mistake theory and progress and that things are getting better and discussion is good. I reject the people on the left who claim that everything is political, nobody is objective and it's all just white supremacist/patriarchal/isms all the way down and doubly so if you're a white man.
But dude, I have to actually invoke that progressive argument here, much as it pains me. You fit the trope of the partisan pretending to be objective and principled to a T to avoid confronting the fact that you are, in fact, also waging the culture war most of the time.
Tiki torch cosplayers vs. blatant antisemitism. I am impressed by your objective framing of the political situation!
Your beef is with the vast majority of the modern left. Seriously, replace identitarian with vast majority of the modern left - is your statement significantly different?
Nara, go to West Philly. Go to Baltimore. Go to Chicago. Much as I love your race-blind ideals, much as they resonate with me, the modern incarnation of progressivism and identitarianism didn't build the slums and the poverty and the suffering. Cancel culture wasn't a thing during the Rodney King riots. You can't be naive enough to ask an entire nation not to Notice that people of one skin color are overwhelmingly worse off, and it doesn't even matter what the cause is. People take that information in the direction they prefer.
The problem is that people like waging the culture war. I commend you and the moderation team, because the failing lies with the users. You can't mod yourself a better forum population.
Oh, but they did. Riot by riot, they built them. They got their clients to move in, drive the old white people out, take over the political machines of the cities, break the cities... and then they got to keep both parts. Still do, in most cases.
No actually it was racist white southerners lynching them and denying them economic opportunity that drove millions of them north
After WWII, lynching was not much of an issue. There were 21 black people (and 5 whites) lynched after 1945. That's what, a bad month in Chicago?
It started 30 years before that
The slums were built by the Second Great Migration, not the First.
https://brewminate.com/chicago-and-the-great-migration-1915-1950/
Your own source describes (using simperingly defensive language toward the black Chicagoans, of course) how there was a massive race riot begun by Bronzeville (black Chicago) residents in 1919 caused by allegations of white police apathy toward a homicide, before the advent of redlining or covenant segregation in Chicago, which the article itself says only began in the 1920s mainly in response to this riot!
Perhaps this was the inspiration for the later waves of white expulsion.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link