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 think that the real trouble with fear and shame is not that it doesn't work in principle but that it can't be effectively wielded today.
Just imagine the amount of shaming and bullying that the 1950s guys would've been deploying against this stuff, against even the tamer /d/ threads. Metric tonnes of shaming! And that largely worked. But shaming is not something modern society is actually good at anymore. Huge resources are thrown into shaming racists yet there are a lot of racists around. Nobody cares so much anymore. In the 70's and 80's, shaming didn't stop gays from buggering eachother anonymously in bathhouses, making a human petri dish for diseases that would then kill so many of them (and others besides). If you read the infamous Salo thread, you can see the attitude of the scientists and doctors, how limpwristed and weak they felt in the face of an obvious public health emergency, like they'd be like 'please stop having sex and killing all these people' and then gays would bitch and complain that closing their sex/drugs bathhouses was like the Holocaust: 'Today the baths; tomorrow the ovens'. Ironically the would-be shamers felt more ashamed for even trying to shame than the ones who ought to be ashamed. As far as I know, the gays decisively won, Reagan is considered somehow at fault for HIV/AIDs and they continue on doing their thing now with expensive state-funded Prep drugs to hold off the consequences.
(rather confronting but since we're on the topic of confronting material) https://web.archive.org/web/20200618004225/https://salo-forum.com/index.php?threads/patient-zero-and-the-early-days-of-hiv-aids.3167/
And I see the same thing here. The Harpers journalist staring in at these people feels way more ashamed than the actual men involved. Total mismatch in willpower and determination.
Trying to use shame in the modern Western world today is extremely difficult.
To achieve success, you have to make a 'normal relationship' more cost-efficient than 'gooning'. Odds of success? Realistically, nil. What new relationship technologies have been developed in the last 100 years? No-fault divorce is scarcely even technology so much as relationship-sabotage.
Whereas in the techno-sexual sphere there are endless innovations! Television! Internet browsing! Photoshop! Livestreaming! Japanese weirdness! VR! AI waifus and chatbots!
If one side in a conflict is innovating while the other remains static, the former is sure to win. Even if the latter has all the good-coded stuff like 'having a normal one' and 'the power of love', then that only affects timelines, not the end result.
Because it isn't aimed at actual racists.
People of the type who are really being shamed have lost a lot of influence as a result.
More options
Context Copy link
This sort of limp-wristedness/ losing slowly with dignity kind of stuff has been on my mind lately. What is it about the boomer and pre-boomer culture that lended itself to that, was it the post WW2 mythos? Christian blank slatism? Some sort of innate fear of being labeled fascist/totalitarian what have you?
They could have yes-chadded, but they literally gave in to being shamed by people who shouldn't have any job dispensing moral judgment.
If someone's idea of the pursuit of happiness is hundred buttholes a month, who are you to prevent him from going in there?
The Bible? Pfft, it's 1980, not 1890.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link