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 -
Last Sunday, I had dinner with my extended family in Germany. They’re what they call ‘Bildungsburgertum’, best class and best-in-class, educated middle class of doctors, teachers, and executives. They accordingly vote either green or social democrat, and gasp if someone dares defend the Afd or Trump.
Cousin‘s girlfriend says she’s in the running for a promotion at the bank she works for because the banking regulatory agency “suggested” they need more ”diversity“ at the top level. She might lose the job to a less competent woman because her rival is also the “director for sustainability” and the title sounds good to the powers that be. I ask her what the hell a bank has to do with sustainability . “Exactly. She just gives a silly PowerPoint presentation once a year and uses that “fulfilled mission” as an excuse to be incompetent on everything else”. Her male boss/colleague/friend did not appreciate being summarily passed over and has tended his resignation.
After the ladies retire to the boudoir, a different cousin’s husband, who works in IT at a large company, picking up on my skepticism, sits next to me and whispers : “It’s pointless if you’re male.” He tells me he just refused a promotion because he doesn’t want to deal with the headache of having women under him, and the constant humiliation of forced diversity. One of his colleague’s career was apparently ruined after a sexism accusation, although he didn’t give details.
He recently had a woman in a junior post who could not do a simple task and would cry sexism(“I feel like you’re always contradicting me and not the others”) if corrected in public or reminded of her duties. He just did her job for her and never corrected her again.
Final words: “I’m not a masculinist or feminist, I hate all those things. I just wanted to do my job. Now I do the bare minimum, I don’t care anymore, I’m a loser” (I had brought up Rao’s archetypes of Psychopaths, Clueless, and Losers earlier).
There was some controversy recently over Helen Andrews’ essay on the feminization of the workplace. I consider all internet discourse a priori overdramatic and disconnected from real people who just touch grass at a barbecue in ignorant bliss. But this couple of anecdotes suggests real life (in Germany, at least) is actually worse than the widely-decried-as-misogynistic Andrews take: open widespread discrimination against men (obviously), ubiquitous fear of one-sided legal and professional penalties, declining competence at all levels.
I was a bit worried about the direction of this stuff a decade ago but it petered out, at least in the fields I'm exposed to (private sector industrial concerns, finance, tech, healthcare and large governmental organisations).
I've seen fairly mild tendencies of this in tech, especially American companies, but nothing major.
There are sectors that seem a bit broken, like academia and media but i have never worked in either sector and dont really know anyone that does so it might just be my negative bias.
Perhaps things are really different in Germany compared to the Nordics. Even though i lived and worked in Hamburg for a while I can't say I have any great insight into the state of things and it's hard to compare.
At least here, people complaining about this stuff today are almost invariably bitter losers, rather than pointing at something real. There is discrimination against men, but it isn't really happening there.
Whilst I've only worked in completely male dominated places, the stories I get from my acquaintances who are in more diversity are always along the lines of 'There is an obvious sex based preference being acted out every single day, which is always to my detriment' but there is never anything concrete. Just an endless stream of second hand examples.
Tracing the chain of causality that drove a bitter loser to complain about how unfair the system is, is practically impossible. But when so many of my smartest acquaintances tell the same story I'm left wondering how it's possible they are all just delusional.
If they are not all delusional, one would ask why nothing gets done about the state of affairs, and the answer is obvious. If you complain you are a loser. The big bosses of society have already decided that things will be like this. You don't have a say. And because it is true that anyone who notices and complains about this comical state of affairs is a loser, they can't do anything. They can't quit. They are completely replaceable and there is no place for them to go. They are not just losers, they are humiliated losers. Every day their hard work means less because there is some frivolous gender crap sucking up energy. It's in their face every single day and they have to suffer it. To that extent your post is pointing at a very important reality.
The only problem I have is with the men who don't notice or complain. Chances are their predicament is no better than that of a complainer. But because they don't notice or complain they delude themselves to feel superior to the losers who outed themselves as being emotionally disturbed by how things are. But it's fake. They are all in the same lot.
There's an interesting Culture War drama example of this on my YouTube feed. Comedian Akaash Singh had a small podcast beef with some manosphere guys. Akaash, along with his married friend, made it clear that they were not the losers, but the other guys. They were happily married, not complaining, the manosphere guys were unmarried losers complaining about women. Well, a few years later it looks like Akaash is, to borrow an old phrase, whipped. Similar to Will Smith and such. So whilst it might be true the manosphere guys were delusional losers complaining about women, it's obvious Akaash was also a delusional loser defending them.
Now, I don't think you can derive a lot of good truth from e-celeb drama on the nature of Akaash's marriage. Maybe it's being portrayed unfairly. But it's a good example to remind us of the fact that the world is filled with losers who won't look reality in the eye no matter what. And that they are delusional in all directions.
Two relevant comments from 2014 on a social conservative blog I used to visit:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link