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 -
How many people not on the politically engaged or online right could have told you a single thing Charlie Kirk had said before his murder made him famous? How many non-very-online liberals/leftists had even heard of him? Very few I think, and yet that didn't stop the ones I know from calling him a fascist, and being more vocally concerned about Jimmy Kimmel's brief cancellation than about what one gathers was a sympathetic if (maybe, quietly) regrettable episode of political violence. Why did they "believe" he was a fascist? Either because they had uncritically imbibed one of the many blatant misrepresentations or outright lies about the things he had said circulating in their media environment, or simply because they had been told to by trusted sources. Most people (right and left) have an appallingly low tolerance for cognitive dissonance. If their side appears to have murdered an innocent man, either it wasn't really their side (remember the attempt to pin it on the groypers?), or he wasn't really innocent. Or just as often, an incoherent superimposition of both.
To accuse someone of hypocrisy presupposes an internal distinction between higher-order moral principles and actions or judgments of narrower scope. But it's risible to speak of higher-order principles when people are so easily manipulated; and most commentators hardly make any pretense of having considered all the facts relevant to any "controversial" case (the controversy generally being between sides, not within them, let alone within individual minds). The most unambiguously universalist slogans are subject to casuistry, and even the word "casuistry" gives too much credit, because case-by-case reasoning is still a form of reasoning. Imputing an autonomous rational intellect to people, such as would be necessary for them to be truly hypocritical, more often than not impedes one's understanding of and ability to predict their verbal outputs. What the response to Kirk's assassination brought home to me wasn't that liberals have a surprisingly robust anti-fascist value system, such that even Kirk, who (to those on the right who were aware of him) epitomized the moderate religious faction, was beyond the pale; it was that their beliefs -- not only, but to be honest, yes, especially their beliefs -- are not even really beliefs, not even the ones they would most readily ascribe to themselves in a vacuum; that the danger is best understood on an impersonal level, because it's misleading to model most of the people in question as people. I don't respect their "hatred" of Charlie Kirk enough to expect them to be tactful about it. Their hatred is just a boulder in an avalanche started by someone out of sight. Will I "tolerate" my difference of opinion with the boulder as it comes hurtling towards my face? No, but I won't think of it like that in the first place, and I know better than to expect the boulder to suspend the law of gravity for my sake.
More options
Context Copy link