site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

  • Back when communities were actually tightly knit, criminals were hanged.

Back when communities were tight knit, there were informal processes to deal with crime committed by your family or neighbours. Hanging criminals is the point where people are using the power of the state to punish people (usually it starts with outsiders; you wouldn't do this with your in-group). It's a failure of community, and it usually ends up falling out of favour once enforcement comes to the point that your in-group is liable for the same treatment.

In many tight knit communities, justice was dolled out by the church. Since outsiders tended to not be a member, courts provided a great system for punishing them. Even when courts pushed out the church as the main arbitrator in a community, it still relied heavily on church officials' opinions. 30+ years ago, having a priest testify about how great you were was all but a get out of jail free card (where the judge was religious, at least).

We still have tight knit communities these days. They aren't region locked, though.

Anyways, restorative justice was more akin to what your average church would have done in the past (and many continue to do to this day).

Where and when did the local church act as a local community arbiter?

The crowns judges have been in firm control of law for at least 500 years here, with churches not having the role you describe for at minimum 2 centuries if not for longer.

Tight-knit communities are built around something, and that something is almost always the church. In tight-knit communities you do not yield the state's power against your neighbour. Even if courts exist, there's a police force, you'll almost always create bad blood by invoking the state's power in your disputes. And the police, prosecutors, judges, and juries, will all be members of the tight-knit community.

If you believe neighbour wrongs you, you'd go to your priest for help, or other neighbours. Part of being a tight-knit community is that social consequences can be enough to affect a resolution, and one that is moral/just, rather than one that is technically legal.

When you go to the police, you're basically going above the community. If the legal consequences for something are worse than what your community will tolerate, then it's likely the police will try to dissuade you, the prosecutor will decline to bring charges, the judge will give the defendant every benefit of the doubt, etc. Because they are all part of the same community.

But an outsider isn't going to be influenced much by social pressures, and so using the force of the state is seen as acceptable.

If you look at Hasidic Jewish communities, they often have their own police, 'courts', their own schools, etc. They aren't willing to use the state's violence against each other. If they were, they wouldn't be tight-knit communities. Many native reserves are also like this.

I'm sorry but in England this hasn't been the case for a very very long time, I believe for longer than America has been a country.

There is no "local community" for non elite natives.

Kinship based judgement systems were often extremely formulaic and worked off of collective responsibility. This is not what restorative justice activists are pushing for.