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 -
You aren't making any particular point.
If you just want updoots, you can post about how much you hate your outgroup.
Moderators try to keep every discussion from devolving into "I hate my outgroup!"
Sure.
You certainly haven't.
No, the problem is that you literally are not making an argument. All you're saying is "Leftists bad, we must repeat this so everyone remembers leftists are bad."
Need I remind you, leftists are allowed to post here. We don't have many, but they are around. And if they rolled in to say "We need to remind people that the right is fascist and hates puppies and rainbows. This needs to be repeated so people don't forget that the right is evil," well, they're going to get the same treatment.
It certainly is; I do that every day, in fact.
The way you deal with that is by refuting the viewpoint directly, not the viewpointer, for actual fact is an asymmetric weapon on the side of the one most aligned with it.
As for the people who reject that, well, people who embody selfishness before actual truth will still give quests in return for a reward that aligns with their interests.
(This is also why I find left vs. right framings pointless, because there's no way to split the people in each faction that are driven wholly by self-interest from the people whose self-interest aligns with improving things in that framing, and the people who deploy it against their enemies to deny that it's an aspect of themselves are typically the former type.)
More options
Context Copy link
That's for you to decide. But since people who you believe have "evil, objectively incorrect viewpoints" are allowed to share space here, you will have to do so if you want to post here. And you can't just assert that they're evil and objectively incorrect. You have to actually engage with the specific things you think they are wrong about. Not just "Leftists wrong and bad about everything," which is a meaningless and uninteresting statement.
Cool. There is such a thing as objective reality. I daresay almost everyone, including leftists, agrees with that.
We allow anyone to post here, if that's what you mean. Otherwise, this is another meaningless claim.
All you're doing is talking in vague generalities.
Write something more interesting.
More options
Context Copy link
In some circumstances, observably, yes. You could examine how this happens. In some circumstances, observably, no, and this could also be examined. You could dig into what the breakpoints are, where one situation devolves into the other.
Not yet. Hopefully, not soon.
Alternatively, see here.
The purpose of discourse is to arrive at the truth. But once you arrive at the truth, discourse has served its purpose, and therefore ends. This place exists to promote discourse; to the extent that your questions have been answered and you have arrived at certainty, you have no place here. This is a place of charity, and without doubts and questions, charity cannot exist.
...My confidence that the other commenters are correct, and that you are trolling. The part where you constantly hew to general statements and abstractions sort of gives it away.
What "violence" specifically are you referring to? Which "fascistic distortions of truth"? When I and others talk about such things, we have no trouble grounding the discussion in specific cases, and working toward general principles from there. You would be well advised to do likewise.
**Edit: I have now been banned by another moderator for this comment, which lays out factual statements in order to advance a coherent argument with reasoning and evidence. This is the latest in a sequence of actions the moderators have taken publically which I find to be unbecoming conduct: making wild accusations with no evidence, offering insincere apologies, lying about being willing to provide further details, refusing to respond when pressed, and now banning someone for daring to stand up to the authority of a moderator who clearly and demonstrably did something wrong because I am an outsider, I don't write in the accepted fashion, I'm not liked. The moderator insists I am being dishonest, but do you notice how when I accuse them of being dishonest I cite specific things they have lied about, while when I am supposedly dishonest there is literally no claim at all to evidence of this, and instead they resort to name-calling? I find this fact interesting. What do you think? The fact that I will be permabanned from this forum for trying to defend myself as an authentic liberal voice, not a lying alt, in the context of moderator actions having chilling effect on other past prominent leftist accounts is particularly ironic.
The statement that you " have no trouble grounding the discussion in specific cases" is demonstrably untrue.
In the last 2 weeks, you used your position as a moderator and an incredibly lazy armchair observation to impugn my character and outright lie. When called out on this, you at first failed to respond until prompted twice, made a very half hearted and insincere apology, denied you did anything substantially wrong, and offered multiple times to provide the reasoning behind your observation. After multiple back-and-forths and now a week and a half after your reasoning was requested, you also have failed to provide any of this mentioned reasoning or once again respond or show any indication of responding without prompting, and so have lied again to me.
All of this untoward conduct has occurred in public, and I am willing to defend every claim I have made about you in exact proportion to how inflammatory it is with evidence and reasoning. I cannot say the same of your words.
I think it's fairly clear that you did not "ground the discussion in a specific case" when you impugned my character casually because you didn't cite any specifics at all, you simply asserted a consensus that did not exist. This is despite multiple claims that you were willing to do so and that you have failed to follow through on, therefore as I said your claim is demonstrably false.
If you would like to position yourself as having better conduct than the user you're talking to, it would be best to reflect accurately the behaviour you yourself engage in on this forum.
I did not actually catch the exchange you had 10 days ago with @FCfromSSC. I just now read it to find out what you're going on about.
Bluntly, you are being blatantly dishonest and really damn obnoxious.
I am very comfortable saying this is not a "misunderstanding" or a "difference in perspectives." You're just making shit up and flinging it at the wall. You are very obviously a long-time poster pursuing a grudge (as @naraburns correctly observed in your first appearance here as a "new user"). That FC mistakenly tagged you as a Darwin alt is not surprising, but I concur with him that you are probably not Darwin. You should have just let it go at that, but you've decided to play "Hound the mod."
Enough of that shit.
Banned for a week. This is your one and only chance to drop this. If you come back still spoiling for a fight because your nose is out of joint and you demand satisfaction, you have contributed exactly nothing thus far to make your continued presence here a positive.
Note this has nothing to do you with you being (allegedly) a leftist. It has to do with you being an insufferable jerk.
ETA: Permabanned for post-ban editing, harassment in modmail, and spamming the mod queue by reporting every post on the board.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If you are earnestly a righty and on my partisan side: stop it. You're making us look stupid and you are convincing no one.
What I do suspect, however, is that you are trolling, and are in fact a lefty posting ostensibly righty positions and trying to get a gotcha of hypocrisy. No one is fooled. You could put what you have posted so far in a partisan mirror and nothing about its content or valence would substantially change. How do I know? Uh, righties don't use the term 'fascist' or 'brainworm' like you do, and your references to an objective truth are absent of any reference to God.
Either case does not reflect well on you.
Got me. I do believe we humans are merely meat puppets dancing to the strings of our genetic and memetic masters.
Also, I for one don't know what you're up to, but it really isn't particularly postworthy. Not that I'm any better, mind.
More options
Context Copy link
Although that may be true, there is a nonzero (read: 99.9999%) chance that you are a obnoxious bore.
I've been censured for waging the culture war myself, but I'd like to flatter myself and think I do so in a creative way. You going "DAE, anyone think that the left are useless mouth parasites" is lazy redditism and is cringe and even though I AGREE WITH YOU I still think that your contribution is worthless.
This isn't a Facebook boomer thread. Have some class.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link