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 -
Not so clear-cut, and a major weak link. First of all we really, really don't have a very good sense of what most people think and feel for very much of history, due to large disparities in literacy and record-keeping and record preservation. Although historians like to pretend otherwise, we still end up adding in at least a bit of presentism and tend to extrapolate current understandings of 'eternal' human nature backwards in time. Second of all, I'm not convinced of how good your portrayal of "permanently impacted your ability to lead a tolerable existence" is for these purposes. I like the phrase, but "tolerable" is a notoriously wiggly word. Latent as well is a false assumption that historical humans had no method of permanent-trauma therapy at all. It may well be that modern ways to deal with "Trauma" are worse, or the contextual experience of modern life creates more Trauma naturally. As such I think I'd like a slightly more elucidated definition of what you're considering Trauma?
Otherwise I quite like your post. I tend to agree that broadly speaking there is a class of people who increasingly utilize traumatic moments or memories in their self-definitions and life stories in prominent ways. I also personally think this is a poor mental model and one that generally leads to unhappiness. At the same time, it's worth noting that there's a bit of a neurobiological element lurking around too. It's literally true that repeatedly recalled memories are continuously modified upon recall and moreover that those memories also tend to gain strength as well. The degree to which this is true for more general 'thought patterns' is to my understanding not at all established, so scientifically-rooted approaches to 'therapy' are likewise still in a somewhat infant and crude state (self-evidenced by outright contradictions between various types of cognitive-thought therapy that science finds itself imperfectly situated to assess, if such is even possible)
More options
Context Copy link