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 -
Here is the list of the topic of top level posts in this thread since the viral ICE shooting.
Seven out of Eleven posts and they're by far the largest threads. It's probably too late at this point but I'd like to suggest that in the future mods should exercise some judgement and make a megathread on events like this that are likely to generate a ton of back and forth discussion with an expectation of new information coming out over the course of days/weeks. Both because it is more convenient for the reader to be able to check a dedicated thread and because it makes it much easier to find the more general discussion for those of us who find the interesting angles of the subject to have already basically been exhausted.
It does feel a little weird to me that this case is getting so much attention. Like, sure, I get that it's a contraversial situation. But is it really so important that it pushes everything else out of the news? I feel like there's been a lot of big news this week- Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, the Somali daycare fraud leading to Tim Walz cancelling his plans to run for re-election... This situation, while tragic, is hardly unprecedented. There have been heated protests against ICE going on for years now. Frankly, I've stopped caring. Whether the officer shot her in cold-blooded murder, or whether it was completely justified self-defense, or somewhere ambiguously in-between... I just don't even care anymore. ICE will continue, protests will continue, illegal immigration will continue, small numbers of deportations will continue, small numbers of people get shot every day, and nothing big ever changes.
Because the case isn't about the case. It's about the limits of law enforcement in the US and what measures are justifiable in the name of immigration enforcement.
These are all largely tractionless issues. What is there to discuss about foreign policy? Nobody has any real expectation that Congress has the will to hold Trump accountable for overreaching his authority, and in the meantime it's just arguing about which of the Mad King's rantings are babble and which are dire warnings.
Just shows how myopic Americans are, I guess. We really, truly, do not give a shit about other countries. One white woman getting shot in Minneapolis is more important than conquering a foreign country in South America and potentially taking over another one from Europe.
edit- and I forgot all about Iran! I don't claim to know much about the situation there, but it seems important. It seems very important. Thousands of protesters there have been killed. I wish the news media would do more to inform us about what's happening there, instead of endlessly analyzing low-quality cell phone videos of this one stupid event.
There are simply more cell phone videos from Minneapolis than there are from Iran. And there's this sense of the ICE thing being something you, a random American, can actually influence in a meaningful way. That's what Ms. Good had been doing, after all. "A little less conversation, a little more direct action, baby"
More options
Context Copy link
To be fair, most people are pretty myopic everywhere, and it's easy to focus on domestic conflict when it's low-key existential.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link