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 -
What if you don't leave? Remember to apply the assumption of maximal-opposition at every stage.
Considering my office doesn't have food, my badge is disarmed and there is limited cell signal, eventually I will need to leave. Combined with needing to make payments for life needs and am not being paid, I could maximally wait around until I am destitute, homeless, with no food or money in a stubborn attempt, but I doubt my job will care. They literally can just wait me out. My computer requires credentials to login, The SCIF has no bathroom, and needs a badge to get back in. Once I leave the building I won't be able to get back in, frankly once I exit the elevator I can't get back in.
So essentially 3 days of hobo-ing it at the office.
Maximal-Opposition isn't a required assumption. The Government doesn't describe arresting law breaking citizens as "Maximal-Opposition" and my parents very much spanked me as a kid and I doubt they would consider corporal punishment as "Maximal-Opposition" in respect to defiance either.
You may choose to. They may choose to wait.
...but I kinda doubt they'll wait.
That's not at all what I've said. I've said that you can very very easily find examples of the government or parents doing things that are non-violent. Nevertheless, if you persist at coming up with ways to be oppositional (example), they either have to escalate or give up on enforcing the rule. If you repeat the steps of being oppositional and escalating enough times, you end up in violence. That doesn't mean the first thing was violent.
When your parent says that you can leave the dinner table, but if you're hungry later, you're just going to get the dinner that you didn't eat, that's not violent. If later comes around, the kid escalates, and the parent moves on to corporal punishment, that doesn't somehow convert the first encounter into being a violent encounter.
I'm slightly confused on what your argument is, so lets pump the breaks and make sure we both understand what the underlying disagreement is.
It sounds like to me, your general argument is: The claim that governmental action is always backed up by an implicit violence, is bad because every interaction with any other agent is also backed up by implicit violence based enforcement. So government action being so, is not unique and thus calling it out is not special.
Did I get that right? If not please correct me.
First, I would make a distinction. In this thread, it was not just claimed that every governmental action is always backed up by implicit violence. Instead, it was that every single action was inherently, definitionally violent. I think the latter claim is pretty bollocks. Your change of the claim to being "backed up" by "implicit" violence is far more defensible.
Generally, what it takes to argue that it is backed up by implicit violence is to posit a sufficiently oppositional figure whose opposition contributes to getting into the "back up" situation, where the implicit becomes explicit.
I have not said anything about the claim being "bad".
Instead, this is more accurate. It's not unique to government. Because of reasons, many times other agents outsource the back up enforcement, the turning of the implicit violence into explicit violence, to the government, but not always. Regardless of whether they insource it or outsource it, if they want to make a rule/action/decision/what-have-you that controls another individual, and if you posit a sufficiently oppositional individual, there is likely an implicit threat of violence as a back up. Now, this implicit backup threat is not always actualized in every case; of course not; it's not always actualized in every case with the government, either. But it seems to me that the same form of the argument holds.
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