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 -
I don't think people here understand how totally goulish "Mother of two shot through window of car as she tries to escape", "ER nurse who loved his dog and had a concealed carry permit shot in back X times by ice after his weapon was seized trying to defend woman", "Small child in cute hat taken into ICE van, has to be forcibly released by judicial order." looks.
You can look at the images on your screen, and no amount of "But the context! She was a radical! He was a terrorist who scuffled with the cops a week before! Little bro was illegal!" is gonna matter. It's the vibes that count here, and the vibes are rancid.
I might put something on the main culture war thread next week, but as a practice draft of that comment: This is the Worst Thing To Happen in optics since Iraq, a war so bad yet so important to the cultural right it got a black guy elected president and made a generation more atheist and more leftist than anything since the great depression.
If the rightists don't learn from the past, it's gonna happen again.
Reform literally always has bad optics; conservatism (currently leftism) defines itself by being on the right side of those optics.
This is why reform is hard.
More options
Context Copy link
Optics debates are inherently bad faith. Every time someone says "The optics of this are good/bad!", they're manifesting their own claim.
Personally, I think Democrats really need to worry about their optics of "retarded, violent street crazies". And all of those white, Democrat Karens harassing Latino and gay/black Feds! Dems look so racist it's crazy! Just like they did with Bull Conor and segregation. Terrible optics. They really need to spend a lot of time defending themselves over this crap.
This is one reason I think Trump has a lot of room to do whatever he wants. I don’t think there is a coherent pragmatic Democratic Party right now. He might lose the mid-term but he can do things without 50% approval because when the big election occurs the Dems won’t be able to unit. It feels like a fractured party right now.
More options
Context Copy link
Your attempt to pull a UNO Reverse card here falls flat, because the implied accusation against your interlocutor of concern trolling is not credible. On a forum like this one, it is a given that basically nobody wants the DEI/pro-immigration/pro-trans/? wing of Democrats to win, and therefore the parent poster's concern (that ICE's strategy might lead to just that) is more likely than not genuine. On the other hand, you are not even trying to convince anyone that you would be unhappy if the Democrats' access to power suffered due to any putative bad optics.
The parent might not favour your specific brand of Republican politics, especially if that brand is just "more power to God-Emperor Trump and his goons", but it seems very plausible that they are coming from a place that is more like "please, surely none of us want to go back to the Obama/Biden years, so stop doing things that will lead to that" than "I want you to stop doing things your party likes and start doing things my party likes". It might of course be that the former is not very compelling to you because you are one of the people who have memed themselves into valuing everything other than "whatever Trump does, or perhaps more of it" at minus infinity so there is simply no viable solution that involves any form of restraint, but if so that would make you unusual enough that you should state your value function explicitly rather than just shit-flinging because you assume your interlocutor knew this about you and wanted to troll.
This seems like a square (if obviously non-malicious) example of that "consensus-building" thing the rules prohibit. And, in point of fact: hello! I want them to win. Not without qualifications, I have considerable misgivings with aspects of the mainstream "woke" left, but I still find them the least bad option.
Fair. I mean, I want more people who want them to win around! In this context, it just seemed more expedient to talk down Iconochasm who felt besieged/mocked by and snapped back at an outgroup that most likely was not involved in that exchange at all.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, but the claim is just that "Democrats do/don't like this".
They don't, because control of the media means the normies will see the retarded, violent street crazies as good and normal and the people they are fighting as fascists.
Yes, we have two Hispanic agents who shot a white guy dead, but the narrative that ICE is going around rounding brown people is not hurt in one bit by this.
That's extremely - "funny" is the wrong word to use here, but it's sure something.
Queer
In the
sense
More options
Context Copy link
With no apologies to Alanis Morissette, I believe the term is "ironic".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sure. But "Democrats don't like this" is a very different claim than "the optics of this are bad".
The link is "Democrats control the optics".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
But isn't it true that the american public is largely moving against ICE in polls? Incidentally I also think that it's crazy what the "protestors" are getting away with, including being called protestors in the first place. But unfortunately, most people don't seem to agree, which is what the optics argument is referring to. Yes, the bad optics are also arguably partially downstream from highly sophisticated media propaganda, but not entirely, and it doesn't change the fact that most people who hear about this are against it.
My point is that "optics" as a concept has a pseudo-Uncertainty Principle. Because it's entirely about appearances and impressions, it's impossible to talk about without interacting with it. For example, saying this
Normalizes the idea it's purporting to describe. The line between descriptive and prescriptive blurs. You could just as easily say that in spite of all the rioting and harassment and crimes, a large majority of Americans still want to deport all illegals and a supermajority want to deport all illegal criminals.
We're a decade past the two screens epiphany. "Optics" are extremely silo'd. Addressing the concept at all necessarily involves accepting a partisan framing, which necessarily involves promulgating it.
There is no dispassionate analysis here. It is impossible to talk about "optics" without defacto engaging in Mean Girls style social manipulations.
And stating this normalizes that belief. The choice of framing itself functions as an act of persuasion.
The Motte is a tiny and obscure forum. Posts here are not going to normalise anything or materially affect the outcome of the culture war, even on the off chance that they persuade a significant number of posters here. In fact, assuming this is necessary to make it possible to have a reasonable debate here at all; if you treat this forum as a pulpit where posts must be judged for their effect on the course of history rather than their factual content, you just reproduce the grandstanding popularity contest dynamics of Xwitter and Reddit.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One of my favorite parts about this website is how people manage to express my ideas in ways much more descriptive and eloquent than I ever will
Great stuff, thank you for sharing
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link