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 -
This reminds me of a passage from one of the later Song of Ice and Fire books, where Tyrion is learning about some of the deep secrets of his family that started even before his father was born:
This stuff goes back, and back, and back. There's never a single clear point where it all began. When people try to say it all started over a single forum post, of course that makes it look trivial, but it was never really about that at all. The vast majority of people who got mad about it online had no idea who any of the people mentioned in that post were. This was just yet another battle in long, long-standing arguments like:
Many controversial issues here with no clear answer! It's pointless to try to trace any of them back to just one specific incident. If you decide that it all traces back to that one forum post, then it makes the chud gamer side looks really bad, which is why the feminist side usually frames it that way. If you trace it back like "game reviewers have been wildly crooked ever since the start, and it's time we finally had some honest professional reviewers who aren't being paid off by the game companies" then it sounds a lot more reasonable, but also kinda dodges the more contraversial questions.
This is not my impression at all; it seems to me that exactly the opposite of this is true. The feminist side is the one that tries to obfuscate the specifics of the incident and make it a general culture war thing, because the specific incident did look really bad for them, and it pains me to see their opponents buy into that frame.
It was a one-off event about random people that no one had ever heard of before, which hinged on personal details that we have no evidence of at all. That's why it seems odd that so many millions of male gamers got so mad at it- unless of course they were just using it as an excuse to hate women. (at least, that's the feminist interpretation)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link