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 -
The same student also claimed that a beer bottle was smashed into pieces on her face. Yeah. Or maybe not.
The story was incredible, and I mean that in the sense of "cannot be believed". The main problem, if I remember from back then, was that the journalist in question was setting out to write a story about rape/sexual assault in colleges, since this was Hot Topic of the Day, but couldn't find a lot of data/spicy enough cases to actually write the story. Then someone got on to her about "oh, you must hear what this girl is saying" and it took off from there. Perfect scandal bait: it had the sympathetic victim, spicy details, accusations of university administration cover-up because they were protecting the fraternities, and of course accusing privileged white frat boys. Rolling Stone editors lapped it up, the usual suspects believed it unquestioningly, and it was only when the real holes in the story became too big to ignore that they finally had to roll it back. No cover-ups, no string of rapes, no proof anything happened the alleged victim.
And that only happened because a cranky old white guy at the Washington Post was willing to call BS.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link