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 -
But this is where you are in great danger of throwing away your soul and admitting you are not a scientist or a teacher but a shepherd of men.
Saying, 'the plum pudding model is less accurate than other models which I will explain later but I am using this now because the best model needs to be taken in bite-size chunks' is one thing. Similarly, avoiding hot-button words like quantum in favour of something equally descriptive when talking to people can be wise for the reasons you give: I have sat in on interviews where the beleaguered interviewer has twenty minutes to try and fish something out of the firehose of words coming from a professor and produces something obviously insane based on the word 'quantum'. But this is in aid of greater comprehension.
This is not epistemics.
This. Is. DIDACTIIIIICS!
(couldn't resist)
In all seriousness, the above is not a matter of being correct or incorrect about the facts. It's the author using scholarship which he suspects to be wrong ("old, if not busted") in service of the author's moral, political goal. And that, as someone intimately familiar with the difficulties of scientific explanation, strikes me as a very different ball game. Being less than 100% open and honest with people for the sake of their own edification slides so easily and neatly into being less than honest because it serves your own goals that it's really really dangerous to get into the habit of doing it. I'm not joking when I say this is how senior academics lose their souls.
More options
Context Copy link