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 forum seems to be missing the biggest actual culture war battleground of the week: The US Hockey Gold Medal team.
For those who haven't heard, the US Men's Hockey Team won the gold medal over Canada, on an overtime goal by Jack Hughes. The team celebrated, the country celebrated, and everything was great, until it wasn't.
Kash Patel was part of the celebration, for some reason. Apparently he's a hockey fan, as I've read he was attending games when Ovechkin was nearing Gretzky's goal record. And then there was a call from Donald Trump to congratulate the team, where he made a joke ("I'll have to invite the women's team, too, or they'll impeach me.")
Of course, the usual suspects have come out of the woodwork to scold then men for being bros.
Jodi Walker called them losers.
The New York Times decided to praise the defector while shaming the victorious Americans.
Mary Clarke says that they failed to meet the cultural moment, and boy is she waging the culture war. Some highlights include reminding us that a black woman won a gold medal in hockey, bemoaning that the NHL is 44% Republican, decrying the hiring of someone accused of and found not guilty of sexual assault, implying his guilt.
Then, finally, she has the gall to say this:
Well, Mary, you are responsible for writing the message of this team, and you are participating in making sure the message you dislike is the one that's getting spread.
For a reasonable take, I always go back to the characteristic machine:
And a quoted response
This really does cut to the core of it. There is a civic ritual, which we can all participate in. Civic in a way that crosses race and sex and religion, or should, at least. But not anymore. We are not allowed to have civic rituals unless they pay obeisance to the cult of multiculturalism, unless they celebrate black women and foreigners and anyone but straight white men.
ETA: Two more posts, more from the fans with substacks and less from the professional pundits:
Don't Let Them Fucking Take It From You
The Sports Exile
This second one really pissed me off, and this quote in particular. Patriotism was abandoned by the left, not weaponized by the right. You left (pun intended). As evidenced by a later paragraph:
"I'm proud to be an American" "Wow, why do you only care about yourself, why don't you care about me?"
They reveal themselves as unamerican at every opportunity.
Reminds me of that ad about female homelessness ("1 in 4 homeless are women" — presumably the others are sexless automatons). Here, there's a good chance some of them are unregistered so it's not going to be 56:44 D:R split, but still. A very strong message of "you aren't allowed to have anything of your own" (or step 3 of the "you do not fit in here" cycle).
Astounding that this is said so unironically after all the efforts to move sports under the rainbow flag, e.g. the Football is Gay campaign, the recent brouhaha over the superbowl, the Last Supper in Drag at the Paris Olympics, ....
According to a post below, only about 5% are democrats. But that really ought not be a problem if Dems would say defend college political affiliation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Wait, that was the misogynistic joke? That’s it? I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be offensive or sexist to anyone.
More options
Context Copy link
This one seems to represent a nexus of like a dozen different CW issues at once.
U.S. vs. Canada (its a repeat of the rivalry from last year, but the stakes still felt higher).
Men vs. Women.
Making Trump look good as President/on the world stage.
Racial issues since its an all white team. Diversity isn't quite our strength.
Most of the team are basically Chuds, ranging from open support of Trump to at least tacit approval of his administration.
The above is bursting the fantasy bubble created by that popular book/TV series.
This leading to some angry screeching from women who became hockey fans recently because they they thought they'd found some heckin' wholesome queer ally pro athletes to lust over.
Pride in America as a country vis a vis superior athletic performance (seeing the same issue popping up with Alysa Liu).
An extremely photogenic depiction of non-toxic masculinity. Guy takes a stick to the face, breaks a tooth, is bleeding profusely, but swallows the pain (or some vicodin, not sure), gets back out there to support his team, and wins the whole thing for them.
From the pure sports perspective, this display has also drawn some favorable comparisons versus the rather abysmal Super Bowl this year, and the ongoing problem with 'tanking' in the NBA. Compare the all-out pell mell effort personified above to current NBA stars lazily collecting million dollar paychecks.
And of course the wonderful timing, putting this right around the SOTU.
I bet I could spot a few more with some thought.
But the thing I'm loving is that the scolds who are upset about ANY of this are clearly losing completely and utterly.
And let me say again. I don't want to share a country with these people.
If you can't even drop the political labels for a day or two to celebrate along with your countrymen when they succeed in an 'underdog' victory (not quite the Miracle on Ice, but still, this was a GREAT game), then I question whether you're really part of this nation in any real sense. If you remained silent on the matter I can understand. Not everyone has to get swept up in celebration.
If you take a 5 second snippet of video that may or may not even depict an 'offensive' joke to women (that was based on some very biased, inaccurate reporting) and use that to ATTACK AND DEMAND APOLOGIES from your victorious countrymen I think you are genuinely mentally unwell and I would prefer you not have a say in how my nation is governed, insofar as you're clearly not really hoping for the best outcomes for said country.
I'm old enough to remember when Michael Phelps was a megaceleb for his performance in the '08 Olympics. The biggest controversy to erupt there was him caught on camera smoking weed.
Patriotic jingoism was perfectly allowed. There was no gender issues to speak of, and it was only natural for Phelps to accept Obama's invite to the White House. Nobody scored political 'points' off of it (well, it was used in pro-weed propaganda).
If the point of the Olympics is to give countries a way to engage in friendly non-military rivalry and to secure bragging rights while showcasing the highest levels of Athletic performance, then you HAVE to minimize the imposition of your home country's political divisions on the events, and let victorious countries celebrate and even gloat (a bit) and the defeated ones mourn and vow to come back stronger next time.
I'm sick of having to tiptoe around eggshell sensibilities about when you can and can't be 'proud' of your country, especially by the same people who celebrate displays of pride by every country but their own.
I'm sick of hearing a chorus of female screeching that arises whenever there's a story that is mildly upsetting to women even if it is wildly empowering for men. I'm sick of their complaints being taken as facially valid and used to extract concessions from people who have done nothing wrong. And the apparent inability of our political class to tell them to just shut up.
Just. LEAVE.
More options
Context Copy link
Liberal sports fans :: Conservative music, lit, and film fans
Both need to ignore the politics of the people they are fans of, or pretend that their politics are secretly better, if they want to be fans.
Uh, you can find conservative writers and musicians pretty easily. The appreciation guild just tilts left.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm not talking about fans so much as I'm talking about pundits.
Liberal Sports pundits :: ???
More options
Context Copy link
Apparently a lot of this is because of the gay-hockey-smut novel turned TV show, which brought exactly the kind of audience you'd expect.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The FBI director being a fanboy is cringe, but that's all.
Trump's joke was barely worth a sensible chuckle, but there's one constant in all waves of feminism, which is that the feminism light bulb joke makes sense:
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
Anyway, the men's hockey team will still be up to their ears in "female attention" should they want it, the bitching of sportswriters notwithstanding.
I actually forgive him, because he's been a player and a coach, so this wasn't him just throwing himself in for the photo op itself.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't even know see it's cringe, honestly.
Depends on if he was there on thr government's dime while pretending to work. Which, granted, is kind of the American Dream, but you're supposed to pretend to be kind of discreet about it with something resembling a fig leaf of plausible deniability.
At least when submitting your expense report.
He says he was invited by a friend on the team, which I believe. I think it's about the same as Obama meeting team USA basketball in the locker room. The difference that I can see is that all of the media doesn't hate Obama with the fury of a thousand suns.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Idk man. This was probably the least controversial Olympics of my lifetime. A week later, 4chan of all places is still gushing over the woke alt hapa IVF skater chick. /sp/ jannies simply cannot delete the threads fast enough. World peace achieved.
I guess I understand the adoration of Liu, especially when contrasted with Gu, but I can't bring it in me to cheer for someone who literally has 0 ancestors who are American, who has a Chinese father and no mother.
Yet still, she participated in the ritual. She played her part, and that matters.
Are you alluding to the theory that Arthur Liu smuggled in bootleg eggs from Russian figure skaters in the mid-2000s? Because the official story is that her biological mother is a white American.
No, I have no idea about that. But a chinaman buying a white woman's egg doesn't make an American, regardless of who the woman was.
I’m not even sure what you’re getting at if someone who,
Was born in America,
Is descended from an American,
Speaks English with an American accent,
Sports American fashion trends, and
Represents Team USA on the international stage,
isn’t American?
In what way is she descended from an American? We don't know who the mother is.
As for how, it's easy. American is defined in the Preamble of the Constitution: ourselves and our posterity. She's not among them.
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
More options
Context Copy link
I agree and like the civic ritual framing.
An additional angle is that a lot of people on the left have this deeply seeded sense that Men's Hockey takes the spotlight awayfrom the Virtuous Valkyries of Women's Hockey. This is why they're aren't constant viral articles about the NHL during the regular NHL season.
And interesting comparison to make is with the cringey hyper fawning of both the mainstream media and much of twitter over the Racoon Haired Ice Skating queen (I can't remember he name ... Aileen? Or is that the PLA Skier?). While I respect her gold medal accomplishment, I fail to see any reason for attraction. She's a mix of aweirdo chungus manic pixie dream girl. I've seen ring leaning twitter accounts call her "bubbly." I've seen girlboss millenials call her "everything" (which isn't specific enough to help). My operating theory is that the winter olympics create a Women Are Wonderful hyper-booster. I'm not sure why (in the Summer olympics I feel like only gymnastics is similar).
Returning to Hockey, I think the Men's Team hate is a clunky means, in part, to try and shoehorn the Women's Team into this Women Are Wonderful gravity distortion field.
More options
Context Copy link
So 56% is Democrat or is there a large portion of independents. To hell with stats like these, Mary Clark.
I mean how many of them are Canadian and unable to register with any party?
More options
Context Copy link
From the article within the article.
No surprises, rich white men have no interest in the Democrats. The NFL and NBA are 35% and 43% respectively, while the WNBA (What a joke! how do you include WNBA as a 'major' sport but not MLS?) is the only one over 50% Democrat, and also by far the poorest.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link