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 -
Throwing more fuel on the bonfire of "women: what is the matter with them?"
On the one hand, this should hearten those who like to leave comments regarding feminism with "why aren't they fighting for the right to work in coal mines?" (disregarding that there was a history of women working in coal mines, this was considered terrible, and it was made illegal for women to work down mines).
On the other hand, it will dishearten those who think the solution to the TFR problem is "just encourage girls to get married and start having babies straight out of high school, don't go to college, don't be career-focused".
Right now, the way most economies in the developed world work, if you want a reasonable standard of living, you need two people working full-time jobs (and as good salaries in those jobs as you can get). Want a mortgage for a house so you finally can have those two kids? Both of you better be working your little behinds off or the banks won't even look at the application form (and I fill in financial details on said application forms for our staff who are applying for mortgages, so I can speak on this).
Want a good enough career to get those salaries? Better go to college and get qualifications, as this newspaper columnist says in his article about his teenage son having a work experience placement:
And that last is the important part: for a decent job, you need qualifications. For qualifications, you need college. If college, no early marriages and child-bearing. And the current economic structure is, as I said, both of you better be working or forget it.
So all the neat solutions about 'get women back into the home' aren't that neat or practical when it comes down to it. I'd love for women to be free to be homemakers, wives and mothers instead of "the only value in your life is work, and the only valuable work is paid work, so get a job outside the home". But it takes two to tango, and it's not all down to "if only women weren't so uppity, problem solved!" Businesses are pushing to get more women into work. Maybe the promised AI future will mean "robots do all the jobs, AI makes the economy so productive nobody has to work, UBI means you can stay at home and have three babies and raise them yourself".
Or maybe not, and it will be "if you're not working some kind of job, you are on the breadline, and if you want a good job in the increasingly AI-dominated economy, you better have super skills and super qualifications, so more college, more everything, personal life? who needs that?".
The reason the industry wants to recruit women is because they want to spend less money on paying workers, so that they (the owners) can make more money. We really need to stop trusting business owners when they say there is a shortage of workers. A true shortage means that the owner no longer owns a mansion.
I bet half of men would accept living a poorer lifestyle if it meant coming home from work to a sweet and stress-free woman who made delicious food with cheap healthy ingredients and beautified the whole house and wants to listen to how their day went. For such a wife, men would be happy with one pair of clothes and taking buses and living in a shack. Many men would give up all their luxuries for this singular luxury. What square footage, expensive watch, or number of baubles could ever compensate for a stressful partner who nags because both have to work and there are domestic duties that need to be done and everyone is exhausted and you have to order microplastic slop because no one was trained to cook or has time to cook? Hard to imagine more harm done to standard of living than this. Didn't we learn anything from Shrek? Or Rousseau?
You’ve got about a century to find the solution before the native Irish population is dropped to below 20%, ie you have lost the game of life. The most practical solution (because anyone can do it) is to form patriarchal microcultures where women are excommunicated for certain lines of work while commended to train in the traditional feminine arts. Then you can once again go back to the norm of happy families and SAHMs. You can share wealth from the wealthiest to the poorest members in this community, as was tradition in Christian Ireland for many-a-century. Then you just add some community rituals and you have yourself a functioning above-TFR community forever. The gypsies do this and they are dominating Europe’s TFR scene; the Irish travelers do it and have above 2 TFR. The alternative is to persuade the elites to care about their nation, which seems… delusional.
Absolutely fucking not. This question is either a shit test, or a continuing assessment of the beta bux potential. I wish back when I had or was anything I had a lover who explicitly didn't give a damn about how my day went.
There's a difference between "wants to listen to how their day went" and "wants to know how their day went". I interpreted the hypothetical as a wife who's happy to listen if you need to vent, not one who will necessarily ask if you'd rather talk about something else.
More options
Context Copy link
For some reason it reminds me of the old green text where a cashier tells anon to have a nice day.
>wife asks me how day at work was
>tell her it was good
>it wasn’t 😈
More options
Context Copy link
I have experienced "shit tests" and annoying interrogations from women, but "How was your day?" isn't one of them.
"What is your plan for the day?" is the dangerous one.
Agreed. I would add "How was your day?" is also a way for her to judge your emotional state and adjust accordingly. Most guys (and I include myself in this group until my wife started explicitly pointing it out) don't realize that when we first come home from work, especially if theres a shit commute involved, that we're about the grouchiest we will be all day.
More options
Context Copy link
Multiply that by frequency.
What does that even mean? She asks how your day was every day? And you interpret this as a hostile interrogation?
When it's an every day question where you can't win and can only lose, rarely catastrophically and frequently marginally, then the purpose of that interrogation is what it does. No sex object has ever been asked about how their day has been.
dude, if this is how any relationship you've been is functions then you need to get out of it, that's madness. Me and my wife ask each other how ours days went basically every day, it's just a pulse check. The last psychiatrist has this to say about boring routine conversations which I think strikes true:
Domestic questions are good, life isn't a scripted move where every line can have depth and pointed purpose. You need small talk and mundane connection.
I definitely got out of the relationship business after a couple of attempts. Nowadays, even aided by me being borderline broke, where I couldn't get back even if I wanted to. Which I don't.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Flip me sideways, I never thought I'd be quoting a Tumblr post of all things, but here we go.
So, to cut it short: person posting talked about how they asked their husband "what are you doing?" and he got all defensive and upset. Couldn't understand why, so she asked him "what did you hear me saying?" and he replied "I thought you were angry with me, why wasn't I doing something, why was I being lazy?" She only meant literally "what are you doing?" as signal of being interested in him.
Conclusion of post was that asking about "what did you hear me saying" for both of them saved a lot of arguments, trouble, and misunderstanding.
I think this applies to our friend here; if what they are hearing from "how was your day?" is the start of an attack, then it's either Mommy Issues from childhood or maybe they need to work out why they are dating/involved with crazy bitches all the time.
Because of heterosexuality.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sometimes I wonder what kind of women people are dating. They describe sex vampires who only want your money, and then are bitter because asking "How was your day?" is some kind of malicious kafka-trap.
A normal person asking how your day was is... asking how your day was. If she is your girlfriend/wife, it is generally because she cares about how your day was (or at least is willing to engage in a minimal level of concern to show affection and empathy). That's how things work in normal relationships. Do I actually care about how her day was? Eh, not unless something notable happened. But I will still ask because women like it when you do that. And they do the same thing.
If your partner is just a "sex object," of course you aren't going to ask how her day has been because you don't care. That's not actually a partner.
The word "partner" is a whole can of worms I will lovingly save for some other time, but I need to clarify something: I want me to be the sex object. There are only two kinds of objects in a relationship, a sex object or a resource object, and I can't stand being the latter one. And "personality" is a kind of a resource, perhaps the most humiliating one, a speculative investment instrument for resources of a more material kind.
More options
Context Copy link
You have inspired me to make an "I hate the Antichrist" comic edit depicting the disgust that I feel for such institutionalized untruthfulness.
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
You know you've been spending too much time on the internet when your reaction to your hypothetical wife asking 'how was your day?' is 'Don't you manipulate me she-devil! You just want my money!'
If she's a housewife, she doesn't just want your money, she needs it. Wanting a housewife and wanting a woman who isn't excessively interested in your earning potential would, in a sane world, be incompatible.
Yeah A bunch of redpill/internet manosophere types are really incoherent about this. A bunch of them look down on career women and say stuff like men provide resources women provide beauty. But then they get mad or at least annoyed about women considering those resources, and then they constantly worry about "divorce rape" and a woman taking half your shit or even women in general taking half the shit of hardworking men. And they never consider deliberately dating a woman with a career or gasp one who even makes more then them to allay these worries. It just feels like a ball of physchosexual anxieties when what they should do is have a sober analysis about whether to go for a women who wants to stay home or have a career.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No, many years ago I turned to the internet to understand why the consequences of honestly answering were so disastrous. I found the answers convincing.
Dude in all my relationships I've never had disastrous consequences for answering this question. But I was also just giving a basic answer. I suspect some of your problem in how you were answering are you way over explaining and laying out every neurotic insecurity. Or as others have said it's the type of woman you are choosing. Either way the fact that everyone is disagreeing with you should indicate it's a you problem.
Freedom_of_speech.jpg
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Really? Which part of the internet told you to never tell your wife how your day was (or conversely, so get a woman who doesn't care)?
I can kind of see it in the same vein as "women think they want an emotionally-sensitive man until they actually have one," or the kind of messaging that led Scott to write both Untitled and Reverse Any Advice.
You should be honest with your wife, of course, and a wife that cares about your day is a blessing! But one should be aware that there's probably a limit to that.
I find my job dissatisfying but stable and hard to escape, I figured out where my wife's limit is on me bitching about it, so it didn't take too long to get to an agreement with "ssdd" and I'll reserve elaboration for when I really need to.
More options
Context Copy link
/r/theredpill, /r/purplepilldebate, and the tale of Henry of the Radicalizing the Romanceless fame.
I think one problem with relying on TRP for advice about women is that the community is subject to evaporative cooling. Any guys who end up happily married or in relationships aren't gonna stick around, so you're stuck in an echo chamber or men who have failed to coexist happily with the opposite sex.
The second is that intelligence isn't merely reversed stupidity. The Red Pill guys might be right that the mainstream is lying to you about women and relationships, but that doesn't mean they have good advice on how to exist in the world they describe. As someone said the other day on here, they have a correct description but an incorrect prescription. That's why they're so unhappy.
Surely it would make sense to take advice from the men who have succeeded, i.e. the happily married ones?
I can't see when the sub was created, but the years I'm talking about were near its beginnings.
I believe a man that his marriage is happy as much as I believe a hostage saying that his captors treat him excellently.
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
Mostly it’s just a way to learn more about your partner’s life and a jumping off point for further discussion
Much like how a Stasi officer asking what you've been reading is looking for literary recommendations.
Can you give an example of when answering this question honestly led to negative consequences?
It's in the aggregate, where the best possible result is maintaining the status quo, and the likely result is a downgrade. Those add up.
Conspicuously missing in your analysis is the possibility that the emotional distance from not having these conversations causes the relationship to decay. I would submit that insufficient communication is likelier to cause two people to fall out of love with each other than repeated communication that multiplies the opportunities for minor annoyances and disagreements to build up, even if I agree the latter can happen.
More options
Context Copy link
Can you give an example of a situation where this led to a downgrade?
I respond with something negative, she thinks less of me, repeat X times, the relationship is done.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Women and men have different modes of communication; it's not like women don't like to talk other women's ears off as well.
In broad strokes, men don't like to revisit past events to form narratives and emotional bonding around them; if they must be revisited, then it's for the goal of finding a solution to some unpleasantry, to be finished as quickly as possible. Women prefer the opposite. Not understanding this leads to conflict. Men offering unsolicited solutions to women who just want to do shared narrative forming, and women talking the ears off men about Karen at work while men do the interminable emotional labor of pretending to care. Neither is right or wrong, just differing gendered styles, and the solution is for both parties to realize this and meet in the middle.
That's kind of funny, hereabouts it's AFAICT a whole trope that men are prone to bonding over the shared (ridiculously alien to regular modern life and in many ways unpleasant) experiences of the semi-mandatory military service, and the ladies will get vocally frustrated if the dudes don't have the good sense to keep away from that immensely boring-to-them topic when they're around.
More options
Context Copy link
But this is not what I responded to. Back in the day I found being asked about my day particularly dangerous and/or demeaning. Listening about hers is merely annoying.
Have you considered the possibility that whatever relationship you were in was unusually dysfunctional (and in your choice of internet forums, you sought out a selected crowd with similar experiences)? Over here in relatively functional land, I don't think I know anyone who would consider being asked about their day "dangerous and/or demeaning", don't know any couples who don't keep each other updated about their day or suffer any danger to their health or status from providing accurate information, and see a shared understanding that anyone suggesting otherwise would soon be met with advice to break up for their own and their partner's good.
I have considered it and I have rejected it. Have you considered that if you're not lying you're in a unusually functional relationship?
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link