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 -
I think that the ending of this allegory, where you point out that the council enforcing the taboo are all tall people, is a nice point that is helped by the allegory making it more obvious that this is about self interest rather than intelligent people simply knowing more and helpfully explaining truth to others (the way they portray themselves in real life where it's about intelligence).
However, your opening to the allegory is weak:
We would not expect this. It's an allegory because it's taking things to an absurd extreme that would not persist in the face of reality. People's heights are immediately visually obvious. They can gaslight people about intelligence because it's hidden in your brain. When you look at someone, it's not usually obvious how smart they are. People have different skills and talents which are correlated with intelligence but vary greatly. Smart people often do stupid things and stupid people often do smart things. The opacity makes it possible to thread intelligence and morality together because each person can imagine themselves to be smarter than they are, and others to not have the confidence to contradict them when they pretend to be smart. If a short person pretended to be tall, even if everyone pretended to agree with them they would know it to be false. They would know that everyone else knows, as Common Knowledge. Not even trans people pretend that they're biologically identical to the other sex pre-transition, they have to invent a separate "Gender" which exists in your head and is a platonic ideal of what a "true" man/woman is, because then it can be opaque and exploit the lack of certainty to start gaslighting.
Your allegory is an exaggerated caricature that requires us to suspend our disbelief on multiple levels and deliberately construct it as a parallel to our own society, it does not logically follow from the one single premise.
And yet, I've seen extremely charismatic short kings, where the women around him said things like "I just never noticed that he wasn't that tall. He seemed taller".
"Seen"? From what I've heard, historical accounts of short leaders and kings were often exaggerated; Napoleon, for example, was just short compared to his unusually tall elite soldiers, not in general. Even those that were genuinely short in the below-average-male-aristocrat sense usually were not so short that they got close in height to women, especially since the aristocracy already had an height advantage and could in addition use shoes and clothing to hide the differences somewhat.
Though somewhat in agreement, I remember having seen a paper showing that if a person is attracted to someone, they are more liable to ascribe to them all sorts of qualities beyond their objective merit, which included women claiming an attractive man is tall even when he was merely average. But, well, social studies and replication crisis and all that.
"Seen", as in "perceived with my own two eyes" that the short king was indeed short, and that my female friends didn't seem to notice.
Interesting. Which king, if I may ask? Since there really aren't that many left.
"Short king" is modern slang for short guys and doesn't refer to actual monarchs.
Thanks, now I feel old. I've never heard this as a slang term, not even online.
All good, it's not worth trying to keep up with the latest skibidi Ohio rizz grimace shakes.
There’s no judgment to either one of you, but this is genuinely one of the more hilarious discussions on the motte recently and I had to chuckle out loud.
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