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 -
What are the steelman arguments for/against using the word "retarded" to describe idiocy?
The main argument I've heard is that actually mentally retarded people are well aware of their condition being used as a punching bag to put down other humans, and this naturally produces feelings of Feels Bad Man. Why would you knowingly inflict such collateral damage on innocents when there are perfectly valid alternative insults to be used?
And yet I can't help but feel that this is what the left would call "tone policing." I wanna express myself how I feel like expressing myself, damn it, and that shit right there is some fucking retarded shit.
While I myself will use insults like that, at the end of the day they're pretty much entirely just "I don't like this person's ideas and disagree with them and want to be mean about that" in actual usage. So really in a polite mature conversation we shouldn't use retarded cause we shouldn't be insulting to begin with.
As for when we do want to be mean, which insult you pick is contextual. Dummy is silly and gives a joking vibe. Idiot and stupid are the classic and basic "I disagree with you and want to be mean about it". Retarded is the "I'm really upset about how much we disagree and will violate social norms to express this" one. IRL I would not be dishing out the extreme one too often or else it diminishes the value there. The guy who calls everything retarded has less meaning when they say it vs the guy who barely ever calls anything retarded.
You have to admit though. Some of the best arguments you'll ever see have made heavy use of insults. Once they start getting hurled, mentally I always ring the bell and tell myself, "... Ok then! Diplomacy has gone out the window!," and then start hurling them back. Or as my father once said, “Shit talking is just foreplay to violence.”
Exactly. Sometimes these insults are very good at grounding the discussion, making it real. Imagine somebody says shit like this (a literal Richard Dawkins quote)
The biological organism is a temporary triumph over the chaotic whims of entropy, a sophisticated vessel that maintains its own structural integrity until the moment it ceases to do so. We must observe that a creature remains alive for exactly the duration of its lifespan, neither a second more nor a second less, as dictated by the cold mathematics of cellular survival. To be alive is, in a rather literal sense, to continue the process of not being dead, until such time as the chemistry of life concludes its tenure.
You can just retort "You just said you live until you die you retard" and it maybe angers the other side enough to hack their script and hopefully resulting in normal discussion.
That's actually a real quote? Because it's morning, I just woke up right now, I'm in a hospital, and I just laughed. Very hard.
I'm not able to find any sources on Dawkins saying that, so sadly no. He has plenty of other "I'm 14 and this is deep" kinds of quotes, but sadly this doesn't appear to be one of them. I'd be glad to be proven wrong if you know a source, @georgioz
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