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 -
You should say what you believe in about yourself. This is, as far as I see, allowed and encouraged on this forum. "I will not be a slave" was not the bannable offense, "you cracker bitch" was.
There are many people here who I not only disagree with but find their propositions for what the world should be abominable and ridiculous. For some of them, I still hold the minimum of respect, and that is because they do not descend to shit-flinging. This is despite their projects being, in my view, more hopeless than yours.
It is not within your power to stop people from noticing that group IQ differences exist, and some of them will irrationally extrapolate them on all members of your group, in all aspects of life. Those people you can't change. Fortunately, what I see is that such people who zealously believe in IQ graphs and ignore anything in front of their eyes are in the minority.
What you can change is change how you act, and those whose view of black people is informed not just by IQ curve graphs, but also by their observations of how black people act, will see that you do not act as a racist would predict you do.
No, you don't have to plead that you're one of the good ones. You want to actually be one of the good ones. It's unfair that you might have to try harder compared to whites, but it's life. What appears to hurt black-white relations a lot in my observation is when you start seeing "being one of the good ones" as some kind of a shameful thing, a performance you must put on for the snobby whites, you start taking pride in doing the opposite of putting up appearances for the whitey, and then all of you appear worse than average.
More options
Context Copy link