site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32440 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Nicola Sturgeon says time is right to resign as Scotland's first minister

Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that she is resigning as Scotland's first minister after more than eight years in the role.

Ms Sturgeon said her decision was not a reaction to short-term pressures, but came from "a deeper and longer-term assessment".

According to her, this was a decision long in the making and not a response to current events.

Personally, I think they had something to do with it (even if just in a "straw that broke the camel's back). She suffered twin defeats of having the UK government strike down her self-ID bill on the grounds that it'd violate equal rights protections and somehow ending up looking reasonable (usually "nationalists" will oppose such a thing on principle, at least that is my experience with Quebec*), in part due to the possibility of the other disaster: a male rapist suddenly identifying as a woman and trying to get into a female prison.

AKA that thing we were told would never happen.

For many, this was a bridge too far and the backlash was intense. While she and her team did try to mitigate the damage by pointing out that he was still being assessed, it didn't seem to comfort (for me: even the need for a risk assessment is silly) Sturgeon herself was grilled and tied herself in knots trying to tread some middle ground between her ideological commitments and mollifying people who thought the whole thing was a bridge too far (attempts by SNP boosters to dodge the question by saying "this person is a rapist" apparently didn't work)

To me this highlights two things: the hollowness of a nationalism based on "we're more progressive than you" as opposed to the good old blood and soil stuff that is apparently verboten now that everyone wants to plug themselves into some larger cosmopolitan, neoliberal bloc or to ingratiate themselves to American companies and culture (e.g. Ireland).

Everyone can understand "we're a distinct nation with a particular history that converged with but is not identical to the greater state's". Basing nationalism on progressive policy is silly because it's both incoherent (said policy is inimical to nationalism) and is liable to overreach because being progressive is an ever shifting target.

Second point: the fact that trans activists were right. Their greatest successes come when they can roll the elites into believing their cause is just an inevitable extension of existing rights and they can bypass the public. As Joyce put it:

All this explains the speed. When you want new laws, you can focus on lobbying, rather than the painstaking business of building broad-based coalitions. And when those laws will take away other people’s rights, it is not only unnecessary to build public awareness – it is imperative to keep the public in the dark. This stealthy approach has been central to transactivism for quite some time.

In a speech in 2013, Masen Davis, then the executive director of the American Transgender Law Center, told supporters that ‘we have largely achieved our successes by flying under the radar . . . We do a lot really quietly. We have made some of our biggest gains that nobody has noticed. We are very quiet and thoughtful about what we do, because we want to make sure we have the win more than we want to have the publicity.’

The result is predictable. Even as one country after another introduces gender self-ID, very few voters know this is happening, let alone support it.

A poll in Scotland in 2020 suggests that even young women, the demographic keenest on gender self-ID, become cooler when reminded of the practical implications.

Joyce, Helen. Trans: Gender Identity and the New Battle for Women's Rights (p. 227).

Well, the public is like an elephant. They'll mostly follow the rider's instructions. Until you alarm them. Took a while but it eventually happened. Sturgeon had the easiest job in politics: just keep running and blame the UK. That's all she had to do. And she somehow bungled that. This topic is toxic for everyone.

* There is an argument that Sturgeon's real sin here was not triggering overt action from the UK - in fact, that might have been seen as helpful for raising nationalist sentiment- but picking a case so absurd that it made it palatable. That is the real failure of a nationalist politician here, and perhaps why she's gone.

Separatism in developed countries (Quebec, Catalonia, Scotland) is like a short, sharp cold. As long as a country makes it over the initial hurdle, independence is unlikely.

I can tell you it was less like a short, sharp cold and more like a hangover that's been going on for 50 years now:

The office is frequently accused of abusing its powers, such as occurred in 2013 during the "pastagate" affair when an Italian restaurant was cited for having pasta, antipasti, calamari, and the like on its menu, instead of using French equivalents. The office also objects to the sale of "grilled cheese sandwiches", insisting that they be called sandwich de fromage fondue, which literally translates to "melted cheese sandwich".[27] Likewise, the Quebec language office objects to "on/off" switches and to the sale of "steaks", insisting that they be called bifteck, "despite the fact that steak is the far more common term among Francophones."[27]

...

Section 73 of the Charter of the French language had recognized the right to English language instruction to Quebec residents alone. Canadian citizens from outside Quebec are forced to send their children to French primary and secondary schools, in direct violation of S26.(3) of the UN Declaration of Human Rights,[2] which states that "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.[3]

Complete with unconstitutional (but that's okay, because Quebec never signed the Canadian constitution) laws and successfully driving off a few hundred thousand anglo Quebecers in such a way that would probably (and admittedly, hyperbolically) be called genocide in different contexts.

I can sympathize with the Quebecois perspective - in part because, to the chagrin of my parents, I was forced to take French classes taught by Quebecois sympathetic to the cause of what would, in other contexts, be called a terrorist organization - but obviously I'm still bitter about the situation. My spoken French was good, but not good enough to avoid being treated like shit by my Quebecois colleagues as a teenager trying to scrape by with menial service jobs.

I'm pessimistic on the whole situation ever improving until machine learning enables Babel fish level tech (hopefully sooner than I ever thought!) or the world of the Machine Stops becomes reality. But between the western provinces going MAGA and Quebec being Quebec, Canada may implode before we get there.

Canadian citizens from outside Quebec are forced to send their children to French primary and secondary schools, i

Is that so bad?

If you speak English at home, going to a foreign language school means you almost effortlessly learn a useful foreign language. Or in case of Quebec, a useful local language.

Indeed, small children can easily become trilingual, one language from each parent and one from their peers. It's hard to overstate how useful that can be for them in adulthood.

While that certainly can be true for individuals, I'm not sure that this is the average case as for how it plays out in practice on a large scale. German language schools for the stateless Western Slavs that exited the Middle Ages under the rule of the German lords of Brandenburg and Saxony and generally kept their language as a distinct people all the way into the 20th century didn't result in a vibrant bi-lingual community, but in their slow motion death as a people. Foreign language schooling has been similarly destructive for regional dialects or distinct languages all over Europe, most notably in France. Picard and Occitan are basically gone, Breton is currently still in the process of being killed.

Large scale cooperation requires a common language, which is why continual death of minor languages is a part of the historical process.

The highest language density is found in places like Papua New Guinea, where a small mountain range may have the same language diversity as the entirety of Europe. I'm not making this up

Maybe this will reverse once I don't know, someone invents matter compilers and there's no need to ever talk to anyone else for purposes of trade.

Foreign language schooling has been similarly destructive for regional dialects or distinct languages all over Europe, most notably in France

Well, one can advance a claim that had Paris not created a French nation, they'd all be speaking German now, or maybe speaking their regional dialects while being lorded over by Germans.

Nationalism was about that, and once people got over it slightly, along came television and radio and finished the job.

This sounds plausible, but I can't imagine these sorts of arguments are doing much to dull the pain of a linguistic group that is forced to send its children into an alien education system aimed at least in part at eradicating its uniqueness. I agree that better cooperation can be to the benefit of a group and language certainly is good vehicle for that, but that presupposes that the people in question see themselves as part of the group that stands to benefit. My impression of Canada is that at least the Quebecois don't seem all that eager in that regard.

Well, one can advance a claim that had Paris not created a French nation, they'd all be speaking German now, or maybe speaking their regional dialects while being lorded over by Germans.

I think that a France that centralized to a much smaller degree than the real one is a timeline with so many possible changes from our own that I don't think one can get much insight from such a hypothetical. The only attempt by Germany that could plausibly be construed as taking over France in its entirety was WWII (and maybe WWI), but there's no telling if that would have even happened in a world where Normandy, Aquitaine and Occitania existed instead of France. Late Medieval/Renaissance Germany eventually let go of the Netherlands after they had drifted apart too much culturally and politically, so it's not like that sort of scenario is inevitable in our world.

I'd also add that the French kings maintained a somewhat centralized state and lorded over peasants with local languages/dialects just fine for centuries before the arrival of the great homogenizing that lead to the current situation. I'd say that your argument applies much better to the Germans, given that absolutist France was very successful in picking off small German speaking principalities along its eastern border. That Alsace speaks French instead of Alemannic is the result of France being able to keep its conquests into the age of modernity when it got to destroy the local language via mass culture and schooling (of course in the case of Alsace thanks due to a large helping of German idiocy and brutality).

but that presupposes that the people in question see themselves as part of the group that stands to benefit. My impression of Canada is that at least the Quebecois don't seem all that eager in that regard

I doubt that people who had nationalism imposed on them generally saw it that way, but that's where public schools and official ideology came in.

Over generations, the state prevailed.

Late Medieval/Renaissance Germany eventually let go of the Netherlands after they had drifted apart too much culturally and politically, so it's not like that sort of scenario is inevitable in our world.

It was more of an issue that they couldn't really hold onto it. I mean, the Dutch fought the Austrians for what seems like centuries to get rid of their influence. Germans at the time barely had any power due to disunity.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats