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 -
Is this culture war? I'm not entirely sure anymore. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not, not really, just wearied of it all.
So... list of recommendations of new SF/Fantasy popped up on a social media site (okay, it's Tumblr) and it's a mix of some continuing series (that I've never read but have at least heard of, e.g. Murderbot and the Ann Leckie Radch universe) and new novels. Much what you'd expect, except this one stuck in my attention like a splinter:
My immediate reaction was "that means abortion provider". And whaddya know?
So where's the culture war? Well, apart from the pro-life protestors being portrayed as screaming bigots and (of course!) the obligatory raped twelve year old*, it's just that I'm tired. There's not even the honesty of calling this what it is: abortion. No, it's "reproductive health care". That is the new shibboleth, I understand that, it's just... okay, the battle has been lost. Abortion is now enshrined as a fundamental human right, like food and water. We've long moved on from "sadly necessary, safe legal and rare" to "of course you're going to kill the baby, but it's not a baby, it's not a life well technically okay but not a real life, it's not a person, what do you mean murder, now please sign my petition about shrimp and AI are conscious entities that we should give legal rights so they can't be enslaved".
Yeah. I'm tired and I don't know where we're going from here on in, but if AI does turn us all into paperclips, we have no bloody leg to stand on in opposition.
*You think I'm joking?
There'd be some funny bits if this was just the dark mirror to those wacky christian film and book publishers, but Saga's a Simon and Schuster imprint, and not even one of the really wacky imprints. But it's still the same thing, just with a slight glazing of prestige. And given the extent that mainstream publishing is dying, it's not that much prestige.
It's... hard to figure out what deeper to say.
I haven't read the book, so I can't review it. It's possible that there's something interesting or deep under the obvious political allegiance, though I'm pretty skeptical. And while I've bought some books with really bad covers and interiors -- Morning Glory Milking Farm is going to be on my Kindle account forever -- I'd like to at least pretend I've got some dignity. At least the normal slop is cheap. And I don't think it would sate many frustrations, rather than highlight what a more serious engagement with the author's favored policies could have done instead.
If we want to focus on how it's a shallow version of its own politics, that's something with more meat and doesn't require a few hundred pages of less-than-AO3 grade urban fantasy. And it is shallow, both from that summary, from its own synopsis, and from the various reviews.
It's trying to rip from the headlines, except the headlines kinda suck. Chicago had a 2024 big deal over coordinated protests, except they looked like this. The city's had buffer zone laws since 2009! There were a couple heavily-reported cases in the US involving 10-12-year-old rape victims, but the controversy in each case involved questions like is the rape exception well-known enough written by reporters or whether the case had happened from people wanting the rapist prosecuted. I'd wager that the climax of the book involves a physical attack, probably a firebombing, except the real world versions of that are a lot less exciting, too.
Yes, it's a fantasy story, there aren't (presumably) Indian demons stored in a random museum you can touch, either. And the Indian demons (presumably!) aren't the real-world metaphor the author's trying to discuss, here.
Except they're not trying to discuss it. Anti-abortion activists are monsters or the outgroup in a deeper way than vampires or demons or dragons would be. The protesters being entirely unsympathetic and uncomplicated is the point, not a failure. It's the same reason that you make Dracula a dick in addition to a bloodsucker if you it to be really cathartic when he gets ground into concrete. There's an irony when that comes from someone talking up the complexity of real solutions, but there's nothing deeper to that complexity than people disagreeing with her.
That seems more critical than the weird discourse norm where whatever progressives want today is The Biggest Most Important Right Ever that can't have any limits at all, and then those actually-written-down-rights have all those penumbras and exceptions and balancing acts. But it's also less fun to point at.
How is this? I've been looking for a contemporary "spicy" book to read to get a better sense of the genre, and I've seen it mentioned a couple times.
Alexander Wales wasn't impressed by the quality of the worldbuilding.
That's the best book review I've read since Field & Stream reviewed Lady Chatterly's Lover:
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