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 -
Did you ever feel like your fellow Americans hated you? Maybe I’m being histrionic but I guess 2016-2024 I just need knew fellow Americans were capable of doing things they did to me then. Like evil. The America I grew up with was united. Muslims hit us and we would all go kill them together. But 2016-2024 we were enemies with each other. It’s like losing my innocent. A civil war I never saw coming. And it honestly feels like we almost lost and America was over.
I'm not american, but welcome to how atheists (and gays, and so on) felt under the moral-majority-style religious right. It was the same kind of split were the moderate religious right was publicly saying not believing was fine, but they were actively politically allying (and thus empowering) a more rabid wing that would regularly go after people who do something that goes against their beliefs. Like, it's fine to be an atheist, as long as you don't do anything that might offend random christian activists.
To be fair, the woke actually still feels worse to me since it has more internal institutional backing inside academia, but there definitely is some symmetry here.
Your argument would be stronger if you focused on gays instead of atheists. I have no recollection of atheists facing any discrimination. I can 100% understand they thought the moral majority people were annoying but there are not any big everyday life frictions.
Gay potentially. But they did successfully lobby to keep gay bath houses open, during the AIDS pandemic. So they were not lacking political power.
I am also moral majority. Don’t be gay. It’s bad for you. Just find a nice wife.
You don't need to save me or anyone else, we don't want you to. Just live your own life. Other people being gay does not affect you.
I can imagine to an actual gay person hearing comments like that feels a lot like your fellow Americans hating you.
To be fair to my argument. They actually did believe creating a moral society was good for the gays. I still believe that 1980’s culture was better for the gays than 2020.
In one area it seems most certain to me is with respect to children. Would Sam Altman be happier in the closet sneaking off for gay sex twice a month but with a loving wife raising his children or with the motherless child from a surrogate. To me it’s fairly obvious the former is better for him.
And obviously the children are effected.
Other people's children. Those people don't need you to come in and save their children. Just like you don't need the progressives to come in and save your children. This entire problem is because both sides want to "save" other people's kids. Stay in your own community and stop sticking your nose or your opinions in places that don't affect you.
Yes I'm sure Gays were so absolutely grateful that they definitely didn't protest soooo hard to stop it, and definitely aren't existing in a multi-generational state of trauma, forcing the rest of us to deal with that gratitude... I'd say the observed outcome of people's actions is that the 1980s culture was not better for the gays. Of course right-wingers are very biased in their opinion about this, because they need to see themselves as the hero, not the villain. Have some epistemological humility, the arrogance is staggering.
You mean a bitter wife who knows he's cheating on her with men but can't say anything about it, can't divorce him, being forced to hide who he is because otherwise his community will shame and ostracize him?
What I really don't get about you right-wingers is the amount of complaining you do about having to hide who you are around progressives because otherwise you will be socially shamed and ostracized. And then you turn around and say that other people should suffer that fate and call it the better outcome. Here you are getting a taste of your own medicine and it is bitter, but rather than learning, having empathy, understanding the other side's feelings, you cling to the delusions that when you do it, it is ok, it is moral.
We truly are fucked.
Maybe some people really are just better?
The rise of mental illness and reported happiness surveys would seem to strongly support that some people really just have better ideas/values.
I don’t believe gay people were ever banned from jobs or banks. I don’t believe their speech was restricted back then.
Also your saying it’s ok to torture kids (hopefully not having a mother is just mildly). Society does have responsibility for the vulnerable.
I also have not once said anything about being bitter. I think homosexuality is bad for society. I’ve never once said I am a libertarian so there is no hypocrisy. I do think society has a duty to protect the commons. If something is bad for society then we should want LESS of it.
But the difference between the 1980’s and today is I don’t believe the 1980’s tried to take offer communication systems so that debate ends. I don’t think they banned the POTUS from mass media. Or put him in jail. Etc.
No argument, but it might shock you, that I consider Christian Activists and Progs Activists to be Untermensch of the same caliber. Y'all are barely more evolved than apes. That sweet seductive vice of tribal conflict is just too much for you to resist. Like children in candy shop, you lot can't control yourselves.
Progs think you are torturing your kids. Who's to say they aren't right and that you are? What evidence do you have?
Are you a Consequentialist or a Deontologist? Christians are almost always required to be the latter so stop trying to use the arguments of the former. If I showed you the reduction in mental illness and increase in happiness flowed from prog values you would not change your beliefs, so stop trying to use that as your argument. It's disingenuous.
This comment expresses differently. link
Additional evidence:
This forum is full of conservatives complaining about having to keep quiet and call a man in a dress a woman. It's been a common complaint for years at this point. You might not be bitter, congratulations, but it is so incredibly common that to dismiss it, would be laughable.
Of a shock to no one, escalation begets not equal response but an increasing one. I think WhiningCoil said roughly: When the younger child pokes and prods the elder, and the elder hits the younger, sometimes its best to turn a blind eye because the younger clearly was equally involved and its an important lesson that escalating has a response.
Do me a favor and don’t accuse me of supporting things for reasons I have clearly expressed are NOT the reason and that I am acting in good faith. My beliefs here are not due to “tribal conflict”. I actually believe homosexuality is bad for the individual and a net negative to the commons.
I don’t support firing people from government jobs for being gay/pregnant. Though religious institutions should have a choice.
I do though have no problem with schools choosing what books to give to students. End of the day they costs money and someone has to choose what to buy. Someone has to tell children what to read. But they can buy whatever they want on Amazon. Or we can go 100% voucher system.
I am also making no claims that the culture war doesn’t exists. It has to exists. All societies have cultures and they have a huge influence on the wealth of the nation and the happiness of the civilization.
99% of the population still agrees we shouldn’t have an elementary school showing a pornographic video of a 40 year old man having sex with a 10 year and how the student should handle that encounter. All societies have cultural lines. Greece taught their young men how to terrorize their local peasantry so civilization has had all sorts of norms.
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