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 -
If you would have a regime where Tyler Robinson is allowed to buy a gun and Clarence Thomas is not, than I do not believe that you are a "Conservative" in any meaningfully American sense of the word.
You stand in opposition to not just the United States Constitution but to the very principles and ideals upon which this nation was founded.
You are who conservatives are trying to conserve against.
This is a very funny comment. And I hope you can see why.
I would be interested to hear why you think it's "funny".
Conservative means to keep things how they were.
Clarence Thomas wasn’t allowed to own a gun when this country was founded. And my gut says forgetting slavery (which many wanted rid of) the northerners would have laughed at the idea of army the negro population.
You need to read more Burke and Chesterton.
While there are certainly debates about whether conservatism is more of a temperament or an ideology, usually conservatism is a little more broad than just keeping things how they were.
In the United States, most conservatives worthy of the name are trying to conserve the founding, little-l liberal ideals of the Revolutionary War. It is part of what sets American conservatives apart from the blood and soil conservatives of Europe.
Words can clearly have more than one meaning. There is a chestertons fence conservatism where you don’t exactly know why the fence was there but maybe you shouldn’t tear it down because that fence is doing something important that you don’t understand.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No that's not what that "Conservative" means, that's what historically revisionist Marxists like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky like to claim it means when straw-manning their opposition. A conservative is someone who has some specific thing that they are trying to conserve. That is the etymological root of the word.
Now within a given context that "specific thing" may be "the Status Quo", but within the context of US politics the thing that "conservatives" are broadly understood to be "conserving" are the constitutional order and the ideals put forth by the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence.
Ok so you’re just picking and choosing what is “ok” to conservative. Kind of like how a progressive changes the meaning of the world. You like things one way and want to call that “conservative”.
But the ideals in the constitution included a ban on black people from owning guns. I think the founding fathers made a mistake on the whole slave thing. But you can make a solid common good argument that they were in fact correct banning gun ownership for blacks. 50% of founding fathers plus or minus supported slavery. Well north of 90% were likely against gun ownership.
I think it’s fine if you think your limiting rights to black people is a bad thing and mostly agree with that, but it 100% fits with a conservative philosophy.
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