site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33954 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 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.

15
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A follow up to the Roald Dahl censorship story from last week for those who haven't been following UK news. Apparently the publisher as (partially) backed down and agreed to keep the original books in print, along with the modernised versions. Apparently criticism from the Prime Minister, the queen, global authordom and the French was enough to swing it.

Prediction: The classic versions will quietly disappear from print and sale at some point in the next year with no fanfare nor announcement. If they were ever offered at all; I'll need to see these Classic Editions in an actual store to believe it.

This is not a win for those against newspeak, this is delaying the publisher's plans for a little while, at best. A win would have been the total scrappage of the censored versions.

I suspect it will go the other way. I think the classic editions will remain on shelves while the new editions will be hard to come by. Parents buy books, and parents will remember reading the originals as children. I doubt there are many parents that think it vital that their children aren't exposed to black cloaks or fat children in their reading material.

My prediction is that the publisher will keep the bowdlerised versions on sale in a limited quantity to save face, but the market will drive them to sell the original books predominantly.

I think most parents won't even know that there are multiple versions, much less notice which one they're buying. How many people know about this now, when it's making the most news, and how many will have forgotten about it or never heard of it in the future? I doubt Penguin will stamp "New Bowdlerized Versions" on the covers of the Bowdlerized ones, or even something like "Improved and Updated for a Modern Audience." At best, it'd probably be mixed in inconspicuously in the block of text at the back. Parents will just buy whatever is available, and I'd fully expect that all the best marketing and shelf spaces would be devoted to the New and Improved versions.

Against your point: I've seen the original "Dahl's getting rewritten" story in right-aligned print newspapers and online on The Guardian (original story, more criticism, "collection of Roald Dahl’s books with unaltered text is to be published"). That's both sides, online and in print.

What fraction of parents do you think are actually reading these articles, or even seeing the headlines? I'd estimate less than 10%.

Parents buy books, and parents will remember reading the originals as children

Interestingly, this has only been generally accepted since the success of Harry Potter. Pre-HP, publishers and authors behaved as if they thought children’s books were bought by schools (or by parents in response to teacher recommendations). Since children with options won’t read anything that has been through the average scholl librarian’s filter, YA fiction wasn’t really a thing.

Your typo made me think: how does the Scholastic Book Fair (which I think is still a thing even today) figure into this? That's one avenue in which a kid has a lot of input into what books they want to get and read.

Granted, this is assuming your claim that books aimed at kids did indeed find more success in institution purchases than in normal retail sales back then.

We're having one at my school next week, so I suppose I'll look if there's anything like Roald Dahl's work there. I didn't look very closely at longer stories last year, but my impression was a lot of pop science kinds of things with slime or toys attached. I got something about the ocean because there was a shark with moving jaws on the cover. If a publishing company is trying to get more book fair or B&N money out of parents, toys, magnets, pop-ups, furry covers, and fun gimmicks generally seem like the way to go, especially for older works that are easy to check out from the library.

  1. YA fiction is considerably older than Harry Potter. Heinlein's juveniles and L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time books, for instance.

  2. Harry Potter wasn't YA fiction, being aimed slightly younger. At least the first few books, anyway.

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