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 -
You are very smart, so I am just going to assume that your reading of my already hedged statement as absolute is a rhetorical flourish rather than a lack of reading comprehension.
Irrelevant. Good ol' Karl was hardly slaving away in a Manchester factory either.
If the money he brings home is what sustains a family, I'd beg to differ. Incidentally, I bet that the reintroduction of literal pay packets would significantly lower divorce rates because it would make the husband's contribution to the household more visible.
It's not like there aren't any incels who would want this, but the steelman simply calls for a levelling of the playing field and for stopping the coercive and impersonal wealth transfer from men to women which would open the door for voluntary and personal wealth transfer.
Great! That would be a system working as intended.
No argument there. But they seem more flexible and more willing to settle (and better able to adapt to lowered expectations). Open to be proven wrong on that last one.
But that's the thing he's glossing over - women work easy, sedentary jobs so they can be replaced by robots, men work productive jobs.
I don't imagine he means every man will work down a coal mine or on an oil rig. Take women out of the workforce, and those white collar jobs are going to be filled by men - or they are just as vulnerable, the white collar men, to being replaced by robots. AI can now do your programming, why do I need you, Joe? What was this kid's degree in, and what kind of career did he hope for? EDIT: I see from one report that he had a degree in philosophy, so very much a non-productive field (by those who measure success in salaries with more and more zeroes).
I don't think he visualised working as an agricultural labourer or on a building site, the non-easy, non-sedentary work that women don't do.
So it's not about economic value, it's about dominance (and soothing his bruised ego over why he's not as successful as he imagines he should be. Women are to blame because society coddles them and devalues men. That's why he's not getting where he should be in life, because women are given an unfair advantage over him.)
We're concentrating on the part of the manifesto about women, but don't forget he also was anti-capitalism and blamed society for a lot of ills:
The guy does seem to have been socially isolated, feeling left out, probably indeed "university is supposed to be this party time of your life with friends and sex, why am I not getting that? it is the fault of society!"
EDIT EDIT: Armchair psychoanalysis, which is the worst kind, but I get the impression (e.g. studying philosophy, writing a manifesto) that the guy very much valued himself on his intelligence. Maybe going to college and meeting other smart kids, in a field he presumed would be the area he achieved triumphs, showed him he wasn't as smart as he thought/there are other, equally smart, people out there. Maybe he didn't make the impression he had hoped to make. That would sting, and drive him even more inwards to rationalise his failures - it's down to capitalism, it's down to pornography, it's down to women'n'minorities getting unfairly favourable treatment, it's this cocktail of social ills that are not my fault and so I can avoid facing the changes I need to make in myself.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link