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 -
It sounds like a pretty straightforward remake of Taken.
It's an interesting affirmation that everyone understands and acts on racist phenomena.
"Taken" doesn't code 'the outsiders are harming us' i.e. whites, but this movie does. So the almonds of some German bureaucrat got activated and the movie is a no go.
It's probably the most ubiquitous and interesting dynamic in western media production and no one talks about it. But the incredible dance around never having the outsider victimizing whites is the greatest commonality all modern movies share. And if that is ever a theme, it's explored in such a way as to demonstrate that whites feeling victimized and acting on those emotions are wrong in some way.
On the flipside there's no shortage of 'brown person victimized by cruel evil white folk' movies.
Everyone understands this. Everyone knows. The only difference is whether ones brain can see the patterns or if it can and chooses to ignore it because 'evil white people' codes as real on some level in ones brain.
Taken is totally about a threat to white girls by scary foreigners, though.
Maybe to an American? When I saw the movie the entire concept felt a bit far fetched and cheap.
In reality the ones 'taken' are usually young eastern European women forced into commercial rape, i.e. 'sex work'. But in the movie it's evil eastern European men taking an American girl? Not to say that there aren't a lot of evil eastern European men driving up western European crime, there are. But the movie felt like a sanitized version of that reality.
Regardless of that, calling the foreigner a foreigner or an immigrant like is done in the movie is different from actually depicting him as a foreigner. The distinction is best exemplified via depictions by Cleon Peterson.
In an American context, the traffickers are clearly 'generic foreigners'. They could be Eastern Euros, they could be middle eastern, they're from a part of the world Americans don't understand and that's what's important. They might code as brown, probably do to most Americans.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
My theory is that whites are the most prone to racism (scientific racism pioneered by whites, etc) and so they should be protected from media that triggers their racism.
Depends on what you mean by scientific racism. From my understanding of the term, White people didn't 'invent' 'modern science' because of racism, I would argue. It's because of other factors we generally associate with intelligence, industriousness, agreeableness and so forth. Scientific 'racism' is just a byproduct of that. So whilst there is some racist expression to be found in old 18th century anthropology, I'd argue most of that was also refuted by the better scientists at the time, who could make fact based observations about human population differences.
To clarify the point: Noticing that groups can differ on objective metrics free of 'group bias' is a very not racist thing to do. Even if those differences are 'racist'. Whilst ignoring or arguing against objective reality, based on 'in or outgroup bias' is a racist thing. So ironically, most people who are against 'scientific racism' are acting out a very base racist impulse, since they are not capable of parsing reality past it looking like a slight against their ingroup.
To that extent I'd argue most whites are less racist than other groups. As they are more capable of parsing reality and more capable of entertaining abstract concepts. A good example of this are mock jury trials.
“When racial issues arise in a trial, white mock jurors are on guard against the possibility of prejudicial feelings and maintain the appearance of fairness [...] Black mock jurors, on the other hand, do not demonstrate egalitarianism in any condition.”
On top of that, a lot of research into the topic drives at a similar conclusion:
The study linked above also shows highlighted that in mock jury trials, the whites are a minority in their racial fairness. At least when compared with American blacks. Who are a lot more prone to racial bias in their decision making.
Considering all of that, I'd say it's clear whites are not being protected from their own racist tendencies, a concept explored in the movie 28 Days Later but are being marginalized, otherized and attacked precisely because they are not racist. This is easily proven by simple logic. If whites were racist, they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Almost, but not quite. 'Taken' is an actual movie with a coherent inciting action, rising action, conclusion, etc.
This was more like an angry letter to the editors that was just a middle finger drawn onto the page.
I'd watch 'Taken' again for fun on any lazy Sunday afternoon - I wouldn't recommend 'Citizen Vigilante' to anyone who wasn't already interested in it as an anthropological exhibit
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link