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 -
Regarding looksmaxxing and body modifications, I would like to present a case of someone who does not indentify as a looksmaxxer, but nevertheless has made a career out of making sweeping, permanent modifications to his looks. Specifically, I would like to talk about f1nn5ter, a Youtuber and Twitch streamer who started out making Minecraft videos, but quickly transitioned (figuratively at first) into just-chatting light fetish content, eventually culminating in a femboy focused only fans account.
You see, f1nn5ter, was incredibly good at passing as a woman. He could do his makeup, put on fake breasts, and do his hair. Once he was done, especially in the right lighting, you would be hard pressed to tell the he was actually a man until you heard his voice. He quickly gained a following that absolutely loved this. A solid mixture of LGBT, trans-folk, people not quite sure if they were trans or not, and several who gained some amount of sexual pleasure from seeing him dress up as a woman and act all bratty and submissive on stream. It turned out that some of his fans were willing to pay a lot of money to keep him that way, and so the crossdressing became an increasingly permanent feature of the stream. Over time, the streamer became increasingly involved with trans advocacy, gained a trans girl(?)friend, started microdosing estrogen, and eventually fully transitioned (literally this time) to genderfluid(?), meaning that his/her/their pronouns are subject to change constantly.
Recently, F1nn took a step up by undergoing face feminization surgery. Essentially shaving off some of his bones in the face in order to appear more feminine. As a reminder, he already passed quite well. Here is a tweet he made 3 years ago (without the fake breasts), before officially starting hormones and transitioning.
The culture war angle is two-fold: First, it seems weird that people go so hard on clavicular when stuff like this is accepted (at least by the online left). Prior to transitioning, the guy experimented with estrogen with no guidance from a doctor just to try and look more androgynous. Now, he underwent surgery, risking complications and a long recovery period just to appear slightly more female. But this is apparently okay because trans. I am split on this. On the one hand, I think this promotes a dangerous lifestyle. A slippery slope of increasingly significant medical procedures just to make yourself look slightly closer to your ideal. Never accepting yourself as you are, always chasing perfection. He apparently considered straight up getting bones removed, although the surgeon talked him out of it for the time being. On the other hand, I think the transhumanist angle here is quite cool and that surgeries like this are a good thing if they dramatically improve your life.
My second issue is with the pronouns. Reading the subreddit, people don't just use his pronouns interchangeably. They use them interchangeably within the same sentences. "She uses he/him pronouns!" is an actual serious quote from there. While I find it impressive from a writing perspective (and interesting as a kind of performance art) that you can still sort of follow along if you know what they are doing, I think this is kind of insane. Like, a frequent talking point from trans activists is that the pronoun thing is easy. But once you start throwing nonbinaries, questioners, and genderfluids into the mix this stops being the case. Having three or more sets of pronouns that you swap between at your leisure and just expect others to adhere to strikes me as sadistic. A kind of dominance play in which you take pleasure in observing others put all their effort into following your rules.
Of course, F1nn is not a good trans representative, being a pornstar and all, but I do think he represents a good part of why the online trans communities seem so weird. This kind of rhetoric and advocacy is not exactly uncommon on the internet, and it is hard to look at it and not see some kind of social contagion or slippery slope when all people do is encourage it.
There is a strange tension in contemporary western culture. On the one hand we are bombarded with platitudes about how the good life consists of being free to be yourself, i.e. the postmodern ethic of self-actualization. On the other hand when your desires clash with who you actually are in reality and you for instance end up with body dysphoria, we are told that if you think people should be themselves, you are a horrible reactionary bigot and paradoxically get accused of not letting people be themselves. Ironically the same people who make such accusation often have little issue with telling bodybuilders on gear or transhumanists that they are insane and should accept their natural body (which is correct in my opinion, I'd just like them to extend this to gender related transhumanism as well).
I think a key to understanding this problem is that there is an unspoken assumption that your true self is primarily to be found in your desires. This is interestingly a complete inversion of the more negative view of the "passions" which most premodern Western thinkers had (both pagan and Christian). Traditionally passions are considered to be fleeting, unstable and for a good life one needs to learn how to control the passions lest the passions control you. I don't know much about eastern thought, but my superficial stereotype of Buddhism also includes a negative view of the passions. Much philosophical work has been done and is being done with regards to the question of what a self is or whether a self even exists and I will not make a judgment on that question in this comment, but at least I agree with the ancients that the passions are a particularly implausible and silly candidate for locating one's self.
This unspoken interpretation of self-actualization as maximally indulging ones passions is in my opinion the cause of much of the cultural woes of contemporary Western society. Passions being fleeting, unstable and insatiable, it is no coincidence that our culture is reaching ever sillier ways of actualizing ones true self. "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing". Once we get people telling us that amputating perfectly healthy parts of their body is the only way they will ever be able to really be themselves or pursuing literal vampirism to extend oneself throughout time, we should maybe pause and think what on earth went wrong in our culture. I believe to recover from this madness we need to regain a sense of some sort of human nature and when our passions point at things that are at odds with human nature, one's true self is to be found in human nature and not in said passions. Things only get their beauty and meaning and identity from their place as a part of a meaningful whole. In other words, we need to recover the value of limits, moderation and propriety, but limits are anathema to a Left that seeks to emancipate us from all hierarchy and a Techno-Right that wants to move fast and break things.
From the Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne:
"His Power bounded, greater is in might,
Than if let loose, ‘twere wholly infinite.
He could have made an endless sea by this,
But then it had not been a sea of bliss.
Did waters from the centre to the skies
Ascend, ’twould drown whatever else we prize.
The ocean bounded in a finite shore,
Is better far because it is no more.
No use nor glory would in that be seen,
His power made it endless in esteem.
Had not the Sun been bounded in its sphere,
Did all the world in one fair flame appear,
And were that flame a real Infinite
’Twould yield no profit, splendor, nor delight.
Its corps confined, and beams extended be
Effects of Wisdom in the Deity.
One star made infinite would all exclude,
An earth made infinite could ne’er be viewed:
But one being fashioned for the other’s sake,
He, bounding all, did all most useful make
And which is best, in profit and delight
Tho’ not in bulk, they all are infinite."
This is the one-sentence explanation, and it is both simple and correct.
The implied theory behind most 'authenticity' talk today is that you simply are your desires. No line can be drawn between the self and its desires.
It is probably worth reflecting at some point, actually, on how this outright contradicts pretty much every major spiritual tradition in the world. You are not your desires, and the more you follow them, the more you become a slave to them. Maybe an effortpost for another day.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link