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 -
Because slaves don't agree to rent out their bodies? That's kind of fundamental to the idea of slavery. It's ok to pay a worker to pick your cotton, but not to enslave them (though see below!) We do call people wage slaves, but we don't mean they are actual slaves.
You're conflating that all work is renting out your body with all renting out your body being the same. Renting my house to my brother and renting my house at gunpoint to a soldier are very different things. Renting out your body voluntarily is different than being a slave (which is not voluntary). I also don't want my wife to be a coalminer or a soldier for example. That all work is renting out your body does not mean that all work is the same.
If you're going to rape someone raping them when they don't know about it is probably more moral than otherwise sure. But some costs are still inflicted, a drugged woman will wake up and realize what happened, the woman in the coma will face significant health complications and so on and so forth.
But as rape and surrogacy are not the same the treatment does not need to be the same in any case. (Unless the woman is held captive and forcibly inseminated, which I don't think is a central example here). The costs inflicted are taken on by her voluntarily.
Yes! You don't have a right to live, nobody does! I think almost all of what people call rights are incoherent. You might want to live and struggle to live if someone is trying to kill you, but there is no being handing out rights such that it means anything more than "I don't want to die". Which is a perfectly reasonable position, I don't want to die either! But it isn't a right. A wolf doesn't have a right to live, it can fight to stay alive one more day, or it might get shot with no ability to do anything about it.
Having said that we can certainly redirect to what people want to enforce or provide, I understand lots of people do not agree with my idea about rights in any case. As an aside, I think slavery is usually not justifiable but there are times I think it would be. Indeed so too could rape or murder. If the human race was facing extinction and you had to enslave half the race to save the remains I think that's morally justifiable. Likewise if you had to force women to have children to save the human race I think that too would be justifiable.
But again those are not the situations we are faced with in our lives here today. A surrogate isn't a slave because she agrees to being a surrogate, a farm worker is not a slave because he agrees to accept money in exchange for back breaking labour.
More options
Context Copy link