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 -
Japan didn't. The US had a dead cat bounce around the late 90's-early Aughtsas the Boomers had half as many kids as their parents; note that this did not manage to reach replacement level, even at its peak, before collapsing downward again. The trend has continued down since. Ditto the UK. These "mini-baby booms" - and dramatic emphasis on "mini" - are artifacts of the Boom generations finally getting around to having kids, having both delayed and having far fewer children than preceding generations, and the trends for subsequent generations fit the pattern.
There's a reason why Lasch felt the need to publish The Culture of Narcissism in '79, as by that point the writing was sufficiently on the wall that it could no longer be ignored.
As I mentioned in my post, the Post WWII "Baby Boom" was more a return to normalcy after the Great Depression and the boys being shipped out to war; total births peaked in 1957, and TFR peaked in 1960 (note the free-fall immediately after '60). Worth noting that the term "Parasocial Relationship" was coined in 1955; bored suburban housewives whose kids were in school all day and had no immediate relatives nearby began thinking the characters on the TV were their friends. This happened 60+ years before we started asking why kids thought Twitch streamers were their friends; the smartphone didn't do this, atomization did.
The Industrial Revolution caused the population to explode by dramatically reducing childhood mortatility and letting people live far longer; it did not due so by making Jack and Diane fuck more often than rabbits. In fact, cities still showed lower births per family, as they have always historically done. This is so consistent that Spengler mentions it as a law of civilizations in The Decline of the West, and he was basing this on antiquity, long before even television, let alone smartphones.
The most we can say about technology - and also the favored bugaboo, financial precariousness - is that it's not helping things, but it's not the cause. I'd go so far as to say tech is downstream of the root cause; we were already atomized, and demanded amusements be made for us
More options
Context Copy link