site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The other issue is that a lot of the benefits of 'traditional' women does not rest in one individual woman.

If you're not importing the whole family, your traditional SEA wife is going to have the same or a worse support system than your regular corn-syrup-fed one, so raising children will be tremendously stressful.

The other component of that issue is that the SEA women that choose to leave will be on the less-traditional side of SEA, otherwise they would not leave.

That should still put them on a better footing than the local women, but could also be worse, if they are 100% green card/golddiggers.

Or they have unrealistic expectations of life in the USA (thinking they'll be moving to Miami Beach or the Upper East Side or whatever sitcom/movie fantasy). Or they don't have unrealistic expectations and the USA are just as bad as they had the impression from their traditional village, and they hate being there.

If you're not specifically seeking a traditional woman, but just a woman that is able to stick to a marriage for longer than a local one, then probably some foreign college-educated, traveling-abroad one might be good enough.

The other option is the straight-off-the-boat, 1st generation English-speaker of the family, not completely disgusted by US norms but still retaining traditional upbringing and family nearby. It would take more effort to find and court these.