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 -
But that unrest had nothing to do with the proposition that Sikhs are all/mostly stabby.
The issue was that the police, who are ostensibly supposed to facilitate justice, handcuffed a dying man who'd just been stabbed. He told them he'd been stabbed, and they said: "don't think you have, mate".
The issue was that they allowed an innocent man to bleed out, while treating his killer as a victim, based on their race. This was not an isolated incident; this is in the context of the police systematically siding with people based on the colour of their skin, rather than whether they need immediate medical attention due to having been stabbed.
I appreciate that you're making a general point. But the specific examples need to support it. So this might go some way to dissolving how mysterious you find the phenomenon: sometimes, the thing you perceive as people blaming an entire group for individual actions isn't actually what's happening. It's a convenient cudgel for people to be able to dismiss the outrage over Henry Nowak's murder as "oh, that's just a bunch of racists who are blaming sikhs", but that doesn't make it true.
Four police officers were at the scene. "The police" is a group made up of people, and you are attributing the actions of those four people to the entire group.
I think you're right. If anyone is anti-group enough to argue against it, I'd like to hear why.
More options
Context Copy link
This is my fault. I inadvertently conflated the Henry Nowak murder with a different stabbing that did lead to more general anti-migrant violence in Northern Ireland.
Pitbull Twitter. Which is its own issue as society has more pitbulls. But pit bulls do seem to statistically be much more likely to just randomly go on killing sprees. Personally I would rather just ban pitbulls from my neighborhood.
But I’ve always had an instinct that pitbull Twitter was a way to talk about race without using any human races. The idea being different human “breeds” have much different rates of doing antisocial things.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link