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 -
I think there’s a few things going on here, some more justifiable than others. Sure pure collective guilt is wrong and pre-rational. But that’s not all that’s happening.
I don’t think it’s crazy to say that society leaned too hard into blank slatist atomic liberalism and that some updating back is actually very rational.
You’ve got a spectrum of what you’re describing that goes from “irrational guilt by association” to “observing stereotypes” to “actual acting in collective interest”.
If I blame all people who wear sneakers because I got assaulted by someone wearing sneakers, I’m acting irrationally. If I blame people who dress like homeless bums for drug needles on the streets, I’m generalizing a stereotype and acting semi rationally even if I end up placing blame on individuals who aren’t users. If I blame Democrats for the outcomes of a Democratic policy implementation. I’m acting rationally.
What we’re seeing is that a lot of things we wanted to be entirely in camp 1, turn out to belong in camp 2 and 3.
It’s not just actually racial stereotypes are true sometimes and you’re not a bad person for noticing and acting on probabilities. Because this, while rational, still does have the problem of assigning collective guilt in your frame which I agree isn’t right.
No it’s observing that actually a lot of affinity groups do act in group interest. We want things like race or place or origin or gender or religion to be neutral associations, but we do see that in some cases it is much more like “democrats” than “people wearing sneakers”. So when you have groups collectively acting in group interest, you can rationally and morally place group blame on them, while withholding individual judgement.
I am not saying I always agree with this but it’s not dismissable as “pre-rational”. Regardless of being factually or morally correct, it’s coherent to claim that say, X group seems to act in their groups self interest over their neighbors, and blame them for it, even while giving any 1:1 interaction with an Xian the benefit of being treated like an individual
More options
Context Copy link