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 -
An old staple of the culture war has resurfaced: District attorney reopens case of alleged Cornell University 'gang rape'. The core allegation is that the girl went to a frat house, got pressured to snort ketamine, passed out, and was raped by multiple people while unconscious.
I first heard about this case from someone at Cornell a bit after it happened. She was adamant that the frat boys were guilty and that there was conclusive proof (though she didn't personally know what the proof was), but the administration went easy* on them because of misogyny. Obviously, this set off alarm bells in my head because it pattern-matched well with Duke Lacrosse, Mattress Girl, etc. I said that it sounded like there wasn't enough evidence to tell, while in the back of my mind thinking that the accusation was probably false.
I was somewhat surprised when I read today that this conclusive proof does sort of exist, in the form of a Snapchat screenshot wherein someone in the fraternity's group chat posted that there was "free pussy upstairs". It's not quite conclusive proof, but it's much better proof than I expected. At this point my assessment is that the accusation is probably basically real.
This got me to thinking about whether it was time to update my model of the world, and whether the discourse around campus rape has changed over the past 10+ years. In a media environment where Jezebel is dead and Rolling Stone irrelevant, should we still expect the mainstream media to be biased to the point of uselessness? What about the power dynamics? Who is Cornell more afraid of, feminists or Republican OCRs?
There're also the evergreen questions, like what the responsibility of a university should be in cases like this, or what the police department or justice system should do. Seasoned culture warriors will point out that wanting to be hard on this kind of crime correlates with wanting to be soft on other kinds of crime.
Another thing that came to mind was the question of how grievous a crime we should consider rape to be. In my lifetime, rape has generally been considered equivalent to murder in severity ("rape and murder" usually being used to indicate the category of "super serious crime"), and the question of whether that's a good thing has been debated to death. However, Zoomers are famously more prudish than Millennials. Does it follow that Zoomers also regard rape as a greater crime, relatively speaking, than Millennials do?
*I see people claiming on Reddit and other places that the alleged rapists' only punishment was that they had to write apologetic essays, but this is not true -- at least two members of the fraternity were expelled. Whether this is a light punishment is up for debate.
It's stories like these that remind me how completely out of touch I am. Every aspect feels equally implausible.
Setting aside the drugs (where do people even get drugs, anyway?), and the violent crime... How does a man on a modern university campus, who is presumably smart enough to attend that university, receive a text message saying "free pussy upstairs" and not instantly nope out of that situation? That is so obviously and transparently a trap! Getting arrested for rape is the best-case scenario, because at least then you'll get to be processed by an actual legal system with a presumption of innocence.
I suppose these kids could have been just the right age for Depp v. Heard to be their formative experience of feminism, and early-2020s Internet censorship might have stopped them from learning about how society works, but that feels like a stretch.
It's cool that frat parties are real, though.
While sus it's not incompatible with consent and active engagement from the lady, some people in college (especially when high or drunk) just go for that kind of stuff, both as the deliverer and receiver.
Think about girls gone wild and old school campus porn videos. Some people are into this even if it sounds alien.
I genuinely don't believe Girls Gone Wild has been possible to make for at least a decade.
For one thing, I still remember the news cycle about how the creator of Girls Gone Wild fled the country amid a constant stream of accusations from women who regretted appearing in the videos. For another, it only takes one 17.9-year-old with a fake ID to turn everyone who watches the video into a felony sex-offender pedophile.
Probably the closest modern equivalent would be when an OnlyFans star personally organizes, promotes, films, and publicizes an event over the course of multiple weeks, because that's how far they need to go before it's plausible to believe they consented. It is nowhere near good enough to simply appear to be consenting and actively engaging on the day! History abounds with stories of women who were forced by their abusers to generate mountains of convincing-looking but false evidence that they consented to a sexual act during and immediately following its commission.
I'm not saying it's wise I'm saying people are down, and they are still down it just becomes riskier for a variety of reasons (including videos on the internet).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link