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 -
Do you ever make threads about democrats acting like retards? There's plenty of examples I can share if you'd like somewhere to start.
I'm not denying that there are plenty of people on my "side" that act like buffoons, I'm just trying to point out that you only ever seem to care when Republicans do it.
well, perhaps OP can't, but "the rightful calif" can
What's going on with the hostile response to Scott's tweet? I thought it was a pretty anodyne joke (although well below Scott's usual quality standards). Believing Christians, is this unusually offensive?
I think a lot of it stems from the fact that he did the meme.
I mean, the meme has always been very stupid and its proliferation indicative of the lack of an actual rejoinder. The people making those kinds of arguments don't think they'll be persuasive because they already know the people they're talking about don't believe the nominal tenets of their own religion. No one thinks a guy saying something like "do not commit the sin of empathy" is going to be moved by quoting the Bible. The point is to needle them about this fact and highlight their hypocrisy to onlookers.
Religious fundamentalists (particularly the extremely online variety) want to grandstand about their strict adherence to the principles of their religion, but are at least as guilty of picking and choosing as religious liberals. This creates a problem for them since, unlike churches with liberal theological stances, their legitimacy is grounded in the aforementioned rigid adherence (or rather, is claimed to).
I find the meme convincing because the times I see people piously quoting "Didn't Jesus say [X,Y,Z]?" it has been in the context of "I have nothing but contempt for Christianity and I am only cherry-picking texts to try and make it out that you don't even know your own religion and are all hypocrites".
They don't know their own religion and are all hypocrites. That's the point. The typical conservative Christian in the US is not only a bad Christian by the notional values of their religion*, they profess a dizzying array of heresies. Rather than being a serious moral/philosophical commitment, Christianity becomes just another hollow tribal marker. To my previous point: this would be less of a gotcha if they didn't anchor their morality legitimacy to a strict interpretation of Christianity.
*by which I mean not merely that they fall short of Christian ideals, which is obviously priced in, but that they do not even aspire to live up to Christian ideals.
This is the definition of uncharitable. Do you really think there aren't any Christians who know the tenets of the religion? What an absurd thing to say.
Some do. Just not these American religious conservatives, for whom Christianity is simply a tribal prop. This is not being uncharitable, it is taking them at their word. It's deeply unfortun
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link