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 -
That's just not really true at all. Imagine two candidates running for a state's governorship. Yesterday they were both filmed 24/7.
Candidate A was filmed helping old ladies cross the street, volunteer at food kitchens, and other generic good things.
Candidate B was filmed kicking puppies, stealing candy from babies, and other generic bad things.
Who do you think has an easier time with their own PR, and who do you think has it worse?
Your actual actions do matter.
Yes some people will try to spin what you do in bad faith no matter what, but it's not an excuse to be unconcerned with PR. Kicking puppies is unpopular among voters, and thus doing it hurts your electoral chances.
Likewise, look at the Trump admin. Tariffs poll insanely bad in general because the general voterbase doesn't like having higher prices ("it's the economy stupid"), so it should stand to reason that price increasing tariffs hurt electoral chances.
Maybe if he wasn't obsessed with insanely unpopular things like tariffs, betraying Ukraine, threatening to invade Canada, open and blatant corruption (one of the top concerns of voters now!), harassing legal immigrants, etc etc and sticked to widely supported policies, he wouldn't be in the puppy kicking slump.
The puppies have rabies and were about to bite a child. The old ladies crossing the street are committing welfare fraud. Or whatever.
This is a different debate. Before you were arguing (via Messieur Jonathon) that Trump was doing all these potentially popular things in alienating ways. Now you’re arguing that he’s just doing unpopular things. Ok then so that earlier conversation just doesn’t matter.
However there is still a clearly media-driven appearance to things, I.e. Trump is not actually threatening to invade Canada, and when it was Hunter Biden sitting on oil and gas boards all I ever heard was about how this wasn’t real corruption and only partisan Republicans could possibly care.
Which is to say, we’re not even having a conversation about whether anything Trump is doing is good. We’re just debating whether it’s unpopular. Which is a low form of debate and why I point out that anything can be made artificially popular or unpopular by motivated partisans. Those puppies have rabies and needed to be kicked. Trump is right about tariffs. Canada had it coming. Etc etc
Yes those are the same things, he's doing things that in the generic sense could be popular but in the unpopular ways. It's like if "interacting with a puppy" polled +40, so they get it into their heads that kicking a puppy will be popular. That's just not what is meant by interacting with puppies!
In a representative democracy, doing what the citizens want is the most important part. If you're a leader wanting to remain popular, you should interact with puppies by feeding them and giving them pets, not kicking them.
If you're voted in because people are concerned about old dementia patients causing inflation while more concerned about random cultural war BS, maybe don't be an old dementia patient causing inflation while more concerned about random cultural war BS. Be not that and do the popular things that citizens want.
Are we even having an argument anymore? I’m not sure what point you’re making except that you don’t like what Donald Trump is doing.
I’m quite confident that Trump is not an old dementia patient, and I’m quite confident you never called Biden an old dementia patient while he was in office.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link