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 feel really lucky to have been disabused of female purity early on.
I had a younger sister on the highschool varsity volleyball team. I was a senior, I was classmates with many of the very attractive and tall senior players. My sister was one of two sophmores on the varsity team. They won states that year, it was not a shitty team. But boy did they love to talk about shit. Any juvenile male thought of 'huh i wonder what the hot girls are talking about, maybe its how they really want some good dick or something' got so disabused that year. No, they weren't talking about dicks, they were talking about their shits. The big ones, the liquid ones, the frequent ones, the smelly ones, etc. I had to beg my sister to stop talking about her team gossip. One of the best parts of going to her games was looking at all the beautiful buts in spandex. But it was completely ruined. All I could think about was them talking about their latest dumps on the ivory throne.
No, it wasn't some psyops to get me not interested in her teammates. Sister would have set it up if it was viable. She told me when her classmates her age had crushes on me. A real caring sibling. I still get along great with her.
Nowadays I have three daughters. They stink, they shit, they pee, I've changed so many diapers, and wiped poop out of a vagina so many times. Sorry if that is graphic for people without female daughters. It just becomes this weird fact of life. Once they get past one the shits get real gnarly and you want them getting potty trained asap. Of course my daughters fought it until 4.
Sorry why am I talking about shit so much? Its a default human experience. And its also like the first thing any self conscious female will want covered up in their characters. I think we should have a shit test for female characters. Can they talk about taking a shit for a few sentences, even just as an internal monologue. If yes, they are a real person. If no, they are fake barbie dolls.
There are plenty of works in which the male characters could not plausibly talk about taking a shit. Can you imagine LotR with an aside about the logistics of Gandalf having to go Number 2 while fighting the Balrog?
Ultimately, fiction more often than not wants to show humans as they would like to be, not as they are. If humanity could reinvent itself according to its ideals, it would probably not poop.
(It's often downright jarring when fiction that otherwise has no pretense to cynical realism does involve defecation. I remember being jarred when Soukou Akki Muramasa's protagonist made sure to take a dump before getting in his robot armour.)
Apparently GRRM made up for all the lack of Tolkien talking about going to the latrine where there is no latrine. Yet another reason I am heartily glad I gave up on reading the SOIAF with the first volume, back in the before days when it was first published.
Unprecedented foresight and wisdom.
After getting burned by the Wheel of Time series, my "never start a fantasy series unless it's finished" rule has spared me from several much-hyped series that look like they will never be finished (GRRM and Rothfuss immediately come to mind).
You and a lot of other people. Larry Correia often rants about how badly this has ruined the market for new epic fantasy authors, though for some reason he blames GRRM rather than Jordan.
To be fair, Jordan was well aware he might not be able to finish the series himself, and planned it carefully and left all his notes so another writer could do the job. ( @RoyGBivensAction ).
True. It was a more a combo of unfinished + went to crap after book 4/5/6 (opinions vary) that caused me to implement the rule. Even if he had lived and finished it, it wouldn't have saved the series from how terrible it became.
It got finished by Brandon Sanderson in case you weren't aware, using Jordan's notes, after being chosen by Jordan’s widow. That was one of the major elements propelling Sanderson to fame.
My understanding is that Sanderson managed to tie up most of the loose ends and get back to the main characters pretty well, though I never finished the series myself. I have a sort of affection for the later books just because with Rand they go into character/political territory that ordinary fantasy (and indeed Dark Fantasy which has its own genre constraints) never actually has to get into, but I have to admit that my rereads usually stop at the end of book 5.
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