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 -
More
songs about buildings and fooddiscussion of trans matters, this time courtesy of Freddie deBoer. First of, let me say I appreciate Freddie's writing. I think he often has sensible things to say, particularly in his own field of education, and offers necessary criticism as a leftist who is on the left.That being said, he is just as prone to the shibboleths of his side as we on the right are to the shibboleths of our side. Having seen how the progressive agenda around education is a steaming pile of what makes the roses grow, because he's been there and he's seen how the theory does not correspond with reality, I don't understand how he then falls into line with the rest of the progressive activism around other matters. But then, we all have our blind spots.
He wants to compare transgenderism with transracialism, and how one is real and valid and the other is a fake, but then he comes out with lines like this:
Well then eff me, Freddie, if it's not genetics and it's not physiology and biology not real, what is gender identity tied to?
Maybe... feelings? I feel like a woman?
Then why isn't it possible to feel like a black woman? To have that same yearning about identity and conviction that what you are "assigned at birth" is not the truth of what you really are?
He does not seem to have seen the arguments in some quarters that the term "trans woman" should not be used, that it should simply be "woman". After all, trans women are women. Maybe he hasn't encountered the nuttier fringes of the "trans movement" as yet.
Yeah, I absolutely don't disagree there. He sings along to the chorus like a good right-thinking person on the right side of history. But maybe those who don't hold the conventional progressive position aren't all dishonest or activated by unthinking bigotry and prejudice? Something to think about.
Anyway, this is mostly to present a reasonable leftist and what they think the trans movement is all about, and how their experience may or may not line up with what other people have experienced. In the middle of the screeching harpies, it's hard to remember that on both sides of this question are people who are genuinely trying to do their best.
It's weird. Gender seems obviously more tied to biology than race, which is, in large part (oc not fully) mediated by cultural association.
A black man is more like a white man than a black women. Yet the progressive thinks he is more capable to become the latter than the former because reasons.
A middle class African American is more like his middle class American white neighbor than he is like a rural African farmer. Not just culturally, possibly genetically too through racial mixing. Yet we are to believe that their dominant skin tone represent an impenetrable, immutable, objective racial feature of more import and gravity, than the separation between males and females.
Oh well, freddy has always seemed like a joke to me. I even think his 'education' takes are quite lacking. It's just that the right leaners here are already don't apply any critical eye to those takes because they're too busy clapping.
Is a cock closer to a bull than to a hen? Because cocks and bulls are similar in the same way that black men and white men are similar: they share a sex.
Either you are deliberately exaggerating for rhetorical effect, which is not the sort of low-effort sneering we want here, or you are literally claiming that white men and black men are not only difference species, but completely different classes of being, which is an extraordinary claim requiring proportional evidence.
Do not post like this. You have a number of warnings for just plain bad posts now. Your last one was almost a month ago, or I'd probably give you a ban as I usually do for a string of crappy comments in a short time. But next time will very likely be a ban.
I don't accept your false dichotomy just any more than I accept the (unsupported, extraordinary, consensus-building) claim I took exception to. There is no either/or, and I'm not sneering, unlike the responses I've gotten thus far. I noticed neither of them warranted a mod-hat brandishing a banhammer, despite being better examples of rule breaking.
My post is a reductio ad absurdum, which I know you are familiar with. I didn't appreciate @motteburner123 or @FCfromSSC deliberately ignoring that, but they're not threatening me with a ban for using simple logic. Both of them swallowed the absurd at face value in order to call me racist, and my post terrible, which each breaks more rules than the post they replied to (Antagonism, Charity, Consensus, Clarity, specifically "we ask that responders address what was literally said, on the assumption that this was at least part of the intention."). Motteburner didn't even use capitalization, having spent even less effort than my admittedly brief reply.
My post was short, but it was perfectly clear. The argument
is absurd. I demonstrated how absurd it was by taking it to the extreme. This is not sneering, it's rhetoric. I didn't think I needed three paragraphs of text when a simple and straightforward reductio ad absurdum would do the job. My use of a common form of argument was deliberately misconstrued, by you included, in a way that breaks the very rules you're threatening me with. In your own post you clearly understand how absurd it is. You link to classes, but if you followed the logic one step forward, you'd have realized that classes are determined by distance from a common ancestor. Why can't you apply that same logic to the comment I replied to, or even to my own comment which was obviously absurd?
The organisms most like you are not those that share your sex. That is absurd, like saying a cock is more like a bull than a hen. Instead, the organisms most like you are those that share the greatest share of ancestry. The organisms most like you are your parents and your siblings and your offspring. A black man is more like his black mother and black sisters than he is like a white man. He is more like his black grandmother and black cousins than he is a white man. The very same thing that determines classes, shared ancestors of common origin, is what makes the original claim obviously wrong and in need of the proactive evidence in favor. My rebuttal needs no such proactive evidence, as you tacitly admitted by using the very same logic when you ignored my argument.
There was exactly one thing in my post that was genuinely obscure and unstated. I used cock and bull, not stag and ram, for effect. I apologize for not speaking clearly in that regard.
Neither of them broke the rules. You did.
That's not how reductio ad absurdums work.
The two are not mutually exclusive. You do not get to throw sneers and then claim "I was using rhetoric."
I find your disclaimers unconvincing. The warning stands; do not do this again.
They both assumed the worst of me, despite rules for charity. They both called me names, despite rules for kindness. One didn't use capitalization, and referred to me as "u," despite rules for effort. How is that not breaking the rules?
Yes, it is. You are wrong.
You replied far too quickly to have read my post, so I don't know why I expect you to read this, but here's the definition:
This is exactly what I did. I followed the implication that black men and white men are more like each other than to any woman to its logical conclusion, thus disproving the proposition.
You seem to have it out for me, but that doesn't mean you can simply lie about what I'm doing, or flatly deny my arguments out of hand.
Seriously, you want me to mod someone for a lack of capitalization?
I read your post. It doesn't take that long to write a few lines in response.
I don't even notice you except when you pop up in the mod queue.
I don't care how you feel about being modded; I am telling you why you were modded, and what the consequences will be if you post like this again.
You should just ban him -- I don't see how any good can come of this.
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