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 -
There's an entire team of kids from a Christian school, as well as I think a Witch Hunter who scolded someone for taking the name of God in vain. I suppose you'd be correct if you meant "no identifiably hardline Christians".
Exactly, and not one of them is Christian at all, or IIRC even references Christianity in any way a single time.
IIRC they all explicitly had a weird view of God that was not Christianity, I'm not sure though, that was a while ago. I put in a few minutes and couldn't find the chapter--if you know where it is, I'd love to see it.
Anyways though, it's pretty clear that those are both pretty big stretches, right? One fifth of Canadians are young earth creationists so you should have many more characters like that in your Canadian story than all LGBTQ(4%), polyamorous/in open relationships (4%), and black (3.5%) characters combined, especially since this is set in a rural town.
I mean, it's pretty par for the course at this point, and I get why he's mostly avoiding the question. The bigger issue I have is that everyone in the story is essentially in total agreement about all things that normal people consider political. The single counterexample I can think of is Grumble, a mostly-paralyzed elderly widower recovering from a stroke who is nevertheless victimizing his granddaughter by watching hateful TV. I think probably 5-10x as many words at this point have been devoted to just how hateful his TV watching is as have actually been devoted to him onscreen.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link