site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34500 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm not retreating anywhere. I'm standing exactly where I have been this whole time.

Bonaparte's charisma and genius made people want to follow him, and the people following him made him an emperor. Simple as that.

The British Government can claim to rule North America, and the Aristocrats of Europe can whing about who's claim to what throne is strongest, but history is not obliged to listen to them.

I think I’ve made it clear I‘m not on the side of the aristocrats of europe. You’ve got strange views. Your god-fearing simple american persona manages to assimilate all europeans to aristocrats and also to utopist bloodthirsty revolutionaries. Where is the common frenchman, your brother? Should he have honored the ancestral pledge to leviathan you cast off so readily?

The common Frenchman, I Imagine, would "just want to grill" and that is a significant part of what I think sets the classes apart. You're starting from the assumption that there is an answer to be had, and I am starting from the assumption that there isn't.

The common Frenchman, I Imagine, would "just want to grill" and that is a significant part of what I think sets the classes apart.

What the common Frenchman really wanted at the time (I assume from context it is the time of Great French Unpleasantness).

We can actually tell rather well, not only from newspapers, pamphlets, letters and memoirs of the time, but also from this official "lists of complaints" composed by people of all three estates. These documents survived, were digitized and are accessible on https://gallica.bnf.fr

Cahiers de doléances

https://pages.uoregon.edu/dluebke/301ModernEurope/Cahiers.html

The nobility were especially keen on personal liberties and on the authority of the upcoming Estates General: the common theme here is a concern with the arbitrary power of the king and his officials, who had been nibbling away at traditional, local privileges. We can interpret this concern with the "liberty" and power of Estates as a traditional, noble complaint, expressed in the language of Enlightenment.

Like the nobility, city-dwellers are concerned with the authority of the Estates General, but are more concerned with barriers to the market: concerns about customs duties and taxes on legal acts, for example, pertain to the free flow of trade. Their concern with Estates General, moreover, reflects and eagerness to diminish noble privilege: voting by head in the Estates General, for example, would throw more power to non-nobles.

And the overwhelming mass of people at the time, the peasants?

Unlike the nobility and the city-dwellers, rural people are overwhelmingly concerned with the burden of state taxation: after "taxation in general," which they share with the other two orders, all but two of the rural "top ten" concern taxation. By contrast, concern with the voting rules for the Estates General are almost entirely absent from the rural "top ten."

Yes, ordinary Frenchmen were just like ordinary Americans, they wanted to grill untaxed meat seasoned with untaxed salt and wash it down with untaxed booze.

Yes, ordinary Frenchmen were just like ordinary Americans, they wanted to grill untaxed meat seasoned with untaxed salt and wash it down with untaxed booze.

...and do you think that is that supposed to be a rebuttal?

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats