site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 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.

15
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I can do nothing about my children being trans, because it is not a choice.

You don't know this. There is no conclusive evidence that this is true.

No, discredited or stratight up retracted brain scan studies with tiny samples when you'd need huge ones to get anything that isn't noise do not count.

The latter points about conservative education are just instantly disproven by any glance at an Islamic country and its rates of marriage and births. The criticism you're levying here isn't based in any practicality. It's 100% moralist grandstanding.

Well, when I glance at Islamic countries, I see a national social crisis because women are being arrested and beaten to death for not wearing a head scarf properly. I don't know if theocratic authoritarian Islamic countries are the epitome of any healthy civilization, much less the epitome of what marriage and parenting is like.

I do know that being trans in not a choice, because gender dysphoria is a medical condition, not a lifestyle choice.

And yet, people there are having more children than in the West, by a large margin. Calling Magians unhealthy from your standpoint is throwing stones in glass houses. And I notice again, the things you're objecting to are entirely based on your moral outlook and not practical considerations of survival.

We'll see who is still there to call who unhealthy in a century.

As for the trans question, I hold it to be a religious matter. Paraphilias and dysphoria are not a choice but only in the sense that "lifestyle choice" is a nonsense concept that refers to nothing real or important borne out of pure enlightenment ideology. All these can very well be socially conditioned, as I bet you recognize in any other setting where it is politically useful, and this equivocation of medical condition and truth about the soul is not coherent.