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 -
Well, it finally happened. Last Saturday San Jose Sharks goaltender James Reimer, citing religious beliefs, refused to wear the Pride-themed warmup jersey in honor of Pride night, and accordingly sat out warmups. Reimer has started most of San Jose's games this season but has mostly been splitting time with Kaapo Kahkonen, but he did not start Saturday and instead was Kahkonen's backup. This isn't the first time this season that the Pride jerseys have led to controversy—Ivan Provorov of the Philadelphia Flyers declined to wear it back in January, citing his Russian Orthodox faith, and Pride nights were cancelled in New York and Minnesota (presumably because the refusals would be conspicuous enough to cause undue controversy, but I have no evidence of this). So it's been simmering for a while, but this was the first real big blowup. Getting mad at Russians for having "incorrect" beliefs doesn't get much traction (Ovechkin's support of Putin was never that big a deal) because it's presumed that they aren't exactly the most enlightened people. And individual teams cancelling events seems suspect but teams are already too easy to get mad at for a variety of reasons, though people certainly took advantage of the opportunity. But now, with Reimer, and Anglo Protestant. conservatives finally have their Colin Kaepernick.
Reaction was predictable. The Fox News comment section duly praised Reimer for his courage to stand up against the wokeness that has come to infect professional sports. Reddit, meanwhile, seemed disgusted that the NHL would allow one of its players to openly flaunt the ideals of inclusiveness. There was also a quite a bit of armchair theologizing, with people who almost assuredly aren't religious either making fun of religion wholesale or claiming that, actually, Reimer's faith should make him an LGBT ally. Nearly absent from this conversation, though, is Kaepernick, despite the obvious parallels. Conservatives had previously argued that "politics should be kept out of sports", and that Kaepernick's nonparticipation in a team-oriented civic ritual was tantamount to injecting his own politics into the game. Even Mike Tomlin's decision to keep the Steelers in the tunnel in an attempt to avoid controversy that may have resulted from a player kneeling backfired; participation was mandatory, and Alejandro Villenueva was praised as a folk hero for conspicuously entering the field anyway to stand for the anthem. Ditto liberals, who also failed to see that the idea of punishing a player for refusing to participate in a pregame activity because it was against his religious or political beliefs is something that extends across the board; we can't pick and choose which beliefs are okay to protest and which aren't. The only real difference is that conservatives seem to believe that Pride nights are an abomination that has to go, while I never heard any serious Kaepernick supporters suggest that the NFL should do away with the anthem.
What's surprising is the lack of self-awareness. It's not that people in these comments sections don't challenge people with the obvious Kaepernick comparisons, it's that no one seems willing to even engage. I have yet to see anyone on either side make a statement about consistency (i.e. I defended Kaepernick and I defend Reimer/I criticized Kaepernick and I'm criticizing Reimer) or attempt to differentiate the situations. People usually try to differentiate because they want to appear principled and not just reacting based on their own biases, but most controversies give a little room for it. The Kaepernick case is so familiar and so alike that it's almost as if the cognitive dissonance actively prevents people from engaging. I'd like to see one person try to justify their position in light of this argument. Just one.
False equivalence. Standing up for the national anthem is culturally universal phenomenon, common to all countries and ideologies. Wearing symbols of the LGBTQ+ pride movement isn't the majority position in the US, let alone the world.
Nationalism isn't universal, let alone being for the national anthem of your (again, not a universal sentiment) country.
I'm sure there's some Irishmen who don't feel too kindly about the national anthem of the United Kingdom, for example. To this day iirc there are elected Sinn Fein members that'll never sit in government cause they can't accept the trappings of the UK government.
Sinn Fein politicians are perfectly happy to stand respectfully for God Save the King in accordance with international protocol when it is played at an international sports game, or on other appropriate civic occasions like the arrival or departure of a senior official visitor from the United Kingdom.
Part of the confusion is the weirdness of Americans putting on a patriotic display at bog-standard pro sports games. In the culture that is non-American pro sports (most obviously including European league football) it would be a presumptively inappropriate political statement to play the national anthem before a game. Similarly, it would be obviously inappropriate to protest a national anthem before a game between national teams, because it is being used to designate a country and not to make a political point.
Yet this is what the American Womens Soccer Team did. So I don't think your reasoning explains what motivates those who disrespect the Star Spangled Banner.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That doesn’t make them not nationalists. Quite the opposite. They just aren’t nationalistic about the flag of the State they are living in, and would prefer another State to run that area
It's not really the problem here. The problem is that they are anti-nationalist of the universally recognized flag of the nation that holds the country - just as the US flag is universally recognized as the flag of the current government holding sway over those territories.
They are showing the same "disrespect" that Kaep showed. Point is that that "respect" is not universal at all.
Basically you can't lean on some descriptive fact about flag popularity here; you just have to make a normative case that it's wrong to dismiss the national flag relative to other (less practically relevant in some cases) alternatives.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
OTOH, the Supreme Court ruled 80 years ago that even schoolchildren have the right to refuse to salute the flag, so the underlying principle that civic rituals take second place to individual conscience is well-established in the US.
More options
Context Copy link
The teams being out on the field for the anthem wasn't a thing in the NFL until 2009, but Mike Tomlin's attempt to turn back the clock a mere eight years was also unacceptable to conservatives. And while wearing symbols of the LGBT movement isn't a majority position, what does that have to do with anything? It wasn't the league norm to have military appreciation nights until relatively recently. Would it be acceptable for an athlete who opposed some war to refuse to wear a camo jersey? The NHL added ads to jerseys this year and most fans hate it. Should a player who doesn't like it either get a free pass to not wear it? The norm is that you wear the uniform provided and don't nitpick about the design.
Refusing to wear a camo jersey I would have a lot more support for than refusing to take a knee cuz racism based on cops killing blacks (since cops kill a lot of whites and the entire difference in rates is explainable). But someone can make a really good anti military argument based on Cheney’s WMD lies.
A lot of the reason I hated Kap is his arguments were stupid. And he lacks numeracy.
More options
Context Copy link
Please explain how honoring the military is related to “self-defense”? What if I believe that the military is not in fact defending me, but actually making me less safe, both in the short and long term? Does “dishonoring” the military make me less safe? If not, how is it related to my self-defense?
More options
Context Copy link
Absolutely, and Muhammad Ali is hailed a hero for refusing to fight in Vietnam.
I have to agree with Rov…I feel certain my grandfather would have had some choice words for Ali, probably starting with an N.
More options
Context Copy link
Fox News didn't exist in 1966, but if it did, do you think its viewers would have hailed him as a hero? This question wasn't addressed to you specifically, it was rhetorically addressed to the kind of person who has a problem with both Pride Night and Colin Kaepernick.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That may well be, but isn't the US a little unusual for having the national anthem at most sports games? My understanding was that this was an oddity of ours compared to, say, Europe, like the fact that most public school classrooms have American flags in them.
I don't know about Europe — or sports — but I can say that movie theaters in Thailand under King Bhumibol played some sort of regal anthem, and no other country I've been a cinema-goer was remotely similar. Not America, Japan, Singapore—even Russia didn't make me sit through anything about Putin before making me try and understand "Superbad" dubbed into a language I don't speak without subtitles.
(Michael Cera is utterly incomprehensible, but Jonah Hill comes through loud and clear. I later saw the movie in English, a similar experience.)
Thailand also jails people for insulting the king so it is probably not a representative of the norm.
British cinemas played the national anthem after the end credits until the early 1970's. According to Quora, it was stopped for health and safety reasons - the rush to leave the cinema during the credits (because it was disrespectful to leave during the anthem) was seen as dangerous.
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