site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35580 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 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.

13
Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

SATC gets unfairly scratched from midwit lists of great TV shows because the Chapo Trap House types who get excited about TV shows love unrealistic “masculine” fantasies of violent crime stories, and not romantic sex comedies. But SATC was critical to the birth of high concept TV, was a key tent pole that kept HBO making shows like Sopranos and The Wire, and presaged so much of modern culture that it’s a crime to miss it.

What SATC was good at was asking really interesting questions, over and over my wife and I would argue late into the night and over coffee in the morning over which character was right and what one should do in that situation; what it was bad at was pussying out when it came time to face the answers.

Dramatic tensions wasted, values crisis resolved:

Similar plots are wasted later

The show spends whole seasons asking questions, only to deus-ex the problems right out of existence when they want to make the characters happy.

Like so many wasted episodes of Sex and the City it is smart enough to understand that tension exists, but not smart enough to come up with a real solution.

Big brother and the bachelor are cultural touchstones and bill payers, as are dool and eastenders and home and away - that doesn't make them great tv. In fact I think you have identified exactly why satc doesn't usually make it onto the lists of prestige tv shows - it's a forty minute sitcom*. The characters don't face consequences for their actions, they are resolved through plot contrivances and contradictions. The wire, the sopranos, breaking bad - these shows are considered prestige because there are consequences for the characters' actions, writing wise.

At any rate you haven't convinced me I am missing out by not watching it, or that if I was more intelligent I would spend dozens of hours watching a show with plot holes so frequently that they are considered part of its structure.

*which is not to shit on sitcoms, many of which I love, they just aren't prestige tv, they don't elevate or transcend the medium the way those shows do.

I could do the same things with occurrences throughout Breaking Bad or (at least the later seasons of) The Wire; the difference being that when there's a yawning plot hole in those shows they shove a bomb into it or handwave corruption somewhere in the system as covering it up. An understanding boyfriend is a much more logical plot contrivance than a robot machine gun.

What is your list of top sitcoms? I just finished How I met your Mother with my partner and it was remarkably anti-feminist for so recent and so popular a show.

That is a good question. Personally my favourite sitcoms are of the "sitcoms are for comedy, get your drama out of here" philosophy, so my tops are Seinfeld, It's always sunny, 30 Rock, Arrested Development and Newsradio. But I think it would be crazy to make a list of top sitcoms that didn't include himym or Friends or Scrubs or The Office, all of which had hilarious moments and episodes, and much broader appeal than my first picks. And even now my list is being unfair to older sitcoms - I think sitcoms evolved pretty significantly over time though (not to mention the effect on comedy of the backlash against pcness that cim mentioned below), and it's hard for me to tell what jokes in say All in the family or The Jeffersons or Taxi or Cheers* I am biased by nostalgia to appreciate - they definitely don't get as many laughs from younger friends as newer shows do.

*Special mention for Frasier, which did an amazing job for four seasons of relying heavily on farce and still managing to find humour and surprises. Pity it went on for seven seasons.

Edit: ffs as I hit post I realised I was being geographically biased too - I've left out Blackadder, Linehan's shows, Extras, The League of gentlemen, Darkplace and The mighty boosh! For the Aussies, I didn't include Hey Dad for obvious reasons, and I never watched Kath and Kim, which is basically the extent of Aussie sitcoms. Welcher and Welcher? Aussie comedy seems to work better in sketch shows anyway.

I think the key element in that review is that he was watching it at night with his wife.

SATC is like porn to the female mind, I imagine that must have worked to get her in the mood.

Watching it alone as a man is like getting cucked by a gross, older woman.

Her best-selling book and the racy TV series it inspired taught a generation of women that they could ‘have it all’.

But Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell, 60, has admitted that she regrets choosing a career over having children as she is now ‘truly alone’.

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