site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I know quite a few (often rowers etc recruited for sports).

St Paul's or Eton, is the question I suppose, as there are seven of one and five of the other. Heavyweight men's crew is the only sport like that, however. It has 27 white foreigners, which is probably more than all the other sports put together. The other sports with substantial numbers of white Europeans is women's Field Hockey, with 13, and Men's soccer with 11.

The rest of the sports have a few sprinkled here and there, such as the three Israeli women in Track and Field, Eden Finkelstein, Shaked Leibovitz, and Estel Valeanu. Skiing has 2 Scandanavians, both male. Women's soccer has 5 Europeans, but one is Black. As I mentioned, Men's soccer has 11, (Iceland, England, Germany, Serbia, Monoca, Slovakia (2), Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden). Men's heavyweight crew is the big outlier. The other three crew teams have 4 (+ 7 antipodeans) combined (including another boy from St. Pauls).

My guess is 7% are Jewish, and perhaps a fifth or sixth of that is non-white (ie. half-Asian or half-black) Jews, meaning only 5-6% of the ‘white’ bucket is Jewish.

Stanford has 550 Jewish undergraduates, down from 600. This is about 8%, and indeed, about 1 in three white kids are Jewish in my experience. When I was there last, Harvard seemed significantly more Jewish than that. If Harvard really is less Jewish than Stanford, that would be a very big turnaround.

It is also, for example, extremely unlikely that almost 1% of Harvard admits are fully or even half native, or that 3% are half or more native Hawaiian or Mormon Samoans. Most likely both groups, especially the latter, are predominantly white.

I would guess the Hawaiians are mostly Asian, as that is the plurality there. Native Americans are mostly white, but what matters is tribal affiliation, not blood quantum.

The Crimson’s stats also separate ‘mixed race’, which will largely be half-white, half-Asian

I agree but would guess that almost all are half white half Asian, as all other mixes choose the better choices for college admission (Hispanic, Black, Native, or Pacific Islander). 3% of 20-24 year olds are mixed race in the US, so this group is hugely over-represented.