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 -
I think this is a pretty weak argument. The reality is that kids just don't engage with novels and poetry at any meaningful scale. Especially not now, but, in my opinion, not really ever--most people just aren't interested in that. On the other hand, while I have no evidence at hand, I would bet that multiple millions of American children spend more time on TikTok than on any other single activity, including sleep.
Kids being demoralized by the tens of millions by reading Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers is a bridge we can cross when or if we ever come to it. TikTok is the bridge we're facing right now, thus it seems perfectly sensible to me to dicsuss TikTok and not novels.
I find this to be supremely amusing, because in the country I grew up, this was in fact a mandatory reading in every single high school, as set by the Ministry of Education, which fixes the syllabus across the entire country.
I won't say that everyone actually reads the whole thing (I gave up halfway through, and skipped to the end to enjoy reading about how he offs himself, which was a consolation to me for suffering the first half), but the national equivalent of the SAT exam very much assumes your familiarity with this work. For example, in 2018, half a million of high schoolers were expected to read a fragment in which Werther recounts his meeting with Albert, during which he broke the first rule of gun safety (by putting it against his own head), and, based on this, and your knowledge of relations between Werther and Albert, write an essay describing potential causes of lack of mutual understanding between people.
Thanks for reminding me about it -- now, half a life later, I actually I want to reread it, to see if added life experience will change my perception of the work.
This isn't relegated to your country or a ministry of truth. Every student has had an educator they were convinced was going through life just to make his/her students as corrupt and miserable as said teacher was. And the students were generally correct.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link