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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37995 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Could you elaborate on what specific harm showing an anatomically correct sculpture to sixth graders does to them?

This is a wholly irrelevant question. I know it's what the pro-David side likes to focus on, because it makes their opponents look like aliens to the ingroup, but it fundamentally doesn't matter.

If we can agree that there are two groups who differ on the answer to your question: regardless of the substance of their answers, this is an issue of how a community has decided to navigate through this difference in opinions. Now, it may seem to some like the question is so stupid that the community process no longer matters, but this is a great way to destroy a community. This is the essence of a lot of culture war issues at the moment, a focus on terminal values above the process by which we allow competing values to co-exist peacefully.

Now, it may seem to some like the question is so stupid that the community process no longer matters, but this is a great way to destroy a community. This is the essence of a lot of culture war issues at the moment, a focus on terminal values above the process by which we allow competing values to co-exist peacefully.

I would disagree. The essence of many culture war issues is that our ability to stand up and say "this is fucking stupid" for most of these topics is broken.

Are you complaining about "Microaggressions" or how damaging the white culture of being on time is? Are you complaining about one of the most famous pieces of art being shown to kids in school?

Well, that's not worth anyone's time to even consider as an issue. You should scream into the void where nobody hears you.

I would disagree. The essence of many culture war issues is that our ability to stand up and say "this is fucking stupid" for most of these topics is broken.

YOU think they're stupid, but other people clearly don't. What happens to your community when you're done yelling "You're stupid!" at everyone you don't like? Do they agree and change into smart people? Do they grow to hate you? What has it accomplished? You have broken more than you were trying to fix.

EDIT: Also, I don't know what world you're living in, but the number of people saying "this is fucking stupid" seems to be at an all-time high. Have you seen Twitter? This the Daily Show-ification of public discourse. It makes the person saying "that's stupid" feel smug and makes everyone else hate them. Is it working?

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