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 -
Last night I wrote a follow up post to my Inferential Distance post from a month ago However in the hopes that it will get a bit more engagement I've decided to put on lay-away till the new thread is posted on Monday. That said, today is also Easter Sunday, and I feel that is worth commenting on in itself.
While admittedly there is some disagreement between calendars as well as much quibbling over precise historical dates, for the vast majority of people in the english-speaking world today marks the two-thousandth and twenty-third anniversary of the founding of Christianity. Regardless of whether you consider yourself a Christian or even consider yourself religious, the simple fact is that Christianity is one of the foundational pillars of Western Civilization. It is perhapse even the central one without which there would be no concept of "Western Civilization", as it is arguably the spread of Christianity from it's birthplace in modern day Isreal to Greece, Rome and beyond, coupled with the debates between Europe and Asia that rocked the early church that ultimately set "The West" apart as "Western".
Unless one has spent a lot of time immersed in a foreign culture or really dug into pre-Christian texts, I think it's hard for modern thinkers to truly appreciate just how radical Christianity was at the time of it's introduction and just how thoroughly it's concepts and parables underpin what we now think we know.
A classic example of this is the concept of there being a delineation between worldly questions of wealth and power and the more divine questions of morality and truth. (Rendering unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's) The exchange described in Mark 12:13-17 is a brilliant bit of verbal and philosophical Jujitsu that is difficult to appreciate if you're coming from a mind-space where some sort of separation between the "church" and "the state" or "clergyman" and "politician" is assumed to be the default. Something that was emphatically not the case in the ancient world.
Likewise, the idea that a man might be wealthy or powerful for reasons other than being favored by Fortune/God (or gods as required) was borderline seditious back in the day. Wealth and Power were supposed to be a manifestation of one's inherent superiority and right to rule. The idea that it might be attained through intelligence, diligence, guile, or luck, was seen by many as a genuine threat to social order.
These ideas and others carried with them whole rafts of social and cultural implications with them.
For all the talk of Christianity's waning influence, something people seem to forget or otherwise ignore is the effects of path dependance. Even if you identify as an Antinatilist Marxist Post-Human Gay Trans Furry Neo-Pagan Atheist, the fact remains that if English is your mother-tongue the social and cultural implications of Christianity are the water you've been swimming in your whole life.
You're welcome.
As He has risen so may we.
Happy Easter all.
Edit to add: For those interested the follow up to my inferential distance postes referenced above has since been posted. See...
https://www.themotte.org/post/440/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/85475
Like I said, something people seem to forget or otherwise ignore is the effects of path dependance.
As far as I know there've been only one or two Christian masses held in Hagia Sophia in the last 500 years, it's been a Mosque since the 1400s.
Atheists in general and RETVRN types in particular like to claim that Constantine's conversion was a cynical ploy to ensure the loyalty of his army and the support of the plebs. That a claim may even be factually correct. But if it is it kind of undermines much of their broader rhetoric about Christianity being imposed, wouldn't the would-be emperor feigning conversion to gain a political advantage imply that "the masses" already been converted?
The Vatican is the seat of the Catholic church because the Visigoths who sacked Rome in the 5th century were themselves Christian. For the most part they respected claims of sanctuary and honored the Bishop of Rome's request to spare the library. Would anything of Rome or classical Greece have survived to this day in the absence of Christianity? I'm not so sure. It's not like we see the Chinese or Maratha or the Comanche going out of their way to preserve the writings and culture of conquered peoples.
The Arabs inherited the bureaucracy of Rome and also famously transmitted a lot of Greek philosophy back into Christian Europe. Though, the Sunnis largely turned against Greek philosophy, the Shiites are still Platonists.
The Chinese did in fact preserve the writings of conquered peoples. They preserved Buddhist writings that they received from central Asian peoples who they would come to conquer. Buddhism was at it's peak in China under the Tang Dynasty that had conquered the Iranian and Tocharian peoples in the Tarim Basin.
And yet the wealthiest bits of the Roman Empire (by the end of the 3rd century constitutional crisis, it was clear that the core was the east and the periphery was the west, but this was the politics coming to reflect an economic situation that predated the rise of Rome) are now basket cases under Islamic rule, whereas the bits which stayed Christian are "Western Civilization". This requires explanation.
As a quibble, the Shiites largely operate in former Persian territory, not former Roman territory. Until the Khomieni regime repudiated the Persian inheritance in favour of pure Islam, Shia Iran made a big deal out of its claim to historical continuity with Achaemenid and Sassanian Persia - i.e. explicitly not Rome.
The bits that stayed Orthodox Christian are also basket cases. Look no further than Ukraine and Russia. Nations that only stay relevant due to fossil fuel reserves.
Actually Shiites largely operated in Egypt under the Fatamid dynasty in the medieval period. Iran was actually overwhelmingly Sunni before the rise of the Safavid Empire in the Early Modern period. They weren't Shia before that.
Your claim is laughably bad.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The Arabs preserved a Christian Roman bureaucracy, Christianity still forms a bridge of several centuries, and indeed it's not entirely clear that either the proto Muslims of the time or the Romans they conquered thought of Islam as a distinct concept versus a fresh sect of Christianity.
More options
Context Copy link
TIL, can you point me towards a specific time period and/or examples?
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/buddhism-early-tang
That's the first google search result. That China and East Asia more generally preserved Buddhism, despite it dying off in India, is well known.
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