site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36366 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 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.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Twitter: BBC objects to 'government funded media' label

"The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee," it said.

When BBC News highlighted to the Twitter boss that the corporation was licence fee-funded, Mr Musk responded in an email, asking: "Is the Twitter label accurate?"

The level of the £159 ($197) annual licence fee - which is required by law to watch live TV broadcasts or live streaming in the UK - is set by the government, but paid for by individual UK households.

Collection of the the licence fee and enforcement of non-payment is carried out by private companies contracted by the corporation, not the UK government.

TV licence evasion itself is not an imprisonable offence. However, non-payment of a fine, following a criminal conviction, could lead to a risk of imprisonment - "a last resort" after other methods of enforcement have failed.

I'm sorry, I don't really see the point of the complaints. Or rather: I see a point, but it's not interesting or flattering.

The BBC license it's mandated by the government.

The fact that artists and defenders of the BBC itself argue attempts to remove the 'fee' will harm programming or is a deliberate attempt to cow the BBC also militates towards the conclusion that the worries implied by "state-affiliated" or "state-funded" apply - though I grant that it is a more refined arrangement than direct payment.

Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell said: “The cat is out of the bag. The Prime Minister thinks those reporting on his rule breaking should pay consequences, whilst he gets off free.

"The Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary seem hell-bent on attacking this great British institution because they don’t like its journalism.”

So...the government not imposing a "fee" is an attack on an institution's functioning but we're supposed to act like it isn't a tax or the BBC isn't government funded?

So what reason does anyone (not benefiting from media branding) have to take any of this seriously? It seems to me that the real basis for complaint here is that BBC doesn't want to even theoretically be in the same bucket as Al Jazeera and RT. But it is precisely the media's fault that terms like "state media" are so badly received. Just as it is the media that marks certain dictators as "reformers" and others "strongmen" with "regimes" to aid its attempts to manufacture consent. They constructed this complex of Words That Hint At Things But Can't Be Called Out Cause They're Technically Correct.

So, because the media doesn't want to be marked by its own taboo-words and bad branding everyone is supposed to pretend that an entity funded by a government mandated license, whose supporters claim would fail without aforementioned government mandate everyone is supposed to ignore the correct labeling?

I thought the NPR label was a bit tenuous (assuming the 10% government funding stat I’ve seen is accurate), but the BBC is absolutely state-run media.

The whole “editorial independence” thing is a joke. Here’s a test: could the BBC run a piece calling the Queen a cunt without government consequences? If they couldn’t, then they aren’t editorially independent.

NPR receives half a billion per year from the federal government.

If that sum is irrelevant, they should stop taking it and become genuinely independent from government funding to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest over an irrelevant sum of money. If it is relevant, then they are a government-funded media outlet.

NPR's entire total revenue is under $300 million: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/

Did you really assume that every dollar the CPB spends goes to NPR?

That's not a good test. A good test would be - if BBC did something the government really hated, could the government pull their financing? It doesn't have to be something obscene or revolting, just something that is very inconvenient for the government. If they could, then they exist at the sufferance of the government, and their "independence" is just a leash that is long enough for them not to feel it, but it's still there. If they could not, or it would be very hard (e.g. on the level of passing Constitutional amendment in the US) - then there's a real independence, even if technically financed by the governmental decree.

In theory, any government could retaliate against a sufficiently annoying journalist - even in countries with well established norms around the freedom of the press, there are many informal ways that a journalist might feel the displeasure of the government. But of course, there's a big difference between being arrested or censored for telling the wrong story, and simply facing a social or career penalty or losing access.

Personally, it's my observation that it's quite the opposite. In many circles one now faces a penalty for siding with the government, and journalists are taught to see themselves as agents of disruption, as adversaries to established power.

any government could retaliate against a sufficiently annoying journalist

Well, yes, the question is how easy it is to do that and what would be the consequences. When we see something like this:

The email, sent to correspondents at just after 6pm on the day lockdown was announced, was labelled: IMPORTANT ADVISORY – language re broadcast. “Hi all – D st are asking if we can avoid the word ‘lockdown’. I’m told the message will be that they want to keep pushing people to stay at home but they are not talking about enforcement at the moment,” it said.

can we still claim they are "independent"? If the government can tell (successfully) the journalists what words to use, is it not government-controlled speech?

In many circles one now faces a penalty for siding with the government, and journalists are taught to see themselves as agents of disruption

What circles are those? What I am seeing more and more nowdays is that the journalists are taught to be always the agents of The Swamp, and if The Swamp is by some freak accident of nature is temporarily not controlling the government, then disruption it is, until things return to the normal. Once they do, the journalists go back to serving as a branch of the government.

I wouldn't write that either, but that's not because the government pays me to do so.

That's a bad test of independence. If most major news organizations ran such a piece the people responsible would be removed or disciplined just for being unprofessional.

Elon Musk can say whatever he wants on Twitter. There is nobody at the BBC who can say whatever they want, except the government.

Elon Musk can say whatever he wants on Twitter.

Can he?

"Settlement Requires Musk to Step Down as Tesla’s Chairman; Tesla to Appoint Additional Independent Directors; Tesla and Musk Agree to Pay $40 Million in Penalties"

“At the same time, however, even Musk concedes that his free speech rights do not permit him to engage in speech that is or could ‘be considered fraudulent or otherwise violative of the securities laws.'”

He won the private securities fraud action but he still had to agree to a bunch of SEC requirements in his settlement right?

Literally, intentionally false statements can have consequences. Opinions should never be banned in a free society.

He doesn’t seem too scared of financial regulators at the moment. “Dogecoin jumps more than 30% after Musk changes Twitter logo to image of shiba inu”

So he can't say whatever he wants without suffering consequences?

I would not contest that Musk has a wider swathe of things he can say without consequence, than a BBC editor but it isn't "whatever he wants".

Let me rephrase. He can say whatever he thinks. If he has an opinion, he can tweet it. If he has an idea, he can tweet it.

No employee at any news organization can say 'whatever they want', they're subject to standards of relevance and professionalism. It isn't a good illustration of how the British Government influences the BBC to say that writers/pundits can't call the queen a cunt, because neither could writers at almost all small time American newspapers. Not because the British Government secretly controls them, but because they have voluntarily adopted professional standards that preclude it.

It’s not that each individual employee couldn’t do it. It’s that nobody at all could do it, not even in principle. Jeff Bezos could call Obama the N-word on the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow. Who could do that at the BBC? What group of people could do that? I suspect the only group that could is parliament.

If your point is that all media, even privately funded outlets, are like this in the UK, then I concede. In fact all UK outlets should have “government censored media” labels which link to an outline of the relevant laws and regulations.

I'm not trying to make a statement about the current state of British media, just calling out a poor argument. That the BBC doesn't do something (call the queen a cunt) that almost every media organization, even those not in the UK, voluntarily refrains from doing, does not provide much evidence of the level of editorial control that parliament exercises.

Any publicly traded media company would also have no individual who could call the queen a cunt without being punished by the board. If the entire board decided to call the queen a cunt on the front page they could probably be sued by share holders for damaging the company. Theoretically you could coordinate all the shareholders to approve, but that's implausible and I'm not sure why that should be a meaningful distinction between company's.

The point is 'ability to say whatever you want' doesn't practically exist at most major news companies and if you want to say the BBC as 'state owned media' is categorically different from a publicly traded American news company in a significant way you need a better example.

A month ago the BBC suspended their most famous personality for tweeting something critical of the government's asylum policies.

That is because one of the "deals" for the BBC not to be seen as partisan is that its big personalities and newscasters should try to not be partisan on areas which are Labour vs Conservative. Whether they would have suspended him for being equally of critical of the oppositions positions is the question.

They would get OFCOM consequences as would any media organization trying to do that in the UK. They could run a story that the Queen was corrupt (though they would need to have sourced that impeccably). They probably can run a story saying the prime minister is incompetent for example.

The whole “editorial independence” thing is a joke. Here’s a test: could the BBC run a piece calling the Queen a cunt without government consequences? If they couldn’t, then they aren’t editorially independent.

The point is that because of ofcom no one in UK can run a piece calling the Queen a cunt so BBC is not in anyway more or less restricted than the other media. They are not court appointed jester. And the charming lady didn't deserve it, unlike some of her sons and one of her grandsons.

And the charming lady didn't deserve it

Queen Elizabeth was an direct inheritor of stolen wealth who personally claimed fame, importance, and power for the sole reason that her ancestors were some of the worst war criminals who ever lived. For the reason she didn't renounce it all as soon as she could, she definitely deserves every insult.

The point is that because of ofcom no one in UK can run a piece calling the Queen a cunt

This makes matters even worse. I think we have an obligation to insult world leaders this morally compromised who protect themselves from criticism through censorious laws and policies. In that spirit, Queen Elizabeth is a dead, inbred, nepo-baby under the delusion that her family's legacy of warcrimes was something to be proud of and (example below) Xi Jinping is an incompetent Winnie-the-Pooh look-alike running the world's second-largest economy into the ground. Don't be afraid to say so!

  • -17

For the reason she didn't renounce it all as soon as she could, she definitely deserves every insult. . . . I think we have an obligation to insult world leaders this morally compromised who protect themselves from criticism through censorious laws and policies.

It is permissible to argue this here.

In that spirit, Queen Elizabeth is...

What is not permissible here is actually delivering the invective. It's the epitome of pure heat, no light. You can argue that it should be permitted; it is not permitted here.

her ancestors were some of the worst war criminals who ever lived.

There's no need to insult Shaka Zulu, Julius Caesar, Temujin (aka Chinngis Khan), Attila, or Timur like that.

Yes, I know, and maybe about 50 others? Once you reach a certain level I'm not sure distinguishing who was absolutely worst is relevant and probably pretty impossible---how do you weight how many were affected, how brutal they were to each individual, how they were relative to others at the time, what they personally did vs. what others did on their orders, etc. This is why I said "some of the".

The British Empire was pretty exceptional in its scale and recency however.

I don't think the entirety of the British Empire can be laid at the feet of titular monarchs. Certainly George VI had no control over Churchill's actions with regard to the Bengal famine. And the conquest of India wasn't done by royal command, but instead by a corporation originally chartered just to trade. The British monarchs certainly didn't exercise the personal control that the people I named did.

Given that all empires everywhere and forever have done evil, I'd sooner distinguish them by what good they've done. From my American perspective, the British Empire might be the all-time winner for its role in creating the amazingly prosperous anglophone nations and for their role in preserving historical treasures. When the Ottomans were busy destroying the Parthenon with carelessly stored gunpowder, the British were spending their treasure to preserve what was left of it. Sure, I can find plenty of bad things that the British Empire did, but the world is better for its existence.

Once you reach a certain level I'm not sure distinguishing who was absolutely worst is relevant and probably pretty impossible

The British, however, did not reach that level.

Queen Elizabeth was an direct inheritor of stolen wealth who personally claimed fame, importance, and power for the sole reason that her ancestors were some of the worst war criminals who ever lived.

Worst war criminals with better technology, manpower, institutions and education. Also it was conquered fair and square, not stolen. Vae Victis.

If the word "fair" appies to conquering in your books then you might as well own stealing as well. After all, conquering is merely stealing while having enough manpower to do so openly.

Not quite. A state is monopoly of violence over certain territory. That's it. If a state conquers another state - than the first state had no business existing in the first place, so all property rights guaranteed by the conquered state are void

That's an unusual view. Might makes right is really not generally accepted as a good basis for morality. I guess it's best to link that instead of me badly summarizing a bunch of well-known arguments.

Edit: I think I understand better---you're saying that morality for countries/civilizations interacting is very different than that for people. I agree that this is probably true, but it would still be nice to justify why this particular difference exists. I think all the logic for might makes right being wrong for people transfers over? Most simply, it's better if societies could focus their energies on productive endeavors instead of zero-sum building of war-making potential so they can conquer and avoid being conquered.

Might does not make right between people only because there are legal systems in place that codify rights on bases other than might. Such systems do not exist between states, or are ineffective.

Might makes right is really not generally accepted as a good basis for morality.

Sure it is; that's why human beings seek might in the first place.

Standard operating procedure for the mighty is to claim that business and honor march hand in hand; specifically, a realist practice that ceases to be profitable for the mightiest is a useful cassus belli (militarily or financially) against the dishonorable opponent who might still otherwise be in a position to extract some benefit from it.

For example, a country whose economy means men and women aren't equally productive only granting rights to the more capable gender in aggregate will find itself labelled as "immoral" by a mightier country seeking to hinder their development until they obey.

This just means that there is no media outlet with “editorial independence” in the UK. Government funding + no editorial independence = state-run media.

And the charming lady didn’t deserve it

Of course not, just like Paramount Leader doesn’t deserve to be compared to Winnie The Pooh after doubling China’s GDP. Certainly we can agree that such common-sense regulations are necessary for the proper functioning of society.

Government funding + no editorial independence = state-run media.

Defining state-run media this way implies that the government funding is connected to the lack of editorial independence, which is false here.

The government funding implies a “don’t piss off the government too much” rule, at least more so than privately funded media orgs.

But the rule applies equally to the BBC and to privately funded media orgs. There is no "more so than" here.

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