site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Taking this guy's metaphor seriously, there's quite a bit of self-own aspect to it, given that X-Men's plot largely centers around the government actually wanting to genocide mutants in the sense of hunting them down and locking them up in camps/killing them. And mutants in X-Men also tend to be shown as superior to non-mutants in some meaningful concrete sense, which is what allows them to be the comic book superheroes they are (though there are plenty of downsides too). Also, he seems to be conflating "mutants" with "aliens" when he talks about mutants from outer space; mutants are definitionally humans with mutated genes.

I think if this clip gets any sort of traction in the progressive left, it will just be fairly standard fodder for "look at what this ignorant hateful bigot is saying about this oppressed minority. This is a truly mask-off moment that shows that our outgroup really is as evil as we say they are and all that talk about just protecting children and whatnot is just camouflage for their true desire to literally murder trans people." The fact that he's black wouldn't really play much into it, since black people (and other minorities) who don't toe the party line have generally not gotten any protection at all from the backlash; if anything, it tends to heighten it due to being perceived as a traitor to the cause. That latter part probably won't play a factor either, though, since blackness and transness, though grouped together under the wide umbrella of "oppressed minority," are still considered fairly distinct. And antipathy between black people and sexual minorities, particularly gay people, has been well known; and the sexual minorities win that oppression Olympics conflict at least 99 times out of 100.

While I agree with his argument. Am I correct that there’s some amusing about the video? Or do I have bad taste.