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 -
When there are more men writers it’s prima facie evidence of discrimination; when there are more women writers it’s because men suck.
This type of asymmetry is everywhere and it is always completely predictable how it will go from relative positions on the oppression hierarchy.
I've had similar thoughts when it comes to language. Is it sexist if a gendered language (like Spanish) treats the masculine as the default case, or e.g. that words like "mankind" is based on the masculine word? If it was the inverse, would people complain that the male had it's own superior "exceptional" category and the female was simply generic?
To avoid trying to draw conclusions from hypotheticals, do you have any examples of
If so, it would show that hand-wringing over masculine-default terms is who/whom / motivated complaining / isolated demand for rigor.
I can provide here.
In French we've had multiple waves of performative linguistic alterations of gender in many contradictory directions.
In my youth it used to be appropriate to refer to women in positions of power by using the masculine (Madame le Ministre) because to use a special word would imply women in those positions were different or lesser in dignity.
These days it's appropriate to use the feminine (Madame la Ministre) because to not feminize titles would imply that women were not worthy of such titles.
The paradox here of course is that properly speaking French has no masculine, only neutral and feminine, and this state of affairs can and has been twisted in all possible directions for linguistic novelty, from creating all new feminized titles where neutral titles existed (Autrice) to adding dots in the middle of words to signify explicit inclusion in the political sense (Auteur.ice).
All this forever in the service of the cause of women of course.
Though I might also have an interesting counterfactual. Because a very long time ago the switch to the grammatical rule that says groups of mixed gender are considered masculine (that is to say neutral) instead of of the last gender mentioned was done on political grounds because men were deemed of a greater station. Or so I've been taught.
Of course all that I've been taught of linguistics tells me this prescriptivism is nonsense and of those proposed fads only persist those that actually simplify use. But who can say?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link