site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 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.

9
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Turn the switch off and it's all forgotten. Like it never even happened.

One thing that's pretty funny about it if you're able to remove yourself from the darkness a bit is that the people who still seem to be holding some remaining fear are almost exclusively the smartest and the dumbest. Where I live, it's basically only underclass people and academic types that are still wearing masks. The people in the smart group seem to be operating on the basis that nothing changed and that Covid is still very concerning because of long Covid and therefore they will continue to mask up; nothing much changed between the post-vax summer when masks were still required and the present time, so they're able to think through it be confused at why people dropped masking. The dumbest seem to just kind of keep doing the same thing without any meaningful thought behind it - I see these people walking around with masks on their chins still, in 2023.

The middle, the ordinary grill-pilled Americans, seem perfectly content with the idea that two years of deranged behavior successfully stopped the new plague, so everything can be normal again.

It's the bell curve meme!

There's a family in my neighborhood -- mom, dad, three kids -- that takes walks together every day. Still fully masked even outdoors.

I think mom relaxed the rule for one of her kids. She was out with just the one kid when we ended up crossing paths on a narrow trail and as soon as she saw me she was calling to her kid to mask up. It also wasn't a normal surgical mask, it was some kind of child ventilator with a rubber seal.

This is a wealthy area of the Pacific Northwest, so they're probably on the smart end.

In my corner of the world I see a lot more Women than men wearing masks. And my suspicion is that they do it just to forego Make up for half of their face, instead of for any real concern over Covid.

I have a similar experience, except that I've heard them say that they use it to not feel ugly. The eyes tend to be the most attractive part of someone's face and it's relatively easy to make them look better using make-up. It's harder with a mouth, chin, jawline, cheeks etc.