It’s been pointed out recently that the topics discussed in the Culture War thread have gotten a bit repetitive. While I do think the Motte has a good spread on intellectual discussion, I’m always pushing for a wider range (dare I say diversity?) of viewpoints and topics in the CW thread.
I was a lurker for years, and I know that the barrier between having a thought and writing a top level comment in the CW thread can loom large indeed. Luckily I’m fresh out of inspiration, and would love to hear thoughts from folks about effortposts they want to write but haven’t gotten around to.
This of course applies to regulars who post frequently as well - share any and all topics you wish were discussed in the CW thread!
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
If something is bothering me enough I'm usually able to get out a post about it. The writing process can be therapeutic.
There are some things that don't bother me quite enough to get a post out, but they have been kicking around in my head.
When to NOT be inclusive (3 votes). I have a small group of neighborhood guys/dads that I like hanging out with. There is a larger group of neighborhood women/moms that also hangout. I was recently chastised for being exclusive by one of the neighborhood moms, cuz I wasn't inviting the whole group of dads to events. This bothered me a lot more than it should have, and I had some thoughts on why. But talking it out with people in person was generally enough to calm me down. I think it has wider implications, and I might have spun it out to be about people having tribes/families where they belong.
Road name changes. I live on a street that had its name changed. I watched the whole process. I thought it might have been of some interest for people to see a real life culture war play out. Alas, I was too bored and annoyed with the whole thing to even bother following it in real life, much less follow it online. I also would have semi-doxed myself.
Doxing myself (1 vote). Speaking of doxing, since we have moved to this website, and since I have a job where I feel pretty safe from unjustified online harassment. I have considered going public with my identity here. I use a real image of myself in my profile. The danger of someone going after my job is close to zero, but I still have a family and personal security. So I've mostly decided against doing this. About 8 years ago I started writing online as if I'd have to defend anything I wrote to family/friends/co-workers. I live online as if I am about to be doxxed. Its possible I could write a post about this without doxxing myself, but I find I'd be tempted to do it anyways just to make the post slightly more interesting.
A divided family (2 votes). My mother votes democrat, my father votes republican. They have long disagreed on politics. It was scary to see how close the Trump presidency got to actually causing my parents to get a divorce. A divorce over politics! They've mostly gotten over that, and they are back to pre-trump levels of political disagreement. I considered a post where I'd go over their history and political beliefs. And then how Trump has been the perfect scissor subject for them.
Beliefs Post. I thought about nominating myself to do one of the posts where you describe all your beliefs. I realized I shouldn't because it looked like a lot of work, and of the 20ish previous posts I only read maybe 2 or 3 of them. I do love navel gazing though.
I would be interested in #4. I am in a divided marriage and I don't see many people even attempting it anymore. I was pregnant in 2016, which is probably the main thing that kept us together during the Trump madness.
I honestly almost get the impression that political disagreement in relationships is more the norm than then exception, though I'm also from a country with a lot more viable parties so it's much more likely to vote for different parties here. My mom is a family-focused conservative, my dad a strongly pro-union moderate socialist. But they get along very well. Likewise I'm libertarianish, while my wife used to be a card-carrying communist. Though we have moved a lot closer politically over time and over our shared disdain for current wokeness. Her sister is in a similar boat, with almost identical political (dis-)agreements. I know plenty of relationships where it's obvious that the girl is broadly in favor of wokeness but the guy broadly against it.
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I am also sort of in a divided marriage. I say sort of because my wife doesn't hold very strong political views. I also have libertarian beliefs, and I never really expected to find someone that shared my beliefs. So it has never been even the slightest impediment. If I had ever let politics become a barrier to forming relationships ... I'd have no one to talk to.
For my parents it was more of a thing of minor annoyances. It felt similar in seriousness to their arguments about doing chores around the house. The real underlying problem seemed to be that they were running out of activities to do together. The kids had left the nest. They had very few mutual friends and the few they had became either obsessed with hating trump or cheering him on. And while they could sort of stand politically disagreeing with each other, its another thing to tolerate strong political disagreement with a friend. Especially when that is all you are going to talk about. My dad was physically deteriorating, and my mom was extra busy at work right before her retirement. Their one shared project for most of their lives was working on house projects together, my mom didn't have the time, and my dad couldn't physically keep doing them.
Its all ended up better. They got some meal subscription kits, and there are more grand kids now. So they cook and drink together, or watch the grand kids together. They also bought electric bikes and went on a multi-state trip to different parks to bike together and visit some distant friends.
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