site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 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.

I have little to add, but I found my experience with the social "sciences" to be similar to yours, and it was discovering this about 10 years ago that made me disillusioned with the social justice/identity politics left. I'm not a scientist, but I did have enough experience with it in college and liked it enough to keep abreast of it after, and the common theme in science, the underlying principle that makes science science, seemed clear to me to be being open to oppositional perspectives. The more I looked into it, and the more rigorous any science got, the more welcoming and actively encouraging of skepticism and attempts to disprove claims it seemed to be. But most social "sciences" do not follow this at all and have, in fact, built up a whole structure of justifications for why basic scientific skepticism is wrong. That's not a science by any meaningful sense of the term, and it can't be expected to land on truth except by complete chance (likely worse than chance, due to how it's not a complete random process but rather follows incentives of its own based around social approval and signalling).

It's a shame, because social science is something that potentially could add immense value to the world through actual production of knowledge. And some of it does seem to happen, just completely drowned out by the monstrosity that wears "social science" like a skinsuit. I think about something the social scientist Jon Haidt (I think) said about biases and belief, that if someone is biased towards something, then when presented with evidence that reinforces the bias, they think "CAN I believe this," but when presented with evidence that counters the bias, they think "MUST I believe this?" If social scientists can just try to avoid this fairly obvious pitfall and force themselves to always look for excuses not to believe evidence that reinforces their biases (e.g. that some patterns of behavior must have social/cultural origins rather than biological ones), they might be able to contribute to the betterment of humanity. Sadly, they mostly seem to be committed to the exact opposite.

Jon Haidt (I think) said about biases and belief, that if someone is biased towards something, then when presented with evidence that reinforces the bias, they think "CAN I believe this," but when presented with evidence that counters the bias, they think "MUST I believe this?

I think that sentiment goes back to Thucydides, if not earlier.

Now I’m interested. What did Thucydides say?

It might be a different translation that what I remember, but the closest I could find is, "for it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy".

I'll try to keep looking, as I preferred the wording I half-remember.

edit: "When a man finds a conclusion agreeable, he accepts it without argument, but when he finds it disagreeable, he will bring against it all the forces of logic and reason".

Note that it wouldn't surprise me if this wasnt actually Thucydides, but that someone said it was, like how everything gets attributed to Twain, Lincoln, or Disraeli.