site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   32531 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

My understanding is that the Brahmin caste in India is directly descended from the Aryan overclass who ruled the Indus Valley civilization, although they have obviously taken on substantial admixture from the indigenous Dravidian populations in the intervening millennia.

The castes correlate with indo-european admixture, but it's still too low to resemble anything you would call a direct descendant, in the way you wouldn't call a mestizo a direct descendant of Europeans. It's a case of ethnogenesis. I haven't seen PCA/clustering with the caste systems compared to European groups but I imagine that would demonstrate this point as well.

It's also likely the caste system was created in response to racial changes among the ruling class, so substantial changes likely happened before the formalization of the caste system. Where are the conquistadores today? Even if a caste system were created in Latin America today, the upper castes would still have a substantial amount of indigenous admixture.

It's interesting to consider how the Spanish intermixed with the natives which the Anglos did not.

Where are the conquistadores today? Even if a caste system were created in Latin America today, the upper castes would still have a substantial amount of indigenous admixture.

Actually, from what I understand the political/cultural/financial elite in Mexico, Brazil, and the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay) has very little non-European admixture at all. In Mexico they’re descended largely from conquistadors (hence Steve Sailer’s epithet “Conquistador-American” for people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), but in other parts of Latin America they’re just as likely to be of Italian and German ancestry. I can’t speak to the more undeveloped parts of Latin America.

but it's still too low to resemble anything you would call a direct descendant, in the way you wouldn't call a mestizo a direct descendant of Europeans

What does “it’s still too low” mean in this context?

It means it's a mixed population, at least in the present day:

To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA and Y-chromosome ...variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank.

...

Our analysis of 40 autosomal markers indicates clearly that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians. The high affinity of caste Y chromosomes with those of Europeans suggests that the majority of immigrating West Eurasians may have been males. As might be expected if West Eurasian males appropriated the highest positions in the caste system, the upper caste group exhibits a lower genetic distance to Europeans than the middle or lower castes. This is underscored by the observation that the Kshatriya (an upper caste), whose members served as warriors, are closer to Europeans than any other caste (data not shown). Furthermore, the 32-bp deletion polymorphism in CC chemokine receptor 5, whose frequency peaks in populations of Eastern Europe, is found only in two Brahmin males (M. Bamshad and S.K. Ahuja, unpubl.). The stratification of Y-chromosome distances with Europeans could also be caused by male-specific gene flow among caste populations of different rank.

In that way modern western europeans aren't "Aryans" either, they have significant admixture from Anatolian farmers.

True, but the Yamnaya themselves had admixture from European Hunter-Gatherers and Anatolian Farmers (to a lesser extent). Norwegians/Finns have the most Yamnaya admixture IIRC (funny enough the Nazis were right about that).

But I'll fully admit that there's a mythological component to a name or racial identity. Modern Jews are admixed descendants (at best) from the Hebrews of the bible. I'm not adamant about the term "Aryan" but it contains the right ingredients of historicity and mythology to formulate a pan-European identity. If not that term, there must be a term that is better, but there is not so far as I can tell. "White" would be the closest but it has a lot of downsides. The biggest downside of "Aryan" is that that term is taboo, but that also gives it a sort of power. It invokes a feeling when people say it or hear it, and that might be the most important feature of the word.

I of course do not discount the Aryan contribution to Indian religion, language, culture, and civilization. Buddha is White by the way, don't @ me.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats