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 -
There's often a point to feigning ignorance: if the censor refuses to state what is banned because doing so would be embarrassing or expose hypocrisy, he's already feigning ignorance. You can then honestly say "by your openly expressed standards, there's nothing wrong with this", because he shouldn't be hiding his standards in the first place.
I think this is such a case. Yes, QF knows what supporting the boycott actually means, but likewise, the moderators know why they're not letting people support the boycott, and they're refusing to say it.
As a complete aside, that feigning ignorance of the true standards is the part of the whole affirmative action debate I find most infuriating. If organizations were required to just say something like, "We, Harvard/Yale/whatever consider you, an Asian, as having lesser worth to our organization on the basis of your intrinsic Asian-ness and as such we'll dock you points compared to individuals of other races that we have judged to provide greater value to our organization when you try to join us," it would, perhaps be not nice, but at least it would be honest. The judgments of the people making these decisions would be laid bare for the rest of society to judge and make decisions based on. There could be honest discussions on whether or not such judgments by such organizations are moral and policy discussions on how much they should be allowed. Yet they insist on continuing to (attempt to) hide the ball. All part of the game, I suppose.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link