site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yes, there is evidence that nonviolent protest is a better strategy than terrorism, when your audience is liberal enlightenment democratic republic types with some decent baseline respect for he rule of law.

But, surely that is the context for this discussion, is it not?

Also, there’s an argument to be made that MLK started looking much more attractive to the powers that be, who regarded him as a commie radical and had the FBI surveilling and harassing him, once the alternative was young black men open-carrying in the streets.

Didn't most of the successes of the Civil Rights Movement precede the emergence of young black men open-carrying in the streets? The Black Panthers were formed in 1966, for example. Stokely Carmichael replaced John Lewis as head of SNCC in the same year.

why compare the civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance of MLK to the profound obedience of men who took up arms for a government that dispossessed their ethnic group?

Well, I was really contrasting them with those who use violence for political ends. And, I initially suggested them as people who addressed the question ostensibly posed by OP re duty to a society that discrimates against you. It was only after the claim that they were "cucks" that I compared them with other "cucks" like MLK.

But these are very different strategies for securing one’s place in the social order.

As I understand it, leaders of the Japanese American community pushed the government to allow Nisei to volunteer for the military, while simultaneously pushing for more equal treatment. And of course civil rights leaders pointed to military service by African Americans as a reason for ending discrimination. So I don’t know that they are all that different.