site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

It's hilarious (and by that I of course mean: pathetic) that revealing things like blatantly cheating at a presidential debate means that Hilary Clinton (the cheater) is somehow the victim.

"Oh no, you've revealed what a corrupt person I am. I am the victim here!"

It's actually sortof incredible how well they framed that one to their advantage.

Here's the hard truth that will be difficult to stomach - Donald Trump was also a victim of the crimes carried about by Russia. He was a victim of their foreign influence attempts. A victim of their attempt to recruit members of his circle. A victim of the fact that their crimes tainted, put an asterisk on, his election in the minds of millions of people. A victim of the resultant investigation that hamstrung his administration for years. While he benefited by having the crimes of Manafort/Cohen discovered and prosecuted before putting them in any real positions of power, he was a victim of the process in that it removed his National Security Advisor for utterly bullshit reasons that ultimately stemmed from the investigation into Russia's crimes.

It's only because of our screwed up partisanship that essentially no one is okay with saying both of these true things. Some folks on the right can't bring themselves to acknowledge that Hilary was genuinely a victim of Russia's crimes. Some folks on the left can't bring themselves to acknowledge that Trump was, too. We could have had a moment of all acknowledging that Russia victimized Hilary, Trump, and America... and maybe, we could have gotten our shit together in order to actually do something real about it, but instead, we get partisan pissing matches.