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 -
Is every fictional story a cuckold story? Whenever I enjoy a work of fiction, am I getting cucked? If I read Harry Potter for enjoyment, am I getting cucked?
If I can enjoy Harry Potter without being cucked, then why can't I enjoy porn without being cucked? We can subsume both experiences under a single general process of experiencing fiction. The fact that one is more likely to make me ejaculate than the other does not seem to me to be an essential difference.
Further, although it's perhaps a bit arguable, the "All porn is cuckhold porn" view doesn't seem to apply well to what I've always seen described as softcore porn: your classic Playboy features solo performers but still manages, um, titillation (although one could, IMO weakly, argue that Hefner served that role).
Even then, to use your example of fiction, there's a line -- a blurry one, sometimes -- between reading Harry Potter and appreciating its storytelling (for the articles, I swear!) and identifying with Harry as a self-insert. Excessive self-insertion even a frequent trope in low-quality fanfiction. There's always a bit of tension between wanting to be like the protagonist, and wanting to be the protagonist.
I do find the premise to be interesting, and possibly true in certain ways in lots of cases, but I don't think it's quite as all-encompassing as it's stated.
More options
Context Copy link
Reading fiction is a metaphorical cuckholding when the reader is watching the characters experience the narrative and discovery that they themselves want to experience.
This is not a bad thing about fiction, and it is not-not a bad thing. I think there's an important pattern to be noticed around 'cucking' and how we experience desire. I don't want to be making the worst argument in the world by tying this pattern to the negative connotations of 'cucking'.
If you read Harry Potter and enjoy it, there may be many reasons why you enjoy it. Learning character archetypes, learning more about oneself through reading, trying to predict what happens next, etc. But if you told me that you expressly enjoyed reading Harry Potter because you would love to go on a wizarding adventure and therefore enjoyed reading about someone else who could... well. Especially if you told me you'd rather read Harry Potter than go on your own adventure somehow.
Harry Potter's adventures are more interesting than my adventures in the day, because they're more exciting and I don't have to do any work to make them happen.
I think this focus on (the possibility of) self-inserting while reading literature, the idea that literature primarily exists to represent pleasant states of affairs, is misguided. It ignores whole genres that represent states of affairs that no one would want to experience: horror, true crime, surrealism, etc. It also ignores wide swaths of poetry and other types of non-representational writing. What would it mean to self-insert while reading Pound's Cantos or Eliot's The Waste Land?
I wouldn't phrase it in these terms, but I would suggest a concept of general aesthetic experience that goes beyond mere self-inserting or mere delight in mimesis. And I contend that this sort of general aesthetic experience can be applied to at least some works of pornography as well. Some porn is wildly imaginative (mainly in the sphere of written erotica, indie comics, and the like - not your average studio production) and shares the sorts of salutary properties and features that you find in other quality works of art.
Those miserable genres of media are known as Misery Porn. The reader wants to experience something about those cases (the desirability of the victim?) and can experience those thrills second hand, through the victim getting fucked by the world, much like a cuck watching someone experience what he is too insecure to experience himself. Hmm it's a stretch.
The boundary between art and porn is going to be complicated because neither concept is well defined. My view is that a few things are true:
there is porn (explicit video) that has artistic aesthetic value alongside the titillation. (eg through camerawork)
there is an art of making porn: where various representations of titillation are practiced.
there is a porn-like nature to all art: where it is trying to invoke a feeling in you without involving you in reality.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is one of the oldest arguments against fiction, famously. But I’ve always had the suspicion that people who love fiction the most often have highly overactive imaginations. They’re already doing the above in their heads, living lives they’ll never lead, that kind of thing. The book is only another vessel for the imagination, they wouldn’t set out on a real adventure either way.
As a fiction lover with an overactive imagination, that's essentially accurate.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link