site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Holly Math Nerd (by her accounts a victim of rape as a child, and hence hypersensitive to this kind of thing) has argued that child gender transition is a covert attempt to normalize paedophilia/child rape by alternate means. Her argument goes: if you think a small child is mature enough to consent to a mastectomy, surgery which will permanently sterilize them, and hormones with a host of side effects - why wouldn't you then think that they are mature enough to consent to having sex? Having sex with someone (even someone twice their age) seems like small beer compared to sterilization.

A few years ago I'd probably have scoffed at this argument as a paranoid far-right conspiracy theory. After learning that a senior member of Mermaids, a widely praised* UK charity for trans children and teenagers which has received public funding, is an outspoken pro-paedophilia advocate, I'm not so sure.

There could be a bit of a bootlegger-baptist coalition going on. The baptists are people who sincerely believe that trans children are in immense psychic distress for whom medical transition is the best option available. The bootleggers are the medical and pharmaceutical companies who stand to make a packet off surgeries, puberty blockers and lifetime hormone prescriptions; and people like the Mermaids guy above, pursuing the agenda for ulterior reasons.


*By everyone from Emma Watson and Harry & Meghan, to Starbucks and Wagamama.

The rather obvious problem for the LGBT community and the rest of us is that we cannot even point out the bootleggers without being labeled. No matter how nicely you point out the connection between letting small children make sexual decisions (or that the adults are pushing, often covertly for sexual discussions and books without parents consent) the answer is you are a horrible bigot for even thinking like that. Which means either you have to reject the Baptists outright or accept them and everything they want to do. This hurts the Baptists because people don’t want strange adults teaching their kids sexual content, especially without their consent.

Maybe the reason why I keep getting baffled by all those "actually this elite progressive is a pro-paedo" is that on the ground level, I see pretty much no increase in tolerance towards paedos. In fact the age gap taboo keeps expanding to cover age gaps between adults. If all those elites are pushing LGBT for the nefarious purpose of adding P, they don't seem to be doing a good job at all. Their successes, if any, of 50-100 years ago are completely negated.

Maybe the reason why I keep getting baffled by all those "actually this elite progressive is a pro-paedo" is that on the ground level, I see pretty much no increase in tolerance towards paedos.

Tolerance and enacting justice against are not always the same. If the surrounding edifice of the movement means one guy gets 10x the sentence he would have, but 100 that would have been detected slip on by, the criminal movement, as a whole, prospers. And that seems to be the result of the LGBT ideology. They engage in actions indistinguishable from true sexual grooming and molestation, unless you have a mind probe and a camera in the room.

Be specific. What actions and how are they connected to the LGBT movement?

Distributing erotic literature featuring sex between adults and children, that is so raunchy that members of the school board interrupt reading from it, out of concern for the children who might be present at the meeting.

It is connected to the LGBT movement because the literature is written, published, distributed, and defended when it comes under criticism, by LGBT activists.

Sounds more like 1 guy slipping by reading raunchy literature, while 100 guys get 10x sentences for anything more serious.

I don't follow what you're even saying? The person reading was a woman trying to raise awareness about the books available in school libraries... how did she slip? Who is getting 10x sentences? What does that have to do with actions indistinguishable from grooming?

I am saying you're anti-dan is making implications that there was a net increase in child molestation because of overly permissive LGBT policies without evidence.

More comments