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 -
I read something today which I have long thought deep down, but hadn’t really seen spelled out elsewhere.
Namely, the censoring done by the liberal left, while there, is rather mild in the scheme of things and is probably much less than the same left would be censored by the people it currently censors if that group was in power.
The quote that brought it to my mind was from here, on Richard Hannania’s substack. After a post discussing being banned by Twitter, he drops this at the end of the article.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/saying-goodbye-to-twitter
The attitude of censoring opponents seemed to have crystallized for the left around 2016, where I distinctly remember the conversation centering around the limits of tolerating intolerant ideologies. (Which seems to have become fully settled by now, interesting to observe an ideological movement update in real time in that way).
Does Hannania have a point here? Is the issue that the right takes offense with censorship itself, or would the right if it actually gained back power censor in a much more strict and comprehensive way?
I think that anything Hanania writes ought to be taken with an entire sack of salt. When I first encountered him I thought he was a parody account along the same lines of Titania McGrath, but now I think he's something more along the Moldbug. IE an edgy left-wing activist type who started out as a tankie only to realize that there was nothing "edgy" about being a tankie in places like Berkley or the University of Chicago.
Censorship in the name of public health and safety has been a component of the progressive platform going back to Woodrow Wilson and FDR. The impression that this really only crystalized in 2016 is presumably a product of being too you to remember the 90s and Clinton's efforts to quash talk radio and the nascent internet coupled with revionionist histories by left leaning journalists. For the record it wasn't conservative republicans pushing the Comics Code in the 50s and 60s or trying to get D&D and violent video games banned in the 80s and 90s, it was people like Fredric Wertham, and Tipper Gore.
I am old enough to remember the 80s and 90s, and your history is inaccurate. Sure, Fredric Wertham and Tipper Gore were flagbearers, there have always been liberal activists crying "Think of the children!" But I also remember the Moral Majority. I also remember who was railing against D&D: it wasn't liberals, it was conservative Christians. Same with rock and rap, Tipper Gore and Bill Clinton's Sister Souljah moment notwithstanding. (Liberals complained about "violence" but that's about it.) Clinton complained a lot about right-wing talk radio and disinformation, but he didn't quash anything.
Authoritarians are very pro-censorship, and authoritarianism is not really a left/right phenomenon. Hardly a novel observation. But in the U.S., historically it's more often been the right pulling the censorship levers. That's reversed today, but I think you are the one looking at things with a revisionist lens.
The Christian right might have been trying, but they accomplished nothing. Even at the time. It wasn't just a long term loss, they lost all the short term battles as well. The major media outlets all ignored them and kept pushing left wing ideas the entire time.
That's not true: TV shows, comic books, radio stations, and yes, schools and universities, all were pressured by right-wingers and often censured teachers and classes, took programs off the air or refused to play certain episodes or songs because of (largely) conservative Christian complaints. "D&D panic" was definitely a thing, with some schools outright forbidding D&D books on campus. It's true there were few outright "bannings," but then, there are few outright bannings today. What is materially different today is social media, where it's much more visible when the people running the companies are kicking famous individuals off their platforms.
During that whole period I could walk into a bookstore and see all the D&D books lined up, ready to be bought. Show me the bookstore selling "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street"
Do you think this is the first time in American history that a publisher discontinued publishing titles or stores and libraries stopped shelving them because of political or social pressure?
I am not asserting a one to one equivalency between today and the 1980s, I am asserting that the claim that the right wing never "successfully" censored anything is false.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link