site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   31441 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 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.

13
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

She's a fair skinned Latina, not white. Whiteness is about pure European heritage. Biracial people that pass as white are still not white, for example.

Mitt Romney is white, as far as I know none of his ancestors are non-European or descended from Europeans. Does he have a Mexican grandpa I'm not aware of?

Mitt Romney is white, as far as I know none of his ancestors are non-European or descended from Europeans. Does he have a Mexican grandpa I'm not aware of?

Romney's father was born in Mexico, which as far as I know has birthright citizenship. The fact that it was in a Mormon settlement started by his great grandfather fleeing American anti-polygamy laws in 1885 probably complicates things, though.

If you met me there is zero chance you'd describe me as anything other than white. I find myself extraordinarily doubtful whether you can visually identify who has "pure European heritage" out of a group of North Americans.

I probably would think Buck Angel is a dude, it's not about outward appearance it's about what you are. For sex, its chromosomes, for whiteness, it's ancestry

Ana de Armas

Two seconds on Wikipedia and you'll learn she's the grand-daughter of Spanish immigrants on her mother's side. Now, maybe her father has some admixture of Native American blood, but going by the demographics of Cuba it's highly likely he's Spanish-descended all the way through. So yeah, guy, she's as European as Mitt Romney.

De Armas was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in the small city of Santa Cruz del Norte. Her maternal grandparents were migrants to Cuba from the north of Spain (El Bierzo, (Leon) and Palencia)

An autosomal study from 2014 has found out the genetic average ancestry in Cuba to be 72% European, 20% African and 8% Native American with different proportions depending on the self-reported ancestry (White, Mulatto or Mestizo, and Black)

In the 2012 Census of Cuba, 64.1% of the inhabitants self-identified as white. Based on genetic testing (2014) in Cuba, the average European, African and Native American ancestry in those auto-reporting to be white were 86%, 6.7%, and 7.8%. The majority of the European ancestry comes from Spain.

Now, if you really want to insist that de Armas is a "fair skinned Latina" go right ahead, after all I'm sure you would also class Meghan Markle as Black as Michelle Obama.

It doesn't say anything about her father, is he native Cuban? I would assume so.

Whiteness is not a self-id thing, it's genetics. A drop of poo spoils the milk.

Meghan Markle is black. And don't capitalize it, it's uncouth

  • -15

I am sure that the Koreans, during the Japanese annexation of Korea, would be relieved to learn that the Emperors of Japan are in fact Korean.

You're arguing the one-drop rule? Well, I suppose historical survivals do crop up now and again.

The Native American or Indigenous population in Cuba (amongst other areas) was Taino, and they seem to have been either exterminated or so intermarried into the replacement African labour (because the Taino kept dying off when the colonists tried putting them to work) and/or the incoming Europeans that they don't exist anymore.

Now, maybe Ana's father claimed to be one-sixtyfourth pure Taino prince(ss) (as I believe dear old AOC was doing recently in her laundry list of 'new identities I'm claiming today') but if we're talking "one drop", you have to accept "dilution".

One drop in a gallon of water is homeopathy, and it's generally agreed that isn't real medicine. Or do you treat all your aches and pains and sniffles with dilutions? On the basis of "one drop of poo spoils the milk, one drop of active ingredient in a hundred part dilution cures my ills"?

You seem to be trying to see how edgy you can be. Your posts throughout this thread are low quality and seem merely to be trying to get a rise out of people. If you really want to argue one-drop racial politics, you can argue that, but make substantial points. And you are allowed to capitalize or not capitalize black as you see fit - and again, if you have a problem with capitalizing it, you can write an argument for why you don't like it, but don't try to tell other people what to do because "it's uncouth."

You've already been told to stop doing this. I am now pretty convinced this is a trolling account, but being ever too lenient, this ban will be for two weeks. Next one, assuming you come back with the same pattern, will be permanent.

I don't think you can reasonably conclude that Ana de Armas has any non-European ancestry. She's completely indistinguishable from a native resident of Spain. Her mother's parents migrated from Spain, and her father looks completely Spanish.

I compare her to Mitt Romney because while his ancestry is English and hers is is Spanish, both of those places are in Europe and both ethnic groups are equally European. The fact that you classify him as 'white' and her as 'latina' really highlights how bizarre both labels are.

A better solution would be to list 'European' and 'mestizo' on the census. That would more accurately capture the difference between Europeans from Latin America (like de Armas) and mestizos like Raymond Cruz.

Whiteness is about pure European heritage.

This has never really been true (until, perhaps, very recently, as a result of the Great Awokening and people turning "white" into a slur). It's something that gets discussed to death but it's not actually a very interesting debate, it just diverts discussion into an argument about words instead of a discussion about substance.

I don't think pretty much anyone in actual Europe would actually think of Ana de Armas as anything other than white.

I think we should retvrn to Ben Franklin's terminology and establish that even Swedes are swarthy, to say nothing of Spaniards, leaving only Anglos as truly white (and truly European, for some extra absurdity).

This will let us move on to more interesting and consequential distinctions.

I always get a laugh when people try to redefine the countries best representing the "blonde hair and blue eyes"-stereotype as "not actually white".

"The pigmentation of both hair and eyes is lightest around the Baltic Sea, and darkness increases regularly and almost concentrically around this region."

Simply excluding peninsular people narrows things well enough doesn't it?

Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

Franklin went quite a bit further.

But not even Franklin would have denied those swarthy beasts their Europeanness. This is not a matter of racialism, this is purely incoherent, they are native to Europe in any sense that Saxons are. And it is incoherent to say "She's a fair skinned Latina, not white. Whiteness is about pure European heritage" when the person in question is of European – including South European – stock.

Do you see how people might get skeptical of "European identity" when European identitarians suddenly introduce arbitrary limits on what is "real Europe"?

I was just observing that excluding Iberians, Italians, Scandis and Balkans is a very classical anglosphere perspective in keeping with Franklin. Jutes might be the one exception.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats