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 This Country Song Racist?
No wait, that's a Key and Peele sketch. Here's the real song that's making headlines:
Jason Aldean - Try That In A Small Town (Official Music Video)
The song is about shooting rioters. One can argue about to what extent shooting rioters is actually a good thing, one can argue about to what extent said rioters are "racialized" as African American, but the song is transparently about shooting rioters. Just what exactly is, "Around here, we take care of our own. You cross that line, it won't take long," supposed to mean? Surely it's a metaphor, not a literal line (like say, some train tracks) right?
Needless to say, the video has been pulled from Country Music Television (whatever that means). Seems more like fake backlash than real resistance to me, but I don't know much about country music. Are these guys a big deal?
Also, my God country music is terrible. It's better than rap, but rap hardly counts as music. I'm glad Red America finally has the balls to stick up for itself, but this is not exactly art that's going to mog the cathedral.
Country and rap both have some good tracks but also a big amount of generic tracks that follow cliches, "I'm just a simple boy with my beer, gun, and truck" in the case of country and "guns, money, and pussy" in the case of rap. Well, they have guns in common.
There are only so many themes that are cool to sing about. The first full year of the Billboard Hot 100 was 1959, with the top ten being:
To a first approximation, these are songs about guns, money, and pussy. I guess (7) stands out as more storytelling, but is kind of the 1950s version of, "I'm just a simple guy from small town, livin' my small town life, got my honey and my truck, and things are gonna be alright".
Men like wealth, weapons, and women. Ain't nothin' new under the sun.
I mean, I think it's cool to sing about, e.g., The Moon Landing, or The possibility of Extraterrestrial life, (no, really), or the sweeping cosmic history of 'life' in the Universe.
But in that case the only genre taking on those topics is Progressive Rock.
So while I'm complete granting the point that there are a limited number of themes which are likely to generate commercially viable songs, there are whole books full of topics that might be cool to sing about.
I would argue that Country and Rap are thematically limited in part because they're inextricably tied to their culture of origin, which is to say that 'authentic' country and rap are going to be about things that were common in the culture of the respective artists that originated it.
Granted, sometimes you'll get a weird outsider who manages to pull an out-of-left-field hit.
Some days I get actively annoyed that there hasn't been any pop song similar to Bohemian Rhapsody (or others in Queen's ouvre) in, seemingly, decades.
I could stand to watch roughly 20 seconds of it before closing it and thinking to myself "Maybe the North Koreans are right".
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