site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 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.

Listen, you criticized an author for not making a bunch of personal life choices that, oops, it turns out he did make. Then you criticized him for having a view of history that begins with WW2, when apparently he's written extensively about several different eras of history. Then you just doubled down nonsensically.

What exactly is anyone supposed to take away from this? Maybe you should just rewrite the post without all the sneering and fanfiction and try again.

I don't particularly like having all my posts be in response to you, but I also can't be motivated to post unless someone not only makes a bad argument but also rides it into the ground with their middle finger up, and that just happens to be a niche you have a monopoly on these days.

Probably has something to do with the fact that you're the only poster who can post shit talk like...

I would like to argue that it's not my fault that these people are morons who can't read. but intellectual integrity require that I acknowledge that communication is a two way street

...and get away with it despite having been temp banned a billion times. If Joe Blow rolled in off the street and pulled that shit he'd be history. Even Darwin managed to be superficially polite and mostly just stopped responding when he was really being handed an L.