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 -
Hello Motte world! Some of you may remember me as /u/M_T_Saotome-Westlake on the Reddit incarnation. (I've since dropped the pseudonym which I was using for my political writing.)
I recently published the first two parts of my memoir telling the Whole Dumb Story of my conflict with the so-called "rationalist" community about (at first) the etiology of gender dysphoria in males and (later, much less excusably) the philosophy of language regarding categorization, which I would like to share with you today:
Thanks for the link. As others have noted, it's extremely long, but its length does help address this feeling of unease many of us experience when observing or engaging with "culture war"-related topics in the modern online space. You wake up one day and everyone is saying something that is obviously false. I'm not sure whether it's helpful or harmful to my case to throw in examples here, but what comes to mind for me are Larry Summers on female representation, Covington Catholic, Kyle Rittenhouse, Trump's "very fine people on both sides", Florida's curriculum on slavery...
Apparently the "stages of grief" don't have as solid a scientific backing as we might hope, but even so, something like those stages are what I have gone through many times in the past few years as these cases have become hot.
Denial - it's just a misunderstanding, after the initial controversy people will look at the full context and realize there was nothing to get so worked up about
Anger - Partisans are inflaming the issue for their own benefit
Bargaining - If my friends and family would just watch this video, they'd see that the media portrayal has been all wrong. I'll just send them the link...
Depression - This is where I usually end up, because none of the above makes any difference.
So I really identified with your experience as an extended example of the "Bargaining" phase I've gone through myself. To be honest, there have been an embarrasing number of occasions on which I insisted on sitting down with someone and showing them a video or reading them an article that unequivocally establishes "the truth", in contrast to the media narrative. At those times, I would have been glad to pay people to watch these videos, because how could they watch the video and still disagree?
I can't say I've had 0% success in these endeavours; I think on occasion I've convinced people that the situation is more nuanced than they were led to believe. But I don't think I've every had anyone really understand my desperation to make them understand, get why these matters are so upsetting to me. So I quite appreciated your essay, not just because we agree on the matter at hand, but because I know how it feels to be so sure you are right but still need someone else to validate that belief.
I've had similar experiences to you, for me the difficulty has been piercing through the veil of expertise of the priesthood. If you sit them and debunk a specific thing, they'll still hold the belief because "If the truth was so plainly different surely all those elite journalists wouldn't believe a falsehood! There must be some more complexity to it that you don't know or understand..."
I feel like in a lot of cases, it's because people have an unconscious understanding that if they let one thing through to show them "yes, the news achors absolutely would tell you easily debunked falsehoods" (and note, this applies to the priesthoods of any political team) it'll all come crashing and they'll be cast out into the intellectual wilderness as we here mostly are; and sadly I have to admit it's a place many people are not equipped to face mentally and emotionally.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link