site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   29197 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 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.

12
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I mean, the problem is nobody knows what trans people are. Are they born that way? Is it a social contagion? Is it a fetish? A mental illness?

You could try to go the Uhura route and just calmly show that trans people exists and are like other people. But even Uhura can't be done these days. Nu-Trek is all about being as on the nose as possible, because subtlety doesn't work on fascist. A person screamed this in my face when I complained I didn't like new Star Trek, in front of our families and everything at 10 AM at a farmers market. So, even assuming a Uhura type character was an option with trans people, which you seem to believe it isn't by their nature, I'm not sure it's the sort of option you think it is. It's not enough to just not be racist, you have to be explicitly anti-racist. That's the new state of the art, and the bar you must clear to not get smeared.

That leaves allegory, but like I said, if we don't even know what trans people are, how you choose to do the allegory matters a great deal. You fixate a lot on that famous ST:TOS episode. However there was a particularly based episode of Star Trek: Voyager where Nelix feels sorry for this convict who is telling all these sob stories about how oppressed his people are. Chad Tom Paris states the obvious about them as a matter of record actually committing more crime. The story ends with Nelix trying to help this sad oppressed minority, and getting stabbed in the back for it, and endangering the entire ship when they proceed to crime them.

There was another rather based episode of DS9 where the station happens upon an infant Jem'Hadar. I believe it was Doctor Bashir who attempts to raise this fast growing genetically engineers shock trooper into a well adjusted member of society. Unfortunately for everyone, it just can't fight it's violent genetic programming and begins attacking people seemingly at random across the station. In the end it's returned to The Dominion where they can care for it better.

So, if we take as a given that those Star Trek episodes are allegories for race, they say vastly different things than your TOS episode. Likewise, any allegory you choose for trans people will broadcast loud and clear where you come down on what trans people fundamentally are.

While we're on the subject of Star Trek Voyager episodes with interesting allegories for race, there's Living Witness (which was directed by Tim Russ, the actor for Tuvok, even!). There's two alien races living on the same planet and Voyager's passage caused a war after which one of the races subjugated the other. Centuries have passed and relations between the two races have improved, but a copy of the Doctor wakes up and finds out that this relatively peaceful state of affair is based on a rather false retelling of the events where the race that won the war was belligerent and had Voyager kill the leader of the other race for them, when the doctor knows the subjugated race actually attacked Voyager unprovoked. The Doctor is stuck between leaving things as is, even if it's based on a lie, or pursuing the truth, which threatens the peace as some of the subjugating race always felt bad about the way they were cast as the villains and the subjugated race wants to clings to a view of history where they were blameless. Eventually it's settled on the truth. The whole episode has a feel of exasperation towards grievance politics.

Voyager got maligned for having some of the worst episodes (and the worst multi episode arcs) in Star Trek, but it had some great one-offs too. And it's funny to me how a show like Star Trek that's meant to be progressive can be "left behind" by an ideology that by design keeps moving.

IMHO, Voyager beats the pants off anything that came after. When I binged TNG, DS9 and Voyager in a row, I found myself really enjoying Voyager in a way similar to how I enjoyed TNG. DS9 was good, but Voyager was a return to form for me. None of the cast really had the swagger or the gravitas to really elevate it, but they put out some remarkably solid Trek stories. Even if they did start leaning into Jeri Ryan's assets.

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