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 -
A Look at Shame in Modern Society
Shame is in an interesting place in modern society. On the one hand, we've made the wise decision not to shame people into feeling bad about being extremely depressed or anxious, etc. This understanding has come from recognizing that a lot of the time, these feelings can make their conditions worse, thereby leading to increased suffering.
At the same time though, we have lost much of the utility of shame. Shame, in its traditional role, is to engender manners and create a very legible and trainable way for people to interact with each other. This is not a new concept, as Emily Post pointed out in her etiquette books. She talked about how the point of manners is to consider and focus on how the other person is feeling, and not to focus exclusively on your own desires.
I think the absence of this benefit of shame is why so much of modern society is characterized by vitriol and name-calling, etc. These are often symptoms of a deeper issue. A lot of this has to do with the norms of acceptable discourse online, where anonymity can sometimes contribute to a lack of empathy and understanding. It has gone out of fashion to shame people into talking or acting a certain way, even though there is a lot of social utility there.
How can we grapple with the two edges of shame, and find a way to have productive social discourse without burying people under piles of negative emotions?
Does it start with changing internet culture, and following the cancellation warrior's plan of making online anonymity a thing of the past?
Do we need to return to aristocratic training and virtues, making sure the elite at least have a legible, shared set of manners they can use to discuss fraught topics with each other?
Perhaps artificial intelligence will grow in capabilities to the point where we will talk to each other through an AI interface, which will automatically insert manners and promote productive discussion.
Where do you, dear reader, think that our society should go with regards to how we incorporate shame into our culture?
I'm not convinced that this is the case. The practice of shaming simply seems to be shifting towards two norms:
(1) Don't punch down. Intersectionality makes this norm very complicated and it may be in decline - I don't hear prople saying it any more, whereas they did say it about 5 years ago when trying to explain why e.g. cruel jokes about white people are ok.
(2) Only shame people for things they choose. So sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia etc. are worthy targets of shaming (at least if someone doesn't check themselves after being "educated") but being fat, gay, transgender, violent (if sufficiently marginalised) etc. are not choices and thus beyond the scope of acceptable shame.
I agree here, and most of the other comments make similar points on this front. I've got to rethink my formulation of shame and how it has changed over time.
This also plays into how what is a 'choice' has changed over time. This framing actually sheds a lot of light on why gay and LGBT activists were so insistent that being homosexual is not a 'choice,' it's determined at birth. That way you couldn't shame gay people under this framework.
Seems like the whole transgender 'identity' thing is similar. Before if someone wanted to crossdress, you just told them that's a bad or wrong choice. But now it's somehow indefinably a quality they can't control.
Same as what happened for homosexuality. They just made it up1. No one bothers arguing for it anymore, now that the political victories have been won solidly enough that there appears to be no chance of it ever going back. In fact, various trans/queer movements are going back to chip away at this claim, so when it "somehow" becomes a choice again, don't be too confused.
1 - For potentially the clearest example of this, go to their own words. Check out the APA's brief in Obergefell, where they had the opportunity, on the nation's highest stage (for the political result they desperately wanted), to lay out the absolute best scientific case with the absolute best evidence available on the matter. They cited an opinion poll.
The recent huge increase in the percentage of people who are LGBT suggests that at least bisexuality is a choice for 1 in 5 women. The number of gays is up 4x, and lesbians 11x since the silent generation.
The new narrative is that orientation is a spectrum. Perhaps this is true. Male homosexual acts were commonplace in Ancient Greece and Rome and I think this suggests that at least 50% of men would engage in homosexual acts if it were fully normalized. This seems very high bit I can't explain the ancient world without people being quite flexible.
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