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 -
What's funny about this is that my experience is largely the opposite: I recently visited some friends in the north Dallas metroplex, which is about as close to the platonic ideal of detached-house suburbia as you can get sprawling in all directions, and they know their neighbors on all sides by name (and which tools and skills they regularly trade), and live within a few hundred meters of an HOA-managed playscape where they regularly encounter the same few dozen children and parents. As far as I can tell, the folks I know in the NYC area have much more trouble meeting their neighbors behind closed apartment doors, with front yards replaced with dark interior hallways, and porches replaced with coffee shops and bars.
I'd buy that the experience varies a lot by personality, though: if you are looking for a particular niche interest friend group, the city is probably a better choice, and suburbia can be pretty underwhelming. But I do think suburbs are often undersold generally.
Indeed, when I lived in an apartment, I have not known a single person living in the same building. I asked my friends about, and this has been everyone else’s experience as well. Now, I know all the people on my SFH suburban street, and regularly hang out with some of them.
When people say things like suburbia being atomizing, I’m really dumbfounded — compared to what? Just because there are a lot of people walking down the street doesn’t mean that it’s easier to socialize, in fact it is the opposite. Humans enter different behavioral modes in different settings. When there are a lot of people around, we naturally tend to detach ourselves mentally, and treat everyone as an irrelevant blob. If, on the other hand, we get bunched together with only a couple of people at a time, it feels more natural to strike the conversation (in fact, sometimes it’s awkward not to). Go to a mass rock concert, and try to make new friends, and then go to a jam session in a hole-in-the-wall bar and try the same. Which is easier?
More options
Context Copy link
Maybe I'm too dense, but at the end of the day, does this metroplex actually offer what sociologists call third places?
I don't find that suburbia has a shortage of parks (or churches). The example of the HOA playscape (small park) isn't gated, but is probably only used by local residents. I'd also count the grade-separated mixed use paths through the area.
More options
Context Copy link
It does, but they are outdoors.
More options
Context Copy link
You mean the playground he just referenced?
And I mean ‘talks to other moms while both their littles climb on the playground equipment’ basically is my mental image of what UMC stay at home moms do when they aren’t busy with housework/childcare/whatever. It’s not as if a park as a third space is difficult to imagine.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
As I've mentioned before, I think place hardly matters.
Take a sociable Puerto Rican from NYC and drop him in a Miami suburb, and he'll build up a social network quickly - or the other way around. Strong communities are found everywhere from Svalbard to the Amazon, and yes, in the Dallas suburbs.
The lonely PMC people in NYC were lonely in the suburbs they grew up in (and are rebelling against).
So much of the angst about suburbs specifically and place in general are driven by loveless and unlovable people moving from place to place because they don't realize that their problem isn't what's outside the, but what's inside them.
In previous generations these people mostly did completely fine. Denying that environment and culture has any impact on community is ridiculous. Sure, the NYC Puerto Rican will be fine in a Miami suburb, but will his kids raised there still have a social network as dense and as local as he had?
You really can force people to make friends by putting them in the same spaces frequently (and making them collaborate), and it's a good thing. The military does this, boarding schools do this, many traditional social institutions did and do this. Things start awkwardly, and then people get comfortable, and they become in many cases firm friends even if they are very different (and especially if they're similar).
Nobody's denying that a conscientious, outgoing, charming and confident individual with lots of time can build a big social circle anywhere, but most people aren't this. Most people need a little help. They're not broken, they want friends, it's just harder. If you go to "traditional" societies almost nobody has friends they deliberately made like an autistic tinder user. They have friends from childhood, friends who are their parents' friends children, or their grandparents' friends' grandchildren, or their cousins or cousins' childhood friends.
That what this actually means. In a traditional society your entire circle can be an organic web of friends and family that stay with you your entire life.
If they stay in Miami for as many generations as they did in New York, of course they would. There are plenty of older East Coast suburbs where families go back for generations. Any permanent settlement where people stay for generations is going to form communities.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think it depends where in NYC you live, but it's also about social circles, for sure. Manhattan is so dense, though, that your kids are very likely going to have classmates who live less than ten minutes from you by foot, if not much closer. I had friends growing up who had other kids their age in their co-op / apartment building who went to the same school that we did, so they could play and go in together.
People who raise parents in Manhattan and who don't tend to move out to the burbs also tend to be (regardless of their wealth, which is also a requirement for the most part) lifelong New Yorkers, often born and raised, and so often have much more extensive networks of friends and family in the city. Or they're expats, who have their own social circles.
Every detached single family home suburb I've lived in had classmates a lot closer than a 10 minute walk. There were always classmates on the same street even. And that's in various towns.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link