site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 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.

Racism, either systemic or individual. It's all white people's fault.

The systemic part of that doesn't really imply the latter; at least not regarding present day white people. It may be some white people's fault, say slaveowners or Jim Crow politicians, but that isn't especially divisive because no-one defends either of those today. Individual/unconscious bias is a bit divisive, but I don't see why the historical explanations really are.

That's the motte, but people pushing the systemic racism narrative routinely go out of their way to interpret it in ways that make modern white people the villains. The standard response to "I never owned slaves" is "But you benefit from the perpetuation of a system of racial privilege and oppression†." Maybe it's not technically your fault, but it's totally your fault. Also, modern white people are actively perpetuating systemic racism with microaggressions, cultural appropriation, voting to imprison criminals, not voting for reparations, reading to their kids, demanding that high schools teach calculus, etc.

There is some hypothetical systemic racism narrative that scrupulously avoids blaming modern white people just minding their own business, but it's not the one we get in the real world.

†Not actually true; white people would actually be better off if black people started performing at par. Less crime, less welfare dependency, no longer needing to pick up the slack on taxes, etc. We'd still have to deal with opioid addicts, but many of the US's problems would diminish greatly.

"But you benefit from the perpetuation of a system of racial privilege and oppression"

Again though, whether you agree with this or not, it still doesn't really imply fault. As an analogous case, I could say that those from richer backgrounds benefit from the perpetuation of entrenched class inequalities, but that doesn't mean I'm suggesting any individual rich person is somehow responsible, as these are systemic problems.

There is some hypothetical systemic racism narrative that scrupulously avoids blaming modern white people just minding their own business, but it's not the one we get in the real world.

It may be the one you get from a minority of activists etc., but in the mainstream I don't think the 'every white person is complicit' line is that prominent - I don't think you'd ever see it from the vast majority of Democrats.