site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29738 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 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.

14
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Evidence has emerged that the office of Major of London considers a photo (PDF, page 47) depicting a group consisting of: a man, a woman, a boy and a girl, all of whom are of European ancestry, to not "represent real Londoners".

Looking at the ethnic breakdown of the capital of United Kingdom, showing Europeans (still) account for over 50% of the population, it seems premature to declare media depicting them to be unrepresentative.

But even if the natives were succesfully reduced to a minority, one would expect that they should be overrepresented. This would consistent with the mainstram present narrative around representation. That the fractions of ethnic groups in media shouldn't mirror those of the general population, but since people exhibit racial ingroup bias, minorities would be less happy if they didn't see people who look like them.

Defenders of this branding guide have claimed this has nothing to do with race of the people in the image, but I have to wonder if they would thought so, if a photo depicting what appears to be family of four Pakistanis would be caption as "Doesn't represent real Londoners." in a branding guide of a rigth-wing anti-immigration politician.

Especially in light of darwin's description of working enviroment of advertising companies. He claimed that anti-white jokes were common and that even he made them.

I am no fan of white people and even I think this is not right. There is no way this remark was targeted at any other category in that photo other than white. The photo is not "too perfect" for a stock image, it doesn't seem staged at all. The only good thing from this is that at least the racial animus isn't targeted towards minorities. Hopefully this is a good empathetic lesson for what they historically had to face in the past, and why that was bad and wrong.

  • -15

I don't think westerners need teaching that racial prejudice is wrong. The obsesssion with race and with racial grievance is driven mostly by people of European descent. The people who wrote this guide were almost certainly majority Britons.

Besides, the idea that only non-westerners ever faced racial or ethnic prejudice and that Europeans need teaching how this feels is absurd. You know that the Russian military is trying to wipe out a European ethnic group/nation like, right now?

You know that the Russian military is trying to wipe out a European ethnic group/nation like, right now?

I didn't know that. Can you elaborate?

Avoid low-effort sarcasm like this.

The lesson that should be learned by whites is to more thoroughly crush your enemies, to stop this kind of thing happening again. We showed, and continue to show, far too much clemency to our subjects. All of this is a result of attempts to uplift, rehabilitate and integrate the conquered, instead of just wiping them out wholesale and replacing them. Can't be accused of being racist if there are no other races in your country.

Now therefore kill every boy, and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse with a man. But all the young women who have not had sexual intercourse with a man will be yours.

I'm not sure if you're being ironic, testing the boundaries of what we'll put up with here, or making a serious point. But taken at face value, literally calling for genocide is culture warring in its purest form, and if this is some sort of Swiftian proposal, you're not clever enough by half and you need to speak more plainly.

I disagree with destroying the conquered, but the distaste for it is relatively recent in history.

Even Machiavelli advised that when killing an enemy it’s best to kill their whole family, to ensure their offspring don’t come back in reprisal, and with the common people on their side.

Moses said they could keep the virgins, after killing all the women and boys.

I would prefer we keep only the pretty ones.

I think you're right on the basics, morality nonwithstanding - ethnicities that have been entirely wiped out no longer get to claim any grievances or preferential treatment.

But Machiavelli? Didn't he write the prince tongue-in-cheek? Honest question, I've heard contradictory opinions.

I thought I was being plain. A lot of online pro-migration rhetoric, particularly on twitter, is phrased as "revenge for colonialism" or suchlike. The reason these descendants of the colonised still exist to be able to make these kinds of statements is the extraordinary mercy of not wiping out the lineage of the conquered in its entirety. If the result of that mercy is disadvantaging ethnic Brits now, then that mercy was clearly a mistake, as far as we today are concerned, wasn't it?

I did not intend in any way to imply that we should finish the murderous job today, if that was what you were worried about. But I did mean that we should consider dismantling them as a political force.

The point of colonialism was never to eliminate the colonized nations or wipe them out. At least not the late colonialism, and I'd argue this is mostly true for most of European-based colonialism in general. The point was to lift the nations being colonized from the darkness where they dwell into the light of civilization. Now, there are many people who may argue this approach is problematic for many reasons, but that's what the colonizers tried to do. Of course, not entirely for free - in exchange, they expected the use of the resources of these nations (just as they use resources of their own nation), and have combined power of them plus colonies be much larger than them alone, and also maybe certain measure of gratitude and deference. Again, I am not discussing there if it was right for them to do that - but only that this is what they tried to do. You can not blame people for not doing properly something that they never intended to do in the first place. It wasn't "mercy", it was the whole plan from the start. Surely, if somebody objected, there might be some killing needed to be done, but again, only in the service of this larger goal.

The first colonialists were not humanitarians. They were a fairly callous, profit seeking band of adventurer-merchant-conqueror-grifters. Colonialism as a civilizing effort was a later rationalisation, and not a convincing one.

The first colonists didn't set the policy however (and they scarcely would wipe out or subjugate the whole the native population, either). The system that sent them - and came after they came back and reported they found something they can name by European name with added "New" in front - did. And I don't think "humanitarian" is a correct word anyway - at least not how we understand it now. "Paternalistic" or "nanny state" would be more appropriate term - and as we know, all these impulses did not disappear, they just turned inwards (mostly).

Colonialism as a civilizing effort was a later rationalisation, and not a convincing one.

How do you explain multiple evidence of the people performing colonialism themselves saying that's what they wanted, and not saying what they wanted was actually to wipe out the aboriginals completely, never actually trying consistently to do that, and spending a lot of effort on things like converting them to christianity, making them follow European customs, etc. etc.? They just knew in the future people would want to rationalize their actions exactly matching the way they are behaving, and obligingly laid the ground work for that, while not doing anything to achieve what they actually really wanted - which is wiping out the natives?

I mean, I think this is overly simplistic. Did some people aim intentionally for genocide back then? Sure, probably. Did some people aim, agitate, and advocate for uplift? It seems like this was also the case, hence schools and churches. And of course, the natives as labor force is and has always been among the resources being exploited, where it could be, and this can also explain the schools. Iunno, I don't think you're wrong, per se, I just don't think any single strategy can explain colonialism, being as it was an emergent venture prosecuted by many interest groups. I'd expect most things that were done to fulfill multiple interests.

Yes, it is a simplification, if we're talking about motivations of huge number of people, of course there's a variety there. But - if we talk about the leading ideology of the colonial project, I think there was such a thing, and I think it was the ideological and moral basis for the actions of many people and governments. And I think it's possible to say that the drive to wipe out the original population was never a main motivation there - though once can not ignore that specific homicidal and genocidal actions did take place. But it wasn't the overarching goal of this project, that's not what Europeans tried to do.

Can't be accused of being racist if there are no other races in your country.

I’m pretty sure the genocide necessary to achieve this will raise much more vocal and far longer lasting accusations of racism than anything you’re bothered by now. And that’s assuming it’s an even remotely likely possibility, which it thankfully isn’t.

I’m pretty sure the genocide necessary to achieve this will raise much more vocal and far longer lasting accusations of racism than anything you’re bothered by now.

It won't, though. Arabs engaged in quite a bit of slaving against europeans for quite a long time, with all the rape and brutality you could ask for. They also castrated the male slaves, so those male slaves had no descendents. Thanks to that innovation, their centuries of brutality is treated as a curious anecdote, not a crime that echoes down through the centuries and demands restitution.

Thanks to that innovation, their centuries of brutality is treated as a curious anecdote, not a crime that echoes down through the centuries and demands restitution.

Between the following 2 options, which one do you think is more likely to have affected this demand's non-existence?

  1. Arabs castrating their slaves.
  2. Arabs not having a culture that would tolerate people making such a demand, let alone a myriad of others that are related to this line of morality.

Call it premature, but I'm going to take the position that 2 probably matters more than 1.

I disagree. Issues in the present are raised by survivors of the past. Where there are no survivors, there is no one left to care.

The problem is that it's just not true that there are no descendants of Arab slavery in Saudi Arabia.

From Wiki:

Afro-Saudis are Saudi citizens of Black African heritage. Afro-Saudis are the largest Afro-Arab group.[1] They are spread all around the country but are mostly found in the major cities of Saudi Arabia.[2] Afro-Saudis speak Arabic and adhere to Islam.[3] Their origins date back centuries ago to African Muslim migrants settling in Saudi Arabia, and to the Arab slave trade.[4]

There is also this article from refworks. CDHR refers to the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia:

Sources indicate that many black African Saudi nationals are the descendents of slaves (CDHR 9 Jan. 2014; Professor 13 Jan. 2014). Sources note that slavery was not abolished in Saudi Arabia until 1964 (CDHR 9 Jan. 2014; IGA 10 Jan. 2014) [or 1962 (Professor 13 Jan. 2014; The New York Times 10 Apr. 2009)]. The UVM Professor expressed the opinion that racial discrimination generally stems from the history of slavery (13 Jan. 2013). Several sources indicate that the term abeed, meaning "slaves" [or abda "slave" (The Guardian 28 Sept. 2012)], is still being used to describe black Saudi citizens (IGA 10 Jan. 2014; CDHR 9 Jan. 2014a; The Guardian 28 Sept. 2012).

Their origins date back centuries ago to African Muslim migrants settling in Saudi Arabia, and to the Arab slave trade.

Be careful not to interpret a Wikipedia article as saying more than its literal words. Wikipedia editors carefully word the things they say as much as newspaper writers do.

Notice the lack of numbers, or even the lack of "the primary reason their ancestors came is..."? If it doesn't say "a lot of their descent is from slaves", don't read it to mean "a lot".

There is also this article from refworks. ... Sources indicate that many black African Saudi nationals are the descendents of slaves

The word "many", without being quantified, is a sign of someone trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If they had any evidence for "most", they would have said it, so they don't.

More comments

Can't be accused of being racist if there are no other races in your country.

They can still be imported and you're not genociding the whole world.

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