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 psychologist himself, Adam Mastroianni proclaims: I'm sorry for psychology's loss, whatever it is.
I found this post on the slatestarcodex subreddit. The main article discusses how the replication crisis really isn't as bad as most people think, because:
Basically this idea can be boiled down to 'well most modern psychologists don't do anything that's even remotely important, so why do we care if these studies don't replicate?' I'm very wary of buying this type of argument. One reason is that over $2 billion dollars went into psychology research, in the US alone, way back in 2016. I'm sure it has increased since then.
On top of that, as psychologists themselves have acknowledged, many public policies get based on psychological research. In the light of the replication crisis, this is perhaps the largest and most under-discussed mistake of the 21st century. The majority of our politicians are basing their decisions, and public justifications, on a field of science that has been proven to be mostly fake. To me, that's not something we can just throw up our hands at and say is trivial.
Another interesting point, which I won't go too far into, is that many of the replicable studies in psychology are just completely ignored. Here's a highly-upvoted comment on the SSC subreddit:
I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not Psychology deserves an equal place among the rest of the sciences.
I think that’s a poor way of measuring impact. Given that Arely has gotten his ideas into the mainstream is a huge problem. TBH it’s my problem with the entire field (which I suspect is mostly pseudoscience). We’re using it to help people, we’re making policy decisions based on psychology. And as far as I’m concerned the obvious mental health declines in our therapeutic cultures have proven disastrous. We have more and more people, including fairly young kids, on psychiatric drugs. We have more anxiety, depression and suicide than we did 100 years ago. We have more drug use as well.
In the past, things like religion and stoic philosophy had a much better track record. They weren’t committing suicide, they weren’t too anxious and depressed to function, they didn’t do drugs to numb themselves.
I personally find therapeutic culture revolting. It seems overwhelmingly coddling and feminine to me. So I am presupposed to believe it leads to bad outcomes. And from that predisposition I could make arguments that adversity leads to growth and therapy is used as an excuse to avoid adversity (eg difficult thing is bad for my mental health) thereby stunting growth making people miserable in the long run.
But is it true? Are there cultures that haven’t gone headfirst into therapy culture that haven’t seen the same deleterious outcome?
I’m not sure about any current culture, though I’d point out that there is some research on mental disorders manifesting differently or even just not existing in a given culture until widespread access to western ideas (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html). I think it’s possible and even probable that the way we talk about these illnesses, and treat everyday problems as traumatic, upsetting, and likely to cause a mental illness might very well be causing people to get these mental illnesses and making those who do get them malinger when in a “blind” state where those messages weren’t telling them that long lasting sadness is depression, depression is a brain disease that can only be treated by a psychiatrist issuing an antidepressant drug. Or when they suggest that trauma causes anxiety and then go on to tell people that everything up to and including stubbing your toe is traumatic, they might well cause anxiety simply because the public has been taught this.
I’m a bit more knowledgeable of Stoicism. And really, it’s a bit different in approach. They say that bad stuff will happen, and thus it’s better to not get attached to things being how they are right now. You might lose that house, car, even a child. You cannot control nature. Or to put it in the the words of Neil DeGrasse Tyson “the universe excels at finding ways to kill you”. But what you can control is the mind. The universe is free to smash your house with an asteroid. But you are free to not let that negative even control your mind. You can accept it, you can choose to rebuild the house or move away, you can choose to build telescopes and map asteroids so that it doesn’t happen to other people. You choose your thoughts and to some degree your emotions, and as such you don’t have to be traumatized by adverse events. It just do be like that sometimes. And beyond that, you can even without the asteroid hitting the house, choose to be a moral upstanding human and be a good person. This was a pretty standard way of living for quite a long time.
Whether or not you can modernize it, I mean, probably. It was a Greco Roman Philosophy. It also sort of exists in Buddhism. There are parts of the Bible that echo the same ideas. I don’t see it as complicated to adapt, nor does the core idea need that much updating.
I’m assuming in the Biblical tradition you are referencing Job?
Also how do we disentangle western ideas from western modernism?
Doubtful on Job. He endured his first few trials without much complaint, but then had a lot of understandable anguish and despair.
I’d say stoicism is more compatible with the gospels and epistles of the New Testament. There’s just a wealth of verses about enduring suffering, exercising self control, and reasoning.
Christ himself set a stoic example in voluntarily submitting to the cross. Even as he asked God the Father to spare him that trial, he accepted his role and did not engage in self pity.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think the problem is that we don't have as much real suffering as we did in the past. It's hard to get people to follow Stoic teachings etc when their lives are relatively cushy.
You can introduce little suffering to prepare yourself. Try camping with minimal technology for a week. Take a cold shower, play a sport or work out. Sleep without a blanket in the winter. I don’t think that’s going to completely overcome our easy lifestyle, but I think it does teach you that you can actually do that and still be okay.
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
More options
Context Copy link