site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I haven't nor do I intend to read this fanfiction, nor have I played Pathfinder, and I don't know some of the terminology used here beyond a google search ("Isekai"). That said, I have problems. Someone from the Pathfinder universe (especially with spell training like a Paladin) would probably be familiar with food preservation magic since it exists, I also find it very personally offputting to shoehorn into a story about a child (admittedly one who considers herself an adult) about how actually most of the time when people get raped, they didn't actually get raped since nobody had a knife to threaten them. There are probably a dozen examples like this where her being from Pathfinder doesn't actually mesh with the story very well. Again, haven't read it, other than the excerpts here, but if there is nothing interesting between the comparison of her Medieval-ish world or her oath as a Paladin and our modern world, and it's just a generic medieval fish out of water tale, why is she a Paladin at all? Is it an in-joke between the Pathfinder player author? Does it mean anything?

I don't really think The Motte is the place for literary criticism, since it's a largely non-rational practice. But god, the writing here is just bad. Maybe if you're a direct person who likes it when characters spew forth punctuated idea after punctuated idea it's the right pace for you, but these paragraphs are a hard read. If you want worlds-colliding or a reflection of modernity fantasy fiction, there is lots of stuff you can find with enjoyable prose. Try /r/fantasy. I don't get the giddy appeal of having the author stand-in character give a "glorious" "refreshing" look at our modern age. I've seen dozens of posts here with better rundowns of how things operate and the problems and virtues with society. This strikes me as midwit-tier.

The things you're complaining about are... The central conflict of the story. Iomedae comes from a mediaevalish world, of course she has fucked-up ideas about consent, that's the whole point! If you don't like a writing style, fair enough, if you don't want to read something before you complain about it, fine, but come on.

I think this is sort of close to my central skepticism or complaint. Re the culture clash

  1. Is that established?
  2. Is it even true? It's bad history to think that all of it was "women are property, they can get raped freely, and can never say no to sex" many medieval societies were not like this, many accounts contradict it directly. It's a pedestrian trope and stereotype-laden contemporary impression.
  3. Insofar as it is established, what is the interesting idea that is demonstrated or invoked or compared between these societies? It doesn't read like someone from Pathfinder-world being dropped in a Costco, it sounds like someone who is as present-centric as any of us trying to critique the world we all know.
  4. The writing style is independent from the content. You could have something non-scientific or non-historical or frankly vapid, but which is still written well. This is written (as many others have pointed out) wooden, it's bad writing.

I - understand - you both have bad time with church. I am sorry that you did. I do not know enough to say more about it. And I have no guess if Jesus alive or no. But I think Christians good and cool. I believe you that my life easier if I pretend this. I no going pretend it

This doesn't strike me as someone from a different religious tradition understanding modern churches. It sounds like an inoffensive faux-empathic rambling. There are 6 separate ideas but each one is an orphan, they're not explained or developed. She just jumps from 3 different ideas about the church, and couched within that are TWO separate disclaimers, but they don't sound like a woman out of time learning about a new culture, it sounds like someone from today giving a "I don't want to contradict your lived experience" speech. That's what I mean by a bad author stand-in.

Your comments would have more to do with the story if you had read it. There is no suggestion that "women are property, they can get raped freely, and can never say no to sex." When someone tries to rape Iomedae (off stage, at the beginning) she stabs him with a sword then carries him to somewhere so he won't die — I think the church, since in her world priests have healing magic and she doesn't yet realize that she is in a different world where they don't. That is how she comes to the attention of the authorities.

I'm hesitant to engage with these year old necro comments and am skeptical of any productivity, but I read slightly more of this terrible fanfiction after the original comments and am more affirmed in my criticism.

Litigating the specific fact claims back and forth are kind of meaningless, obviously either of us can easily pull up sophistries based on one weak line, a misuse of a phrase, or technical issue etc. Others have also done that well and you can read it.

The reason I dislike it is because the dialogue is wooden, cliche-ridden, hackish, frequently offputting, and the characterization is inaccurate or implausible at different times.

Many are familiar with the tropes and discussions around the phrase "The Curtains are blue" speaking to over-analysis by literary critics [or their lower-functioning cousins, proponents of 'Media Literacy'] of minute and unimportant details, and there is also push back by those who think Blue Curtains complaint style discourse is thought terminating and glosses over real meaning. But in either case that's close to the level of intro literary review you would do in an literature class, you find symbolism, explain what it means, and then maybe relate it to the pacing or tone of the story or experiences of characters themselves, some will go further and map it to the social and historical circumstances of the author to learn about what it says about 1820s Spain or Russia for example, and that follows into Death of the Author discourse which has also become more popularized. A more advanced literary review will likely move past the symbols, and try to mesh out why and where they were used to specifically understand exactly what the author was trying to say when they picked them. [Most university undergraduates will never move to this stage and beyond]. You also have some people who evade this, and are more simulationist [to borrow Pathfinder terminology] and err more on the side of explaining what would likely happen in their interesting fiction, but not trying to tell you what this means for you, albeit still likely being colored by their personal beliefs or historical circumstances [Think Brandon Sanderson's worldbuilding]. Here's Tarkovksy on Symbolism:

Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it.

I apologize for that long sidebar of how I perceive the modern state of literary criticism. But amazingly the writing of this terrible piece sidesteps all levels of it entirely. The characters just speak cliched platitudes, never having any depth beyond the most cursory, nor any satisfying growth or understanding of eachother. A modern person encountering someone from middle-earth or wherever would have more preconceived notions because of our media tradition, similarly if Superman was real, people would have an easier time digesting it since we have 100 years of Superman media, as opposed to if we had none at all. The prose makes Ayn Rand look like Shakespeare. It is barely half a degree better than something like

#1: I prefer social democracy because more people can get what they want

#2: But they might want bad things. That would be bad

#1: I don't think so

I don't really think The Motte is the place for literary criticism, since it's a largely non-rational practice.

Disagree with this. I would like to see more literary criticism. Though not necessarily of Pathfinder fanfics.

This strikes me as midwit-tier.

I am not putting my modhat on for this, but it's borderline. You can say you don't like a post and you'd rather not see posts like this, but it's generally pretty poor form. Not every thread has to appeal to you, and this is pretty close to saying "This is stupid, why did you post this?" Which is not what we (the mods) want to see. Criticize the post, criticize the story, criticize the OP's analysis, that's all fine. Don't complain because he posted something you aren't interested in reading.

I don't really think The Motte is the place for literary criticism, since it's a largely non-rational practice. But god, the writing here is just bad. Maybe if you're a direct person who likes it when characters spew forth punctuated idea after punctuated idea it's the right pace for you, but these paragraphs are a hard read. If you want worlds-colliding or a reflection of modernity fantasy fiction, there is lots of stuff you can find with enjoyable prose. Try /r/fantasy.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I prefer it this way. It is similar to the hard science fiction style parodied in "Masters of the Metropolis", "If All Stories Were Written like Science Fiction Stories", and "In Ovens Baked", which I enjoy very much. Such stories are about ideas, so a writing style which focuses on the ideas works best.

Check out The Golden Oecumene. I think you'd love it.