site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29582 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

There are tradeoffs. Being dominated by a feudal lord or emperor 1000 years ago would have sucked if you happened to have a nasty kind of feudal lord or emperor rather than a nice one. Sure, there was Christianity and certain notions of social propriety in common between the peasants and the aristocrats, but there were also numerous brutally suppressed peasant revolts.

I don't think religious belief necessarily implies feudalism, or that lack of religious belief implies non-feudalism. I also thought you meant having to socially conform to your local community, not literal serfdom.

To be fair, I'm kind of an extreme case in how much I hate having to conform to any community.

But yes, of course just having to socially conform to a community is much less bad than literal serfdom. But by the same token, isn't you saying "being dominated by people who know nothing about me, and have values completely alien to mine" also a pretty strong exaggeration of what modernity is actually like? The reality, it seems to me, is that the average social conservative of today probably shares like 80% of values in common with the average elite of today. It's just that we focus on the differences.

"being dominated by people who know nothing about me, and have values completely alien to mine" also a pretty strong exaggeration of what modernity is actually like?

Honestly it seems like an understatement. Rather it's being dominated by people who actively hate one's culture and openly boast about being the best at exterminating it.

I'm no Religious man, but I certainly feel more free to live a normal human life in an Islamic theocracy than in the modern managerial state. And I say this having experienced the downsides of both. At least with the theocrats the rules are not constantly changing and there is a defined limiting principle you can invoke to keep the peace.

I’d be interested in reading about your Islamic experience, if you’ve written it up anywhere.

Last year, I had a fascinating conversation with a woman who spent the early 80s in Riyadh. It really made me think.

I usually avoid talking about my private life in too much detail on the internet, but one of these days I should do an effort post on the ambivalent relationship with monarchy and Islam I inherited from my father. There is definitely something there.

As for that story it is really funny in that it's so typically American. You guys have this exuberant confidence that is so outrageous it somehow wraps around from obnoxious to endearing.

It's not always a good, I've seen American cultural insensitivity blow up many things, but at heart I can't help but admire this unabashed patriotism and enthusiasm about one's way of life.

To be fair, I'm kind of an extreme case in how much I hate having to conform to any community

I'm not much of social conformist either, in fact my distaste for modernity stems directly from that. The issue is that it seems the only choice is who to conform to, and in hindsight conforming to your family and community seems strictly superior.

But by the same token, isn't you saying "being dominated by people who know nothing about me, and have values completely alien to mine" also a pretty strong exaggeration of what modernity is actually like?

Not really. My point was that it's comparable in it's intensity to the pressure your local community would put on you. I don't think that's an exaggeration.

The reality, it seems to me, is that the average social conservative of today probably shares like 80% of values in common with the average elite of today. It's just that we focus on the differences.

Now this is where I hold some extreme views.

Now this is where I hold some extreme views.

Could you elaborate?

What I meant by the 80% is that most Westerners, elite or not, socially conservative or not, largely agree about things like:

  1. "murdering is bad" (unless war, self-defense, justified revolution, etc, etc, or whatever other supposedly justified reasons are given, but at least most people do agree that walking up and killing someone for no reason is bad)

  2. "books should not be literally banned by law" (there are censorious progressives and various hate speech laws here and there, but almost no-one calls for widespread banning of texts, and even the ones who do feel that it needs to be justified by appeals to security, which means that they still hold free speech on some level as a value)

  3. "women should be able to vote just like men can" (the number of people who disagree with this is very small)

Etc.

I guess maybe you personally disagree with the elites on values more than the average social conservative does, but I might be misunderstanding.

I hold some capital D deranged views on the nature of our elites. I'm pretty sure mass scale depopulation is one of their goals, and another is setting up a global digital panopticon where they will have total control over what we say, do, or even think.

You might be right on basic stuff like "murder bad", but I wouldn't say that constitutes 80% agreement.

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