site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 9, 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.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I wonder how Jewish academics are going to handle this. Will they update their believes about their woke colleagues and students, and if so will they work to change hiring and admissions policies?

Many Jewish academics I know are very anti-Israel. I knew one who specifically asked, "Where can I find a pro-Palestinian synagogue?"

Will that not be reevaluated with Hamas being revealed to be the savages the IDF always said they were?

For my part: Islamist Jihadists are assholes, who knew? Sure, kill them, whatever. I don't care.

The collective punishment by a superior force on a group that are not allowed to leave seems bad though.

Do I have suggestions? No. Do I care about that? Also no.
All I can do is point at the latest "collateral damage'd" picture of some western journalist that stopped a stray bullet with their forehead in an empty field or the latest video of a settler executing a Palestinian family while the IDF watches and say "Less of that please".

What "revealed"? Hamas never hid it. The apologetics ranged from "But Israel was worse", "Israel made them do it by oppressing the Palestinians", "Israel had it coming because they oppress the Palestinians", "But what about the settlements?", "mumble mumble Irgun" to "Israel is a sovereign nation and should be held to higher standards", "Israel is a US ally and should be held to higher standards", "Israel is a strong country and should be able to solve all the problems unilaterally without actually using that strength, Hamas is weak and must do what they have to" etc.

Revealed means ‘denial becomes much more difficult verging on impossible’. Agree that the information was always there, but now you don’t need to listen to icky red tribers to hear it.

Hard to say. I have noticed that a lot of "peace" movement people have already started dealing with cognitive dissonance on this point by amping up their focus on Israel's actions.