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 -
Below, there is a discussion of the civil war due to Robert E Lee statute being torn down. The other main event of the day is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I would say as a general matter the biggest supporters of Palestine in the US are progressives. Progressives also hate the confederacy.
Question is can you separate them? The south was arguing for their right of self determination? Of course, imbedded within that is they wanted to savagely deny that right to blacks held in chattel slavery. Likewise, the Palestinians claim the right of self determination but their stated intention is to kill the Israelis (from the river to the sea has a meaning).
So in both cases there is a legitimate claim to right of self determination. But that claim is bloodied by what those people would do with such right and at least in the confederacy context that “bad thing” was enough to invalidate their right to self determination.
My question then is whether the right to self determination is properly thought of as as a right? If so, it seems at best it is a contingent right. If it is a contingent right, what contingencies are unimportant enough to “trump” the right?
Wanted to quickly ask: How common is the knowledge that Lee 1. was offered a position among Union command when hostilities broke out, 2. himself held a desire for the states to remain in a union, and 3. ultimately chose to follow wherever his home state decided to go. It seems not very common.
Does that sound like someone solely motivated by a desire to keep Africans in the fields of the South for the express purpose of agricultural productivity? Sure he chose the side that ultimately lost, but it seems that this attitude of "throw him in with the rest" is novel, historically.
That was the "Lost Cause" Confederate apologist narrative widely taught at tons of southern US public schools up to at least the 2010s, including my own.
His home state had split between pro-US and pro-Confederate halves. That's why there is now a Virginia and a West Virginia. Even from a perspective of turning off your morals and going for state alignment, when given a choice of which Virginians to side with he chose to help the slavers kill the loyalist half. I am glad his personality cult's statues are being removed and melted down.
I'm sure it was a binary choice for him too.
It speaks to his failures as a human being that he chose so poorly. Being uncommitted to the Confederate cause would honestly make it even worse that he chose to help them kill hundreds of thousands of people anyway.
This is year zero thinking. You are applying your 21st century morals to a guy who lived in practically a different universe. Who do you think were the failures as human beings of covid - the vaccinated or the unvaccinated?
No. I am applying the morals of his own time. Lee knew that slavery was evil, and fought to defend it anyway out of a misguided sense of patriotism. Given the many positive aspects of his character, I hope he gets to spend eternity slightly further away from the Fire than, say, Jeffrey Epstein.
What seems more likely to you - that Lee proudly fought to protect his evil empire that did heinous things he knew would put him in hell, or that maybe slavery wasn't considered so uniquely evil that it superceded every other consideration? That's the year zero thinking here, you treating it like a settled subject, like Lee's conception of slavery as evil was the same as a 21st century conception of slavery as evil, instead of say how blasphemy is evil.
Which side of the covid vaccine belongs in hell with Epstein, Lee and me? The pro or the anti? Is it more evil to force someone to surrender bodily autonomy or to put your health and comfort before the welfare of the sick and injured? Or am I missing fricking light years of nuance by reducing it to a binary like that?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If we're comparing people to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, the rebel leader who killed tons of people for a bad cause fighting for millions to be enslaved and kept uneducated in harsh agricultural labor is clearly much closer to "Year Zero" than the people saying he shouldn't have done that, both today and in the 19th century. OP contains a ton of claims about him being conflicted and torn about this decision, and there were many southern unionists and abolitionists and widespread debate over secession, so clearly it was also controversial by 19th century moral standards. And the overarching discussion concerns public shrines and idols promoting veneration of Lee in the 21st century.
Lol all I said was this is year zero thinking, and you claim I am comparing people to Pol Pot? Do I even need to be here, it seems like you are trying to do both sides of the conversation yourself!
I wasn't comparing anyone to Pol Pot. I said exactly what I meant to say, and I meant every word of it. You are still applying your 21st century morals to a guy who lived in practically a different universe.
As you say the issue was clearly controversial - back then. Because it isn't anymore, I'm surprised to have to tell you, slavery was successfully abolished in the US years ago now. Nobody is torn and conflicted in two thousand and twenty three about whether it's ok to enslave black people. In 2023 the idea of enslaving another person is heinous, and considered a defining moral failing - like murderers and rapists, slavers are considered defacto evil, whereas back then people who owned slaves were controversial, but still respected - enough to lead the Union army for instance.
So unlike you, Lee did not have the luxury of recognising slavery as an easily answered black and white question, he was forced to consider the entire confederate cause (which was not just about slavery, although I understand why you think it was) and he even had to consider other things like looking after his home and family.
This is why I updated the scissor statement to something more recent - covid. Given how sure of your moral clarity you are, you can easily tell me who the failed human beings there were right?
Edit: legibility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(political_notion)
I do not believe you when you claim you weren't explicitly comparing MadMonzer and I to the Khmer Rouge. "Year Zero" was Pol Pot's concept. The usage here was not in reference to the Nine Inch Nails album or the day after Nazi Germany fell. It's like if someone called a debate opponent a Quisling then claimed they weren't comparing them to nazi collaborators.
Unfortunately it has not been fully abolished, just the chattel kind. A whole lot of people still think of slavery as ok if the slaves are given that status by a court per the 13th amendment rather than an auction block. Those of us who recognize forced inmate labor as slavery are considered controversial. I am fully confident that I would have been an abolitionist then as I am now. I worked in the prison system as part of a family dynasty of prison wardens and grew up constantly surrounded by inmate chain gangs picking cotton and soybeans under armed guard in the hot southern sun and being used for all manner of work from butlers to factory workers. I was repeatedly taught both at home, school and in training academies that the Confederates were the good guys and chattel slavery a mostly benign institution and believed both for a time. Yet I turned my back on this career with an offer in hand to become a warden (the camp commander kind, not the rank-and-file kind) with a lucrative salary due to independently reaching the conclusion that inmate forced labor constituted a form of slavery. This relevation and acting as my conscience demanded as a result had immense personal and professional cost that I do not regret for a moment. So yes, I am fully confident that given I independently rejected a widespread socially accepted form of slavery at high cost while being socialized to see both prison slavery and the original chattel slavery as acceptable with strong financial, family and geographic incentives to choose otherwise, that I would have also rejected the original chattel slavery. Additionally, while most of my ancestors fought for the Confederacy as light calvary and artillerymen, a few took to the hills rather than be conscripted into their forces. But we're talking about Lee here, not me. And again, according to the claims above Lee recognized slavery as evil but chose to lead armies to defend it anyway.
In terms of covid, Lee was a high ranking leader who knowingly committed an immense moral failing that killed tons of people, not a rank and file foot soldier taking potshots. So the roughly analogous figures would be high ranking leadership deliberately making decisions that got hundreds of thousands or millions killed while knowing better. In that department I would place the scientific and political leadership who oversaw gain of function research and covered up the lab leak rather than sharing everything they knew, Chinese gov personnel who knowingly allowed international travel while they had a new virus actively spreading within their borders, as well as foriegn government officials who refused to strictly quarantine travelers coming from China due to putting political/business considerations of not upsetting the Chinese government above preventing a new virus from spreading into their citizenry.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link