site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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.

33
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

my whole comment was about how i wished that stupid people didn't perceive masks as some sort of satanic ritual designed to make their lives worse

If people believe that the masks don't help against the spread of covid, and spent 2 years constantly harassed to put one on, I don't think this is such a weird conclusion to arrive at.

Where I live, the public health authorities stayed very adamant that masks don't work until Fall of 2020. At that point when corona returned the political pressure to do "something" was so great that they had to concede and advise to the cabinet that mask mandates might help, with the side note that "they don't work directly but they might make people obey other rules better". Of course in the end for whatever reason the masks didn't have any visible affect on the numbers and we ended up with a total lockdown and national curfew for months. But that is another story.

What am I supposed to conclude from this episode with the masks? They were quite clearly admitting that the reason I had to go around with a mask on my face 8+ hours a day was that it would make me more obsessive about the virus, and avoid human contact. Now does it make me "stupid" to perceive as some sort of ritual designed to make my life worse?

P.S. I know we aren't on reddit anymore, but I don't think calling people you disagree with stupid is fitting to this place in any case.

What am I supposed to conclude from this episode with the masks?

idunno, probably that public health services are inefficient and worried about appearances more than results. and yeah im sorry for calling my strawman stupid, though i have to wonder why it caused you any offense.