site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 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.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So, in other Aella news, she's channelling the spirit of Hanania with this poll:

Suppose you have a 13 year old child dying of a terminal illness, and their final wish is to lose their virginity before they die. Is it ethical for the Make A Wish Foundation to hire them a prostitute?

Options are (with their current percentages):

  • yes, any prostitute (10.7%)
  • yes, only child prostitute (3.9%)
  • yes, only adult prostitute (9.8%)
  • no (75.6%)

Of course Aella with her reach manages to get normies to see her posts and the replies are wild that such a person could even exist, some choice replies:

Bro how do you niggas even think of shit like this

What if you were executed at gitmo that would be so crazy

Is this "chick" a pedo? (poll, results are 56.5% yes, 21.7% no, 21.7% "show me the results")

Again I ask, what is wrong with you and why do you keep showing up on my timeline?

While the poll itself may be interesting, what I find most interesting of all are the responses from the normies (there are responses that look objectively at the situation and say stuff like "no, if anyone is going to hire prostitutes it should be the parents, not the make a wish foundation", but they all tend to have stuff like "e/acc" in their usernames so they aren't your average randos). These tend to be extremely negative, but not negative in a "I know what I hate and this is it" form but rather a "first encounter with a terrible eldrich abomination you want to see destroyed but are confused at how could it even exist" sort of way. It does not feel like pure hate, but rather a hate that is born of fear, true xenophobia in its original meaning of the word. Nevertheless it is still a form of hate and you can quite easily see the vitriol directed towards Aella, merely for posting this poll.

My worry here though is that as technology advances and a sliver of people with disproportionate cultural cachet adopt belief systems like those of Aella and decouple from the low sophistication ways of thinking common in most westerners along with completely different cultures entering the west and taking root the current indigenous westerners will find their belief and value systems squeezed on both sides, from above by the likes of people who think like Aella does (nothing wrong with how she thinks, in fact I support it) along with from below by the value systems of recent migrants (who still care about stuff like honour and shame etc.).

While this may be a difficult time for the squeezed westereners themselves (I have little sympathy though, these very same people expect migrants to deal with a far bigger and more rapid cultural shock and blame them if they migrants take steps to mitigate this impact), I am more concerned about potential increased societal scale strife as people lash out from being put in a world that they no longer understand (see the "what if you were executed at gitmo" response above, I for one am glad this person has no power and hope it stays this way).

Naturally I have no doubt that any reified violence by the disaffected would be put down with the same prejudice we use for terrorist attacks these days, but it would still not be a good time for social harmony and that has widespread social impacts beyond a small handful of people cracking and going on a rampage where they kill a few people before bring brought down themselves.

The extremely negative reaction is not a surprise at all. Those who you call "normies" are afraid of the new deadly sins like sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, pedophilia and will refuse to engage with a person that tries to trick them into giving a "yes, but" answer, because they know they will be called a dirty sheep fucker and thrown out of the RV. That's why you see this kind of ritualistic purity where people will attack anyone who tries to poke holes in the taboo and will claim that they have been attracted to humans that are undeniably at least 18 years old since the very first moment they had an inkling of sexual thoughts.

Fair enough. This just gives me one more data point for why the common man (or an aggregation of common men) should have basically zero political power on national scales, not like I needed any more for my collection but yeah, this goes on the pile.

In related news there was a comment I saw on Reddit that showed just how bad democracy has been for the middle east during the last 100 years:

The more uncomfortable and probable answer is that of all the states created in the 20th century, the monarchies have performed far better than the republics

Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Saudi, Oman

Libya, Iraq, Iran

These are all neighbouring each other, are all within the top 10 oil and gas producing states per capita

The first group is wealthy and stable. The second are the complete opposite. One key difference..

Iran was a stable, prosperous monarchy

Iraq was a stable, prosperous monarchy

Libya was a stable, prosperous monarchy

The republican coups turned each of these three countries into poorly run repressive warmongering terrorist havens,

There's no two ways around this.

I'm completely pro Uncle Sam being world hegemon, but one thing I do not understand is America's hard on for democracy even in countries that are eminiently not suited for it.

This just gives me one more data point for why the common man (or an aggregation of common men) should have basically zero political power on national scales

So I take it you are pro-Rotherham sexual ethics, then?

How is that connected to anything I said? The Rotherham rapists were animals who would be publicly hanged under my ideal system. Giving the common man less power to influence national politics has zero bearing on how much power they should have over their own children and local surroundings. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy where the common man has next to no power on a national level, they still have ways of influencing their local neighbourhoods and have power over their children etc.

If oppressive monarchies have a tendency to experience revolutions in the first place that wreck the country, that has to be taken into account as a negative for oppressive monarchies though. Thats one of the functions of democracy, so that the common people feel they have a say and don't overthrow the government.

You're seeing the end state of an oppressive monarchy collapsing and blaming it on what follows. If oppressive monarchies were so stable, then they wouldn't collapse like this.

Unfortunately in the middle east at least "democracies" tend to experience revolutions/coups that wreck the country at roughly the same rate or even higher, so that's not an argument for choosing democracy over monarchy.

Perhaps not, but measuring performance of a post-revolution nation against the pre-revolution nation without noting that the revolution itself is a pretty big red flag against the performance of the oppressive monarchy is still not very accurate.

If oppressive monarchies have a tendency to experience revolutions in the first place that wreck the country, that has to be taken into account as a negative for oppressive monarchies though.

I have to remember that one the next time they start screaming about "threats to our democracy".

Sure, all government types have weaknesses and flaws. Democracy has its own set. Democracies tendency towards decision paralysis with ideas that have closely balanced support is a big one at times.

I'm not talking about "decision paralysis", I'm talking about "Russian interference", "fake news", "populism", "extremism", and so on. If revolution is monarchy's fault, all those things are democracy's fault, and should be embraced as they come, rather than fought.

Oh absolutely, populism is a definite issue in democracies at times. I was just giving one example, not an exhaustive list. Note I am not saying revolution should be embraced or populism, just that when comparing the pre- and post revolution outcomes, you can't escape that the oppression is in many cases what triggered the revolution. It has positives and negatives, focussing only on the positives of one and the negatives of the other is not an accurate comparison

I hope you’ve noticed what those countries have in common. The conclusion here is that every common man in the world is a decent ruler, with one exception. One muslim, one vote, one time.

I'm completely pro Uncle Sam being world hegemon, but one think I do not understand is America's hard on for democracy even in countries that are eminiently not suited for it.

It's the source of their legitimacy. The grunts that went to Iraq and Afghanistan weren't told "you are fighting to uphold our global hegemony!", they were told they are bringing democracy to the oppressed.