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.

There’s a difference between a war and the state deciding that one of its own must die

The death sentence, while slowly dying itself (or being strangled through lawfare and regulations) still exists in many Western states.

Further, there are plenty of cases where the state summarily executes people outside a state of war, try and shoot a police officer, or in the case of the UK, attempt to stab one and see how far the sanctity of life gets you.

Holding human life as sacred/uncomprisable simply doesn't work, at most you can argue that a high premium should be put on it, which is already true in the West, unless people are willfully blind to the historical state of affairs or the misfortunes of the rest of the globe.

Further, one can easily (and correctly) argue that this particular case lies at the confluence of a conflict between multiple different "rights", such as a right to medical care, a right not to be tortured, the right to die, or parental rights over their offspring. No matter how you slice it, someone's sacred ox is getting gored.

States can and will kill people, it's how they perpetuate themselves, and necessary for their very existence until we manage to eliminate violence altogether (hah).

try and shoot a police officer, or in the case of the UK, attempt to stab one and see how far the sanctity of life gets you.

Seeing how regular police officers don’t carry firearms in the UK (aside from in Northern Ireland), you’ll probably get pretty far.