site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   25764 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The point that Ackman made on Twitter when he called for them to resign was that they’ll kick you out or try to remove even tenured faculty for saying one thing remotely against the progressive ‘consensus’ on trans issues / gender identity or on evopsych when it comes to differences between men and women (let alone HBD), but things of the ‘river to the sea’ variety are tolerated, when they seem at least ‘as’ controversial. They are not free speech absolutists, so what’s the issue with lobbying to ban speech you don’t like, seeing as they already do it for people who contribute much less money to the endowment than wealthy Jews?

And on that note I think you’d get many people here arguing in that direction if a large and well armed movement of native Americans was kidnapping, raping, killing etc large numbers of whites under, in part, that slogan, and Harvard was tolerating that chant.

So if someone defends European/white culture they get banned. Yet, he is upset that people aren't banned when they oppose zionism.

And on that note I think you’d get many people here arguing in that direction if a large and well armed movement of native Americans was kidnapping, raping, killing etc large numbers of whites under, in part, that slogan, and Harvard was tolerating that chant.

If someone wanted to build white settlements on reservations, set up economic blockades around the reservations, kill hundreds of natives every year and then conduct relentless airraids for months on them when they resist they would have been completely wiped out of academia.

If someone wanted to build white settlements on reservations, set up economic blockades around the reservations, kill hundreds of natives every year and then conduct relentless airraids for months on them when they resist they would have been completely wiped out of academia.

Well yes, because natives are doing no harm to us except running casinos and occasionally protesting oil pipelines. The Choctaws not firing homemade rockets at Tulsa and periodically sending out raiding parties to kidnap random people after raping and killing even more random people is a relevant difference.

Well yes, because whites are doing no harm to the natives anymore...

If someone wanted to build white settlements on reservations, set up economic blockades around the reservations, kill hundreds of natives every year

They killed a lot more than that when they built a white settlement on the biggest reservation of all, which is why they’re currently 70% of the population and natives are…2%. There may be some performative regret on the left, but in every real sense the process of settlement has totally and permanently dispossessed the indigenous inhabitants. There is no remaining territory for native North Americans that is not under the ultimate political control of a non-native majority.

By contrast, and even in a worst case scenario, many ancestors of indigenous Palestinians migrated extensively around the Levant, and they and many of the rest could easily be accommodated in the neighboring Levantine Arab countries that are religiously, ethnically, phenotypically and largely genetically indistinguishable from them.

There is no remaining territory for native North Americans that is not under the ultimate political control of a non-native majority.

Not north of the Rio grande.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats