site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've been thinking about Indians today. In my current management position in tech, I deal with a lot of Indians. On one hand, Indians are some of my most trusted colleagues and friends who I rely on who have a CS degree from a legit US college like University of Colorado Boulder or Ohio State. These people are the best and I love working with them. These are people who went to school in the US and are legit. Not only that, but my favorite two teachers in college in math and CS were both Indians who taught CS.

On the other hand, the Indians we hire as support are absolute trash. You compare them to Philipno or Eastern European people we hire as support, and they are so bad. The funny thing is that the Indians that are in the US are our best people for support. Obviously, there is a massive selection bias, but what the hell is going on with this?

I actually have a real world example. I worked at a telecom company as a software engineer and most of the managers were former Army or Air Force people. The majority of the people in the US who were doing support are/were Indian. But these people were Indians in America and everyone liked them and they all eventually got promoted. But the overnight people in India were again absolute trash.

What is going on in India with their leadership? Why are Indians so bad in India but ones that come hear and get a taste of American corporate structure so good? I know this is probably a best fit for the questions thread, but this legitimately puzzles me.

And obviously Indian-Americans I don't include in this. They are just like all other Americans.

And obviously Indian-Americans I don't include in this. They are just like all other Americans.

No, they're really not. If they were you wouldn't need what comes before the hyphen, you would just call them Americans. They are different, and are thus referred to differently, which you knew and understood. I also find this particularly offensive because I am ethnically American and you casually erase that as if it's the most normal thing in the world.

Please, just because you are either unable or unwilling to trace your ethnic origin or mix back a few hundred years when your (European) ancestors showed up doesn't mean that you get to call yourself just "American" and consider anyone else of a different skin color as being something entirely. The only relevant characteristic in a nation of immigrants and descendants of immigrants is whether they hold citizenship. Have it? Congratulations, you've just been transmuted into an American, here's your card letting you call yourself a member of the Greatest Nation in the world (unironic endorsement).

Ethnically American, not even indigenous, can't make this shit up if you tried.

just because you are either unable or unwilling to trace your ethnic origin or mix back a few hundred years when your (European) ancestors

I am both able and willing, and can find my great grandfather's grave in the old country, and know which town of a few hundred where my great-grandmother was born. But that great grandfather wasn't American, and neither was the great grandmother. The two of them were not American, and neither was their daughter, but her husband was, because his family had been in a half-dozen states over two centuries prior. He was of borderer stock, by the way. So don't confuse me staking out this position with apathy or ignorance.

and consider anyone else of a different skin color as being something entirely.

My white great grandfather wasn't American, and neither was his white wife. Nikola Jokic and Kirstaps Prozingas and Luka Doncic and Dirk Nowitzki are not American, despite their skin color, because they have their own ethnicities, their own homelands, their own people. They can be citizens, and maybe their children could be, depending on their mothers, but they are not and will not be American.

The only relevant characteristic in a nation of immigrants

Not immigrants: colonists. My family has been in this land since before the country existed. Where you say immigrant, I say foreigner, where I say founding stock, you say immigrant.

Have it? Congratulations, you've just been transmuted into an American

No. That's simply not true, as much as people like you want it to be true. I will not concede it and I will continue to contest it whenever the assumption tries to slip in. It especially rings hollow when your coethnics are applying the same logic to Britain, or Arab muslims applying to it France, neither of which have ever been a nation of immigrants. It reveals the motivation for such arguments to be anti-white animostiy, jealously and bitterness at the glories of the British and American and French empires, resentment at the success of the fairer races, and revenge for old grievances.

Ethnically American, not even indigenous, can't make this shit up if you tried.

You Know Nothing.

It seems to me that for an ethnicity to exist in practice, you need a critical mass of people to identify with it to the exclusion of other identities, and that is what "Americans"/Amerikaners/white Americans of colonial British heritage/[insert your preferred neologism here] lack. Ukrainians are fighting a war not to get lumped in with the Russian ethnicity and Palestinians have fiercely resisted decades of attempts to group them with Jordanians or Egyptians, but I doubt even a lizardman's constant of your founding stock American ethnicity conceive of it in the same terms you do or would lift a finger to assist any political mobilization on their behalf (unless it were disguised as garden variety civic nationalism, which is what liberals have been paranoid about for decades despite it almost never happening).

It did and does despite constant demoralization efforts that you seem to have fallen for.