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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The last top-level comment (if that's the correct description) in last week's thread was a self-declared screed by @BahRamYou, which coincidentally reminded me of a short observation about the Ukraine made by @qqqq almost a year ago, which unfortunately generated no further discussion at all:
From a demographic point of view, it is much more interesting how a country with one of the lowest fertility in the world and a population of less than 40 million people will exist after at least 10 million people left it. (Most of which are women and most of them will not return). This will probably be the biggest gender imbalance in history. Will Ukraine declare itself the first incel state? Will it provoke insanely high levels of crime and suicide? It will be interesting to watch.
I thought about this a bit, and it occurs to me that the Ukrainian War is unlike other wars seen around the world since the beginning of this century because it indeed represents a sort of unfortunate perfect demographic storm, namely that 1) it affects a population that is relatively well acculturated into general Western norms of modernity 2) it is relatively close enough to Western welfare states to trigger a massive refugee wave 3) pretty much no control authority anywhere is trying to curb the flight of women, as opposed to the flight of men 4) the region affected is characterized by low fertility, even by European standards.
Based on what I know about the reality of sex differences, I'm sure the presence of large numbers of Ukrainian refugee women, I imagine a large portion of them young and single, in the EU has already generated high levels of resentment among local women, even if this is not visible in media reports. On the other hand, if the Ukraine, or at least large regions of it, has indeed become de facto incel land, which I imagine is indeed the case, I find it hilarious that, objectively speaking, this probably represents the first social realization of the scenario that average Western online feminists love to loudly complain about as a nightmarish dystopia to be avoided, namely a society plagued by enormous numbers of single, sexless and, one can imagine, bitter and traumatized, violent young men - and yet I'm sure you'll not see much or any discussion of this in feminist circles.
As in the past, I still not believe that it will exist any anti-refugee movement started and staffed by women, also on the basis of intrasexual competition. There was none when the rape indexes went up in European countries that received immigrants, and as a consequence I believe that, if there will be any sort of "sexual tension" in the future, there will be no reaction from women at all.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link