site banner
PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   24579 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 25, 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.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Just because they're annoying doesn't mean they're wrong - a meta-discussion

A few months ago a wild vegan appeared. He was almost self-parodically stereotypical: short, mid thirties, college-educated, and into endurance sports. He posted a reasonably well-argued case that veganism was not harmful to sporting performance, with the usual smug boasting of his numbers in endurance sports. At the end of his post, he finished with "what's your excuse?"

The entirety of his well-reasoned post was ignored, and he was dogpiled for that one final sentence.

Mottizens could immediately detect what was going on - he actually found the killing and eating of animals to be immoral, but didn't think that would be a convincing argument, so he tried to achieve his goal with another argument.

Both positions are actually worth considering. I'm open to the possibility that killing animals for food is wrong, and I'm open to the possibility that a vegan diet is not harmful to athletic performance. Hiding behind one to advance another, however, is deceitful.

I've actually tried to engage seriously with these ideas, and in my desire to see their own steelmen, I have tried to read some vegan sites. Usually I give up quickly, as they are full of the above argumentation - shifting goalposts, emotional appeals, hiding behind one argument to advance another, etc.

I wish I could say I have rejected vegetarianism because I engaged with their best arguments and found them wanting. Instead, I found their argumentation so annoying I ceased to engage with them.

I've had similar experiences with people who hate cars. Like anyone else who can do math, I have often found it absurd to use two tons of car and two liters of fuel to get two bags of groceries. I've also tried to mitigate some of these by moving to a New Urbanist development (with an unpleasant HOA, sadly), and I've got an electric car and solar panels on my roof. Sadly, this doesn't lead to any productive discussion, as I've discussed before.

Years ago, I remember a similar circular argumentative style among supporters of the ACA. They would say that people are afraid to start companies because they won't have health care, to which I'd reply "sure, how about two years of subsidized COBRA?". Then they'd point to catastrophic expenses, to which I'd say "sure, how about a subsidized backstop for all 1MM+ expenses for anyone who has a 1MM plan?", to which they'd change the argument again.

Of course, there's a pattern here. From what I can tell, many vegetarians have an (understandable) response to the raising, killing, and eating of animals. Some people seem to be terrified of owning and operating large machines, and they find private cars and single family housing to be socially alienating. Some people are emotionally disturbed by other people suffering from the health consequences of a lifetime of bad choices.

What these groups all have in common is a strong ability to signal these things emotionally to people similar to them and form a consensus, but also a generally terrible ability to discuss these things reasonably.

We don't have many vegans, anti-car people, or socialists here at The Motte - but that's not because their arguments are invalid, it's because the people attracted to those ideologies don't fit well with our particular discursive style. On the flip side, we have plenty of white nationalists, who seem to be able to adapt.

I'm confident that white nationalists are wrong. I have engaged with their best arguments, and found them wanting.

I'm only confident that vegans are annoying, because they are so annoying that I find it hard to engage with their arguments.

I think that's a blind spot for The Motte.

At risk of repeating what's been said downthread, your entire disposition towards the topic betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on. Veganism isn't based on some argument. Either you care enough about animal suffering to do something about it or you don't. Factory farming is, in a lot of places, a torture farm. If you care a lot about animal suffering there is no "argument". There's just a fundamental factual truth about the nature of harvesting animals for food and from there on all else follows. Same is true for 'white nationalism'. Either you care about white people, their bio-diversity, history and continued existence or you don't.

You are not asking for an argument, you are asking for a bonk on the head that makes you see the world in a different light. For some that's videos on Facebook and documentaries, real world experiences or socialization. Whatever it is, you're not dealing with arguments and I think it would behoove you and people who talk like you to stop pretending you are a machine that digests paragraphs and sorts out the fact and logic. You're not.

Either you care about white people, their bio-diversity, history and continued existence or you don't.

I'm white. I care about white people continuing to exist. I'm also not a white nationalist. We'll thrive just fine next to Mexicans and Asian immigrants. The Indian families on my block are not wounding my ability to thrive as a white man.

This appears to be the very falsest of dichotomies.

  1. I’m very worried about shrinking white population coupled with an ideology that says “white man bad.” Other groups already have a pro group in bias (except for whites since we bought into the whole color free paradigm). But add to that extra hatred and it isn’t pretty.

  2. I live in an Indian majority community. Often, I feel like a stranger in a foreign land. My wife gets visible in uncomfortable when I mention this alienation that occurs in my country. This isn’t anything the Indians are doing wrong and most of them seem like nice people. But it isn’t my culture and that is a net negative for me.

You are defining "care" to mean "form an ethnostate excluding non-whites". That's a pretty extreme form of "care". That's so extreme I will reject it as a good definition. There are valid ways to "care" without being a white nationalist.

Which one of these 'ways' does not, in some form, effectively exclude immigration and enforce some sort of segregation to maintain a white population? I am curious considering the state of Texas, which has recently gone majority hispanic.

We'll thrive just fine next to Mexicans and Asian immigrants.

At risk of sounding to snarky, that's like, your opinion, man.

This appears to be the very falsest of dichotomies.

You fit the description of someone who says they care whilst they don't, rather well.

I am curious considering the state of Texas, which has recently gone majority hispanic.

You know a lot of those hispanics are actually literally indistinguishable-from-southern-Europeans white, right?

And a lot of them are not.

Detroit was once called the 'Paris of the West'. I don't think anyone calls it this anymore, except as a sarcastic snub at Parisian decline. The Detroit that was has been permanently lost due to demographic changes.

Everything seems fine until it isn't. Suppose the Indian community, or the Mexican community vote for candidates who'll redistribute resources for whites to Indians on the basis of oppression (or any reason they can find) - why wouldn't they? That's in their interests. Why wouldn't they seek to advance their own collective self-interests? Helping the ingroup and harming the outgroup is basic human nature.

It seems worth noting that the Mexican community has not done this when they have had the opportunity, except incidentally(eg Spanish as an acceptable language of instruction in schools). The equivalent of those black activists pushing for reparations can't get elected.

There was a pretty big thread last week about how Canadians are handling mass immigration from Asia and India and they certainly don't seem to be thriving.

As a practical matter we should limit immigration. Canada really opened the gates. They are something like 20% immigrant at this point. And then didn't build significantly more housing. They really screwed themselves on that last point.

I think avoiding Canada's horrible immigration policy is orthogonal to forming a white ethnostate.

We'll thrive just fine next to Mexicans and Asian immigrants. The Indian families on my block are not wounding my ability to thrive as a white man.

How are the 20% Indian families / other immigrants in Canada wounding the Canadians' ability to thrive?

Is quantity a quality of its own?

Every other Indian family on your block has a family member that they're trying to get to the US using existing laws. These people are probably not going to vote to shut down legal immigration until they've brought all the people they need first. Perhaps they'd even vote to make it more like Canada.

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