site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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.

To your second point, I see this argument get bandied about endlessly, and it almost always fails to take seriously the way I see critics of the SR conceptualize the matter. This is the same error feminists always make against those who advocate a return to the 1950's, when they castigate men by saying that it was never a utopia. A claim I never saw any man ever make. The choice isn't necessarily between good and bad. It's between bad and 'worse'. The common error is to assume to there's some kind of 'solution' out there that we simply have to get to, that appeases all parties involved, and there isn't. You simply have to 'tolerate' certain things. Women aren't exactly the happiest they've ever been either, living in the richest and most emancipated society that's ever existed in the history of the human species. That either goes to show that:

  1. Their happiness isn't very stable and shouldn't be shown too much regard.

  2. If they're going to be unhappy no matter how you have it, there are better ways to structure society and better uses to put them to.


More generally, a lot of modernity serves the interests of a small minority of happily atomized PMC ‘decouplers’ who want to maximize their individual freedom at the expense of the institutions that allow for a more broad-based happiness.

This is why I've always looked at liberal/progressive ideology (and indeed Leftism broadly construed) as a snake that eats its own tail. A lot of these kind of freedomhead's espouse values such as "unity!" and "solidarity!" in their philosophical lexicons, but it rings hollow on the inside.

"Solidarity!," doesn't carry with it the same intimacy with others as the spirit of "nationalism!" and love of one's country does. Saying "let's all go to the community center!" doesn't have the same ring to it as saying, "let's all go to Church on Sunday!," and be told about our place in the cosmos.