site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 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.

7
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Are modern women just that impulsive when feeling unhappy in a marriage? Or misled? Do they have illusions about singlehood?

Why isn’t the most direct explanation—that many women are unhappy in their marriages and leave because of that—on the table?

Everyone who bothered to chime in seemed to agree with the notion that divorce is usually a net negative for the wife, both romantically and economically

I don’t really understand how one can objectively rule out that they were really unhappy in the marriage and are happier outside of it, even though they’re poorer or have fewer partners or whatever afterwards.

Tbh this kind of sounds like an MRA revenge fantasy. I’m sure that women (and men) probably overestimate their out-of-marriage prospects a bit, which would lead to “too many” divorces, but most people also have a really strong “make it work” determination that probably counterbalances this somewhat.

I don’t really understand how one can objectively rule out that they were really unhappy in the marriage and are happier outside of it, even though they’re poorer or have fewer partners or whatever afterwards.

Sometimes they leave because they're just looking for the "next best thing." And when it turns out they were lied to, they find themselves right back at square one, feeling just as 'unhappy' as they gaslight themselves into feeling, thinking that the grass was greener on the other side. It isn't a new phenomenon that women jump from one relationship to another in their younger years, chasing something fresh and new. Why should anyone think that internal dynamic automatically dissolves, just because they got married? The same relationship fatigue set in for them, just as it did before.

Why isn’t the most direct explanation—that many women are unhappy in their marriages and leave because of that—on the table?

It can be.

But the financial burdens that a divorce triggers will cause a TON of unhappiness as well, so doing the objective calculation would probably make it a net negative for most women to initiate divorce... UNLESS she has a wealthy replacement husband lined up (most women wouldn't).

Given two options with negative utility, are the women actually picking the one that has slightly better utility for themselves, especially over the long run?

And besides, this just pushes the question back:

Why didn't these women pick better partners that they'd be happy with with long-term?

Why are they agreeing to these long-term commitments in the first place? Presumably they intend to maintain them.

If we work off the assumption that women have full agency, then a failed marriage can be avoided by picking a better husband up front, and a divorce is ultimately an admission that they didn't pick well.

, so doing the objective calculation would probably make it a net negative for most women to initiate divorce

Most women don't divorce. If 40% of marriages end in divorce and 80% of these are initiated by women that means 68% of women don't initiate divorce