site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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.

26
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tno6nPT66RM

Have we talked about Georgia Meloni’s powerful speech? A few days ago half my twitter feed was talking about.

I believe she is fundamentally correct that we have robbed society of their identity and tried to replace it with whatever pronouns are.

The consumer stuff gets a little silly but whatever it sounds good. Need to have an enemy your fighting against.

My pro nouns are

Man, American, Catholic, Son.

I think makes a strong implication that gender identity and whole pronoun thing is for those without roots. Empty people.

I think it's, frankly, kind of dumb. There are plenty of trans people whom I know of who have families (in the sense of a spouse, children, and relatives). The idea that trans people, or people who support trans rights, are opposed to the idea of "family" seems straightforwardly false. Indeed, a large concern among trans people (I'm given to believe) is how their family will react to their coming out. Not quite the concerns of someone opposed to the idea of a family! Similarly I know of plenty of trans people who conceive themselves as "woman" or "man", as "husband" or "wife" and have no issue with cis people identifying similarly.

On the religious front, there are christian denominations that are welcoming to trans people. Almost certainly there are trans people who identify as much with "Christian" or "Catholic" as you would. I'm confident this holds for national identity as well, though I don't have citations to hand.

I think it's a pretty standard speech blaming minorities in a society for its perceived decay regardless of the actual facts.

Did you listen to the speech? I don't see any blaming of minorities. The transgender culture and movement is toxic to families and there is limited data on the long term prognosis for children raised by transgender parents which I'm sure will be censored if anyone at all is studying the topic, which I imagine is impossible in academia now. Transgender people are mentally ill, unfit for raising children, and absolutely disgust me and I'm tired of pretending they don't.

Transgender people are mentally ill, unfit for raising children, and absolutely disgust me and I'm tired of pretending they don't.

Well, you don't have to pretend you aren't disgusted by them.

You do, however, have to follow the rules of discourse which still apply in our new space. Trans people are welcome to post here, there probably are a few around, and blankly asserting that they are all mentally ill, unfit for raising children, and disgusting, isn't acceptable. Just like you can talk about HBD, crime rates, your pet theories about the Holocaust, redpill philosophy, etc., but you cannot just say "black people/Jews/women suck." Even if that is what you believe.

While I agree with the rest I find this curious:

blankly asserting that they are all mentally ill

But aren't they sufferers of Body Dysmorphia which was (is?) a mental illness? or why would they want to change their body if it wasn't a mental illness? Are you asserting that being trans is normal?

This has come up before, and it really depends on the tone in which you are making the statement. It's one thing to say that you do not believe that anyone has a "gendered brain" or is "born in the wrong body," and that trans people who genuinely feel these things are suffering from body dysmorphia, i.e., a literal mental illness. That allows room for reasonable discussions that don't just express contempt, like, "Okay, so how should we treat these people? Do we allow them to identify as the gender they think they are, or do we argue that therapy would be more useful?" While a lot of trans people would still object to those discussions (which is ironically a major part of the reason why we are here and no longer on reddit, sigh), reasonable people can treat these as legitimate arguments that can be made in good faith. As opposed to just saying "Trans people are crazy and disgusting."