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 -
Berkley Law School's Jewish free zones is causing some stir. The student group also wants to ban Zionist speakers. I wonder how this will sit with progressive Jews, who themselves are quite often found heading pro-Palestine activism in the US. Now these bans are trotted out by progressives, not alt-righters. Accusations of anti-semitism likely won't find any purchase in the vogue that's disillusioned with Israel. And I'm not seeing any sign of American Jews tilting rightward anytime soon.
While I find "Jew free zones" to be exceedingly disingenuous, I do think people who rush to point out that they didn't ban Jews, just "Jews who support Israel" to be parsing finely in a way that doesn't apply in other circumstances.
Israel/Jews have always been a fault line among progressives. "Opposing Israel is antisemitic" is a motte-bailey used by both sides. I've seen lots of Zionists claim it's a bailey: "of course you can" in theory, oppose (some of) Israel's policies without being antisemitic. And yet there is no actual opposition to any actual Israeli action that they will not claim is motivated by antisemitism. On the flip side, a lot of leftists will claim "Oh, you're just labeling any disagreement with Israel as antisemitism" when a lot of opposition to Israel (especially on the left) is in fact motivated by antisemitism.
This seems very familiar to the left now. It’s not that GOP is extremists it’s maga (though all gop are basically maga). It’s not that Catholics are bad just those who actually are against abortion. As long as your identity isn’t real and it’s just superficial then your not actually a witch we can burn.
deleted
This was my biggest problem with Scott's 'archipelago,' really. At first, it sounds pretty wonderful to me - a free and pluralistic place where all kinds of people and cultures can pursue their own ways in peace, which is differentiated from "the whole world we now live in" through this central authority which keeps them from trying to conquer or exterminate each other-
-But it doesn't just do that: it also exists to save the people from themselves. To make sure that is properly exposed to the Objective Perspective and hasn't just been Indoctrinated into living in their own culture, so that every child can choose for themselves how and where they want to live, rather than being kept in a place that's not really best for them.
And that just destroys the whole thing. That's not an archipelago of many cultures and many values: that is one culture doing a lot of pretending and play-acting. You can profess anything you want, so long as you don't actually believe it. You can say anything you want, so long as you don't actually mean it. The whole benefit of such an archipelago - that even if some great evil is choking out all the world, you can make for yourself some little island of refuge from it - is gone, provided you aren't limitlessly confident in the incorruptibility of the central authority. And if you're limitlessly confident in the incorruptibility of any institution, what reason (beyond matters of taste and cosmetics) do you have for bothering with this 'archipelago' thing at all?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link