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 -
I'd say that, as I am not a utilitarian, my moral intuitions are based upon my upbringing, my experiences, the social forces brought to bear upon me and are largely immune to rational change. I can't think myself into believing murder is moral.
Though I might try to reason myself into the position that I had to murder Bob Smith for the greater good (He is the second coming of Hitler, he is a kid rapist etc.), if I go ahead and murder him in cold blood, I am highly likely to experience guilt. This indicates i am judging myself immoral even though I was able to rationalize why I should kill him.
I don't know if I would quite call that vibes based.
I think @ZRslashRIFLE would call it vibes-based.
I also think that it leaves you in an unfortunate spot in a couple ways. The first is that no one else has any reason to adopt your claim that "murdering people is wrong". They don't have the same upbringing, experiences, or social forces that you do, so if they happen to think that it's totally fine,
evenespecially for minor differences in religion, then there's basically no point in you having made any of the statements that you have made. Their perspective is apparently fine, simple as.The second is that you might find yourself shifting over time, even unintentionally. See the fictional Breaking Bad. Sure, maybe the first time you murder someone in cold blood (after agonizingly convincing yourself that it's for the greater good), you'll experience guilt. But the second time? A little less agony before; a little less guilt after. Infinity starts at three, and so at that point, your upbringing, experiences, and social forces will easily leave you with zero concerns about casually offing people for minor differences in
religionpoliticsvideo gamesbird watchingslights in small talk.Exactly right! Of course everyone (or nearly everyone) holds that their own views are moral. My near relatives who thought that murder was wrong, but that if it was a Catholic, well that is quite all right have no more objective source of morality than the IRA members who thought the opposite, and both sets were because of their experiences and values that were imparted to them by their families and communities. But just because I understand they think their beliefs are moral does not mean i have to agree they are correct. What is defined as moral is based upon what values they were inculcated with. That is why the culture war is important. I think the world would be a better place, if I can convince more people (or educate) more people into following my moral code. Someone with different beliefs will try to influence the opposite way. The fact neither of us have an objective claim to morality, matters not a shred.
And absolutely the experience of murdering someone is an experience that will contribute to someone's moral compass. As you say it could degrade their idea that murder is wrong, or it could send them into a spiral of guilt and reinforce it. If you think the first is more likely, then just like with never trying cocaine, you should try and ensure yourself and other people never take that first snort.
But the point of making the statements here is just because I like arguing on the internet. I am not under the impression I am going to change anything.
This sort of pure moral relativism leads to wokeness and totalitarianism. If there's no truth of the matter to bother arguing for, why argue? Just cancel, deplatform, shame, struggle session, brainwash, and intimidate people to be inculcated with your view. Up to genocide if necessary. Of course, if you're not willing to do this, you'll simply be out-competed by those who will.
If you want to argue for something otherwise, you need to argue that there's some thing worth arguing about, some thing that matters a shred, other than pure cultural power to force people to proclaim to believe what you say.
You're missing the point I think. This is an is claim not an ought claim. From my experience this is how the vast majority of people operate. Utilitarians (unconsciously) rationalize the values of their calculations to fit their pre-existing intuitions, Deontologists write their rules to fit their pre-existing intuitions etc. Christians emphasize certain parts of Biblical morality to match their pre-existing intuitions which is why some Christians can be anti-gay marriage or abortion, and some can be pro.
It doesn't matter what that leads to, because its the only option that appears to exist. We must live in the world as it is, not as we want it to be. I agree a true objective accessible source of morality might be better. But given how differently people act even while claiming to follow the same source of morality, if it does exist we can't truly access it.
To be clear though that doesn't mean that fostering co-operation can't be better than genocide. Civilization is built on pragmatic benefits, and a group which co-operates rather than genocides may well out-perform. Morally it might not objectively truly matter if you always murder your neighbors and steal their belongings, but it does leave you isolated. And when the group the next hill over learned to work together and could specialize they will out compete you.
Morality may be relative but that doesn't mean some strands of moral thought aren't more effective at generating advantage. And those moral strands will tend to be the ones that get passed down. Moral codes are a social technology. And competition between them, like market forces is won or lost by their effectiveness.
Communism repeatedly loses because it generates worse outcomes. Christianity spread so well because it generated better outcomes for its followers so it could be spread further.
Remember relative just means that there is no objective source we have access to, it doesn't mean all options will be equally successful. Why don't we use genocide to spread our morality? Because generally that gets everyone else to turn against you, meaning the spread of your moral code will be self-limiting. Nazi ideology led to their defeat and the humiliation of their preferred moral intuitions.
No no. I understand that point entirely. In fact, I responded to that point, specifically. I think you are the one missing the point. I would suggest that you reread my comment. Simply observing that you live in the current apex society, so that things have historically happened to break in favor of your current society, isn't very interesting. There is clearly no law of the universe that it must be this way, and we can see the seeds of its destruction right specifically in the exact concept that you are claiming - that there is no such thing as truth worth arguing for; that the reality only is what is, that is, power politics.
I completely understand that you are embracing at least a weak version of moral error theory, claiming that all one can be is descriptive about different folks' vibes-based opinions. Simply repeating such is not terribly responsive.
You asked me why my point of view would not lead to genocide etc. And I told you. I also explained why it appears those who would resort to genocide would generally not out-compete others who would.
If you don't find my answer that interesting then thats on you. My point of view is my point of view, I don't claim to hold it because it is interesting. If it doesn't interest you simply move along.
...and I responded to that? I explained why your current view from the position of the apex society does not imply some law of the universe. You seem to weirdly trust in the pure coercive power of "everyone else" turning on them. That would weirdly be an argument for why no genocide has ever happened. Or at least, some weird claim that those cultures were then, in turn, eliminated, rather than continuing to exist after whatever the political outcome of their actually-existing genocide was. It would be wholly unconvincing to anyone who thinks that, e.g., modern Americans (at the apex of current society) got to their position by essentially genociding Native Americans. A more proper descriptive account would be that genocide simply becomes morally tenable whenever political forces drive a society to believe that genocide is morally tenable in order to achieve their goals, as has happened countless times in the past. They are only limited to the extent that "everyone else" can amass sufficient political and military power to counter them.
Regardless, the focus on the extreme case of genocide is less central to what I said; it was clearly an add-on. I had said:
Genocide is the extreme case, and as stated as a descriptive matter, only occurs when enough power has been amassed by a large enough group that they think they can settle a matter by such extreme means. That certainly is not going to be the SOP of societies everywhere at all times; that just wouldn't make sense. Instead, there would be all these things that I pointed out, specifically for the purpose of inculcating their own vibes-based opinions... specifically abandoning the pretense that what we're doing here is searching for truth. Such a process, as a descriptive matter, may only explode into genocide occasionally, once sufficient uniformity has been enforced across a large enough group with sufficient political and military power, yes. But the important part of my point is that we are abandoning the alternate process of a search for truth in favor of this general route.
What do you think arguing is? It is generally an attempt to persuade people. Brainwashing, arguing, shaming, preaching are all part of the same set of things.
People who claim to have access to an objective morality behave in contradictory ways from each other. I would say this is evidence that if there is an objective morality, we either cannot access it, or are unable to tell when we have accessed it, (or that it doesn't exist at all). People who believe they have access to objective morality brainwash people and preach at them, argue with them. People who do not believe they have access to objective morality brainwash people and preach at them, argue with them.
Either those who believe they have found objective morality are wrong, or they are correct but this fact does not change the tools they use to inculcate their morality in others. I have seen nothing in more than 50 years on this planet that suggests that there is an objective moral standard that we can know.
Telling me there is an objective morality is of no use if you cannot tell what it is and show that it is indeed objective. People have been trying to do that for thousands of years and have failed (in that at the very least they have not been able to prove that their version is the true objective morality). That leaves us to default to a socially mediated morality where we behave as we are taught to behave by our families, communities and experiences. It's either that or pick one out of a hat randomly, which doesn't seem any more likely to be true, and at least the former has the background that it did indeed create a society that still exists and was then able to impart its values onwards.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link