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 -
It is... interesting... to see all this discussion about "progressive male role models" given that the progressive memespace has long been, and mostly still is, dominated by gender eliminativists. The elevation of fringe-of-a-fringe transsexual issues to the "cause du jour" has of course introduced irreconcilable metaphysics into the discourse, but coalition building has ever been thus. The philosophical work underpinning extant views on gender goes back over a century, to Nikolay Chernyshevsky's declaration that
and philosophical feminism has been broadly gender-eliminativist pretty much ever since.
All of that to say: progressives can't do "male role models" because progressives are fundamentally opposed to the existence of men. Sure, sure--ask your local progressive, they might very well deny it. But this is the standard motte and bailey that exists between thought leaders and political movements everywhere, the disconnect between political theory and political practice. You can't read feminism without stumbling over gender eliminativism, and progressivism is avowedly feminist. "Eliminate gender" is right up there with "abolish the family" on a list of things progressives explicitly and actually want to accomplish, even if these are things they're willing to compromise on for the moment, for the movement.
And you can't really believe that gender needs to be abolished, while simultaneously believing that anyone needs male role models. At best you might say something like, "well, we have to meet the little troglodytes where they are, so we need some... mannish... role models--but not too mannish! Nothing, you know, toxic, nothing overtly heteronormative..." and you've already lost the plot.
This is just another clear case of progressive dreams running headlong into the unyielding embrace of biological reality. People are incredibly plastic! And yet we are not, apparently, infinitely plastic. "Cultural construction" can do a lot, but it cannot lightly obliterate thousands of years of natural selection.
Talk of "misogyny" simply misses the point, and the problem. The only really committed misogynists I've ever met have been women. The men I know who seem to hate women, very obviously genuinely love women--but are angry that they have been denied access to women, by whatever means and for whatever reason. Sometimes it's literally just their own unrealistic expectations. Sometimes they have been badly mistreated by women. Sometimes they are bewildered by the refusal of women in their lives to behave as women. You cannot use "role models" to train people away from this kind of behavior; heterosexual men denied access to women will never just accept that fact. At best, maybe you build sexbots sufficiently indistinguishable from tradwives or something, allowing biological women to pursue whatever bland "non-binary" life they imagine lies at the end of the eliminativist project, but until those bots can do particularly biological things like have babies, there will still be men who dedicate their lives to finding a woman--and, sometimes, going off the rails when faced with sufficiently brutal failure.
Or so it seems to me. I think the progressive response is probably retrenchment on the idea that, surely, anyone can be taught to be anything, given sufficiently quality teaching methods. ("We just need more government!") But their real goal isn't to make better men, it's to make a world where there are no men, in the sense that the social gender binary has been eradicated. Recruiting masculine role models to achieve that end is flatly contradictory.
It's not impossible to hate someone you want to fuck. My experience is that a minority of men do in fact hate women, insofar as they have visceral contempt for the interests, behaviors, habits, and mannerisms of women, and if you zapped these men with a ray that made them gay or asexual they would never interact with another woman again if they could help it. My experience is also that women are much freer with casual "men suck" and "I hate men" talk but women who actually walk the walk and really seem to hate men on a gut level are rarer than the reverse.
I love women and it’s far more than just wanting to Fuck.
If you made me gay or asexual I do not see any reason to ever talk to a women again. I can barely think of any women with any capability to be interesting. There are no female Elon Musks. No female econ writers I’ve ever read. The only fintwit personality I follow ended up being tran. Ruxandro Teslo is the only female writer I’ve found that has said interesting things. Jane Fraser is the only female executive I know of who seems to be talented. I feel like I’ve looked for smart females they are just very hard to find. When you remove the female energy and traits there just aren’t many doing anything.
I don’t believe I’m discriminating and setting a higher bar for female writers and thought leaders but it seems statistically significant of the two twitter “females” I found worth a follow on Twitter one ended up being a man.
It doesn't sound like you like women that much beyond wanting to fuck them.
I've always liked hanging out with girls, even (or especially, since it can get weird otherwise) ones I'm not sexually attracted to. I'm not really bothered by the dearth of female CEOS or substack pundits.
You just go too far saying men would have to hate women.
A simple thought experiment for me is if I were the coolest guy in the world and anyone who I wanted to be my friend would gladly be my friend and I then I got to pick 5-10 people as my crew all the people I would choose would be male.
Now if I lowered the standards to those who would be my friend as I am now and not picking from my betters a few women would make the cut.
Out of curiosity, what kind of hypothetical friends are you thinking about? No need to be specific.
I find that I can't recall any person I'd want to talk to who's currently "too cool" for me.
I thought about this but if I created my crew it would be something like Elon Musks, Michael Jordan, Milton Friedman, MBS, Milei. Visionary people with a lot of accomplishments.
As in Mohammed bin Salman? He sounds very wealthy and not particularly interesting, possibly convinced easily by idea-guys, and rather thuggish. Certainly not someone I’d choose to hang out with if I could pick anyone in the world.
Need a trust fund kid in the group. I’ve also gained respect for Saudi political history and building a stable society in the Arab world. MBS has also been aggressive on reform from the day he started. He fills a rich kid spot but I also think he likely has some interesting ideas and strategies.
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