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 think the correlation between class and fitness is likely substantially greater than that between politics and it. I suppose red tribe fatties are less likely to be HAES activists, but that doesn’t mean the obese Republican cop doesn’t have his own set of cope ideologies to explain why being fat isn’t actually his fault, or why he’s not even fat at all.
There’s fitness and then there’s fitness.
I agree there’s a likely correlation between male SES and fitness-when-it-comes-to-lack-of-obesity in Western countries, but the correlation between right-wingedness and fitness-when-it-comes-to-aesthetics can be on a similar magnitude or even higher, especially when holding some confounders equal.
Weight-lifting and belief in sexual dimorphism is highly right-coded, and male aesthetics fitness lore heavily invokes sexual dimorphism: Wide and capped delts, portruding traps, thick and wide back, strong chest and arms, relatively thin waist.
Grab a random guy from a gym who has less than 15% BF and can bench-press >1.5x his weight. Is he more likely to be right- or left-leaning relative to a randomly selected peer of similar geography, age, education-level?
The modal “in-shape” guy among the PMC, who does some running, cycling, or squash when he doesn’t have a Dorsia res conflict, maybe some light weighting from time to time, is still a DYEL and/or perhaps skinny-fat compared to what might be considered aesthetic.
Sure, I agree, but you’re talking about the 96/7/8th percentile or higher of male fitness if you’re talking about men who can bench 1.5x their body weight and have low enough body fat percentage to have visible abs while doing it. These people are probably right-leaning relative to peer group because hardcore lifting culture tends to the right, and young men with something to prove do also. Plus there are possibly hormonal or other reasons, as some have theorized.
The real problem in the West (and much of the rest of the world) is obesity and overweight-ness. The PMC DYEL guy who lifts once a week and does some cycling and squash while staying skinny isn’t the issue, if the whole country was as healthy as him we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Actual bodybuilding is a vanity niche for a small minority of men. That doesn’t make it wrong or bad, but it isn’t really the ‘physique issue’ that is plaguing a lot of the world.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Obese red tribers mostly cop the blame for getting fat, even if they think losing weight is too difficult to be a reasonable expectation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link