site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The key difference is that only in the rape story has anything been done to her by someone else.

When driving, the damage is to the pole. Heck, let's say she ("S") kills someone else ("E"). S has violated E's rights, so S should be prosecuted for murder (or property damage to the pole). No one did anything to S, except insomuch as S did it to herself, so no one should be prosecuted (or held morally responsible) for anything that happened to S.

When S is raped, the damage is entirely to S. This was done to her by someone ("R"[apist]), who should be prosecuted. Debateably, S did something to herself too, but undebateably (well, it is themotte, but I feel pretty good about this one), there is the key difference that something was done to S in this one.

Further, in my version of the setup, she really hasn't decided to sleep with the nerd ("can't count to ten"). Past some level of drunk, you're on autopilot, and anyone who steers you transgresses. So yes, I absolutely do deny people agency once they are blackout drunk. I put that agency in the hands of society/morality to protect them. Enormously practical? No, so go be monogamous and sober, but still better than a free-for-all on drunk coeds.

Meta: the overall negative scores on most of my participation on this topic is fascinating. The categories are very fuzzy and my arguments were clearly not perfect, but I would have guessed mild positive. Thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth, all, even having "lost."

Double meta: downvotes are not supposed to be disagree buttons, in theory, but I think we use them mostly that way...and I like it.

In the case where the woman was drunk enough to make decisions she might regret later, but not comatose or whatever you are trying to conflate the (much more common!) situation with by "can't count to ten" or whatnot, the person she is hurting is the man. A rape charge for something she agreed to at the time is pretty harmful.

Why is it the man who's responsible for evaluating the woman's level of agency in her current state? Aren't people supposed to do this for themselves?

(Please don't motte & bailey this anymore; nobody thinks it's ok to have sex with someone who's literally losing consciousness -- I am talking about intoxication well below this state. If you want to continue in that direction, you need to very clearly specify what level of intoxication you think makes it categorically no longer OK to have sex)

When S is raped, the damage is entirely to S. This was done to her by someone ("R"[apist]), who should be prosecuted.

This is stealing a bunch of bases. The question is whether S, who got drunk on her own accord and had sex with T ("T"[roll], because the guy kind of resembles one) apparently consensually, was raped at all. Your proposal appears to be that "T" should have known that he's an uggles and there's no way in hell the hottie "S" would have had sex with him if she was at all compos mentis. The alternative is that "S" was responsible for her own behavior while drunk and if she had sex with some guy she wouldn't have had sex with sober, well, that's on her.

Past some level of drunk, you're on autopilot, and anyone who steers you transgresses. So yes, I absolutely do deny people agency once they are blackout drunk.

"Blackout" drunk refers to a state where someone is apparently acting normally, but is not forming long-term memories. Alcohol does not produce this sort of suggestive state; the drug usually associated with that is scopolamine, but that's controversial.