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 -
"In my experience discussing issues at all is right wing coded."
Again, as I said downthread, this is only true if the only issues you care about are right-wing.
So yes, it'll seem left-leaning people aren't interested in talking about 'issues' if the issues you're concerned about are proving specific racial groups are less intelligent so we can spend as little on them as possible and make it OK to discriminate them again as been stated by multiple people here, how best to limit women so their only option is to have babies as multiple people have stated here, how everyone who doesn't believe the election was stolen from Trump is part of the Deep State, a RINO, or some other insultincluding Trump-appointed judges or people in the Trump WH who supported him 100% until the 2020 election, with perfect right-wing opinions otherwise, or how transgender people are discussed here, which is a lot of the basic "issues" brought up here, then yeah, you're not going to get a lot of arguments from even normie centrist people - they'll just think you're a weirdo.
Honestly, this is the reverse of some of the very left-wing friends who think 90% of the American population is fascist because they don't want to abolish all police, start bombing Israel (and I say that as somebody who wouldn't mind actually sanctioning Israel), banning cars, stopping fossil fuel extraction, and so on.
You're assuming I'm right wing because I have that opinion. Call me self-deluded if you want but most of my opinions are far left of anyone here. Though I read your union and abortion til birth opinions sound pretty normal left wing to me but I admit I live in a bubble. Most people I know are all or nothing and don't really care about nuance about things, if they believe in unions they believe in every aspect of unions if they think abortion should be legal they make no distinctions on it about how it should be practiced at all. I know it's because they mostly don't care about meting or puzzling out complexity but I also think even if you sat them down and made them think about it there's only a small proportion of people who would be moved to make specific lines about how much of their belief should be used in government mandates/laws. But I live in southern California, maybe that paints my life different.
But I didn't mean to suggest that right wing people are the only ones that will talk, I mean to suggest that it's right coded right now, because they're not in power, because they're the minority, because they will let the discussion touch ends they don't like or want possibly or probably because of those reasons.
Left wing people, in my experience, limited as it may be, will shut down conversations with insults or insults by proxy the moment it becomes even close to being about something they don't like. I've had right wing people talk to me about deep state stuff and it starts off with "I know you think I'm crazy but this is what I believe..." and when I question it they get excited that I'm interested and tell me more like the more they say the more I'll believe. And when I questioned the Steele Dossier's accuracy I had someone switch their tone of voice to the way you talk to a very small child and question my mental fitness and this was just a mild like "I don't know it seems kinda far-fetched..." And that's from people I know, people I don't will just respond with things like "oh so you're a shitty person" or more likely use the originator of a claim or opinion or the biggest name espousing it and then call them a piece of shit so they don't have to call you one. I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy and cordial to talk about a discussion where I was in full agreement with them, but I don't know that I'd consider that a discussion.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't know if an issue can even be left or right wing, rather than there being a left or right position on each issue. But even accepting your framing, I don't see how this is accurate. Take something like the trans stuff, for years it was progressives pushing it, and it is only now starting to get some organized pushback, so if issues can have sides, that one's definitely theirs. Are they any more open to debating it? Not from my experience, you get banned on sight on any left leaning forum if you stray from the orthodoxy. Same was true for BLM, same was true for MeToo, same was true for COVID. Where is all this vibrant left-wimg debate you're talking about?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link