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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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I'll go ahead and say it: it is increasingly difficult to take allegations of this nature seriously in this world where women are simultaneously demanding to be treated as fully agentic adults in every other decision they make, ESPECIALLY those involving their own bodies, but are infantilized when it comes to sexual interactions with an older male.

The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were at least serious enough in nature to warrant serious disdain and distrust if proven and there was no component of 'asking for it' on the victim's part whatsoever. I can attach moral approbation to my judgment of the situation.

But hearing that a woman absolutely sought out interactions with a famous guy, made her fawning interest in him clear, expressed positive affect about the interaction(s) after the fact, and perhaps most obviously continued to seek his attentions, only to express regret years later is like a kid indulging in a candy binge and then, hours later, crying aloud that they have an upset stomach and it hurts.

I can even agree that maybe a young woman can grow and mature and look back at interactions from her earlier years in a new light and realize how her decisions were informed by unhealthy influences and urges she didn't fully understand or control.

But it'd be nice if they would express it as just that. Ill-advised flings, perhaps based on a childish crush and a naivete about human sexual politics, and while they were 'positive' experiences at the time they would absolutely NOT repeat them. Maybe demand an apology and a promise to change behavior.

If we're instead going with the idea that 21-year-olds can be 'groomed' and are too easily susceptible to the wiles of older experienced men to be allowed to interact with them, then lets build some social standards and tech around that assumption. They're just not going to like where that goes if taken to any kind of logical conclusion.

And ultimately I am having a harder time accepting that a famous, talented, otherwise beloved figure should have their legacy demolished and shunned from the public eye so that everyone else is 'deprived' of their work for behavior that isn't criminal and indeed it is doubtful has left any lasting harm on the alleged 'victim.' The loss to society is probably larger than the loss to the victim in many cases, and so economically speaking seems like a deadweight loss.

Attractive young women are functionally the most sought-after resource on the planet, and their supply is tightly constrained. Allowing these same women to 'regulate' their own market seems to be creating a lot of externalities.

If we're instead going with the idea that 21-year-olds can be 'groomed' and are too easily susceptible to the wiles of older experienced men to be allowed to interact with them, then lets build some social standards and tech around that assumption. They're just not going to like where that goes if taken to any kind of logical conclusion.

Indeed. If we're going to revisit the assumption that young women are capable of navigating their own relationships, perhaps we should do a holistic re-assessment of what young women are capable of.

Then again, we could also just continue to do what we've been doing, treating women—especially young women—like we do the disabled. The rights and status of able-bodied and able-minded men, but with greater deference, charity, and protections.

I have noticed a LOT in recent years how almost all of young females' major complaints about how they're treated by men would dissolve if they had a strong, trustworthy male figure in their life who could act as a simple disincentive for outsider males to behave badly. Not that women should have a male escort where-ever they go, but if they could simply text said male and say "hey I'm feeling uncomfortable about this situation, what should I do?" and get some advice or, if needed, immediate intervention, then there'd probably be a LOT less regret in their lives later on.

A lot can be said about fatherless women, but really I'd also guess that smaller average family size in the west makes it such that women are less likely to have brothers, male cousins, etc. who can step into such a role if needed, so they're trying to find some other male outside the family that might suffice, but other males are just as likely as not to exploit that situation for their own gain.

I'd also guess that smaller average family size in the west makes it such that women are less likely to have brothers, male cousins, etc. who can step into such a role if needed

Some other things that I think can expand on this point:

First, in addition to women being likely to have fewer male cousins compared to past generations, I have a feeling that people in general probably aren't as close to their cousins as they used to be. It seems that modern transportation (ie. cars for short-ish distance, planes for long distance) psychologically encourages people to move farther from their families when they're out of school. While the faster transportation seems like it would just extend the range at which people can maintain relationships (ie. driving 30 minutes to go a few towns away sounds like it isn't that different from walking 30 minutes to the other side of town), I suspect that's also something psychological about the distance such that a lot of people who theoretically could maintain closer relationships with their families despite the distance don't.

(There may also be dunbar-related reasons for less close adult family relations. When you live in a town of 1k people, your family is going to be part of your community that you interact with regularly, whereas as more people live in higher-density areas this is no longer necessarily the case).

The second reason is that for blue tribe women, I suspect that even setting aside any issues of fatherlessness or not having any close brothers or male cousins, the men in question wouldn't be willing to step in to intervene anyways, as private violent resolution to issues (or the threat of such violence) would be seen as wrong, and also a blue tribe woman's male relatives are also going to be blue tribe and would have a lot to lose in their personal and professional lives from having a violent criminal record.

So TL;DR: In addition to having fewer male relatives, women are probably not as close to those relatives as in the past and said relatives are going to be more reluctant to take matters into their own hands.

I have noticed a LOT in recent years how almost all of young females' major complaints about how they're treated by men would dissolve if they had a strong, trustworthy male figure in their life who could act as a simple disincentive for outsider males to behave badly. Not that women should have a male escort where-ever they go, but if they could simply text said male and say "hey I'm feeling uncomfortable about this situation, what should I do?" and get some advice or, if needed, immediate intervention, then there'd probably be a LOT less regret in their lives later on.

Or better yet, instead of merely reaching out to her father, brother(s), or other male figures for last minute hail-mary advice or to serve as a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency meatshield, if the social norm was for a young woman to pre-emptively seek and heed their advice when they tell her to not do stuff like wear slutty outfits, do drugs, or get drunk outside of the house, much less wear slutty outfits out to do drugs and get drunk.

Or you know, to not work for a man who may try to bang her in close quarters. Or to not teehee around and spend time alone with unvetted men.

However, such an alternative would be coup-complete. The current norm is that fathers and brothers (or other male family members) have no right to tell their teenage or adult daughters or sisters what to do. Her body, her choice; such advice would potentially limit her rightfully deserved FUN and FREEDOM or make her feel JUDGED. Fathers and brothers should just accept that at most, their role is limited to bailing out daughters and sisters from their coffee moments, or picking up the pieces afterward when things go awry. She's a vulnerable girl/young woman who's already STRESSED from the TRAUMA; YTA if "I told you so" even crosses your mind. If anything, you should feel honored to serve.

There's also a chicken-and-egg problem. If the norm is that fathers and brothers or other male family members have no right to tell a teenage girl or young woman what to do, then they'll be less inclined to try. If they're less inclined to try, that means there's an increased chance of her getting into thotty hijinks. Her thottery leads to her male family members quietly quitting from her life even further to preserve their own mental health, which leads to more space for her to operate and get herself into thotty hijinks.

It’s worth noting that that’s a very blue tribe mentality. The core red tribe expects that fathers have the right to get up in their adult daughter’s love lives, veto marriage partners, scare off boyfriends who need to be scared off, set dress codes for co-resident daughters, etc. They don’t see it as absolute like in trad societies but it’s not seen as overstepping boundaries to have strong opinions about such things and express them with the serious expectation that she actually listens.

There is still some reserves of social capital left in the red tribe, but they are being depleted at an alarming rate. Red tribe loves television, but Hollywood writers and producers are all blue tribe, so every modern show pushes feminist memes, sexual liberation memes, pro-college memes, and rootless cosmopolitan memes. And people only watch modern shows.

Red tribe fathers who proudly quote the rules "for dating my daughter" cheerfully send their little princesses off to college without a second thought, where they will very predictably spend four years away from any male relative supervision getting covered in cum from head to toe by men who have zero chance of committing to them. A father forbidding a legally adult, academically successful daughter from attending a far away university over fears of promiscuity would be outside even the red tribe Overton window; at that point, his wife and family and friends and preacher would turn against him for stifling his daughter's future.

Even if his society is with him, a patriarchal red tribe father has no legal leg to stand on. Threatening a cad with a shotgun to get him to stay away from his daughter is assault; actually shooting the rake is murder. Physically grabbing his daughter away from a party where she is likely to end up banged and locking her up in her room is liable to end up in a cop showing up to white knight for her. If you cannot drag your daughter/wife home by the hair when she is out acting like a slut and give her a good beating and have your society, your church, and your law enforcement agency back you up and agree that you acted correctly, you cannot control your women's sexuality.

Red tribe fathers who proudly quote the rules "for dating my daughter" cheerfully send their little princesses off to college without a second thought, where they will very predictably spend four years away from any male relative supervision getting covered in cum from head to toe by men who have zero chance of committing to them.

Some fathers even pay a quarter mil or more for such a privilege.

Is the second link in the quoted portion what you meant, though? I suppose, in its stead the parent comment to the above link could also work, for getting covered in cum from head to toe (in addition to a well-diversified portfolio of other bodily fluids).

My (deeper red than most)extended family has gotten away with shit fairly recently; the idea that the literal letter of the law always be dictating what actually happens is suspect.

Also to the point, you’re massively overestimating the amount of promiscuity young women want to engage in. Daddy’s rules are a fallback reason for why not when that young woman believes her dad gets to make the rules. That article by the Muslim porn star that got posted a while back talked about this- the evangelical girls didn’t sleep with every guy that took them on a date because they had a reason not to do the thing they didn’t want to do in the first place(evangelical is probably a pretty good proxy for red tribe here; red tribers who go to college at least pretend to be religious).

That article by the Muslim porn star that got posted a while back

Could you find a link of that perchance

Unfortunately, the inability to thot-patrol daughters and sisters due to modern social and technological headwinds is not limited to the American blue tribe.

The struggle is real for fathers and brothers, ranging from working class Sao Paulo to bougie Shanghai.

American red tribe fathers and brothers can posture and bluster, but there’s hardly any guarantee their daughters/sisters will listen. The headwinds are just so against them.

It’s been a while since I looked into it, but I believe that American red state whites don’t have lower single motherhood rates than blue state whites. If anything, higher, especially for non-Amish and non-Mormons.

believe that American red state whites don’t have lower single motherhood rates than blue state whites

If I remember correctly single parenthood/Marriage rate can be pretty accurately mapped to the income quintile you are in. Looked at over years the two-parent rate of the bottom 2 quintiles plummeted the middle one dropped a slight but not significant amount and the top two are a flat line. I can't fine this chart again but none of this data is surprising, I would imagine income is a way better signifier than tribe for single parent rate.