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 -
Wow, an angry rant talking about how the libs really do deserve hatred. Enjoy your trip to the QCs.
This is not a ban message or even a warning, because what you’re saying here is within the rules. At least, I’m fairly confident that’s the case; my eyes glazed over somewhere around the third agonizing metaphor. But compared to your previous screed, it’s positively restrained, so you’re getting credit for improvement.
You’re still missing the point.
Contrary to what certain critics believe, the point of this forum is not to emulate Hitler. It should be abundantly clear that all Hitler’s self-righteous fire did not keep him from being a fuckwit. No, he wallpapered over his incoherent philosophy by speaking to the anger and desperation in his audience. That is not conducive to truth-seeking. If you care about that at all, that feeling of righteousness should be a warning, not a point of pride.
Hey look, more proof of a point from my subsequent post:
Completely uncharitable and overly simplistic, putting words in my mouth summary of what is essentially a post about game theory and the broader implications/necessity of retaliation to prevent defection? Check. Coming from a mod, so totally kosher and okay? Check. (Would a user have ever been guaranteed to be modded for such a thing? No (as again it depends on who they are anyway). Could they readily have been modded, especially at least with a warning, for such a thing over the course of this forum's existence? The exact probability depends on the time period and who was mod at the moment, but absolutely. As always though the mods here fire confidently and freely on the posters, safe in their nests, while the rest of us fight it out in no man's land waiting to see if a machine gun will suddenly take us out.)
Agreed, in many, if not some of the most important ways, unfortunately. :(
It shouldn't be to emulate anyone, but that doesn't mean you can't learn from them.
Your mistake is apparently assuming that history, even the "good" history, isn't mostly littered with "fuckwits" or that even the best figures in history weren't "fuckwits" in their own way. I mean, though Hitler made many bad decisions, luck is also a factor. Some of the least "fuckwitty" figures in history were actually still just "fuckwits" with better dice rolls.
If you can't learn from the best aspects of "fuckwits", then you're not really trying to learn IMO. Arrogance is the cousin of ignorance.
Well, that's fine. His philosophy was somewhat incoherent at times (which is often basically inevitable when you have to be an actual leader in the real world who has to unite disparate factions like German Protestants, German/Austrian Catholics, Aryan mystics, vehemently atheist racial science enthusiasts, etc. into unsteady coalitions instead of just posting the Internet). Mine is (mostly) not, I believe. Must it be only the incoherent who wield anger and desperation? Should only criminals have guns?
Truth-seeking, maybe not. Truth-sharing, yes. What's the point of the first without the second? I thought I had a truth, so I coated it in the medicine that I also thought would best make it go down others' mental throats smoothly.
If somebody, like maybe for example you, had posted some amazing logical rhetoric that soundly refuted my central point, then I would have read it with rapt attention, admitted they were right if so, and that would be truth-seeking. (Or perhaps truth-baiting, its cousin. That's what you do when you post something on a forum like this that you think is true. You bait a possible counter-truth, the realer, better truth. I think that's a perfectly valid form of truth seeking.)
Instead I was entirely prevented from speaking for a little bit for communicating the truth a bit too spicily. And now from the same police force I'm receiving similar spice back for pointing that out. Oh well. A lost opportunity for truth-seeking, perhaps?
Pray, where shall I seek the truth you believe I need if none shall put it out there to find? Is your anger at me the real truth, as opposed to my anger at left-wingers? Are you truth-seeking/baiting and/or truth-sharing with your post? Enlighten me.
Or feel free to respond to my original post again, without the mod hat (which seems highly superfluous in this case given that you say you're not even warning me (though it sure seems to me like using a mod hat at all is inherently at least a "quasi-warning", which itself elaborates upon the weird political/power dynamics of this place) and my post is entirely within the boundaries of the rules), and actually engage with my real argument this time. I mean, sorry for the "agonizing metaphors". Feel free to skip them if they don't add anything to your understanding. But the whole post is still only about 12K characters, hardly a novel, and I promise you I didn't waste my time writing it with the intention that it be entirely without substance.
So if you think it doesn't represent the truth that should be sought, perhaps you could present the truth, for the benefit of all of us, that we should be seeking instead of just apparently raging that I invoked the Great Satan? Again, enlighten me.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link