site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27725 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 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.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Come on man. There is no goddamned way that anyone posting here is unaware of the core of the story.

There are other good reasons to ask for context:

  1. To avoid talking about nothingburgers. Sometimes people have weird news feeds and they get small incidents show up on their feed.
  2. For future readers. We do keep a list of old quality posts. The reader of a post is not just the people here this week.
  3. For additional depth and discussion. For example, if they had linked Brown University they could have started a discussion about divestment.

Yeah, they did that - it's right there!

Yeah they sort of did, which is why I half parroted their words.

Some of you seem to very much live in the culture war. You are very aware of what is going on and the latest news. And you also seem to want to replicate that newsfeed here?

I'll admit I just don't get it. If I didn't read this website I'd probably be unaware of a large portion of the culture war. I am not certain I would have known about the campus protests if I had not read about it here on TheMotte. I specifically need the context. I basically live under a rock. I hangout with my family and my neighbors, and we talk about local stuff mostly.

At the same time I don't want a scrolling doomlist of every item in the culture war. That is what twitter and mainstream news outlets are for. I don't visit those websites because I don't want the scrolling doomlist of every item in the culture war. If there is something novel and interesting to be discussed about a particular item, sure, lets have that conversation.

What do you want here exactly? Do you want this to just be a twitter clone (but with indents!) where we write a few sentences to performatively crap on our outgroup? I don't see the point.

I'm generally on board with all of the above and covered a little more on my personal preferences here. Nonetheless, on this specific topic, I just really doubt that there are many people that have missed the occurrence of campus protests in the context of Israel-Gaza. Maybe I am living in a bubble on this one though, I can accept that I might just be wrong. It's definitely true that the encampments have high salience for me locally because I literally ran by one of these dopey things a bunch of times (well, until it came down last week). I just kind of doubt that there are many people that haven't heard about this and don't think it's necessary that the standard for a subtopic be that someone needs to write a couple paragraph intro.

Context is ultimately a suggestion, not required. I happen to think it's a good suggestion, and I also happen to think that people will dismiss the need for it more than they should.

You having personal experience with one of these camps is interesting context! I don't go near a college campus on a regular basis.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats