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 -
This is one of the more important points that indicates to me that the causality identified above re redirected maternal instincts is slightly inaccurate. Save for muslims, the vocal women (invariably childless and usually 'queer' feminist allies) who advocate loudly and repeatedly for Palestine are also virulent progressives who support LGBT+ and anti-men behaviors. These women are always progressive in outlook, and the progressive orthodoxy is oppositional to extant western (white male) power dynamics. Support for Palestine maps cleanly into opposition against western govts/institutions that clearly do not support the palestinian cause, mainly because the Palestinians themselves keep saying they want Hamas. Not that this point ever registers for western progressive women: ask them what the Palestinians want and its always some basic 'they just want peace' with insipid talking points interspersed. At no point will they ever listen to what the Palestinians themselves say they want, and they will engage in DAVRO to spin it around to the fault of the jews. Justification of Arab violence, if it is even acknowledged to occur, is always rationalized by reversing the causality: the cause must be made even more pure hearted to justify all resistance against those that deny it. All of this of course stands in full denial of the well documented atrocities that Palestinians proudly published themselves and the ownself stated desires of the Palestinians. I showed footage of Palestinians spitting on Shani Louks body to progressive female friends and they immediately said it was fake because Palestinians would never do something that bad, and they keep saying that Israel lied about 40 beheaded babies so clearly Palestinians have never committed any crimes.
I am generally agree with the many posters above (below?) that misplaced maternal instinct is the reason for most of the extant female support for Palestine, but specific to the nutters blasting off on social media the support is 'enemy of my enemy' rather than 'kindred spirit'.
I think the coverage of the war by the liberal media/NGO complex plays at least as much of a role as maternal extinct. If the NYT, CNN etc started actually showing clips of Hamas stealing aid and shooting at their own emaciated civilians you'd probably see fewer women attributing the images of starving Gazan children to supposed Israeli malevolence.
The media is itself the culprit in this case. Barely a frame of the videos uploaded by Hamas themselves where they executed teenage girls and slaughtered children and whole families in between whoops of joy, but unlimited rehashes of crowded hospitals filmed by Hamas themselves. I still find it disgusting that the media does not give any coverage to the Darfur massacres, Perhaps it is because Hamas is a 'legitimate authority' so attribution can be satisfied, even though Hamas lies more than North Korea does.
Arabs and blacks seem to occupy equal positions on the progressive stack, so most journalists aren't particularly animated by the former massacring the latter.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
We don't see the same people being against the Western-institution-led Ukraine war, for example. If anything, Ukraine skepticism is male coded.
Also, as a minor point, Hamas was allegedly unpopular even in Gaza before October 7. Presumably they remain so today, except in an enemy-of-my-enemy way. On the other hand, support for killing Jews is widespread, though how much sounds hard to measure. For a while it was a common sophistry on NPR, that because Gazans don't much like Hamas they condemn O7. But there are a lot of folks who oppose Hamas, and think attacking Israel was the best thing they ever did. I don't know when or why this story became less popular.
The fact that being anti-Ukraine is male/right coded is itself the reason for the lack of female objection to Ukraine. While it is still icky white people dying, Trump hates Ukraine while Biden loves it, so theres no clear father figure to rebel against. Meanwhile, Trump would glass Gaza and so would Biden (at least in the progressive imagination). Every potential manifestation of western patriarchy is opposed to Palestine, so it animates these women.
In their mind, the progressives believe (still) that Islam is just evil out of opposition to the same forces the progressives fight against. Once the evil white oppressor is destroyed a righteous and clean Islam will emerge, letting all these oppressed minorities cuddle under the guising bosom of the morally righteous progressive.
Being really really pro-Ukraine (ie. above the usually required level in Western societies) is pretty male-coded too, though, in my experience. Most NAFOids don't seem to be female.
True, men are largely more aware of what a real threat Russia poses. Women really seem to not give a shit about icky white people dying, and I maintain that progressives broadly hate Ukraine because it focuses support onto white people instead of blacks or gays: Jayapal pushing for Biden to force Ukraine to the negotiating table in Oct 2022 strikes me as what the social justice wing thinks of white people (even slavs): a distraction from the true cause. The only thing making progressives give a slight shit in favor of Ukraine is the fact that trump hates Ukraine, but the progressives hold their nose when decrying Russia because the beneficiary is white.
It seems like ‘progressives’ are not a unified group on this question.
Eh, fair. Progs tend to hate Russia rightly for it being a socially regressive dictatorship, but tankies love Russia because it still opposes the evil west. I till now cannot understand the intersection of tankies, trannies and racial inferiorization (this is specific to whites who are the only group were a subset - white liberals- display out-group preference), and I honestly find tankie and tranny discords more baffling than nazi ones... which is quite the achievement.
(sidenote: why are there so many femboys and furries, non overlapping, on right wing spheres? its nuts)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link