site banner

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
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Even Americans are told we should make reparations to Native Americans, not all pack up and move back to Europe.

Native Americans don’t want us to leave, they want our money and to have better conditions for themselves.

Few natives are left but in many cases I do think they’d vote emotively for settlers and descendants to leave. See the New Caledonia situation right now; the natives benefit tremendously from French rule but still want France and French people to leave.

The Cherokee and Kashada- the two tribes I’ve had more contact with- are mostly white or sometimes black passing themselves and don’t particularly want their land back, although they very often want a better deal within the existing system for themselves.

I think natives have known for centuries now that the idea of settlers leaving is ridiculous and would never happen, so they see the world in that way. And like you say, most modern natives are mixed-race. If you went to parts of Alaska, Hawaii or northern Canada I imagine you could find plenty of people who would happily say they’d like all Europeans to leave.

Probably, yes, and I'd imagine if you spent the several years of full time study required to become fluent in navajo you would be able to find someone with the sentiment. I don't doubt that, I just think that outside of native Hawaiians and maybe the Eskimos it's probably a pretty small minority, even if definitely a presence in some of these places.

In reality, yes. But the comparison is frequently made (because all "indigenous" folks are the same), to the extent that some leftists on Twitter have said things along the lines of "Actually, Native Americans would totally be justified if they started suicide bombing white people."