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 -
Except, first, I'm not sure how restricting the franchise would resolve the issue in question, at least not without restricting it down to a tiny fraction of the population. (But which one, then?)
Second, I'm not sure how it would be done. Because I remember once looking up, over a decade ago, the historical precedents for narrowing the franchise — without eliminating it, that is. And while it's been awhile I do remember a few things from what I was able to find. First, that no nation with universal adult suffrage has ever even tried to narrow the franchise back from that (again, as opposed to suspending or ending democracy entirely). That the only one I found that tried to go back from universal male suffrage was the 2nd French Republic, with the 31 May 1850 electoral law. This mostly served to let Louis-Napoléon grow his support with the people by opposing it, and he undid it the next year, and restored universal male suffrage, during his December 1851 auto-coup, in which he assumed dictatorial powers, and which led to a new constitution a month later that essentially ended the Republic, and set the ground for the Second Empire officially declared that following Christmas. And lastly, that every place that tried to narrow the franchise significantly saw massive political unrest, destabilization, and, similar to ol' Napoleon III, some sort of coup or dictatorship emerging.
Sure, there were some times in early US history where various states made changes to their voting laws that removed the franchise from some subset of voters; but in all of those cases that I found, those same changes also expanded the franchise to some other, generally larger, set of new voters, leaving it an expansion in general.
Tl;dr, the franchise never really gets narrowed in any lasting manner, only expanded or eliminated.
More options
Context Copy link