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 -
Right, so it's not even, "I'm gonna go in for a few years, make the maximum I can out of my time there, even if I'm hated, because at least after I'm done and gone, they might still remember hating me, but they won't care to try to make my life miserable anymore." With life tenure, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
I don't know what the current state is of SCOTUS security details. I recall reading sometime in the not too distant past that most of the time, they went about their lives without any security. That it was more of a "special circumstances" or specific threat driven thing. I saw some articles around the time of Dobbs which said that they had round-the-clock security, but this was specifically a departure from the normal state of affairs. The delta between the security team protecting the president and the security team protecting John Roberts is gigantic. He's not being whisked around in motorcades, accompanied by tens of agents, following a forward team who already scoped out the destination. My sense is that if he goes out to a restaurant or just wants to take a walk around town or whatever, then if there is any security (which honestly, there might not be in the absence of a specific credible threat or a significant event like a polarizing opinion dropping or a hack journalist releasing a secretly-recorded trap conversation), it's more in the ballpark of, "Dude's got like one bodyguard to walk around with him and keep an eye on stuff."
I mean, I'm not sure why this really matters? They can still have to fear all manner of general harassment and threat. In any event, from the recent brouhaha, it appears that at least Alito's wife very much cared about what their random neighbor thought.
More options
Context Copy link