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 -
Sure, I love my boy James Lindsay including his extensive deep dive into Paulo Freire - with Pedagogy of Oppressed being the 3rd most cited work in humanities. Kaufmann himself gives a lot of praise to Lindsay and he by no means denies these influences.
But that is not the whole story, Kaufmann argues that it is moderates and "bleeding-heart liberals" who enable free reign of these ideas. The way he put it is that after defeat of economic socialism at least in its most radical form of planned economy, liberals still do not understand where the borders on social issues are. This is what enables woke to rampage through our society. It is a little bit depressing but also encouraging - most people do not actively believe these revolutionary thoughts such as Critical Race Theory or Queer Theory - they just want to be and sound as if they are kind and moral. On one hand they can be easily duped into various extremes, but on the other hand it means that potential pushback may not be as tough as many people think.
I fully agree. It's the consequence of our being not anxious enough. Prosperity has insulated us from the consequences of bad decisions,we can afford to be sloppy and sentimental.
As the mad prophet said: "Never get so racist that your forget that white leftists are the worst people in the world."
More options
Context Copy link
I'm trying to imagine what pushback looks like. Perhaps it starts with language reform. Those pushing forward call it "gender affirming care". Perhaps those pushing back need to insist on calling it "gender bending care".
Race and crime get easier to discuss if you expand your vocabulary through anthropomorphism.
Now we have encoded the real-world racial segregation of crime into the language of parable: foxes eat chickens, while wolves eat lambs or sheep. Racial discourse, pitting black against white, implicitly says that one team is team fox+chicken, while the other team is team wolf+sheep. But most of us see sheep and chickens as a team that must work together against foxes and work together against wolves.
With this framing, abolishing prison and defunding the police is a movement of sheep working to let the foxes into the chicken coop. Notice that this language punches hard. It is nearly as strong as "transwomen are women".
But I'm still stuck on imagining what pushback looks like. I'm not seeing catchy reframings coming from the right, and I don't know why. The right was traditionally on the side of law-and-order. But that depends on what the law actually says. If a persons experience of the law is with red-light cameras with wonky timings being used to raise revenue, they will find "law and order" slogans repulsive. What about saying that the teams are chicken allied with sheep, not chicken allied with foxes? That emphasizes real harms. Maybe it leads to a crack down on red-light cameras rather than a focus on foxes? That would be good; a small amount of progress but in the right direction.
Maybe my fox-chicken-wolf-sheep language doesn't work. I spend the words on it to make my comment concrete. Abstractly, I'm noticing that the left are the masters of word magic, and the right seems bewitched by it, and unable to cast spells of their own. But why? What is going on?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link