site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   38790 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

and the percentage of books written in the last 10 years (much less the last 20) is absurdly high.

I almost certainly can't find it now, but I remember stumbling upon a list of movies or albums like this that was published decades back, probably in an old magazine, and realizing that it had a similar bias that had aged terribly: half of the then-contemporary ones didn't seem to have been mentioned again, but had heard of all the classics.

At least it's not a new bias, I suppose.

It is profoundly frustrating. I've been attempting to broaden my literary horizons, but my every attempt at finding "Top X Book" lists is cluttered with current year thinly veiled, Gen Z, political slop. Is no one actually curated a list of classics that have endured through the ages? I recall 4chan put together a list of anon's most recommended reading and it was shockingly more representative than you average list from a "Paper of record".

In the November 1996 issues of Computer Gaming World, they put together an article for the 150 best games of all time. And unlike modern IGN or PCGamer lists, CGWs was 1996 probably was truly representative of the entire breadth and depth of the computer gaming history at the time. Maybe it was easier, spanning 15 years tops. The PCGamer list only shares Doom with CGW's, and the IGN list only shares Doom and Tetris.

In some ways I get it. I will plant my flag on this hill and die on it, 1997 was an apex year for computer games. Games that came out before 1997 tend to struggle greatly with graphics, sound and usability. Games that came out after are the complete package, and many from 1997-2000 remain the definitive example of their genre. And that is more or less where history largely stops in the IGN list. Why include Simcity from the CGW list when you can include Simcity 2000 from a year later? Why include WarCraft II when you can include StarCraft from 2 years later? Still, some omissions are shocking, like Day of the Tentacle, probably the fondest remembered adventure game ever, possibly only eclipsed by The Secret of Monkey Island. System Shock, #98 just keeps getting remakes, remasters, source ports, etc.

But I've digressed too far...

Is no one actually curated a list of classics that have endured through the ages?

Despite the endless hours spent using the internet, I am consistently reduced to 'add reddit to the search' when looking for curated media lists, and competently curated information in general. To an extent, this is a personal failure. This stuff must be out there, in whatever form - a book, a blog - but finding it in the sea of slop is tough, and the effort is lost unless one is disciplined in maintaining a proper list.

I sure would love an AI assistant I could outsource this to.

I've been attempting to broaden my literary horizons,

In what genres?

Is no one actually curated a list of classics that have endured through the ages?

Surely you have heard of the western canon?

https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/harold-bloom-creates-a-massive-list-of-works-in-the-western-canon.html

probably the fondest remembered adventure game ever

Myst was literally the best selling PC game of all time for 10 years running.

I said fondest remembered, not best selling.

I have never, literally never, heard anyone start a sentence with "Remember in Myst when..."

Myst is my go to example for explaining what Pixel Bitching is!

The great books list at St. John's college is probably useful: https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_Johns_College_Great_Books_Reading_List.pdf

In my view, the 1998 Modern Library list of the best 100 novels of the 20th century has mostly held up. As of now I have read 50-60% of the books on the list and was generally glad to have read each one.

https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-top-100#top-100-novels

Something else that you may find interesting to do, is to examine some of the books that were bestsellers in different time periods. In the '50s you had writers like Nevil Shute and A.J. Cronin; later you had authors such as Arthur Hailey and Mary Stewart. However, rather than being slop, I've generally found these writers' works to have held up quite well; to my mind this reflects that at one time, the reading public was much more male, had longer attention spans uncorrupted by digital technology, and had better liberal educations than what prevail now.

I have not read most of the books on that list, but from the ones I have it does not bode well. The Great Gatsby is fine, but massively overrated. The same goes for Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Others are mediocre at best with a lot of flaws (Lord of the Flies) or simply execrable (On The Road, a book whose only redeeming quality is that it did an excellent job of making me detest the narrator). And the authors of the list seem to take pleasure in selecting books which had, at one point or another, been banned for obscenity, which certainly sheds some light on their criteria for greatness.

On the other hand, the books they chose not to include are also telling. How can you make a list of the best 100 twentieth-century novels and not include The Lord of the Rings (a contender for #1, and it's not in their list of 100!)? They also seem to think that anything that could be construed as "children's literature" is beneath them, though for my money this includes some of the best literature. Notably omitted is Anne of Green Gables as well as, as far as I can tell, every single Newbery winner (I'd single out A Wrinkle in Time, as well as it's more-mature sequel A Swiftly Tilting Planet (not a Newbery winner), as being particularly good).

All of which is to say, this list surely embodies somebody's idea of a good book, but it's somebody to whose recommendations I'd give negative weight.

It's not a bad list, and it being 1998-1999 there's nothing to be made of certain omissions, but wow to miss Moby-Dick and Blood Meridian. Midnight's Children at least made it, but at #90, lol. Then for the lesser misses, Gravity's Rainbow, and even less so, one of Dick's works, probably Ubik--though remarkable for prescience rather than prose. But it's not like people don't know those books, and also they all made one of Time's lists. Ignoring Neuromancer is probably a miss too, but I say that looking back from 2024.

Speaking of Gibson, and the only point I could say of this, thinking of him reminded me of his short story Burning Chrome. If you (anyone reading this) are familiar with Cyberpunk 2077 but not Gibson's work, read it. A quite short story, published in 1982, and Gibson's the rare science fiction author with real chops for prose.

Note that Moby Dick came out in 1851.

I thought that, but the header text says

The editors of The Modern Library were privileged to have the assistance of a distinguished Board made up of celebrated authors, historians, critics, and publishing luminaries. In 1998 and 1999, members of the Modern Library Board participated in the “100 Best” project, voting on the 100 Best Novels and 100 Best Non-fiction works, respectively.

Maybe whoever wrote the header forgot that bit, as I'd assume it'd have an obligatory mention.

Hot take: Moby Dick is unreadable. It's most notable for being good source material for adaptations.

(doesn't excuse the list, which has Ulysses at the top. Ulysses is famous for being unreadable).

Moby-Dick is actually good. Really good. It's also casually unreadable.

There's a stupidly multilayered structure. Under the whale lore and purple prose, it's psychological. Under that it's more Jungian, archetypal. Under that, some sort of Manifest Destiny, Americana, man-vs.-nature primal thesis. You could make one of those iceberg memes or crazy masonic conspiracy diagrams out of stuff that is really, unarguably buried in the book.

But the cruft is there on purpose. The allusions, on purpose. Melville basically inhaled Bible prose for decades and then breathed it into this book, because he wanted to invoke the mythic style. People joke about the homoeroticism, except that's also an intentional move, one that complements the whole indomitable-American-spirit theme, and it's just...The more you pick at it, the more convinced you get that it's all on purpose. Melville was definitely capable of writing a tighter novel, but he wanted to write an epic. It's layered.

I can't do it justice. I really can't. I'm basing this off a really rewarding college class. Yeah, I realize that sounds both stupid and pretentious. But I swear, I god something out of it. It's not just cope. It's not! There's something great in this book.

If I could find the reading list or at least syllabus I'd share it. There has to be a good study guide out there. I hope I can find it.

Moby Dick and Bood Meridian (aka Moby Dick on land) are two of the few books I'll do a focused planned reading day on.

Get up. Breakfast. Read straight and take notes until Lunch. Repeat until Dinner. If mental energy still available, continue until bedtime. No work, no TV.

And it has Finnegan's Wake later in the list as well.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats